Evidence of meeting #6 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 conacher.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
If you can give me a very brief response, Ms. Turnbull, I would appreciate that—very brief, please.
Professor, Faculty of Management, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
You can't create ethics rules around individuals, ever. That's not the point.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
Thank you.
That completes our first round.
Excuse me, Mr. Thériault, but your turn to speak lasted six minutes and 45 seconds.
We will now begin the second round.
You have five minutes, Mr. Hardy.
Conservative
Gabriel Hardy Conservative Montmorency—Charlevoix, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Professor Stedman and Dr. Turnbull.
I'm going to pick up where my colleague left off.
In a response, you said that in the current scenario, the Prime Minister could have stayed in the private sector, because it would have been more profitable for him to do so than to get involved in the public sector. That applies to the extent that someone wants to share their knowledge with the country. Everyone agrees on that.
However, could there be a scenario where the person knows a lot of people who would lose a lot of money if they were not elected? At that point, our laws would not be ready to deal with that person, because they would not be there for the good of the country, but rather to protect the interests of other people.
In that case, would there be a conflict of interest?
Professor, Faculty of Management, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
I'm sorry. What do you mean about a lot of people losing money?
Conservative
Gabriel Hardy Conservative Montmorency—Charlevoix, QC
Let's take the example of a person who manages portfolios. Knowing that a government may fall, people say they need someone who will protect their interests.
Would such a scenario cause a problem in Canada, as current laws are not designed to prevent it?
Professor, Faculty of Management, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
I want to make sure I understand your question. Do you mean somebody the Prime Minister would be thinking of in terms of their private interests?
Conservative
Gabriel Hardy Conservative Montmorency—Charlevoix, QC
It could be private interests. In the example you gave us, you say that a person who runs for prime minister will do so with good intentions, to improve the state of the country. In that case, we agree.
Is there an example of someone who entered politics, not necessarily to improve the state of the country, but rather to ensure that the people they did business with didn't lose money? That person would be in a good position to help them, but it would put the country in a difficult situation.
Do our laws protect us from situations like that?
Professor, Faculty of Management, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
I understand.
I think what we have to guard against that is disclosure. Even though we don't necessarily require people to enumerate the exact dollar amounts of the stocks they hold and we don't necessarily get the nitty-gritty on everything, we do have a broad picture of what kinds of affiliations the person has had and where they worked before. That way, the public has a way to say, “Look, it looks like this person is acting in the interests of a certain group and we don't want that.” That would create a political backlash.
Conservative
Gabriel Hardy Conservative Montmorency—Charlevoix, QC
We're kind of in that situation. We know, for example, that our Prime Minister meets with people without naming them, knowing that there may be a conflict of interest. We have a situation where the Prime Minister doesn't have to disclose all his holdings.
I completely agree with you when you talk about public opinion. Politics and our democracy are currently under attack because people no longer trust our institutions. We should be doing everything we can to regain the public trust.
That is our role, and the public has a right to access that information. Are we providing it? In the case before us today, we have a Prime Minister who, as recently as last week or the week before, was meeting with certain people, potentially putting him in a conflict of interest, but he was not required to declare it.
Professor, Faculty of Management, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
I see your point. In that case, it's not so much about what's in the Prime Minister's blind trust or ethics screen. It's about who he's talking to and what conversations he might be having and whether he has more pull with those people and that sort of thing.
I think it would be interesting to be clear about what sort of offence we think that person might be engaging in, in that context. If he's talking to people who...so what? What offence do you think he's...? What possible bad thing could be happening?
Conservative
Gabriel Hardy Conservative Montmorency—Charlevoix, QC
That needs to be clarified so that the public understands when there is a conflict of interest. The guardrails have to be clear so that the public trusts the process.
Do we agree on that?
Professor, Faculty of Management, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
If in the event, for example, the Prime Minister was having conversations with people, with corporate entities that he had relationships with, from an ethics perspective, the public has an interest in making sure that a public office holder doesn't do anything that benefits himself or benefits his friends and that sort of thing. The public would have an interest in knowing if there were any conversation the Prime Minister was having that would somehow confer some unfair benefit on people he knows or he's worked with before. It's important then for him to be transparent about who he's meeting with.
Conservative
Gabriel Hardy Conservative Montmorency—Charlevoix, QC
We agree that he should be transparent by disclosing his assets and providing the names of the people he meets so that the public can trust our institutions.
Earlier, Professor Stedman talked about candidates. Should there be an ethics screen for anyone who puts their name forward to run for office, as opposed to us having to deal with a problem once they're elected? Should a candidate be informed of the standards and code of ethics to be met before the person can put their photo on posters?
Conservative
Professor, Faculty of Management, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
No.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
Thank you.
Mr. Saini, you're up next, sir, for five minutes.
Go ahead, please.
Liberal
Gurbux Saini Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Professor Turnbull, a lot has been said about people not having faith in politicians. When we had the election four, five, six months ago, we had four leaders running for the office. Everybody knew what they were doing, what their interests were and how wealthy they are. Why would be now have an issue, when Canadians overwhelmingly elected a person they thought was fit to run the government?
Professor, Faculty of Management, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
I'm sorry. Are you talking about the Liberal leadership race? There were four candidates, ultimately....
Liberal
Professor, Faculty of Management, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
I'm so sorry. Can you ask me the question again? I thought you were talking about the Liberal leadership.
Liberal
Gurbux Saini Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
My question is this. There has been a lot of talk that people don't have faith in our politicians. I'm saying that there were four people running to be the Prime Minister of the country. People knew their background. People knew how wealthy they were. They still went with the person they thought was the best to lead the country.
Is there anything wrong with that?
Professor, Faculty of Management, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
Of course there isn't. People are going to vote the way they're going to vote. At the end of the day, I found in my own research about ethics and people's sense of what's ethical and what's not that it's not the things that I thought would bother people that actually bothered them. Sometimes it's things like the perks that politicians get that they don't, like the fact that politicians, at the end of the day, get a taxi chit to get home or have meals comped for them. People don't get these things, even though they're struggling financially.
The sorts of ethical questions that sometimes the public have in their minds don't necessarily match up with the big conflict of interest questions that we're talking about today, even though those things are important. I am not convinced that the public is concerned heavily about the conflict of interest potential or the ethical holdings or financial holdings of any of the party leaders.
Liberal
Gurbux Saini Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Thank you.
In your opinion, how can our government ensure that the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner's office has the necessary independence and the resources to effectively hold public office holders accountable?
Professor, Faculty of Management, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
I don't think there's necessarily a high public awareness about the role of the Ethics Commissioner and the way that the office works. I strongly doubt that. I've never seen any evidence to suggest that the public is acutely aware of what the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner does. I think the public becomes more aware when there's a scandal and when there's a lot of media coverage around something.
To the extent that people start to ask questions about the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner and the appointment, it's important, I think, to show that there are specific credentials that person should hold. It's not a political appointment. It's not something where the Prime Minister just says, “Okay, this is my friend and I trust that person so they're going to be the Ethics Commissioner.” There's the sense that there is an actual set of credentials the person has to meet, and then they're judged against those things. I think that's probably what the public would see. If they were trying to create a trust relationship with the commissioner, that's what it would be based on.