Evidence of meeting #86 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was friend.
A video is available from Parliament.
January 10th, 2018 / 12:35 p.m.
As an Individual
There are the facts, and there's the analysis, and there's the conclusion.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Yes. When did you show the Prime Minister's office the facts that were going to be in your report?
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Okay, yes; it's “findings of fact”. Sorry. I said “findings”; it's “findings of fact” in full.
The findings of fact in your report are in part II, on pages 49 through 58.
As an Individual
Yes. I list the four sections in the front in my description.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Right. Where the whole “friend” argument breaks down, for example.... As you said earlier, if the Aga Khan was, by definition, a friend, here are the problems, and you've broken down the act this way, but if the Aga Khan was not determined to be a friend, you've broken down the act this other way. That was sometime in October.
As an Individual
Yes. Everything I have in my facts is what the Prime Minister and his lawyers saw in October.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
The curious thing for me is this. We didn't have your report and we didn't have your facts, only this concern around this Aga Khan trip, and when repeated questions were put to this Prime Minister, this argument about friend, friend, friend was still used. Anybody looking at those facts would know that whether you determined him to be a friend or not, he had still broken the act.
It's not necessarily for you to comment on. I just—
As an Individual
Well, there wasn't much, on the other side, that got broken. I mean, there were four provisions, but actually one of them was section 11. Section 14 was okay. There was the recusal one, section 21. Section 5 was contravened, and that's a general one that sort of flop-flops along with the recusal. It's neither here nor there. It's a general provision, like “do the stuff right”.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
You wrote, with regard to section 11, that you found that Mr. Trudeau “failed to meet the general duty set out” when he vacationed on the island. With regard to section 12, “Mr. Trudeau contravened section 12” when his family accepted the trip from the Aga Khan. With regard to section 21, “Mr. Trudeau contravened section 21 when he failed to recuse himself from two discussions”.
As an Individual
Then I deliberately put section 12 in a separate part, because all of the facts that led up to it were different.
I'll tell you that one real challenge in this—
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
These contraventions of the ethics act by a sitting Prime Minister. You seem to say—
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
A sitting Prime Minister didn't recuse himself from meetings he ought to. He took a trip he should never have taken. If he had gone to you beforehand and said, “Should I take this trip?”, you would have said no.
As an Individual
I probably would have said no, depending on the amount of information I was given.
NDP
As an Individual
If I knew everything I know here, that's the advice I would have given.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
You found that he contravened his own instruction to his own ministers when he travelled on the helicopter.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
I guess some of this is specifics, of course. What I'm drawn to are the ethical choices and the lack of prudence by the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister's office with regard to a trip. I guess the concern is that he exposed himself to ethical violations and, as you found, exposed himself to being influenced and using the extraordinary power of a Prime Minister to exert that influence.
As I pull away from this and we look to the future as to how to improve all this, we can do what we can, but if the code is to ask for forgiveness and not permission, it will be a challenge for any watchdog to keep people on the ethical line.
As an Individual
The encouraging thing about it is that this particular circumstance is exposed, and it explains the rules, and now they're noticed. Every time a report is done, it enhances the understanding of the rule.