Thank you, Mr. Chair. It is a great pleasure to be here.
You may be wondering why I am here visiting your fine committee. I am normally on RNNR and BCAN, but for an order like this, in a conversation like this, I believe I have some insight that might be useful to this committee. I'm very happy to speak in favour of removing the overly broad production order component of this motion, although I do not personally believe such an amendment goes far enough.
Let me talk a bit about the insight that I bring to committee.
Ms. Kronis is right that we all come with a past. One of the pasts that I bring—my history—is that I was a senior official in the Government of Alberta. I was a DM-level official in that government. I sat as a member of the deputy ministers' council. I was on the receiving end of things like this—of production orders and of the various actions of committees. I oversaw Communications and Public Engagement for the Government of Alberta, a cross-government department that was responsible for, as the name suggests, those activities.
I was appointed by order in council. I attended meetings of cabinet, and I was a member of the executive council's executive team. Alberta's executive council is the provincial equivalent of the PCO, so I believe I have some insight into this. I fully appreciate that it is not entirely transferable to the level of government that we're at here.
I also want to let the committee know that I did this under two very different premiers. I did this under Premier Notley from 2016 to 2019, and I did this under Premier Kenney from 2019 to 2020. I served both of them, and they both trusted me to do that role.
I hope you'll accept this as a non-partisan observation, having done it for two very different premiers with very different world views, and what I'm about to say was true in both administrations. It's frankly not a political observation; it's an observation I make on behalf of people who cannot make the observation themselves because of reasons of decorum and deference.
Communications and Public Engagement, CPE, was the Government of Alberta's cross-government department responsible for a variety of activities. However, because it was communications, there were very few files in government that my team did not touch, and there were very few production orders and access to information requests that did not involve my department.
As deputy head, it was my responsibility to oversee these activities, to sign off on these activities and to ensure that everything that was provided was accurate. That perch also gave me a very good view as to what that looks like once a committee like this sends an order like this and the consequences of that. I was also responsible for interacting with Alberta's ethics and privacy commissioners on these matters, so I would regularly engage on the pith of this.
As I said, let me speak on behalf of senior officials, most of whom will not be given the opportunity to speak on their own or are fettered in what they're able to say.
To a committee like this, this is a motion. Maybe it's about social media clips; maybe it's not. I'm not looking into your hearts on this one today. Mr. Hardy talks about 20 hours and the cost of 20 hours. Well, colleagues, when such a motion flies, 20 hours is nothing. Think of the hours it will burn in our professional public service. The amount of activity it is to gather, organize and translate into English across government is absolutely extraordinary. Such extraordinary efforts cannot be for nothing. Certainly, there are times when extraordinary efforts need to be taken by government, but they certainly cannot be done for no reason.
The power of this committee is to compel documents, to give a production order. That's what we're talking about, and that's what we're talking about removing. Mr. Hardy talks about his constituents, saying that they want him to hold government to account. Well, I'm sure they're not asking him to abuse the tools of Parliament. I'm sure they're assuming he will use these tools judiciously, not indiscriminately.
Let's be clear. These are very powerful tools. These are very important tools. This is why we cannot weaponize them. We cannot use them to try to jam people. We cannot use them for fishing expeditions. We cannot use them to create clips. I truly wonder if we would even have this motion if there were no cameras. I truly wonder that.
Ms. Kronis is right. Just because you can do something, that does not mean you should. Production orders should not be weaponized. Every time they are, they are weakened. They encourage the public to want to fetter the tool. They encourage people to disregard the tool. You are breaking the “in case of emergency break glass” glass, and for what? It's for something you've already been told you will get, just not on the timeline and not in the breadth that allows the fishing that you seek. There is a consequence to these actions, and it's a consequence, again, that cannot often be spoken of by the officials who deal with it.
I ask my colleagues this: What is your intent? Does your intent align with the actions you would ask us to do or this committee to do? I am, of course, a guest at this committee.
Senior officials are some of the busiest people in government. I think of my own calendar in those times, and it certainly rivalled my calendar as an MP. I know that as members of Parliament, we all have very busy calendars, but I would increment my time in 15-minute blocks. I would go from meeting to meeting. I had three assistants who assisted to make sure that I was on time with the right documents doing these activities. That is because that time was considered to be some of the most valuable time in the Alberta government.
You now fetter that time. That is the right of this committee to do, but you have to ask what the benefit of that is, because it is not just their time; it is Canadians' time. Government is not a remote force. Government is all of us employing people like the professional public service to do things on our behalf. You are taking the time of the public, as you have the right to do as a committee—again, I'm not a member—and you are asking them to apply themselves differently. That is fair, but you must use this power discriminately. If you do not, there are consequences.
Let's dig into marginal benefit and marginal cost. I have an M.B.A., so I like to think of these things. On the benefit, I don't personally see benefit, but let's be charitable. Let's talk about the purpose of the conflict of interest legislation. Let's talk about the stated purpose of this production order, as we've heard. Hopefully, it goes well beyond what was on the menu on the Prime Minister's plane.
What is the purpose of these tools? First and foremost, it is to protect the public interest. I feel this risks the public interest in multiple ways. I'll get into them in a minute here.
Second, it's to ensure the integrity of decision-making. We've already heard from multiple people that this very act risks exposing matters to the Prime Minister, when the Prime Minister should not know them. That would actually damage the integrity of decision-making.
The third reason, which we've also heard a bit about but I want to underline, is that these tools are not punitive. They're designed to allow people to manage messy realities. They allow government to attract people with diverse backgrounds to engage in diverse, thoughtful ways.