Evidence of meeting #63 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 41st Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was code.
A video is available from Parliament.
Board Member, Chairperson, Government Ethics Coalition, Democracy Watch
Excuse me—
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
No, Mr. Conacher, Ms. Turnbull and I are having a conversation.
Board Member, Chairperson, Government Ethics Coalition, Democracy Watch
I just wanted to say that—
Board Member, Chairperson, Government Ethics Coalition, Democracy Watch
—I agree with everything you're saying, if you'd let me just answer a little bit.
Conservative
Board Member, Chairperson, Government Ethics Coalition, Democracy Watch
No, that's fine. I just wanted to say I agree with everything you're saying.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
That's okay. I appreciate that.
This is for both of you, then, because my next line of questioning is what I wanted to get into with you, Mr. Conacher. I'll have the floor open for both of you to answer this question.
You already addressed it a little in your comments regarding the cooling-off period. I'd like to know how we are in relation to other countries that you've studied, and whether or not you think the cooling-off period in Canada.... When I first arrived here in 2006 as a member of the Conservative caucus, and the government brought forward the legislation, the Federal Accountability Act, we made some significant changes at that time in our country. We had the Lobbying Act, and we had significant changes when it came to various other pieces of legislation regarding accountability and transparency. Notably, the cooling-off period was in one of those pieces. It has subsequently been changed, I think in 2008 or 2009, or somewhere along the line—
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
I just want to know if you think that's sufficient, and where we are in relation to other countries.
Associate Professor, Dalhousie University
The cooling-off period of five years in the Lobbying Act, as far as cooling-off periods go, seems to be on an international scale about as long as I've seen generally. There are some jurisdictions that don't have cooling-off periods at all, and you kind of wonder why. The five years in the Lobbying Act I would see as.... In terms of a reasonable imposition on someone's professional life, I would not make an argument for going beyond five years. I've not seen other jurisdictions that we would compare ourselves to go longer than five years.
Obviously, there are some things that are prohibited in the Conflict of Interest Act that don't have an expiry date. They don't have a cooling-off period. As you know, you're not allowed to go from working on a file in a minister's office to coming out, switching sides, and working on the same file on the other side, ever. There's no cooling-off period for that. You just don't do it. Apart from that, I've not seen anything longer than five years.
Conservative
Associate Professor, Dalhousie University
For some of the things that we have a cooling-off period of one year for, comparatively internationally that might be a little short. You might see two years for it. You might see five years for it. I haven't seen longer than five years.
NDP
The Chair NDP Pierre-Luc Dusseault
Thank you.
Your time is almost up. You have 30 seconds at the most.
I can let you continue.
Board Member, Chairperson, Government Ethics Coalition, Democracy Watch
This is just to say there are loopholes in the Lobbying Act. You can go out and do unpaid lobbying. There is no five-year ban on that. There's not even a one-day ban on that. There are some loopholes in the definition of lobbying that undermine the five-year ban. But it shouldn't have been imposed on every MP in 2010 as it was. It should be a sliding scale, and that change in regulation in 2010 made all MPs covered by this five-year cooling-off period. It shouldn't be five years for someone who is a backbench MP; it should be a shorter period.
NDP
The Chair NDP Pierre-Luc Dusseault
Thank you.
I now give the floor to Mr. Andrews, for seven minutes.
Liberal
Scott Andrews Liberal Avalon, NL
Thank you very much.
Ms. Turnbull, my first question is for you.
You've looked at other legislation. You've looked at other countries. There's been a suggestion that we merge our conflict of interest and our code for members and the code for senators. Is that a good suggestion? Is it practical, and would it result in anything better?
Associate Professor, Dalhousie University
I saw in Commissioner Dawson's report that she is suggesting a merger of the code for MPs and the code for ministers. I can see why, in the sense that, if you're a minister, you're both an MP and a minister at the same time. We've dealt on a number of occasions with this issue of wearing two hats at one time. If you're doing this in your capacity as a minister or in your capacity as an MP, which rules apply?
I think that if we're going to do it, the only reason for merging the two of them that I can see would be to try to reconcile the conflict that comes when one person wears two hats. If we were to do that, it would only be worth it if we had an actual conversation about what that means, not just to consolidate the rules, but to actually figure out the complexity of being both a minister and an MP at the same time, and how you can ethically act on behalf of your constituents as an MP when you also have the responsibilities and the power and authority that comes with being a minister. That's a really, really difficult question.
As an academic, it would be very interesting to see how Parliament would deal with that. I don't see that as an administrative change. That is a huge, substantive change that would require a really complex conversation.
In terms of merging with the Senate, again, you're looking at a very different office with a very different application of accountability. I don't think the Senate would enjoy that. When we initially started with these codes, the Senate was quite clear about wanting a code for senators with an ethics office for the senators. I don't see the huge advantage of doing it, but many other jurisdictions that are bicameral have a code for each house.
Liberal
Scott Andrews Liberal Avalon, NL
Mr. Conacher, let's have a little chat about the commissioner and what she reports on, and what she doesn't report on. She's made three recommendations, 6.2, 6.3, and 6.4, about being able to have a preliminary review of a request and making that public. The big one there, 6.3, is to publicly correct misinformation out there, and 6.4 actually suggests that members requesting an examination refrain from commenting publicly on that.
How do her three recommendations reconcile with your thoughts about what she comments on, and how, when, and what she doesn't comment on? I don't think she addresses anything that she doesn't comment on, if I'm not mistaken.
Board Member, Chairperson, Government Ethics Coalition, Democracy Watch
No. Those are other recommendations the coalition disagrees with. It's increasing the secrecy, and there's already too much secrecy in the rulings.
To pick up on what Mr. Calkins was talking about, the coalition's not saying she should issue a ruling every time she comes across a situation, receives a complaint, or even gives advice. Not all those rulings would disclose who the person was, but would just be a summary that would let people know there had been a complaint about an action by someone and she had found nothing was wrong.
Right now if you read her annual report for two of the years, she says she received a number of complaints, as you mentioned. She doesn't say what number. We don't know whether she's doing her job or not. There's no way to judge that. She has issued 83 rulings, rejected 83 complaints, and she has not said anything about them. Maybe they were all valid, and she decided not to investigate them. For her accountability as the watchdog, you need to have that disclosure.
When the Senate ethics officer is asked for advice by a senator, issues a public summary that a senator has asked if he can do this in this situation, and this is what the ethics officer told him, it doesn't mention the senator. It's the same with complaints. Most of the provincial commissioners issue a summary of complaints they have received and whether they proceeded with the full investigation.
Board Member, Chairperson, Government Ethics Coalition, Democracy Watch
They do it without naming someone, so it's not an issue of false accusations and someone being slandered, and there was nothing there. It's ensuring we know what the commissioner is doing, what complaints have been filed, and what they were about so the public can judge, because you may read through the summaries of complaints and say it seems as if that one should have been investigated, and then someone can follow up further with the commissioner and delve into why.
She's essentially saying she should be able to do preliminary reviews and not issue anything and not even let people know what happened. That's more secrecy. You need less secrecy.
As I mentioned, the Senate ethics officer is already issuing these kinds of summaries.
Liberal
Scott Andrews Liberal Avalon, NL
What about commenting publicly on misinformation? Does that draw her into the political realm by trying to correct this information that's out there? Would that be useful for her to be able to do that?