Evidence of meeting #26 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was lobbyists.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Karen Shepherd  Commissioner of Lobbying, Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying
Bruce Bergen  Senior Counsel, Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying

5:40 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy

You have your name down, Mr. Calandra. Do you want to speak? Then we'll call the question.

5:40 p.m.

Conservative

Paul Calandra Conservative Oak Ridges—Markham, ON

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Again, what we've asking here is for Mr. Wright to provide some documentation that he worked closely with the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner. The fact is, Mr. Chair, with respect to this current motion, we know that he sought and he followed, and will continue to seek and follow, the direction of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner. We know that Mr. Wright will respect all of the rules that are in place to ensure that there is no conflict of interest or even the appearance of conflict of interest.

Relating back to the previous discussion with respect to the Liberal member of Parliament for Scarborough—Rouge River, Mr. Lee, the Liberals, at that point, were suggesting that since the Liberal member for Scarborough—Rouge River had gone to the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner first and had sought her advice with respect to his contract with Sun & Partners and the fact that he had been listed on their website as being a lobbyist and was somebody who was going to provide information on how to get and award contracts with the Government of Canada and so on and so forth--as I read into the record a bit earlier--he was not required to then turn over any of the documentation that he had given to the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner and he was not required to turn over the contract that he had with Sun & Partners.

It strikes me that the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates has already ruled on this particular type of request. Now we're a couple of months later and again we see the Liberals flip-flopping with respect to how they perceive government to work. We don't want to talk about all of the other many flip-flops that we get from them, but on this particular notice we know that--

5:40 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy

Is it a point of order?

5:40 p.m.

Bloc

Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC

I am sorry, I have another commitment, and I would like to ask that the meeting be adjourned because it is past 5:30. I have to go, I am very sorry. Can we deal with this next week?

5:40 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy

I will take that as a motion to adjourn that was made by Madam Freeman. That's not debatable.

(Motion agreed to)

The motion is carried and therefore the meeting is adjourned.