Information & Ethics Committee on May 4th, 2026

[Bardish Chagger, Liberal, Waterloo, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Welcome to the committee. It's my first committee during this session, so if there's anything that I'm repeating, please excuse me. I'm just here to get some information and insights.

I want to feed off Mr. Hardy's comments with regard to back in the day. Many people in the room might not know what a BlackBerry is. I think every public servant and every politician had a BlackBerry, and you could go pin to pin. Being the MP from the riding of Waterloo, I'm at home with a BlackBerry.

I would like to know how we dealt with that in those communications.

[Caroline Maynard]

The Information Commissioner at the time recommended the banning of the pin-to-pin communication. What people need to understand is that employees of the public service need to respect their responsibilities under the act. Anything that they do should be, if it has a value for the work they do, saved somewhere on the government website.

The responsibility is on the employee to know, when they have these discussions with valuable information—where they provide the basis of decisions or basis of policies—that those should be in a memo, in a briefing note or in a document that is kept. If you have a bunch of emails back and forth, chats or pin to pin, those are actually very difficult to search. Sometimes, you'll end up with 50,000 exchanges just to find a little paragraph that talks about your decision-making power. This is where training and proper policy are needed.

[Bardish Chagger, Liberal, Waterloo, ON]

I come from a community where technology is embraced. Do you believe that the government and the public service are actually moving at the pace of technology?

It's really easy to suggest that we shouldn't use things, that we should deactivate the pin or whatever. At the same time, the people who are going to do certain things that we're trying to bring out and be transparent about are probably going to be better at that than some of the hard-working honest people who are trying to expose or share that information.

[Caroline Maynard]

I'm totally in favour of efficiency. I'm totally in favour of trying tools that make work better and are results-oriented for Canadians. However, you still have to make sure you respect the laws that exist. One of those laws is access to information.

If you know, when you implement these tools, that somebody is going to ask for access to information related to those tools, then you have to keep that in mind so it is accessible and proper mechanisms are there to safeguard the information somewhere that is accessible.

[Bardish Chagger, Liberal, Waterloo, ON]

I would agree that people should know what the laws are and that the information should be readily available. I wonder if there might be tools available across the country or around the world—including in my beautiful riding of Waterloo—that might help, or maybe we should consider having those conversations. There are a lot of young minds who could perhaps help us get some of that information.

I'm going to go back to the policy paper that's posted online and the consultation. It is open to the public. Are you familiar with it?

[Caroline Maynard]

Yes.

[Bardish Chagger, Liberal, Waterloo, ON]

Do you know until when people can give feedback?

[Caroline Maynard]

There's a consultation right now until June 16, I believe, where submissions to the TBS are expected.

[Bardish Chagger, Liberal, Waterloo, ON]

Brilliant.

Can anybody go online and participate in that?

[Caroline Maynard]

Yes, and they can review what's projected and presented.

[Bardish Chagger, Liberal, Waterloo, ON]

Brilliant.

As you know, declassification of historical records has been a significant issue. One of the policy approaches proposed “a systematic approach to the declassification and disclosure of historical records”, with the goal of increasing the number of historical records made available to Canadians and reducing pressure on the ATI regime.

Don't you agree that this is a positive step to consider in a policy paper?

[Caroline Maynard]

I think that a declassification program is long overdue for Canada. I'm hoping it's not going to be a discretionary program, but that it's going to be a mandatory program with very set timelines that allows, before those timelines.... Right now, people think that because there's a 50-year-old document, they're going to wait until it's 50. You would want people to start looking at those documents before then. This is just the maximum. We definitely encourage a declassification program.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Ms. Chagger. That's it. Five minutes go quickly. I appreciate that.

That concludes our first hour for today.

Commissioner, I want to thank you for being here today.

On behalf of the committee, I think I can safely say that we support the work you're doing. If there's anything you need from this committee, please don't hesitate to ask.

[Caroline Maynard]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

We're going to suspend for a minute and then we're going to come back with the Ethics Commissioner.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

We're back.

We'll start the second hour by hearing from the Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner. Konrad von Finckenstein is the commissioner. We also have Melanie Rushworth, director of communications, outreach and planning; and Anne-Marie Roy, manager of financial services, corporate management.

Commissioner, you have up to five minutes to address the committee.

Go ahead, sir.

[Konrad von Finckenstein, Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner]

Mr. Chair and honourable members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to speak to you about our 2025‑26 budget and the role that the Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner plays in safeguarding public confidence in the integrity of Parliament and government institutions.

As you said, joining me are Anne-Marie Roy, manager of financial services, and Melanie Rushworth, director of communications.

The commissioner's office administers the Conflict of Interest Code for Members of the House of Commons and the Conflict of Interest Act. The act applies to roughly 3,200 elected and appointed officials. The code applies to all elected MPs. It touches every level of federal decision-making.

We take a mandate-focused approach that advances three key objectives. First, we help elected and appointed officials identify and manage conflicts of interest, ensuring that competent and qualified people can enter and leave the public service while maintaining the highest ethical standards.

Second, we review and report on allegations of conflict of interest in a fair, independent and transparent manner. Third, and most importantly, we help Canadians maintain confidence that the actions of elected and appointed individuals are free from conflicts of interest and improper influence. All of our work supports this key objective.

The Office of the Commissioner employs about 50 people. Our organizational structure and processes are designed to support efficient operations and responsible stewardship of public funds. Efficiency is also central to our annual spending review.

For 2026-27, we are requesting a modest budgetary increase of $227,000. This represents a 2.5% increase and would bring our total budget to just under $9.4 million. The increase is largely attributable to cost pressures, including a 2% salary increase consistent with other parliamentary entities and a corresponding adjustment to the employer portion of the employee benefit plan, which is set by Treasury Board.

Our largest operational expense is our information technology services agreement, which we are obliged to make with the House of Commons. It represents $878,000, or 57%, of our operating budget. We work closely with the House to ensure that these systems remain secure and reliable, supporting both operational continuity and the protection of sensitive information.

We look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Commissioner. You took moins de temps, which we like.

Mr. Barrett, you have six minutes.

Go ahead, please.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands—Rideau Lakes, ON]

Does the current law, or the law as it's currently written, adequately address perceived conflicts, or does it, in its current form, leave room for public doubt, even where formal compliance boxes have been checked?

[Konrad von Finckenstein]

As you're aware, Mr. Barrett, I made some suggestions in our annual report that the act is out of date and needs amendment. One of the things I mentioned was putting into the act the issue of apparent conflicts of interest. For the public, it's very difficult to make the distinction between apparent conflict and real conflict. If you really want the public to have good confidence in the honesty of government, then you should avoid apparent conflicts of interest.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands—Rideau Lakes, ON]

That's one that you would have noted was in the recommendations that this committee made in its report reviewing the Conflict of Interest Act, yes?

[Konrad von Finckenstein]

Yes.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands—Rideau Lakes, ON]

In your response, you spoke to shoring up that public confidence. When you were last at the committee, or if not the last time, then in one of our recent conversations at committee, I raised the sale of controlled assets as the standard for divestment. Your answer, which I'm paraphrasing, was that the issues of valuation and structuring created difficulties, but you didn't say that divestment by sale was the wrong standard. This is something that the committee recommended to the House, a sale-only rule for the Prime Minister.

Is it fair to say that your concern is about implementation and not simply about the principle of stricter divestment and, as the committee recommended, divestment by sale?

[Konrad von Finckenstein]

Our present act makes it quite clear that we want to pursue a dual mandate. On the one hand, we want to avoid conflicts of interest and we want people to have confidence in their elected and appointed officials. On the other hand, at the same time, we want to make sure that the best people come and serve in the public service and that they can do so without any harm to their existing financial position, their connections, etc. That's the balance of it: Make sure that the best people come in, but don't make it so expensive and so difficult that they won't come.

Parliament has made its choice. It's in the act. As you know, there is a provision that if there are controlled assets, you can put them in a blind trust. That was a choice that Parliament made. It can make changes or not, but as it is right now, that's how the act is set up and that's what I administer.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands—Rideau Lakes, ON]

Parliament also decided not to have perceived conflicts included, yet you've recommended that they be included. This committee has made that recommendation. The committee has also made the recommendation about sales. I appreciate your caution, but it is something that you are able to speak to.

The difficulty for the public office holder is the issue that you raised. If Parliament addressed valuation and tax issues, would the committee's recommendation for an arm's-length sale be a stronger safeguard for public confidence than the current blind trust option?