Evidence of meeting #36 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was code.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
No, we found the opposite, if you read the report.
Liberal
Han Dong Liberal Don Valley North, ON
Thank you.
In your report you cite the former integrity commissioner in Ontario, Gregory Evans, who stated, “One person's perception of another's conduct is a purely subjective assessment influenced by many factors including the interest of the individual making the assessment. It is not the proper criteria by which the conduct of a legislator should be measured.”
Throughout the last several months we have seen opposition party members attempt to pursue their own investigation of the Prime Minister in several committees. In your view, will such a partisan investigation yield an effective or truthful report for Canadians?
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
I'm afraid it's not for me to have a view on that. There are two different approaches basically. Parliament and its committees have a role; the commissioner has another role. We have completely different objectives and modes of operation.
When I proceed to an examination under the act or an inquiry under the code, I do so with the focus being on what the code or the act requires me to do. We did follow with interest what was going on before committees. Essentially it was a source of some inspiration, but we had to validate. We did not rely on anything that was only said before a committee. We had to basically go and ask again, because we were denied permission by the finance committee to use it—or failure to give permission was interpreted as a denial of permission.
We were on parallel tracks, and we have very different objectives and very different modes or methods. I respect the methods used by Parliament, and I wish Parliament would respect the method I'm using in conducting my examinations.
Liberal
Han Dong Liberal Don Valley North, ON
Very well. That was the same concern we heard very early on in our study from the former commissioner, that we should not by any chance contaminate your investigation by doing the parallel study.
Following the release of your report, the Conservative leader came out and decreed that the system was broken. It's good that today you have reminded us that it was the previous Harper government in 2006 that deliberately excluded the perceived conflict of interest, that part of the act.
Respectfully, I see in your report that the system worked and is working, but I worry that this type of language the Conservative used served only to break down trust in our public institutions, including the officers of Parliament. Would you agree that the work you produced points to a broken system, as described by the Conservative leader?
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
My role as an agent of Parliament is to implement the law as it is, but not in the way some people wish it would be. The views I have as to how the law should be changed, I think, will only become of interest to Parliament when and if Parliament looks at it.
At this moment, as I think I said earlier during my presentation this afternoon, in my opinion the act works as it's currently written. That indicates that I'm not in agreement that the system is broken, but anything can always be improved. It is very subjective, as pointed out by Mr. Evans in the quote that the member gave us a minute ago.
Liberal
Han Dong Liberal Don Valley North, ON
Your report exonerates the Prime Minister from any wrongdoing with regard to WE Charity. I would appreciate your thoughts on what politicians, be they MPs or ministers, can do to avoid even the appearance of such conflict of interest in the future to ensure the continued confidence in our system.
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
It's about being vigilant. I think I've already referred to that a few times, being vigilant to identify any situation. It's easy to say but not easy to do when you have to make hundreds of decisions each week. Be vigilant, try to make an effort and do not fall to the temptation of deciding to do it nevertheless because it's urgent.
Whenever there is doubt that there is possibly a conflict of interest, you should stop and analyze and recuse. It's always the best approach: When in doubt, recuse. Nobody will blame you for having recused. You could be blamed if you fail to recuse in a situation where you should have, under section 21 of the act.
Liberal
Han Dong Liberal Don Valley North, ON
Thank you very much.
I appreciate the fact that in your report you acknowledged the extraordinary circumstances under COVID that decision-makers in a public office have had to make—very expeditious decisions. I take your advice on being extra vigilant. When you are in the position of making these decisions, you have to be very careful not to appear to be in a conflict of interest.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Chris Warkentin
Thank you, Mr. Dong. You are out of time, and that's an appropriate end to the time with the commissioner.
Commissioner, we want to thank you for your testimony today. We thank you for being with us. We know you've been very busy over the last number of months during difficult and trying times. Just as Mr. Dong commended the government, I'd like to commend you, Mr. Dion, for undertaking your work diligently and completing these reports in a timely manner so that committee members and parliamentarians and Canadians generally can review your work.
Thank you, Mr. Dion. We will allow you to go. We thank you for being here and we will now allow you to leave.
We're going to move to votes on the estimates.
Committee members, there are a couple of ways to do this. I think we'll just move through the votes. There are six motions that we have to adopt. Just as a reminder to members, it is possible to vote down the granting of these amounts. We can reduce them, but we cannot reduce them below the amount that has been granted through interim supply.
If there's a willingness for committee members to proceed to the votes, we'll quickly do so, after which we can move into committee business.
I will start reading through the motions. We will assume there's unanimous consent to carry on, unless somebody opposes, then we'll move to a vote by head count.
Go ahead, Mr. Barrett.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
Mr. Chair, you mentioned that you have a suite of items for the committee to vote on. I'm wondering whether, as has been the practice in the past, you could read the items. I suggest it would be expeditious and would also serve the ultimate purpose to have them grouped as one item so that, should the committee wish, they be passed on division.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Chris Warkentin
We can certainly do that. It is definitely an option. I'm seeing some nodding heads, so I will proceed to that option.
I will read this out and then, unless there's opposition, we'll assume they're passed on division.
OFFICE OF THE COMMISSIONER OF LOBBYING
Vote 1—Program expenditures..........$4,188,106
(Vote 1 agreed to on division)
OFFICE OF THE CONFLICT OF INTEREST AND ETHICS COMMISSIONER
Vote 1—Program expenditures..........$6,852,883
(Vote 1 agreed to on division)
OFFICES OF THE INFORMATION AND PRIVACY COMMISSIONERS OF CANADA
Vote 1—Program expenditures—Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada..........$14,940,085
Vote 5—Program expenditures—Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada..........$27,062,351
(Votes 1 and 5 agreed to on division)
OFFICE OF THE SENATE ETHICS OFFICER
Vote 1—Program expenditures..........$1,231,278
(Vote 1 agreed to on division)
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Chris Warkentin
Thank you, Madam Clerk and colleagues. That was painless.
We'll move now to committee business.
Mr. Angus, you indicated you'd like to speak to committee business. If anybody would like to follow, please raise your hand and we'll go through the speaking order as indicated.
Mr. Angus, we will turn to you.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm speaking to my motion today to invite Mr. Steven Guilbeault, the Minister of Heritage, to come to the ethics and privacy committee to testify on the plans that are being led through the heritage department to deal with the allegations of non-consensual sexual assault videos that exist on PornHub.
At the April 12 ethics meeting, we were informed by security minister Bill Blair that the government of Mr. Trudeau will “introduce legislation to create a new regulator that will ensure online platforms remove harmful content, including depictions of child sexual exploitation and intimate images that are shared without consent” and that “Public Safety Canada and other departments are working on this proposed legislation with Canadian Heritage, which leads this effort.”
We have had no indication of what this new regulator is and I think we need clarity.
I would just step back a minute and say that this all stems from the December 2020 reports that came out of the United States on horrific abuse of children and sexual assault victims on PornHub, a company that is based in Canada. We began our study at that time to see if our laws were insufficient or if there was a problem. We asked the RCMP to come. The RCMP have made it clear that they are not moving forward with allegations against PornHub. They've talked about their being a partner. They've talked about voluntary compliance.
I received the RCMP's internal briefing documents in response to the December 2020 article, and in that document, it talks about what next steps have to be done and it mentions the leadership of the heritage department. My office asked the RCMP to send us the blacked-out information to explain why the RCMP is deferring to Mr. Guilbeault's office. My staff was told that this would breach cabinet confidence.
What that tells me is that after the December 2020 article came out in The New York Times on PornHub, this issue was discussed at the cabinet of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and a decision was made then to have Mr. Steven Guilbeault and the heritage department handle this file, rather than transferring it over to police, to the Attorney General or to public security.
I think this is really important. We cannot finish our PornHub study without knowing what exactly the government's plan is, because we have Bill C-10 right now that Mr. Guilbeault is in charge of, and I think the government shocked everybody when they decided to put user-generated content under Bill C-10. I've talked to many arts organizations that were shocked that Bill C-10 includes user-generated content. It is nothing that the artists' community wanted. They want Facebook and Google to pay their share. Where is this user-generated content coming from? Is this to address the allegations the survivors brought to us on PornHub?
If that is the case, Mr. Guilbeault needs to explain that, because I don't think you could disrespect survivors in any more of an egregious fashion than to suggest that sexual assault videos or videos of the torture of children that were brought forward to our committee are somehow considered user-generated content in Canada. What does that say to survivors? What does that say to the women of the global south who I have been meeting with, who are speaking from Nigeria, Colombia, Spain and France, talking about the sexual assault videos from their countries that are being posted on a Canadian site?
Are the Liberals telling us that they consider sexual assault and criminal acts mere content that can be handled by a regulator? Are they going to hand it off to the CRTC under Bill C-10, or are they going to create a new pornography regulator? I would like to know what that pornography regulator would be, because, again, I had excellent meetings following the debacle of our meetings with the sex workers, and Ms. Lukings provided really interesting analysis of how what we want to do is to make sure we hold corporations accountable for what's online, but we don't want to push stuff to the dark net.
If the Liberals have this idea that Mr. Guilbeault could set up some kind of regulator to tell us—I don't know—Canadian content in porn, good porn, bad porn.... Do we need a regulator or do we simply need the Liberal government to apply the laws?
We can look at the laws we have in Canada. In section 162 of the Criminal Code, it is a crime to film the private acts of individuals or people without their consent. It is a crime to circulate, to sell, to advertise or to make available the recording. We have a law. In section 163, sexual videos of crime, cruelty and violence are classified as criminal in behaviour. We heard from the survivors of non-consensual sexual assault videos that their videos were videos of crime, cruelty and violence. Section 164 gives the authorities, which would be the RCMP, the power to issue warrants to seize the recordings of voyeuristic videos of crimes as well as child pornography.
We have mandatory reporting laws. We have learned that Pornhub has not followed through on them. Pornhub has not respected the laws we have in this country.
The Attorney General doesn't seem to even think it applies, because he's not sure if this Montreal-based company is a Canadian company. If the Attorney General, who lives in Montreal, isn't sure that Pornhub is a Canadian company, even though their address is on Décarie Boulevard and everybody in Montreal who goes to work passes their office in the morning, then how are we expected to believe that the CRTC or some kind of regulator will handle this?
I think Mr. Guilbeault needs to come and explain this to us. What is the government's plan for dealing with the issues of sexual violence on Pornhub that have come to our committee? Are we going to ignore Canadian law or are we going to establish the CRTC to do this? Is this going to be Bill C-10 or...? Mr. Blair suggested that they're going to create a new regulator.
I think Mr. Guilbeault needs to come and inform us so that we can actually finish a report on what Parliament needs to do to address these disturbing allegations of brutality and non-consensual sexual assault of women, not just from Canada but from around the world. We need to be able to respond to those survivors and to the Canadian people that we've done our job. We cannot do that job without Mr. Guilbeault coming and explaining why he is the lead person appointed by the Trudeau government to address these very serious allegations.
I'd like to bring that motion forward for a vote.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Chris Warkentin
Thank you, Mr. Angus.
We'll go to debate on the motion. I see that some hands have been raised.
Mr. Barrett, we will go to you first.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
Thanks, Chair.
I thank Mr. Angus for bringing the motion forward. Obviously, it's in line with the study that the committee has undertaken. It could serve to be one of the final meetings we have on that, potentially, as we start running out of days.
In fact, Chair, I was seeking the floor and would just ask you this now. Following consideration of Mr. Angus's motion and the committee's voting on it, before we adjourn, could we get an update from you on the work the committee is to undertake? You mentioned this at the start of the two hours, so I don't want to hijack the time. We do have a motion on the floor to consider. I look forward to the discussion on that. I plan to support it.
I would just ask that before we do adjourn, if that is to happen hastily, we get an update on the size of the draft report we're reviewing next week and our plans to report that to the House 10 days from today, as per the committee's previous direction.
Thanks very much.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Chris Warkentin
Thank you.
As I indicated earlier, the next two meetings, the meetings next week, have been set aside for the consideration of the draft report on the questions of conflict of interest and lobbying in relation to the pandemic spending. My understanding is that the report now exceeds 150 pages, so it will be robust. I'm sure we will require at least those two meetings in order to review that. Of course, we do have a deadline that has been agreed to by this committee to have that completed next week. That is the case.
We will now continue the debate on Mr. Angus's motion.
Madam Gaudreau, we'll turn to you.
Marie-Hélène Gaudreau Bloc Laurentides—Labelle, QC
I'm going to keep my turn this time. I have something else to say, but I'd like to comment on the motion.
We have seven meetings left. If I understand correctly, four of them are to review reports. That leaves us three meetings.
Furthermore, we are aware that Ms. Shanahan may be putting forward a motion today.
Top of mind are the people watching us and following our proceedings. The purpose of the original motion, adopted in December, was to meet with the owners and executives of Pornhub. Naturally, once we started looking into the matter, we wanted to go deeper. Unfortunately, the committee doesn't meet five days a week or have 20 hours of meeting time a week. My biggest concern is finalizing the reports. Let's be frank: we could take longer. After all, the committee has gone over the time allotted in the past.
We have three meetings left. I'm sure my fellow members have suggestions on how we can end the session on as good of a note as we started it on. I won't go on about it, but I am quite concerned about the committee's ability to be effective, on behalf of those who are counting on us. We need to respect the purview of each committee. A committee can study an issue inside and out. As mentioned, the Standing Committee on the Status of Women took a different approach in the case of Pornhub, deciding to apply a different lens. The same is true in this case: the committee is examining Bill C-10.
I just want to be sure that the right work is being done at the right place.
That is my first concern.
Conservative
Liberal
Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I agree with Ms. Gaudreau. I am quite supportive of what Mr. Angus is proposing. I think it's important that we examine the matter. I really appreciate his specifically mentioning Ms. Lukings and the dark web, in reference to the importance of the discussion.
We all realize that there isn't much time until this session of Parliament ends. We can probably find a way to deal with all of these demands efficiently. Perhaps Mr. Angus's motion and the one Ms. Shanahan moved a few weeks ago could be combined. If we can figure out a way to tackle this efficiently, we could get the work done and schedule time to examine the current report. We can do the work that remains and we can do it well.
That is what I want my fellow committee members to know.
Liberal
Han Dong Liberal Don Valley North, ON
Thank you very much, Chair.
I listened carefully to my colleagues' previous arguments and their positions with regard to this motion.
What caught my attention was the fact that Mr. Angus mentioned that he received briefings on the dark web and from Ms. Lukings. That reminded me that I had a lot of interest in that. My fellow colleagues also asked questions about that, but we never really had a fulsome discussion or session to hear a bit more information about the dark web. To be fair, the last meeting that we had, when we had these witnesses, the advocates of sex workers, they didn't get a fair chance to maximize their time at committee and express their full perspectives on this study.
It would be very good to.... I spoke previously in support of Mrs. Shanahan's motion to invite them back. That would add to the comprehensiveness of this report.
As to Mr. Angus's motion, I understand where he is coming from. It is based on a lot of assumptions, namely that the government is moving to legislate and regulate this industry. I will go with the decision of the members of this committee.
I will support it if we can consider a friendly amendment, which I want to move for members to consider.
I move that, after the words in the original motion “Brenda Lucki”, the following be added, “that the committee hear from experts on the dark web for one hour, and that the committee invite Ms. Lukings to be part of that panel.”
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
On a point of order, we are jumping around a bunch of different stuff here, so I want to be clear.
Is Mr. Dong saying we will have Mr. Guilbeault, and that Ms. Lukings will give us her presentation on the dark web?