Information & Ethics Committee on March 18th, 2013

[Mary Dawson]

No, not specifically. The fact of the matter is we do a lot of counselling and presentations now, so I don't think it would be that much more onerous. I would envisage each time a new person comes in they would have a one on one, in one way or another. It could be by phone or it could be in person, preferably in person. That's a detail that could be worked out.

I'm not too concerned about the budget in that area. We do lots in that area anyway. But we get to explain the act to the people who already understand it and who want to come to see it. It's the people we never hear from who I'm trying to ferret out.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Thank you, Mr. Mayes.

I will now yield the floor to Ms. Borg for five minutes.

[Charmaine Borg, NDP, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank you, Ms. Dawson, for appearing before our committee once again.

It was very useful to review what we heard and to hear your comments on that topic.

According to one of the witnesses, you do not have sufficient resources to perform post-employment follow-ups. I'd like to hear your comments in that regard.

Do you consider that your resources are sufficient to do that? Once a person finds other post-employment work, is the follow-up during the prescribed period sufficient?

[Mary Dawson]

I don't think I ever said I didn't have enough resources. I'm not concerned, no.

[Nancy Bélanger, General Counsel, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner]

She said another witness said that.

[Mary Dawson]

Oh, yes, I do remember another witness said that, and I thought, no, where is he coming from? I have never complained about the resource level. I think we're doing okay.

We do so much with each particular public office holder that a little more isn't going to make much difference.

[Charmaine Borg, NDP, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

We did not talk a great deal about your recommendation that there be easier access to documents. In your report, you write that it is sometimes difficult to obtain certain documents in connection with an investigation or the preparation of a report.

Could you give us more information about that?

[Mary Dawson]

Yes, I think I talk about it in my report. There has always been a reluctance to freely give cabinet documents to me, and I think the act contemplates that I get to see cabinet documents if necessary. I don't usually need to see them with respect to public office holders.

Sometimes I also would like to have access to, for example, people's e-mails, ministers' e-mails within the parliamentary precinct. A couple of years ago I had a case when it was made cumbersome for me to get that. It was decided that I could only get it after the person who was complained against had gone through the documents and then they were sent to me.

I had no way of knowing.... I'm not accusing that person of having taken anything out of the documents and I don't think she did, but some of the documents—if they had been a complete set—I got from elsewhere. So I knew some were missing. Whether they were missing because of the House administration or because of the member or whoever, I don't know.

So I'm just saying that it seems to me, to do my job, I would need access to e-mails in the parliamentary precinct, for example.

[Charmaine Borg, NDP, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

It would make sense that you be able to do your work properly.

Another witness suggested that the total number of complaints should be published. What do you think about that?

[Mary Dawson]

We do publish the total number of complaints. It was a witness...I remember that one too. I said I thought we could probably do more, and I think in our next annual report, we may give some idea of the kinds of requests that came in that were not pursued, so at least you will have an idea of the sorts of things we didn't pursue.

I thought that was a good suggestion.

[Charmaine Borg, NDP, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Do I have any time left, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

You have a little time left.

[Charmaine Borg, NDP, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Very well. Thank you.

When the Commissioner of Lobbying testified, she explained that the post-employment regulations differ, regarding the possibility of doing lobbying post employment. Indeed, there is a grey zone that allows people to devote 19% of their time to lobbying.

What do you think of that? Do you have any ideas as to how that grey zone could be eliminated?

[Mary Dawson]

You'd eliminate the 20% rule.

But that's not my bailiwick. That's the lobbying commissioner's act, but I think it's a question of whether every bit of lobbying gets reported, or the cut-off is 20%.

[Charmaine Borg, NDP, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Does the fact that your regulations differ not constitute a problem?

[Mary Dawson]

No. My post-employment rules have nothing to do with that five-year rule, the prohibition against lobbying. My rules are broader and narrower in different ways. My rules relate to making representations, for example. That's the way my act reads...it doesn't need to be a lobbyist.

So whereas it's useful sometimes for us to check the lobbying register to see what's going on there, any number of other kinds of representations could be being made, not just those by a lobbyist.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Ms. Dawson, thank you for your answers.

I will give Mr. Carmichael the last word.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Commissioner, for joining us again today.

I think you have helped to clarify some of the confusion we've talked about over the last few weeks, but I think as we go through this, we're all very conscientiously trying to find solutions that truly give us a better act, and your recommendations have been helpful.

On the post-employment period, regarding your suggestion that reporting public office holders report on their new duties beyond their cooling-off period, help me with the timeframe. A minister finishes his role in Parliament and he is then subject to a five-year cooling-off period?

[Mary Dawson]

No, no. He's subject to a two-year cooling-off period.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

He's subject to a two-year period. Okay.

So within that two-year period, then, your recommendations 5-6 and 5-7 in your book, on page 57, read:

That the Act be amended to require former reporting public office holders to report any firm offers of a contract of service, an appointment to a board of directors, a partnership relationship or employment during the cooling-off period, within seven days of the offer.

Then 5-7 carries on,

That the Act be amended to require former reporting public office holders to report on their duties and responsibilities in relation to their new contracts of service, appointments to a board of directors, partnership relationships or employment during the cooling-off period, including a description of their duties and responsibilities and information on any measures taken to ensure compliance with the Act.

Are you satisfied that within the cooling-off period—and we have a two-year cooling-off period that is the most stringent of the cooling-off periods—that you can manage that disclosure, that this disclosure will be as transparent as you are expecting from this and that you will be able to manage it?

You know where I'm going with this.

[Mary Dawson]

Yes. If I found out they hadn't disclosed, I would investigate or do something.

The existence of a rule certainly goes some way in having it complied with. What I don't want is a situation of people keeping mum about possible offers and they get one week out and there are no obligations under the act for them to tell me anything. I'm just trying to plug a couple of little loopholes there.

It is a short period of time, and for most public office holders it's only one year. But I still think it would be useful to have a rule like that to draw their attention to the fact that they have these post-employment obligations.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Thank you.

Going back to the confusion issue, then, as you know, in part of the testimony and the discussions we had with some of the different witnesses, we bounced between this act and the Lobbying Act. We found the term “designated public office holder”, which is housed within the Lobbying Act, and we have “reporting public officer holder” within this act.

My question for you is, should they be aligned more closely? If so, how do we do that?

[Mary Dawson]

Well, that's a difficult question because that doesn't necessarily flow from putting both those rules under the same act. You could still have a different group of people you were applying it to. There are some people under “designated public office holder” that my office has nothing to do with; it goes down further into the bureaucracy than my office. My office is just Governor in Council appointees, deputy ministers.

There is a dissonance between who's covered, so that's one of the difficulties of putting all the rules under one act. By the same token, it's not an insurmountable issue; it just means that one rule will apply to a different kind of group of people than the other rules.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Right.

We're coming to the end of this study now, as you know. Are there any definitions in the act that concern you as still being too broad? With all the recommendations and all that we have to review once we're done, are there any areas within the act that you would say are definitions that you need to tighten up?