I will continue, and I would look forward to other members speaking about the definition, but it's clear to me that it is not intended to be a mother or a brother or a sister or any member outside the immediate family.
To continue here, under the “Rules of Conduct”, 10(2), it says:
A member shall not communicate information referred to in subsection (1) to another person if the member knows, or reasonably ought to know, that the information may be used to further the member's private interests or those of a member of his or her family, or to improperly further another person's or entity's private interests.
Where I'm going there, Chair, is that if in this role here, this privileged role on the ethics committee, we were to learn of private and confidential information about a person that would help our own interests, I would find that very serious indeed. I would want to have full legal counsel in that case, which I think is another issue we encountered this summer and was something that was very much welcomed by the members of this committee.
I would like to continue speaking about the role of the commissioner. It's almost as if it's protecting us from ourselves.
There has been some very colourful history in this committee, and I know that my good colleague Mr. Angus was present for many of those sessions, and others may have been as well. Thank goodness that we have a commissioner of ethics, again so that the propriety of what is discussed when we're discussing the conduct of individual members is maintained in a professional and a productive way, shall I say. It's not for political or partisan gain, but indeed looking at the behaviour at hand and how it affects the course of Parliamentary business.
What I'm wondering about what we're debating here is that, when we have a motion like this before us, are we expressing a lack of confidence in the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, who is well within his powers to order any documents that he sees fit and where we have full confidence that he will handle those documents in a proper manner?
I would like to share with the committee some notes I made regarding this rule, because I think it is important, as we are back here again, for this to be on the record.
The Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner administers the Conflict of Interest Act by establishing compliance measures, investigating possible contraventions of the act and providing advice to public office holders on their obligations. The commissioner is an officer of Parliament. Being an officer of Parliament is no small thing. That means that he is responsible.... He reports to Parliament. Officers of Parliament are independent of the government and report directly to Parliament.
The Conflict of Interest Act came into force on July 9, 2007—so it was not all that long ago—and created, for the first time, a legislative regime governing the ethical conduct of public office holders. Prior to this date, public office holders were subject to non-statutory codes of conduct that could be changed on a whim.
At the time, I was a member of the Canadian public. We could see that it was quite under control at that time with the various things that were going on.
Some additional information on the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner is that this person “is appointed by the Governor in Council by commission under the Great Seal, after consultation with the leader of every recognized party in the House of Commons and after approval of the appointment by resolution of the House.”
That is very important, that there is consultation among all of the parties, because any one of us and any one of the parties in the House can find themselves in a situation where they would be glad to know that we have an independent commissioner looking at our affairs. He or she holds the office for a seven-year term. Moreover, “under the Conflict of Interest Act, the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner must be a former judge of a superior court in Canada or of a provincial court; or a former member of a federal or provincial board, commission or tribunal who has demonstrated expertise in at least one of the following areas: conflict of interest, financial arrangements, professional regulation and discipline or ethics”.
I daresay that is an evolving field. I think we are seeing situations on a regular basis in every sector of our economy and in administrative and institutional life, and I think this committee can contribute to reform and that evolution so that we get to a place where it's more about prevention rather than about hitting people on the head.
The Ethics Commissioner can be “a former Senate Ethics Officer or former Ethics Commissioner. The position was created in 2007 and replaced the Office of the Ethics Commissioner [under the] (Parliament of Canada Act, s.81).”
The Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner also “provides confidential advice to the prime minister and to public office holders on all matters pertaining to the implementation of the Conflict of Interest Act. In addition, the Commissioner may, at the request of a parliamentarian or on their own initiative, investigate any alleged breach of the Act by a public office holder.”
Again, that's very important, and we know that is indeed what has happened. Members of Parliament have written to the Ethics Commissioner with their complaint as they saw it and have asked for the commissioner to do an investigation. Sometimes he does the investigation and sometimes he does not, but we have the satisfaction that he has looked at it impartially, at all of the facts before him and has made that determination, unless we're going to say that we don't have confidence in that officer of Parliament, which would be a very serious thing to say, although it could happen.
Furthermore, “The Commissioner may, in the course of investigation, consider information provided by the public” —by the public as well, and not just by other members of Parliament—“that is conveyed to the Commissioner by a parliamentarian.”
I think this information, which is publicly available, is important for the Canadian public to understand. The role of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner is to undertake any investigation of alleged violations of the Conflict of Interest Act. If the intention is to usurp their role or to carry on a parallel investigation or to somehow override what the commissioner is doing, then I must voice my serious objection to this committee's participating in such an action.
It's clear to me, and I think to other members of this committee, that this is the work of this committee in fulfilling its mandate, in reviewing the work of the four officers of Parliament who report to us, and ensuring that any current or evolving issues.... And I can think of one right now, and that's the COVID application. It's being downloaded. I think it has downloaded over four million times, but there are questions about it. Is it efficacious? Is it doing its job? I'm going to switch into French here now.
People in my constituency still had concerns about privacy and how the application collected data.
I am so glad that Quebec not only accepted the application, but also studied its effectiveness. It even came up on the TV show Tout le monde en parle. People are talking about the application and right now, we can see that, with the measures—