Evidence of meeting #6 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I appreciate that.
He asked me if I could get some clearer language. I said I would like to do that, and we tried to figure out how we should do this. I said, “I will make one suggestion. I feel that everyone is in favour of the amendment you are proposing”. I was speaking to Mr. Angus. I said, “Would it be possible to set it aside for the moment and work on it”, so we could take some time to try to get the language right.
Then let me get right down to the crux of the issue. It's that we decided to carve out a little exception. We said that we needed to trust each other, that we were going to bring forward information and use that information correctly, and that we were going to make sure we didn't abuse these situations. We tried to make a bit of an amendment. I suggested, Madam Chair, that we would want to make sure that when we do go in camera that we would do so—and we added the proviso to our standing order—to “protect the privacy of any individual”. We had that debate and eventually we adopted that.
I think this is relevant, Madam Chair, because when we take a look at the motion before us that is being brought forward
it fits precisely within the framework and responsibilities of our standing committee. I would like to quote it —as submitted by Mr. Barrett:
That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(h), the Committee review the safeguards which are in place to avoid and prevent conflicts of interest in federal government procurement, contracting, granting, contribution and other expenditure policies; and that, to provide a case study for this review, an Order of the Committee do issue to Speakers’ Spotlight (the company that made the bookings for the speeches by members of the Trudeau family) for a copy of all records pertaining to speaking appearances arranged, since October 14, 2008, for Justin Trudeau, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, Margaret Trudeau and Alexandre Trudeau—including, in respect of each speaking appearance, an indication of the fee provided, any expenses that were reimbursed and the name of the company, organization, person or entity booking it—provided that these records shall be provided to the Clerk of Committee within one week of the adoption of this Order.
I agree with that. It's excellent. Not only that, but please note the use of the words "a case study".
Madam Chair, I am not a lawyer, but I did have the pleasure of studying some Latin. The following well-known principle:Quando aliquid prohibetur ex directo, prohibetur et per oliquum, means, "What cannot be done directly cannot be done indirectly".So what we are in the process of doing is skirting the parameters of our responsibilities here at the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics.
The evidence was in Mr. Barrett's comments. I will quote you the passage in English.
He said, let's get a look at these documents. We're going to call it a case study.
We can't do that. It isultra vires. It's not within our mandate. One must not indirectly do that which we are prohibited from doing directly.
In her presentation, my colleague Mrs. Brière rightly said that we need to trust our institutions and our parliamentary officials, whose mandate is to examine these types of questions.
What needs to be avoided is the disclosure of the private information of persons related to politicians.
Madam Chair, I am prepared to do so for myself and even for my wife. It is clear and it is among our responsibilities. That is the reason why we all, as members of Parliament—
Liberal
Brenda Shanahan Liberal Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC
On a point of order, I just want to understand who is on the speakers list.
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rachael Thomas
Mr. Angus, you are on there, according to the order.
Yes, Mr. Scarpaleggia is on there, then Mr. Barrett and then Mr. Angus.
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rachael Thomas
We have Madame Gaudreau and then Mr. Kurek.
Mr. Fergus, go ahead.
Liberal
Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
I was just saying, on a very important point, that we had all taken the required steps to complete our documents, make our statement and give it, not to another politician or to an officer of the government of the day, but to an officer of Parliament. This is very important because it proves and guarantees that we are giving it to an impartial third party for evaluation.This third party, along with his or her team, then evaluates the information supplied to ensure that we are declaring all of our property and obligations. We need to ensure that the decisions we make are not tied in any way to an eventual interest in the outcome.
If there are instances in which parliamentarians have made decisions that were inconsistent with the legislative framework established by all of us as a Parliament, then it is the responsibility of the Ethics Commissioner to investigate, find all the information needed to reach a conclusion and reveal this information to Parliament. This is what has happened on several occasions.
Before concluding, I would like to point out that this kind of information is not something we would be giving to a person who represents a party or the current government. I repeat, this information is supplied to an impartial person. What we are doing today is bypassing the Commissioner's responsibilities. We're saying that we are going to gather the information and evaluate it ourselves.
I get it; it's war. Fair enough. We can decide to play that game. Today, the majority will determine whether we are going to do so. You may consider yourself part of the majority, but one day, you will be in the minority. Do you really want to politicize this kind of information?
It's not just information about us, but also about those close to us. It begins with brothers and sisters. And after that perhaps cousins and why not a neighbour. Where will it end? Who will guarantee that the information is relevant and that we are not engaging in a witch hunt? It's a good question. It's very important.
I am looking at everyone around the table and I can see that they have all completed the required documents. I see that almost everyone has submitted them. In fact, they have been published. We can now see who has which obligations, and what spouse works for which corporation.
I note that the information from one person who moved one of the four motions under review has not been published.
Do we want to make political capital with that? I don't think it's a good idea, Mr. Barrett
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
It's accountability, Mr. Fergus.
Liberal
Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
In that case, you should perhaps speak with one of your colleagues.
The issue, Mr. Barrett, is that we don't want to play that game. It's not altogether fair. It's not altogether right.
We need to take the time to give it to the commissioner. We need to trust the commissioner and his staff, who will ensure that all these documents are duly completed.
If the commissioner has any questions, we will answer them. At one point, all this information will become public. Allowing ourselves, the MPs, to conduct this evaluation may lead us to play hardball.
We will not make what should be a very noble calling and profession, a necessary one, one that will be attractive to people to come out to participate.... Let's be really careful. Let's do the right thing. This is why Mr. Angus and I had this discussion. I shouldn't say Mr. Angus and I had the discussion. We all had this discussion back in February when we were setting out the ground rules for this committee. It was an important discussion. It was one that we set out in the absence of any particular political gain, and now we want to do indirectly what we said we wouldn't do directly. I think that's a problem that we really must try to avoid.
I call upon all of you. I plead among all of you. I'm no more special than the rest of you on this one. I'm a bit of a political parliamentary nerd. I used to subscribe to Hansard when I was 14. Who does that?
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Can we declare who actually would have done that? I want to know whom I'm dealing with here.
Liberal
Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
I love this place. I think it's a great place, not because I'm here but because of what it represents.
Democracy is fragile. Take a look at the 5,000 years of reliable human history, oral and written history, that we can turn to. Take a look at the opportunities, as Madame Brière pointed out, in a demos kratos. Take a look at governance by the people, in its most extreme form. We're talking about the Greek city state, where you had to be.... Well, you certainly weren't my colour. You had to be male. You had to be over a certain age, and you had to be a free person—not a slave—to participate in the affairs of the city state.
If we take that as an example of democracy—which we would find repugnant to ourselves today, when we have universal suffrage and participation—from then until what we have today, if we add up all the years that we've had this form of government by the people, for the people, we're looking at somewhere between 1,200 and 1,500 years. It's certainly not a continuous history. It happens. It occurs. It falls off and disappears. It picks up again in some form, continues for a while and then it falls off again.
We have a great responsibility to tend to this very resilient yet very delicate system that we have here. We have to avoid the temptation that we are sometimes faced with to try to seek very short-term advantage or interest and rather to think of the longer term. I think we're at one of these points. Where do we stop? We're going to seek out the information of the mother of a politician, the brother of a politician. Where does it stop?
One of the motions says that we should be seeking out information from every single member of the government—every single cabinet member—to see what we get from that. It's called a fishing trip. We're going out to see what we can find.
We shouldn't do that. We have an Ethics Commissioner. We have the office and counsellors who are there to provide us with information and counsel, who we could call up at any time to see if our affairs or activities are in order. It's to our benefit to have that, but to arrogate that responsibility to ourselves is an error and one that we have seen....
I think it was a former Conservative House leader, whom my colleague quoted, who said that the men and women who work in this area—that could mean our staff or people we know or whom we are related to—did not sign up to be tried by a committee, to be humiliated and intimidated by members of Parliament. Implicit in that is exactly what I was saying: to be using this kind of information to seek short-term political gain. People didn't sign up for that. We shouldn't give in to the temptation to do that.
We should, however, ensure that the Ethics Commissioner has access to the information that, in this case, he needs. We should, perhaps, invite the commissioner here to make sure that he has access to that information. We could ask how we could play a role in helping him discharge his duties. That would be an appropriate role for this committee. That's a role that falls right into the specific mandate of our committee.
When we take a look at the general mandate towards standing committees, it's a general mandate that, and I quote—I'm not the first one to do it here—from chapter 20 of the 2009 second edition of House of Commons Procedure and Practice. Referring to standing committees, it says:
They are empowered to study and report to the House on all matters relating to the mandate, management, organization and operation of the departments assigned to them. More specifically, they can review: the statute law relating to the departments assigned to them; the program and policy objectives of those departments, and the effectiveness of their implementation thereof; the immediate, medium and long-term expenditure plans of those departments and the effectiveness of the implementation thereof; and an analysis of the relative success of those departments in meeting their objectives.
That's all related to the departments. It goes on to say that:
In addition to this general mandate, other matters are routinely referred by the House to its standing committees: bills, estimates, Order-in-Council appointments, documents tabled in the House pursuant to statute, and specific matters which the House wishes to have studied. In each case, the House chooses the most appropriate committee on the basis of its mandate.
Further on, it talks of specific mandates, moving away from the general mandates. On the specific mandate of this committee, it says:
The Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics reviews, among other matters, the effectiveness, management and operation together with the operational and expenditure plans relating to three Officers of Parliament: the Information Commissioner, the Privacy Commissioner and the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner.
—which is germane to our discussion today—
It also reviews their reports, although in the case of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, the reports concerned relate to his or her responsibilities under the Parliament of Canada Act regarding public office holders and reports tabled pursuant to the Lobbyists Registration Act. In cooperation with other standing committees, the Committee also reviews any bill, federal regulation or Standing Order which impacts upon its main areas of responsibility: access to information, privacy and the ethical standards of public office holders. It may also propose initiatives in these areas and promote, monitor and assess such initiatives.
This is the thin branch that some of my colleagues are trying to hang on.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
I have a point of order, Madam Chair.
For the committee's reference, can we find out what version the member is reading from?
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
I feel like that's not the most current version.
Liberal
Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
I believe it is. I believe that's the version that was provided to all members of Parliament.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
Madam Chair, I'll address my comments to you. My understanding is that the reference was to fewer than the current number of total officers whose work this committee reviews. If we're reading it into the record, I'm not sure that it is the correct text.
Could you clarify, or through you, could the member clarify this?
Liberal
Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
I would like to apologize to my honourable colleagues. It would seem, Madam Chair, that there is a consolidated version of October 2019.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
I just want to make sure, Madam Chair, that our bedtime reading is non-fiction and not fiction.
Liberal
Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
It's not that it's fiction; it was perhaps out of date, so my apologies to the honourable member.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rachael Thomas
Mr. Fergus, you can continue, but if I may, I was following along in my own copy here. The statement you mentioned talked about three officers of Parliament. It's been updated to four officers. The Commissioner of Lobbying, of course, has been added to the mandate of this committee.
