Information & Ethics Committee on June 8th, 2010

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Thank you.

Mr. Siksay, please, and then Mr. Rickford and Madam Foote.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

I just want to be on the record to say that I support the motion that Madam Freeman has put forward.

I think it's very serious that Ms. Andrews has decided not to appear this morning. It's very serious because this isn't a frivolous issue. The study the committee is undertaking is not a frivolous study. It's an important study into the possibility of political interference into access to information requests, but it has taken on another dimension. It's about the committee's ability to hear from the witnesses it believes it needs to hear to do its work. That's particularly important to this committee as one of the accountability committees of the House of Commons—so, Ms. Andrews, the fact that chair is empty this morning is a very, very serious issue.

I think Ms. Freeman's motion is very helpful to clarify our understanding of what it means to successfully serve a summons in Ontario. I think that's a very helpful thing to do. I think it's a prudent motion. I also think it's a very generous motion, and I hope people appreciate the generosity that's indicated in that motion as well.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Mr. Rickford, please.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It seems that we have two institutions here that serve as a particularly good example for some of the problems we might have on this side. We have the House of Commons, by way of example, and we have the House of Lancaster.

In the House of Commons, we have our processes and procedures and things that we follow and respect, and we use things that go on in the House of Commons or inquiries that flow from the activities of the House of Commons that guide us in our deliberations and our discussions and work at committee.

I'm going to elaborate more on the House of Commons process, but I'll start out with this other English tradition we have, or place, called the House of Lancaster, where apparently under a Liberal government and a Liberal minister it was acceptable to negotiate visa applications in a strip joint. In defence of this action, the minister was compelled to come to the committee and testify. We've seen other confusing examples in the previous government where the ministers declined to come, and it gets pretty confusing from there.

Unfortunately, an event arose in the processes of the House of the Commons that should have served as a useful guide for all of us in these matters, and that was with respect to the Gomery report. In that report, Justice Gomery, as he was then, was dealing with very serious matters. The Liberal Party of Canada had reached into the taxpayers' pocket and stole hundreds of millions of dollars, and there's still $40 million unaccounted for. They're still looking for that. The problem is, as Justice Gomery said in his report, and I want to state it clearly here because I think it is important that everyone is reminded of what is stated in the accountable government report:

Ministers need to understand clearly that they are accountable, responsible and answerable for all the actions of their exempt staff.

And I emphasize “exempt” here.

We have another document here, Accountable Government: A Guide for Ministers and Ministers of State, which states at page 37:

Ministers and Ministers of State are personally responsible for the conduct and operation of their offices.

I think those two statements are pretty clear—one in the form of policy, and one in the form of an official report that was requested by the House of Commons, as opposed to any other sort of House we've had to deal with in terms of issues at this or other committees like it. So for those reasons—and there are others, but principally those two reasons—I don't support this motion at all.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Mrs. Foote, please, and then Minister Paradis.

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Let me start out by saying I certainly support Ms. Freeman's motion. I think it's a responsible motion, and I think it will enable us as a committee to do the work we've been tasked with doing.

I fail to understand why our colleagues across the way cannot grasp the idea or implication of not allowing—or the Prime Minister and the cabinet not allowing—exempt staff from appearing before this committee. This is a parliamentary committee, with the rights and privileges of calling witnesses and expecting those witnesses to appear. The fact that the minister is here in place of a witness is cause for concern, in that it would lead one to believe that the minister knows exactly what in this case Ms. Andrews in fact did, in the idea of allegations of systematic political interference, which is of course what this committee is looking at.

My experience has been that when someone takes a particular action, they speak for their own actions. Otherwise, it would lead one to believe that something is being hidden here. That's my question about all of this. We're here as members of a committee today looking to find answers. The individual from whom we're looking to get those answers has not appeared before our committee. That is cause for concern, I would think, for any committee member, any parliamentarian, who sees his or her right to question a witness being questioned.

I have a great deal of difficulty with that. I think it's not right. Obviously what the Prime Minister has done here, what cabinet has done here, what this government has done here, is to really interfere in a process, a process that we have every right to carry out.

Today, we don't know where Ms. Andrews is. We don't know why she isn't here, other than that a directive has been given that the minister will speak in her place. With all due respect to the minister, maybe he does know exactly what went down. Maybe he did instruct her to take some action, but we don't know that. The minister is here, but the minister wasn't asked to appear here as a witness. The minister may appear at some other time, but we have a responsibility as a committee to call whatever witnesses we deem appropriate to get to the bottom of this so-called systematic political interference. Ms. Andrews is the witness we wanted here today. She isn't here. We don't know why, other than an instruction has been given for her not to be here.

When Mr. Togneri was here, he made it very clear that Ms. Andrews was involved with respect to the 139-page document that had been deemed appropriate to be released to the media at the media's request. When Mr. Togneri un-released that document, and subsequently what was released to the media was a 30-page document, who made that call? Was it Ms. Andrews? We need Ms. Andrews here. We don't need the minister here to speak for Ms. Andrews. We need Ms. Andrews here to answer to her own actions, which is exactly why this committee is calling witnesses.

I think for Ms. Andrews not to show probably speaks more to the fact that the Prime Minister clearly has indicated that for some reason he doesn't want her to appear any more than he wants, or the cabinet wants, other exempt staff to appear before this committee. But we have every right to question exempt staff. The fact is, it is foolhardy to accept any argument that a minister can speak for his or her staff. It would lead one to believe, and we may have no choice but to believe, that in fact it was a directive of the minister, which is great cause for concern. It is political interference any way you look at it.

We're here today waiting to hear from Ms. Andrews. She is not here. We want to hear from Ms. Andrews. We want to hear from Mr. Soudas. We need and we have a right as a parliamentary committee to hear from those individuals.

It's not about beating up on anyone. It's about asking appropriate questions to get the answers to which we're entitled as parliamentarians when we're doing our job as a parliamentary committee.

I support this motion 100%. I think it will help us do our work, and I would like to think that all committee members would see it in that light.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Thank you.

I'm now going to move to the minister, but before I do, I neglected to advise the committee of something that happens to be relevant to the motion we're dealing with. I won't read it all until Thursday, but it just confirms that the bailiff has not been able to serve Mr. Soudas as of this morning. So that's still ongoing.

Mr. Minister, you have the floor on Madam Freeman's motion that Mr. Soudas and Madam Andrews appear before our committee no later than Wednesday, June 16, for the reason that they did not appear before the committee. That's the matter before us. I just wanted to remind you so that we don't drift off too far from the subject matter being debated.

Mr. Minister, go ahead, please.

[Christian Paradis, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Thank you Mr. Chairman, I appreciate your comments.

I listened to Ms. Foote's statements, which were rather sweeping.

I would like to explain why I oppose this motion. I repeat that I am here today...

Mr. Chairman I have only just started. All I said was that I am opposed to the motion and already there is a point of order. That's promising.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Excuse me, Minister.

Madame Freeman, on a point of order.

[Carole Freeman, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

I believe that the individual speaking to the committee does not have the right to speak. In order to have the right to speak, an individual must have the authorization of the whole committee, which he does not have. I do not think he can speak because he has not been given the right to speak.

Furthermore, we are still discussing the motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Okay. Madam, as I've explained to the committee twice now, when you are in debate on a motion and there aren't scheduled party slots and so on, a member who is not a permanent member may speak provided there is no other permanent member who wishes to speak on the matter before us, or the committee votes to allow that other non-member to speak. In the case here, Madam, after Madam Foote, there were no other permanent members of the committee who had indicated to the clerk or to me that they wanted to speak. As a consequence, and as I explained to Mr. Hoback, that's one of the criteria under which a non-member is permitted to speak.

I thank you for raising it and allowing me to explain again, but the minister has the floor.

[Christian Paradis, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Thank you very much Mr. Chairman.

As I was saying I am willing to answer for the actions of my policy advisor, Ms. Jillian Andrews. As you are aware, Mr. Chairman, our government took a decision on the matter of political staff appearing before parliamentary committees. That decision therefore applies equally to Mr. Soudas and to Ms. Andrews. Our decision was conveyed to the Speaker of the House of Commons on the 25^th of May last by the Government Leader in the House of Commons.

To summarize: given that parliamentary committees have not respected procedure, the ministers will here on in advise members of their staff to refrain from appearing before the committees; ministers will appear in their stead to answer for their actions.

I therefore ordered Ms. Andrews to not appear before the committee. I myself, as the minister responsible and according to the principle of ministerial accountability, I am here to appear in her place. This is a model that dates back to the Westminster model. It's nothing new.

I think it's sad that Mr. Togneri appeared before this committee for three hours and was subjected to intimidation and humiliation. One can only wonder why political staff would be motivated to appear before a committee in the future.

Mr. Chairman, I am here and willing to answer questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Excuse me, Minister.

I want to be fair, but we have to be careful not to interrupt other members who have the floor and are giving their speech, unless it's relevant or related to what they've said.

In any event, Madame Freeman, you called again on a point of order. I hope it's not the same one.

[Carole Freeman, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

We're debating the motion and Mr. Paradis is making statements. I believe that does not comply with the committee's standing orders.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

In what way? What Standing Order?

[Carole Freeman, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

We are currently debating the motion are we not? We are at the debate stage. That is the point we are at. We are not debating another subject, we are dealing with a motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Your point of order is relevance?

[Carole Freeman, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Mr. Paradis is making a statement that is not connected to the motion that we are discussing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

All right. Order, please.

I understand. For future reference, your point of order is in order to the extent that you are challenging the relevance of what the minister is saying to the motion now before us. That's all you have to say. This is where the House usually gives fairly broad latitude to the discussion. I spend a lot of time in the House, watching the Speaker and how he deals with these things. Certainly, the minister has a political staffer who has been called before this committee and is the subject of this motion. I think he's making an argument that I believe will ultimately be debated in the House of Commons when the Speaker is charged with dealing with the ministerial statement. This will be triggered by a report from a committee.

In this committee there's no question that Ms. Andrews is the subject of this motion. The reason is that something happened in the House—the government House leader announced a policy that henceforth ministers will appear on behalf of political staff for various reasons and for purposes of accountability. We are not going to resolve this here. These are the same arguments that went on when Mr. Lee brought his motion before the House with regard to access to the Afghan detainee documents—the rights and privileges of parliamentarians to call for persons, papers, or records.

This is the challenge yet again. It is much the same as we've already been through, but we cannot decide this as a committee. It is going to be up to the House to determine whether or not the rights and privileges of committees, which are delegated from the House, are in conflict with the government's policy statement of a couple of weeks ago. That is for the House to resolve.

I have to rule that Mr. Paradis' reference to that is relevant, and I'm going to decline your point of order.

Carry on, Minister.

[Christian Paradis, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Thank you Mr. Chairman.

I actually wanted to raise that point. The reasons underlying the motion put forth by my colleague are based on that exactly. People are trying to put further constraints on these political staff members when the point is, Mr. Chairman, that I am here today.

These individuals should be freed of their summons to appear given that I am here, as a minister, to answer in their place. I take note of your comments. As I stated, and I'll repeat it, I am here and willing to answer your questions.

There is a rule of natural justice. It states audi alteram partem. I am able to enlighten the committee and provide them with important facts that I can explain. Now it is up to the good will of the committee. I am here today, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Thank you, Minister.

I think we're getting pretty close to exhausting our arguments, so I'm going to start paying attention to repetition.

Mr. Easter.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

If you want to pay attention to repetition, then what the minister said is repetitive. I don't know what the government has to hide and what it has to cover up.

I want to go to what the leader of the government in the House of Commons said when he tabled the government's position on attempting to deny committees their right to hear witnesses from staff in ministers' offices.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Mr. Easter, excuse me, please.

Madam Davidson, on a point of order.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Yes, it's for relevance. I'm not quite sure what the statement in the House has to do with the motion we're supposed to be debating.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

The House leader's statement is what you're referring to?