Information & Ethics Committee on Jan. 30th, 2024

[Konrad von Finckenstein]

To be honest, I didn't think I was here to suggest amendments to the act, but I can send you some suggestions in writing. I believe the impact is significant. There are also unexpected consequences. We want to avoid that. That said, I'd like to reflect on this some more before making suggestions.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Great.

The purpose of today's meeting was not only to look at how the act is now, but also to give ourselves the opportunity as the year begins to amend the act and the code. We may be able to fix some things.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Ms. Fortier and Commissioner.

Mr. Villemure, you have the floor for six minutes.

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you very much.

Commissioner, as of today, have you talked to representatives of the Prime Minister's office about the possibility of an appointment or reappointment?

[Konrad von Finckenstein]

Those are confidential conversations.

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Okay. I'll take that as a “yes”.

Have you been consulted about a possible successor?

[Konrad von Finckenstein]

No.

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Recently, Democracy Watch issued a harsh judgment about your work and said that several files had been buried or shelved. I don't like to judge things based on one side of the story, so I'd like to hear your response to the Democracy Watch allegations, which list at least eight cases that were shelved and a few more that were buried.

[Konrad von Finckenstein]

Of course, I read that criticism.

The Democracy Watch organization does not understand my position and how my office operates at all.

First of all, if there is no conflict of interest in a given case, that is none of our business. We look into cases where people want an investigation. If we find nothing to indicate a possible conflict of interest, we do not start an investigation. We had a total of eight cases like that.

Four of those cases were about Mr. Grewal, who was an MP, but who has not been for about five years. Why investigate someone who is not an MP? In the other cases, we conducted a preliminary analysis and determined there was not enough evidence to launch an investigation.

We are currently conducting two investigations, on Ms. Verschuren and Mr. Ouimet regarding Sustainable Development Technology Canada.

They also talk about changes I made. What did I do?

First, I said that if a reporting public officeholder leaves a department, the limitation period before joining another department is not necessary. If you want to leave the position of Deputy Minister of Transport and now you want to work at the Department of Agriculture, that’s fine, congratulations. There is no conflict of interest. You know how departments work. I was told that was illegal and asked why I did it. I did it because there is no conflict of interest.

One of the other changes I made has to do with reporting public office holders’ controlled assets, which can be problematic. For 10 years, the maximum amount of controlled assets was set at $30,000. I said that because of inflation, we would double the maximum amount and set it at $60,000.

Finally, we once had a rule requiring people who worked part time for a Canada Energy Regulator committee to sell their shares in open-ended mutual funds and exchange-traded funds. Why? Where was the conflict of interest?

If a person has shares in an open-ended mutual fund, how could they be in a conflict of interest? I don’t know who created that rule. Now, if a person wants to have those kinds of shares, they can.

Those are the things I did that Democracy Watch considers very bad. I will not give them the pleasure of repeating all the qualifiers they used.

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you very much, Commissioner.

That helps with understanding the allegations that were made, and so on.

Of course not every interest is a conflict of interest. It's important to understand that.

[Konrad von Finckenstein]

Exactly.

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

I have less than one minute left, and I want to come back to my previous question, which we did not have a chance to discuss.

When someone consults you, you give an opinion and the person can decide whether or not to take it into account. If you observe a lack of judgment from that person, do you intervene? For example, I could say that Mr. Trudeau’s trip was legal, which is the case. I agree. At the same time, it might have been a lack of judgment. Let’s say there was such an allegation, would you advise that person to…

[Konrad von Finckenstein]

In a case like that, not in Mr. Trudeau’s, but in general, we would tell the person that what they are doing is legal, but it could have consequences on a political level. If the person still wants to go ahead, they can, but I’m required to tell them that, in my opinion, it will cause problems. It is up to the person to make that decision.

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

You would go up to that point.

[Konrad von Finckenstein]

Yes. It goes without saying that I’m required to explain to the person that it could cause problems.

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you very much, Commissioner.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you to Mr. Villemure and the Commissioner.

Now we have Mr. Green for six minutes. Please go ahead.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I'll try to ask the question differently from the way my friend from the Bloc asked it.

Under section 44 of the Conflict of Interest Act, the commissioner is required to examine a matter raised by a request from a parliamentarian “who has reasonable grounds to believe that a public office holder or former public officer holder has contravened the Act”, unless the commissioner determines that the request is either frivolous, vexatious or is made in bad faith.

I take from your testimony, and I'm going to use your inference, that you view this matter to be closed. With that being said, do you consider the request for the investigation into this to be frivolous, vexatious or in bad faith?

I'm just quoting the code.

[Konrad von Finckenstein]

No. Obviously, I do not impute bad faith to anybody.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Okay.

With that being said, I think what we've discovered here is that many people, whether it's Trudeau and his trip to the Bahamas under the Aga Khan...

I have to say this to you, Mr. Chair, and I do apologize, and I do apologize to my colleague MP Khalid, because I did make a comment that I think elicited her response earlier. When the context was described, I couldn't determine whether they were describing Stornaway or, worse, a plantation, which is more likely, given when it was built. I certainly hope the Prime Minister isn't spending his time in Jamaica at a former plantation, but I digress.

I think what has been determined is that when people get into these positions of power, they lose touch with the everyday Canadian. What I'm hearing from the testimony is that it's incumbent on us as MPs to create a higher standard, with clear definitions, recognizing that terms like “friends” are not clearly defined. There's too much ambiguity.

With that, and to ensure that we don't run out of time, Mr. Chair, I'm going to ask for unanimous consent for a motion, and if there is not, the members can take this to a vote.

I move:

That the committee send a letter to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs and the Board of Internal Economy with the following recommendation:

That the travel points system used by members of Parliament be amended to allow two special travel points to be used for international travel for parliamentary purposes, and that the Conflict of Interest Code for members of the House of Commons be amended to explicitly ban sponsored travel.

If we can get one thing from this S.O. 106 request that resulted in this study, hopefully it would be that.

I'm going to seek unanimous consent. If not, then I would invite the members to go on the record about whether they support the gravy train or they don't.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Green.

I'm going to ask Mr. von Finckenstein to just hold for a second while we deal with this.

Madam Clerk, you've distributed this to the committee, so let's just hang on a second, please. Let me just read it.

In relation to what we're dealing with today, I'm going to allow the motion to be submitted by Mr. Green as written. Mr. Green has asked whether we have unanimous consent to approve the motion he has moved, so I'm going to seek—

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Chair, could I get a copy of the motion in French, please?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

You don’t have one?

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

No, I don’t have it in French.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Nancy Vohl]

I sent it to you.