Information & Ethics Committee on Sept. 29th, 2011

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

If I, as a member of Parliament, were to phone up someone who is not legally allowed to donate to a political party, i.e. a corporation or a union, and ask them specifically, as a member of Parliament and a member of a party, to sponsor an activity, would that be a breach of the code?

[Mary Dawson]

There's no direct prohibition.

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

Not from doing that specifically.

Just to clarify again, because we're still at the introductory stage of your being here as a witness, what specifically would trigger an investigation? What would you deem to be enough to warrant moving to the investigative stage? What specifically are you looking for--for example, if I refer something to your office--that will lead it through the full process?

[Mary Dawson]

There are a number of provisions in the code that contain relatively clear rules. Most of them revolve around the concept of conflict of interest and then private interest. Generally, writ large, the rule is you don't take advantage of your office for your own private gain. Your public duty and your private interests have to be kept separate. That's a kind of broad-brush commentary.

There are a number of specific rules that apply to that. I could go through all the rules. The gift provisions are quite direct. You can't use insider information. You can't use your influence as a member to influence somebody else to further their private interest, and that sort of thing. None of those relate to the fundraising issue, but they're all different rules.

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

You'd indicated earlier that asking for a donation is not a conflict, but what about receiving? If I'm the recipient of that, would that not be a violation of the code, even if I'm passing it on to a third party, like the sponsorship of a convention?

[Mary Dawson]

Yes, okay. Usually it's not you who's receiving it, it's your riding association, so there's a complication there.

The problem is with the future, generally, as I explained with respect to the Raitt report. If you've given them something three weeks ago, then yes, you would be doing something that would be a conflict of interest. If you were three months hence to do something for them, like pass a law that was to their benefit, or participate in the voting, you would be in a conflict of interest. What we usually do when we see those kinds of situations is we establish screens. If there's no screen there or we don't know about it, you should recuse yourself. There are other mechanisms for dealing with this kind of issue.

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

Is it often difficult then for you to draw lines, given the fact that as members of Parliament we are obviously elected public office holders but we're also members of political parties? We do political things--

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Patricia Davidson]

Mr. Butt, thank you. I'll allow you to finish your question quickly and to have a very short answer.

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

I'm just curious to know if she's finding it difficult to draw the line between public office holders and that we're also members of political parties and we have political responsibilities as well as our responsibilities as members.

[Mary Dawson]

There are no rules that direct themselves to political activities and political rules, and that's difficult. That creates a difficult situation, but I have to go by the rules that are here.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Patricia Davidson]

Thank you.

Now we will go to Ms. Brosseau, please, for five minutes.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to thank Ms. Dawson and her team for being here today. It's very important that a government be truly transparent. I am pleased that we are taking the time to ask questions.

I am about to ask you a question that you already answered in English in your presentation, but just to be completely clear, could you answer this question again: in your opinion, has an NDP MP received sponsorship money from the unions during the NDP convention in spring 2011?

[Mary Dawson]

I can't discuss that because it's the case we're dealing with.

That's about all I can say.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

According to the rules of the commissioner's office, there are no repercussions for violations of the act. Do you think it would be preferable to apply a penalty in following up on complaints?

[Mary Dawson]

I think that publication is the best penalty. I don't think penalties themselves are as important. What counts above all is that we inform the public.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

So you think that everyone knowing there is a problem is a good way of stopping people from violating the act?

[Mary Dawson]

The other thing, of course, is that it's a report. If it's the MPs code, it's a report tabled before Parliament, and Parliament is in a position to do whatever it wants about it.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Could you speak more about the case of the minister who was awarded a contract worth some $122,000 for a speech? It involved Mr. Flaherty.

[Mary Dawson]

I don't know anything about it, but if I did I couldn't discuss it.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Can you provide more detailed comments on the Flaherty report?

[Eppo Maertens]

Are you looking to me to provide a summary of the report?

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

A contract included an amount of $122,000 for a speech. Can you give us any more information about that? What happened?

[Eppo Maertens]

There was a report that was published, and we can't really add much to the report. There was a finding there. We looked at it under the rules pertaining to preferential treatment, and the commissioner's conclusion was that this was not a case of preferential treatment. The reasons are spelled out in quite a bit of detail in the report.

[Mary Dawson]

I'm sorry, I didn't realize you were referring to the case we had done.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Is there a $500 fine?