Evidence of meeting #24 for Finance in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was documents.
A video is available from Parliament.
Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, House of Commons
The November motion was predicated on the documents that had initially been requested in July, so the argument would be that if it's not requested in July, it's not requested in November.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
It was requested, though. The motion said that all documents that had been requested in July should be provided to you unredacted, the only exception being cabinet confidences, not “cabinet confidences and documents that the government considered to lack relevance”.
That means you have still not received all the documents that the November motion indicated you should receive.
Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, House of Commons
It's up to the committee to interpret its motions. What I could point to is that if something is not part of the request from the committee initially in July—if it's not relevant to the July motion—it's arguable that it would not [Inaudible—Editor].
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Mr. Poilievre, Mr. Dufresne has the floor. Allow him to complete his answer.
Mr. Dufresne.
Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, House of Commons
I think it was complete.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
Allow me to clarify here. Are there a number of documents that the government blacked out and handed to you covered up, on the grounds that they were irrelevant? Is that what happened?
Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, House of Commons
There were some pages where an indication was out of scope—some pages that were not relevant.
Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, House of Commons
I'm not sure if I have that information. Let me see if I have that in my statistics. Perhaps this is something that Ms. Gauthier can provide, or we can provide it to the committee—
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
Come back to me on that.
The point is that in November, we as a committee decided to include specifically documents that had originally been blacked out on the grounds of relevance. In fact, the government had tried to broker a compromise to exclude those documents it considered to be irrelevant. We refused that, and we insisted that the documents and content that the government had previously said was irrelevant be included for your eyes to see. That is why the motion is very clear that the only exceptions are supposed to be those found in subsection 69(1) through subparagraph 69(3)(b)(ii) of the Access to Information Act. Those sections deal exclusively with cabinet confidentiality. The government was not authorized to exclude whatever it considered irrelevant.
You're now telling us that it applied an exemption that wasn't in that motion. Is that true?
Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, House of Commons
The ground of “not relevant” was not set out in the November motion; that is correct.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
That's right, because the only justifiable exclusion was for a cabinet confidence. Now you're telling me that we're just supposed to believe the government when it says that these additional redactions dealt only with things that were, in its eyes, not relevant.
I suspect the government believes nothing is relevant. If there were a smoking gun in the WE scandal, it would say, “Oh my goodness. That's not relevant. You don't need to see that. We'll just put a bit of black ink over it.” That's specifically why we insisted that you and not the government be responsible for determining relevance, but you're now revealing today that it has blacked out all kinds of content—potentially whole pages or more—on the grounds that it didn't consider them relevant.
Is there anything inaccurate about what I've just said?
Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, House of Commons
I've stated that there are some pages that are redacted based on relevance.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
Jeez, they really have something to hide here, folks. They're going some distance.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Thank you, both.
We'll now go to Ms. Dzerowicz, followed by Ms. Gill.
Liberal
Julie Dzerowicz Liberal Davenport, ON
Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Dufresne, for being here with us today.
I'll start off with a question beginning where Mr. Poilievre ended. If portions of documents that were not relevant had been left in, and if, in fact, the government had provided you with all of the pages of the irrelevant documents in its possession, do you believe it would have helped or hindered your work?
Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, House of Commons
I think the issue is whether the committee wants me to look behind the redactions on the basis of relevance. That's really the determination for this committee. One interpretation would be if it's not relevant, it's not requested at all in the initial motion, so it was never requested. However, it's up to the committee to decide how much it wants to review.
Liberal
Julie Dzerowicz Liberal Davenport, ON
Also, if we had not given it, then no one would ever have noticed whether it existed or not.
I want to go back a little. We started with the July 7 motion, which requested a certain number of documents. Then you indicated to us that our civil servants decided that they were going to additionally exclude certain bits of information as per the Access to Information Act, and you listed those very well in your comments, noting that they are the personal information, the third party, the solicitor-client privilege grounds, etc.
I want to be clear. Have you seen any evidence that there was any political interference in applying the Access to Information Act, or was this done just by the civil servants?
Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, House of Commons
From what I saw, it appears to have been done by civil servants. With regard to grounds, I can't tell and I can't really know that, but I can say that they have been applied in a way that, in my view, is consistent with those definitions in the Access to Information Act.
Liberal
Julie Dzerowicz Liberal Davenport, ON
I believe you've also indicated that it is fairly typical for our civil servants to apply this type of Access to Information Act lens.
Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, House of Commons
I have seen it from time to time.
As I say, it's something I raise with committees, in the sense that in my view it's up to committees to decide whether they will accept those grounds, but it is a practice that we see the government taking.
Liberal
Julie Dzerowicz Liberal Davenport, ON
Mr. Dufresne, could you explain what would be the public interest behind actually excluding things like solicitor-client privilege and things like consultations or deliberations in advice to ministers? What would be the public interest in our civil servants doing so?
Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, House of Commons
The public interest ground behind Parliament having those included in the Access to Information Act as exceptions for solicitor-client privilege is the need to ensure confidentiality, so that clients can obtain solicitor-client advice. The deliberations of government have to do with receiving frank advice when making decisions and considering options. Third party information is to protect competitive positions, trade secrets and other matters for third parties. Personal information is to protect individuals' personal information and dignity in these types of information. There are some public policy considerations behind those grounds. In large measure, they have to do with that information being made public.
As I stated in my remarks, committees ought to give weight to those public policy factors, in my view, but it is up to committees to decide how to balance them. There may be different circumstances and there may be different options in certain instances. Speaker Milliken's decision on the Afghan detainee issue had to do with national security—certainly a major public policy consideration—and the House and the Speaker found that the committee nonetheless had the power to request that information. However, they put in place a mechanism so that it could be done confidentially.