Finance Committee on May 29th, 2014

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

One of the questions in that was this. In any of those reports that you mentioned are now being done annually, or the quarterly reports, are the impacts on regional disparity part of that assessment of how ACOA is doing? I know that it's one of its mandates to see what's going on at a regional level rather than project by project. Is that part of the reporting, that you're aware of?

[Denise Frenette]

Yes. On an annual basis, through our departmental performance report, we do report on our performance on a macro level. As I said, on a four-year cycle we evaluate all of our G and C programs to see the impact we're having with those programs.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Is the report on that four-year cycle made public?

[Denise Frenette]

Each individual evaluation report is made public and is posted on our agency website.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Okay.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Mr. Cullen.

Mr. Allen, please.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to Ms. Frenette for being here today.

I thank her for covering that, because she's right. When ACOA was set up, it was a five-year cycle, funded five, then requested for five. That's the way it was set up. Now that it's a permanent structure, it has that.

Basically what this does is align it with the other regional development agencies, which are also on a yearly reporting cycle, if you look at those, and the financial reports and your yearly performance report. This just makes sense.

So to the whole idea of the amendment being ruled out of order, Mr. Cullen should not despair because the reporting is actually much more robust than it was before.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

I hope he appreciates the comfort.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I was feeling a little sad for a moment, but I feel better now.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

All right.

(Clause 177 agreed to)

(Clause 178 agreed to)

Colleagues, we have the same witness and we'll move now to division 10, which deals with clauses 179 to 192. We don't have an amendment until clause 182. Can I group clauses 179 to 181 together?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

(Clauses 179 to 181 inclusive agreed to)

(On clause 182—Appointment to Agency)

We have LIB-14.1, and we'll go to Mr. McKay.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I'll probably want to do both together. It's probably useful, if that speeds things up.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

LIB-14.1 and LIB-14.2?

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Because they are related to each other. I'm under some disadvantage in that this is normally Mr. Brison's file. These are two amendments that we are basing upon the findings of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner for the wrongdoing of ECBC CEO John Lynn.

I'm just quoting from the report which says:

The investigation found that: Mr. Lynn committed a serious breach of ECBC’s Employment Conduct and Discipline Policy, which was ECBC’s own code of conduct at the time. This finding is as a result of the appointment of four individuals with ties to the Conservative Party of Canada or the Progressive Conservative Party of Nova Scotia into executive positions at ECBC with little or no documented justifications and without demonstrating that the appointments were merit-based.

The report also says:

There was an element of deliberateness to Mr. Lynn’s actions.... Mr. Lynn’s actions were incompatible with the trust that the Government of Canada and the public has placed in him as Chief Executive Officer.

There are two problems with Bill C-31 in light of the commissioner's wrongdoings. The two amendments seek to address these problems. Under clause 182, the individuals were improperly hired by Mr. Lynn. They are still at ECBC and have become permanent employees of the public service. Under clause 183, it singles out CEO Mr. Lynn as the only member of the board eligible for compensation or termination.

In quick summary, Mr. Chair, what we have is a serious breach of the ethical and hiring practices, yet there's a reward at the end, by turning these folks into permanent employees of the public service and giving Mr. Lynn a good payout.

The first amendment will ensure that an employee who was hired after June 1, which is when Mr. Lynn became a CEO, through a process that the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner considers to have been a wrongdoing, under paragraph 8(e) of the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act, would be excluded from the ECBC employees who have automatically become employees of the public service. It would prohibit them from becoming members of the public service.

The second amendment removes the exception of allowing the CEO, and only the CEO, to receive compensation on termination. It's not clear why the service decided to give the CEO the special treatment in the bill. Removing this is the only appropriate...given the report of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner's finding of wrongdoing.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much, Mr. McKay.

I have Mr. Keddy and then Mr. Cullen, please.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

I really do have to question how, on a budget bill, this becomes part of the discussion. It really is quite frankly, Mr. Chairman, inappropriate to use a legislative instrument to deal with an investigative report—or at least this legislative instrument.

The reality is—and let's just put all the ducks in line and get the facts straight instead of innuendo and trying to smear good people's reputations and talking about who may or may not be in the service because the previous government fast-tracked a lot of individuals to the civil service who I am sure are continuing to do good service to the country today.

The question is of John Lynn, and that's really where this should stay. His appointment as chief executive officer of Enterprise Cape Breton Corporation was terminated on May 27, 2014. His appointment was terminated with cause. The decision was taken as a result of findings from an independent investigation undertaken by the board of directors of the corporation that determined that Mr. Lynn's actions were incompatible with his position as CEO of ECBC.

You know, as a standard practice, the government doesn't pay compensation in this situation. You have to go back and also look at the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner, who found no fault on the part of the minister. The facts are out there. If you want to use this hearing to drag over what couldn't be achieved in question period and take another kick at the can.... But it's been dealt with.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Mr. Keddy.

Mr. Cullen.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

It's interesting. I'm just looking through some of our political history here in trying to see what the Liberal motion is here. Maybe it's because of experience that the amendment is so targeted in what it's attempting to do. I know in question period today, Chair, a scurrilous shot was sent by the New Democrats to the Conservatives calling them Liberals at one point, and the whole room reacted. It was awful.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

We're still in recovery.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

They're still in recovery.

We don't want to reward bad behaviour. I think Mr. Keddy's point here to this amendment was whether it was connected back to the minister and whatnot, and that's all for that investigation. But on this amendment, if it has been identified that there was an inappropriate appointment and then that appointment then hired other inappropriate appointments, the last thing we want to suggest is that's good behaviour.

I can remember the Prime Minister's words when he was in Atlantic Canada at one point and said there's a culture of defeatism here. I just saw this one quote that I thought I would bring up here because it's absolutely germane, the people in Atlantic Canada shouldn't “sit around waiting for favours”.

I suppose the idea is that it's who you know in the PMO. What this amendment, which we'll support, is trying to suggest is that, if what's been found out has been found out in terms of the way this appointment process happened and that people were rewarded for political connection, and certainly if that's what the public commission has found, then we would not want to just simply roll that into some kind of a permanent status.

So if that's what the amendment attempts to do, then we should all be supportive of it because what we don't want is to reward any sense of patronage or cronyism that goes on within the public service using the taxpayer dollars to reward people—who may be nice people and may be lovely and whatnot—who got their positions because of who they were connected to, which is what this case has been talking about through the integrity commissioner.

We disagree with the Conservatives' view on this, obviously, and will be supporting this amendment.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

I have Mr. McKay.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

I'll deal with Mr. Keddy's arguments in order. If he thinks this is out of order, well, if you haven't ruled it out of order, then it's in order and within the scope of the legislation that's been put forward by the government. It's a terrible thing that they are hoisted on their own petard. I feel badly for you.

As to the smearing of Mr. Lynn's reputation, well, there's nothing here that I'm smearing his reputation with. I'm just simply quoting from the report. I suppose if you think that the integrity commissioner is smearing Mr. Lynn's reputation, you should take it up with the integrity commissioner.

The core issue, Mr. Chair, is that in light of the findings of the commissioner, are we going to reward bad behaviour? Let's face it, if this amendment doesn't go through, the four individuals involved will automatically become members of the civil service with all the security that means, which is very fortunate for them, but not quite so fortunate for those who might have aspired to those positions.

My second point would be that Mr. Lynn has had some considerable benefit out of his appointment, and I don't know why, when he is being so rudely treated by the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner, he should get a reward for his bad behaviour.