Information & Ethics Committee on Nov. 19th, 2025

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

—as it applies to this Prime Minister. I just asked you to give me an example.

[Michael Sabia]

I said it's at least as good.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

I'm intervening here for interpreters. We have to go back and forth. Let's answer the question and then ask the question.

[Michael Sabia]

Let me answer the question.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Go ahead, Mr. Sabia.

[Michael Sabia]

Mr. Cooper, you continue to make an error. This is not about me as an individual. This is about the engagement of the breadth of the public service in the administration of this screen. Those are two entirely different things.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

Mr. Sabia, you sign off, ultimately, on whether the ethics screen is invoked or not. The buck stops with you.

[Michael Sabia]

Yes, but that is the result of extensive work across the public service by a set of engaged public servants acting in the public interest.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

However, you ultimately make the decision, and you answer to the Prime Minister.

[Michael Sabia]

It is not the same thing.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

You have two more minutes.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

Again, you haven't provided an example. Therefore, I would submit that your assertion that the standard is more robust simply doesn't hold water.

I want to ask you about the involvement of the Prime Minister's chief of staff, who is clearly a political appointee and clearly someone who answers and serves at the pleasure of the Prime Minister. He also signs off on the invocation of the ethics screen. When you make a decision—because, as I understand, you first make a decision—what role precisely does the Prime Minister's chief of staff then play with respect to that decision? As I see it on the form that you've provided, it also requires his signature. Do I have that right?

[Michael Sabia]

We are both administrators of the Prime Minister's screen.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

Jointly?

[Michael Sabia]

Yes.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

For example, if you made a decision, as you put it, and then passed that decision on to the Prime Minister's chief of staff and he disagreed with that decision, what would happen in that case?

[Michael Sabia]

In that circumstance, which has not arisen—if he and I disagreed about the application of a screen—the only viable course would be to go to the Ethics Commissioner and say, “Make a decision. We will abide by whatever your decision is.”

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

That hasn't happened, as you said.

[Michael Sabia]

That has not occurred.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

That's not part of the process. That's just something you would do as a matter of practice, or so you say.

[Michael Sabia]

That would be the logical way to handle a situation of that kind, to go to an officer of Parliament and say, “We disagree. You make a decision, and we'll abide by it.”

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

Otherwise, there would be no involvement of the Ethics Commissioner.

[Michael Sabia]

No, as I said on several occasions, the Ethics Commissioner and his staff are included—

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

No, you've said that you sometimes consult the Ethics Commissioner—

[Michael Sabia]

No, I—