Information & Ethics Committee on Oct. 26th, 2010

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

Thank you very much.

I just want to go back, Commissioner, to the full-time and part-time people and the public office holders. On page 1 you say:

...the Conflict of Interest Act applies to the approximately 2800 full- and part-time appointees of the Government of Canada. All are considered public office holders under the Act and are subject to its general rules on avoiding conflict of interest.

When we go to the next page and you talk about part-time public office holders, you say:

...my Office has historically had little contact with non-reporting public office holders, most of whom are part-time members of federal boards, commissions and tribunals... ...not subject to the Act's reporting requirements... ...[but] they are subject to the gift rules.

I'm having a bit of difficulty differentiating who we're talking about. Could you help me?

[Mary Dawson]

It took me about a week to get used to the reporting public office holder and the public office holder designations. It's too bad there wasn't a distinct and different title for each of these people.

Everybody under the act is a public office holder, but a certain group of them are singled out and the only designation for them is reporting public office holders. The big difference is that they have to report a whole bunch of stuff. That's the best I can do there.

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

So the reporting ones are--

[Mary Dawson]

They're a class of public office holders.

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

And who are they?

[Mary Dawson]

They could be deputy ministers, ministers, parliamentary secretaries, ministerial staff who work more than 15 hours a week, ministerial advisors--which is a bit of a problematic area. The big one is Governor in Council appointees. I won't go into all the details there. So they're full-time board members. Then, of course, there's the big group of ministerial staff.

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

So GIC appointees are under the ones who have to report.

[Mary Dawson]

If they're full-time, but see, there are an awful lot of these people on boards who are only part-time.

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

And by “full-time”, what do you mean by that?

[Mary Dawson]

It isn't defined exactly, but it's how they're paid. If they're paid on an annual basis, they become full-time, except—

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

And if they're not paid?

[Mary Dawson]

If they're not paid at all?

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

If they're a Governor in Council appointment who sit on a board and they do not receive a per diem or payment.

[Mary Dawson]

If it's just a per diem, they're part-time because they're...part-time.

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

Well, yes, they attend the board meetings twice a month or something.

[Mary Dawson]

Yes, so those people will all be part-time. They wouldn't be under the rules.

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

So they're the non-reporting ones?

[Mary Dawson]

The reporting rules, yes, the more stringent set of rules.

The general rules in the act that apply to everybody would still apply to them, such as you can't use your position to further somebody else's gain or whatever.

You know, for some reason it's quite straightforward, but it's kind of hard to grasp. I accept that. It's the terminology or something.

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

Okay, thank you.

I still have a little bit of time?

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Yes, one and a half minutes.

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

Okay.

I just want to have you speak a little bit more on the confidentiality of examinations. You've expressed a concern here about unfairly damaging reputations, etc. How can this be avoided? How can we change that? I think it's something we all wrestle with. It's not the intent to damage reputations with nothing to back you up. I mean, we need to have the evidence.

[Mary Dawson]

I've made some proposals to the procedures committee with respect to the code. It's a similar problem under the code and the act. Acts are something that are infrequently amended and they have their own procedures, but as I said earlier, it's easier to present proposals to the procedures committee for changes. I have a number of proposals there that could probably be transposed into the act as well, and basically the proposal would be just to make it a contravention if somebody spoke without first telling the commissioner and the person who was complained against that there was a complaint.

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

A monetary penalty or...?

[Mary Dawson]

Yes, probably. It's the same problem we have with all the contraventions. There's no scheme right now in the act for that. But if it was identified as a contravention, that's a first step.

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

Thank you very much.