Evidence of meeting #5 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was assets.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Professor Emeritus, School of Public Policy & Administration, York University, As an Individual
I think that would support the perception of independence.
In previous testimonies before this committee, I have argued that when the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner is selected, it's very important that this person be acceptable to both the government and the opposition, because it's very important for that person to have the trust of both sides of the House.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
Thank you, Mr. Greene.
Mr. Sari, I gave you a little more time, since you had to repeat your question.
Mr. Thériault, you have the floor for six minutes.
Bloc
Luc Thériault Bloc Montcalm, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Professor Greene, first of all, I'd like to thank you for doing us the honour of being with us and showing so much generosity by accepting the invitation on such short notice.
I understand that you're in favour of ethics that are more proactive than reactive, that look forward rather than backward. That means not waiting until there are conflicts of interest, but getting ahead of them and providing training and information.
One part of my political action is to reintroduce ethics into politics, not the other way around. However, the committee still has an obligation to ensure that we set the highest ethical criteria so that the public trusts the work of institutions, including the one we represent.
You mentioned the Prime Minister, Mr. Carney. Clearly, his situation before he became Prime Minister required more measures to govern at least the appearance of conflict of interest. When there is an appearance of conflict of interest, isn't that a red flag that indicates that a great deal of screening must be done precisely to avoid a conflict of interest?
Professor Emeritus, School of Public Policy & Administration, York University, As an Individual
Thank you very much for your question.
It depends on the individual situation, and I very much agree with you that the approach should be proactive.
I've interviewed more than 10 provincial ethics commissioners over time, and that's why they have felt that their personal meetings with the elected members are so important: It's because they become familiar with the situation of each individual member through the disclosure statements and, based on their experience, they can look for the possibilities of potential conflicts of interest. They can tell that person, “These are the kinds of things that I would say to be careful about. If you have any questions, come and see me. I want to prevent you from getting into a real conflict of interest situation, whether it's a real situation or a perception of conflict of interest.”
I don't know much about your system of advisers—how it works and how many of you actually meet your advisers in person and the kinds of advice they give to you—but I think there's a lot of work that your committee could do to see if that system could be improved in some way.
Bloc
Luc Thériault Bloc Montcalm, QC
The current Prime Minister was the head of Brookfield, a company that manages $1 trillion, controls 916 companies and whose interests include the five major areas covered by Bill C‑5.
Without disclosing Mr. Carney's interests in Brookfield and other companies, the screen that is applied to Prime Minister Carney through his chief of staff and the clerk has not been looked into, as far as we know. I asked the Commissioner whether it had, and he didn't answer. Don't you think that's a bit lacking for a conflict of interest screen?
From an ethical standpoint, don't you think that having held certain positions in the private sector makes a person incompatible with the office of Prime Minister?
Professor Emeritus, School of Public Policy & Administration, York University, As an Individual
Let me deal with your second question first, because that's a new one that I haven't thought of before.
I'm an optimist. I think that no matter what someone's background is or has been, everybody should be capable of becoming prime minister, although it's good to have a runway in order to prepare for this, and of course, in the last year, we haven't had much of a runway.
Can you remind me, please, of what your first question was?
Bloc
Professor Emeritus, School of Public Policy & Administration, York University, As an Individual
Oh, yes.
We have to see the current—
Bloc
Luc Thériault Bloc Montcalm, QC
The Prime Minister, not just any cabinet minister, makes all the decisions. He sets all the political and economic directions. Even though there is a blind trust and the Prime Minister doesn't know how much money he's going to earn, the decisions he makes will necessarily increase his assets. He knows that, even if he doesn't know the amount.
Do you think the conflict of interest screen that was applied is sufficient?
Conservative
Professor Emeritus, School of Public Policy & Administration, York University, As an Individual
There will be some situations when perhaps the chief of staff will say to the Prime Minister, “This particular piece of legislation, I'm afraid, might affect significantly the value of your assets that went into the trust.” Maybe for this particular thing, it's time to actually go beyond the screens to disclose what is still in the trust and say, “This is what I've done. This is my decision. I've recused myself and I leave it up to the public to decide whether I've done the right thing.”
There may well be some difficult decisions to make in the future about this, but once again, these are complex questions, and I really hope that there will be further studies about them.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
Thank you, Mr. Greene.
Thank you, Mr. Thériault.
That concludes the first round. We will now begin the second round.
Michael Cooper, you have five minutes. Go ahead, sir.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Professor Greene, I'd like to ask you some questions about ethics screens that can be set up by the Ethics Commissioner, pursuant to section 29 of the act, in respect of public office holders.
At the end of your opening statement, you spoke of the importance of public confidence in the robustness of our ethics laws. In that regard, there has been some criticism of ethics screens from the standpoint of transparency, insofar as they effectively enable a public office holder to get around the reporting requirements under subsection 25(1) of the Conflict of Interest Act, which requires a public office holder to publicly report each occasion that they recuse themselves in order to avoid a conflict of interest.
I'd be interested in your thoughts.
Professor Emeritus, School of Public Policy & Administration, York University, As an Individual
In my past life, when I worked for the Alberta government, my wife was an auditor, and she sometimes was asked to audit some of the agencies that I was responsible for. Ethics screens had to be set up for both of us, so I understand being covered by an ethics screen. You have to ask a lot of hard questions about the specific situations. It's hard to generalize about them, but in the end, I think it's up to the integrity of the people involved to make sure that they're trying to make decisions that are as impartial as possible and are in the public good.
You have to be able to defend your actions as being ethical and in the public good, and there isn't a perfect cast-in-stone solution. It depends on each individual situation.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB
I think what you have said, and what I understand you to have said, is that we are, with respect to the Prime Minister's ethics screen, for example, to simply trust the Prime Minister and also the Clerk of the Privy Council and the Prime Minister's chief of staff, both of whom serve at the pleasure of the Prime Minister.
Can you understand that many Canadians, from the standpoint of having confidence that the ethics screen is working, might find that wanting?
Professor Emeritus, School of Public Policy & Administration, York University, As an Individual
I think that many Canadians don't understand the difference between a potential conflict of interest and a real conflict of interest.
All of you—and I'm sure you yourself—have found yourself in a potential conflict of interest. There's no corruption involved in that. It's simply part of life. You have to take appropriate measures to make sure potential conflicts don't become real conflicts or apparent conflicts. If you don't take those steps, or other people don't advise you to take those steps, then there's trouble.
Many Canadians see potential conflicts of interest on the horizon for Prime Minister Carney because of who he is and his background, but there are many—
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB
If I may, sir, what's lacking is transparency. We're simply left to trust.
Again, I think that is problematic, and again, how is that better than simply requiring that the Prime Minister publicly disclose, publicly report, each and every time a conflict of interest or potential conflict of interest arises with respect to Brookfield or any of the companies—the 89 companies—that are part of that vast ethics screen?
Professor Emeritus, School of Public Policy & Administration, York University, As an Individual
Yes, it's a very complex question, because that sort of information might create problems on its own. There may be dishonest people who want to try to impress the Prime Minister by investing in those assets. There may be foreign governments that may try to influence Canada by investing in the Prime Minister's confirmed assets. There are all kinds of problems that could result from being overzealous.
I think the system we have right now, based on our 40 years of experience with these kinds of things, works as well as it can. It's not perfect. There will need to be changes made in the future.
As I say, these are such complex questions. Maybe it's time for a royal commission to look into them more thoroughly.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
Thank you, Mr. Greene. Thank you, Mr. Cooper.
Ms. Church, go ahead, please, for five minutes.
September 24th, 2025 / 5:10 p.m.
Liberal
Leslie Church Liberal Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Dr. Greene, thank you for being with us today, and thank you for acknowledging, I think, the shared fond memories we have of being at two great institutions in Canada, the University of Alberta and the University of Toronto, which are also my alma maters.
I think it's significant that Parliament enumerated, within the objectives of the Conflict of Interest Act, that the very purpose of the act included an objective to, “(d) encourage experienced and competent persons to seek and accept public office; and (e) facilitate interchange between the private and public sector.”
Can you talk a little about why you think those objectives might be an important piece to the framework that we're discussing today?
Professor Emeritus, School of Public Policy & Administration, York University, As an Individual
We want people who have a broad range of experience in many different sectors of society to get involved in public life. To create rules that are unnecessarily strict, to the point that they discourage good people from getting involved in politics, I think is counterproductive.
It's important to have rules that are strong enough so that most Canadians think that the people getting involved in politics have high ethical standards. I mentioned the Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing, which reported in 1991. One of the exercises that we undertook was to have a couple of days of meetings with representatives of all the parties. I think we chose five women and five men from every party that existed in 1991 to talk about ethics and about how to promote ethics.
One thing I remember from those two days of meetings with the equal number of men and women is that many women said that they were reluctant to get involved in politics because the ethical standards were so low and that if there were stricter standards, more women would get involved in politics. The men tended to be of a different point of view—if you're too strict, you'll keep too many good people out—so it's a question of finding a balance.
As I said, I am interested in studying ethics in politics because I want Canadians to have a high opinion of people who get involved in politics.
Liberal
Leslie Church Liberal Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
If it's important to have a framework, a strong and trusted framework, and a blind trust was created in that vein, then in your view, what are some of the indices of what would make a strong trust, such as the terms of the trust and the requirements that are built in when one establishes a trust? What do you think gives this system its strength?
Professor Emeritus, School of Public Policy & Administration, York University, As an Individual
I think that having trustees who have integrity and who can be trusted to manage the affairs competently and ethically is important. I think it's important to have people helping with the screens, such as the Clerk of the Privy Council, to make sure that the screens are working properly. That's a big job. I hope the Clerk of the Privy Council has some assistance with regard to that.
Anyway, we will see how the current system works, but I think it's really important for you, on this committee, to try to make sure that there are high standards that Canadians have trust in.
Getting back to the royal commission, some of the male participants in that two-day conference said that they didn't want higher ethical standards because their opponents would use them to criticize them. That would be unethical, so I think it's important to make sure that ethical standards are used to make sure that the system is as ethical as possible and is not used to jump on your opponents.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
Thank you, Mr. Greene.
Thank you, Ms. Church.
Mr. Thériault, you have the floor for five minutes.
Bloc
Luc Thériault Bloc Montcalm, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Professor Greene, it's often said that public office holders, such as the Prime Minister, would just have to recuse themselves when a decision had to be made that could affect their holdings in a blind trust. I imagine that will happen quite often when Bill C‑5 is implemented. If someone has to recuse himself 60, if not 100 times during his term, is he in the right job?