Information & Ethics Committee on Sept. 27th, 2011

[The Chair, NDP, Nathan Cullen]

Yes. I'm very much inclined for us to get together on Thursday for one of these topics; on just which one it's going to be, we'll have some comment.

Mr. Angus.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you.

I'm concerned. The issue of privacy rights is one of the key elements and we're going to blow that off to go on another crusade. We've got four years, Dean. You guys are going to be able to beat on us as much as you want. We'll certainly be going at this, but I think it sends a pretty bizarre message that already we're blowing parliamentary procedure out of order. We're saying that the four commissioners who are key to this file can wait until we get at something that we haven't even been allowed to bring proper witnesses to.

If we're going to again go to the kangaroo court model, we can live in a kangaroo court, but.... It's one day. We should hear these commissioners. They've already shot down debate on this NDP motion. They've got some defence now for poor Tony. He didn't have an excuse up until now. They'll be waving this one around, about the big bad NDP union thugs, blah, blah, blah. That's okay. We still have to do our job, which is to hear from these commissioners, and then Mr. Del Mastro's motion can come forward. I have a couple of motions coming forward. I'm certainly willing to bring them forward, but I wouldn't use my motions to supercede the ability of this committee to hear from the commissioners.

Mr. Chair, I'm appealing to you. You've got to set some basic rules of credibility. Otherwise this is just going to turn into a gong show from the beginning.

[The Chair, NDP, Nathan Cullen]

I appreciate the confidence in being able to make whatever we do credible. It will be the committee's decision as to what we do on Thursday.

Mr. Del Mastro, do you have a point?

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

I just had discussions with the clerk. Perhaps what we could do is postpone the appearance of the privacy commissioner. The ethics commissioner is coming on Thursday anyway. We could hear testimony from the ethics commissioner on Thursday. We could seek to have Elections Canada here on Tuesday, if that's agreeable to the committee. It won't be the introductory testimony, or perhaps the ethics commissioner could break it down. We could break it down into two one-hour sessions, if members prefer, one being kind of an introductory session about what the ethics commissioner does, what the job is, and what the commissioner is tasked by Parliament to perform. The second hour could be on this issue as passed by the committee in a separate motion. Of course, on Tuesday we could have the chief electoral officer here from Elections Canada.

Those would be my suggestions to the committee.

[The Chair, NDP, Nathan Cullen]

Everyone has heard the suggestions.

Mr. Angus.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Well, again, we asked for two hours with the other commissioners and we were told we didn't need to hear from the commissioners.... Again, on access to information, for the key commissioner, we had an hour. That was it. Now, because suddenly they're on a hunt, they want a two-hour thing.

Bring the ethics commissioner for an hour and you guys can ask all the questions you want, but if you're going to continue to rewrite the rules and make up the game as you go along--and we're two sessions into it--this is going to start to lose a lot of credibility. You established a precedent. You didn't want to hear from the other commissioners. You wanted to limit them to an hour. Now suddenly you want to have one for two hours. We've got an hour. She can talk all she wants about the NDP and you can say whatever you want. Then let's get to Elections Canada and get on with this.

[The Chair, NDP, Nathan Cullen]

I'm just going to make a brief comment. Let's be cautious, committee members, to make sure that none of the conversations that this committee did in fact have in camera are discussed out of camera.

Mr. Butt.

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Mr. Chairman, I don't think Mr. Angus was listening very well to Mr. Del Mastro. I think he made it very clear that the first hour was the general one that we've had with the other commissioners already. The second hour is on a very specific, time-sensitive issue. I think this is a time-sensitive issue because I think we need some clarity around this issue about exactly what happened with respect to funding at a political convention. That's clearly what Mr. Del Mastro said, and I think that's very much in keeping with the original agreement of the committee, which was to have the four commissioners in, each for an hour. Now we're moving on to a specific file, for which one of those commissioners needs to be before the committee.

I think it's quite clear what the intent of this is, and I would support Mr. Del Mastro's suggestion as to how we handle the meeting on Thursday.

[The Chair, NDP, Nathan Cullen]

Thank you, Mr. Butt.

Mr. Del Mastro, do you have a point? You wanted to...?

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

No. That's fine. Mr. Butt has made my point.

[The Chair, NDP, Nathan Cullen]

The suggestion is that the ethics commissioner appear for one hour on the general report that we had requested from them, and then the second hour is to deal with Mr. Del Mastro's motion. We will seek to get Elections Canada the following week, on Tuesday.

I was just told by the analyst that we're not going to have the kind of briefing notes we're looking for.

Are there any other comments on this before we move on? That is the ascribed process.

Seeing no other comments, that's how we'll proceed. We will likely have to make some time available on Thursday for motions that have been presented to the chair to deal with, so we're going to have to carve off a little bit of time towards the end of committee to deal with those. I just want committee members to have a sense of that. It will not likely be the full two hours with the commissioner. We have some other motions in front of us.

One last comment, Mr. Del Mastro.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

I suggest, Mr. Chairman, that if we are going to deal with motions, we do that at the beginning of the next committee meeting and that those motions be dealt with and that be taken out of the first hour, which would be the general discussion from the Ethics Commissioner. I think this matter is important. We will need at least a full hour with the Ethics Commissioner on this matter.

So I'd move that any motions we're going to deal with at the next committee be moved at the beginning of the meeting and then the committee be allowed to get on with its business.

[The Chair, NDP, Nathan Cullen]

Again, the committee can divide the time how we wish. My suggestion was going to be that we break the.... Say the full time with the commissioner is an hour and a half and there are 30 minutes on motions. I was going to suggest that we divvy the two parts into 45-minute segments.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Okay.

[The Chair, NDP, Nathan Cullen]

I'm very concerned that we're going to have the full report and questions and comments to the commissioner in 30 minutes. That worries me simply because the other commissioners we had for an hour, and there was a suggestion to have them for two hours. Now we're reducing that initial comment and idea down from two hours to 30 minutes, which is very brief.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Otherwise, I would be happy to entertain a motion from the opposition whereby the committee could certainly convene an hour earlier, so that we could entertain motions, and then we would be able to provide the full two hours for the Ethics Commissioner. I have no problem with that at all in order to allow Mr. Angus to move his motion.

[The Chair, NDP, Nathan Cullen]

Mr. Angus.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

I vote no. I mean, we said at our first meeting that we were going to sit down and try to get a full briefing from all the commissioners, and that clearly wasn't of interest to the government. We're down to an hour with everybody else. Now suddenly they've got an issue, two days in. So we're supposed to extend, when before we didn't even need to hear from them. Let's just get down to the business of picking fights. The Information Commissioner is a key element--

[The Chair, NDP, Nathan Cullen]

There's a point of order.

I want to clarify the words you used, Mr. Del Mastro, in bringing this. Did you move a motion to accomplish this? Have you moved a motion to this?

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

I could move such a motion. I made a suggestion at this point.

But I would caution the member, Mr. Chairman--and this is a point of order--that Mr. Angus often impugns motive and also misquotes folks. It's quite a different thing when he's going to impugn the government and frankly misquote members of the government from an in camera discussion whereby we can't even.... We're not going to talk about it, because it happened to be in camera. Mr. Angus wants to talk about it and frankly misquote members of the government in doing so. I think it's highly inappropriate and I call the chair to advise--

[The Chair, NDP, Nathan Cullen]

I remind committee members, as I did just moments ago, that issues and conversations that we had in camera.... I know sometimes it can be a bit difficult to remember what was in and what was out, but I'll ask you to be cautious with your comments, particularly if it was anything around in camera meetings.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

I fully respect that, Mr. Chair. You obviously sense an element of frustration when the public could wonder that there was only an hour given to the Information Commissioner, who came before us and raised serious concerns about the black hole of accountability within ministers' offices and her role of attempting to find out information when political staffers are now considered to be exempt. We had the case, and we talked about it with Mr. Togneri and we will talk about this later on, about him sending SLAPP suits against witnesses who were asking us to do our job.

So I would think that the public who are watching, who weren't aware of what was going on in camera.... And Mr. Chair, I certainly take the role of in camera as absolutely a fundamental of our committee, but we have a job to do at this committee.

We have four key pillars, and we have four commissioners we need to hear from. Yet the public would see an appearance that we're more than willing to blow through commissioners and we're saying we don't even want to hear from them, we want to get down to other business. It sends a clear message that we have a government that is not just uncomfortable with being a majority, but they want to shut down witnesses. We're told we're not allowed to even bring witnesses to dissent and to explain.

[The Chair, NDP, Nathan Cullen]

A point of order from Mr. Mayes.

[Colin Mayes, Conservative, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Mr. Chair, this rant is about the motion that we've already passed. You cannot discuss a motion after it's passed. I'd ask the chair to respect the motion that has been passed by this committee--

[The Chair, NDP, Nathan Cullen]

Thank you, Mr. Mayes.