Finance Committee on March 4th, 2021

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Dufresne, for your testimony before the finance committee this afternoon.

I'd like to add my comments to Mr. Poilievre's comments calling into question my participation here as a Liberal member of the finance committee. As everybody knows, I'm a relatively new MP. It's my first mandate, but I can tell you that nobody has ever questioned my integrity or whether I, as a Liberal member or otherwise, have negotiated in good faith. I don't appreciate, and I want this on the record, comments shaming me and my Liberal caucus members on this committee, because I know that everybody on this committee, regardless of party, works in good faith. I'd like to believe that we are given the same courtesy.

Mr. Dufresne, how important is it for a government to review information that is considered cabinet confidence or irrelevant to the issue at hand, without sharing this information with the office of the law clerk? Why are these safeguards in place?

[Philippe Dufresne]

I think the Clerk of the Privy Council testified to that more eloquently than I could, in terms of why the government acts and feels the way it does. What I can say is that the government has, the public service and the clerks of the Privy Council, consistently defended cabinet confidences, irrespective of political party and power. We have a neutral, non-partisan public service in this country. They serve the interests of the executive branch in a non-partisan, impartial way, as my office serves the interests of the legislative branch.

In terms of cabinet confidence, as I said, the testimony from the clerk was eloquent and talked about the necessity for ministers to be able to speak frankly and to have discussions in cabinet. Once the decision is made, cabinet solidarity requires all to defend the decision, and that needs to be protected. That's the basis for the government's....

The court quite rightly noted that cabinet confidences have been recognized by the Supreme Court of Canada, so it is not something to be taken lightly. My point here today is that, in my view, the House, as the grand inquest of the nation, does have the power to request all information but should give weight, and perhaps significant weight, to some of those public policy considerations.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you for that. Thank you for echoing what I too believe: that we have an amazing impartial civil service branch, and we should never, ever—either indirectly or directly—accuse them of being anything but impartial. I thank them for their service.

With some members of this committee suggesting that information considered cabinet confidences or irrelevant should be reviewed by those outside of the government and members of the public service, are you at all concerned that this may create a dangerous precedent going forward?

I would also like to hear your comments, Mr. Dufresne, on how we could do better as a committee when we put forward motions like this. How can it be more clear so that we don't run into these issues going forward?

[Philippe Dufresne]

On the issue of whether it would create a dangerous precedent for the committee or for my office to review cabinet confidences, I would simply point out that committees and the House have been creative in the past, including in the Afghan detainee matter, which dealt with very confidential issues of national security. The Speaker noted that members of Parliament ought to be trusted, that they have democratic legitimacy. If need be, as was the case in that case, there could be some sworn statements of confidentiality and those types of measures. My response to that point is that there may well be ways of achieving the necessary levels of safety, even for something like cabinet confidences.

In terms of your second question...I'm sorry. Can you repeat the second part of your question?

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

The second part was looking to you for guidance on how we can do this better going forward.

[Philippe Dufresne]

The more that committees, in their motions, can set out the grounds that they consider acceptable for redactions, the better it will be, because it is the committee's authority to make those determinations. That would avoid situations where there are grounds put forward that the committee has not necessarily adopted, which create the types of issues that have occurred in this matter.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Do I have time for one more?

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

We'll give you one more.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

If, in the wording of the motion, we had specifically included that we should use legislative standards, would that have made a difference in how the documents were presented?

[Philippe Dufresne]

It certainly would have strengthened the argument that those grounds ought to be included. My advice would be to be as specific as possible—either set the grounds themselves or, if referring to a statute, refer to a specific statute. Again, what matters is not so much the form but that the committee turn its mind and confirm that it is endorsing those grounds or any given process.

As I say, sometimes the issue is whether to make the document public to the world, as opposed to making it known to the committee members, who may well need to know but it may need to be maintained as confidential and not go beyond the committee members, for instance.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you, both.

Ms. Gill, we'll go with you for about three minutes, and the same with Mr. Julian.

Ms. Gill.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would have liked to respond to my colleague from Vimy with regard to the best way to do things. Here, it's all about trust. It's a matter of trusting the committee, but also trusting the elected officials, by extension, who represent Quebeckers and Canadians. We can see that it has become a standard practice for officials to make redactions. Instead, we should trust our elected officials. We should have confidence in their ability to protect confidential information.

In his remarks, Mr. Dufresne outlined five ways for the committee to protect confidential information. Why not use these options? I don't have all the figures. However, we heard that about 15% of the documents were redacted. I'm concerned about this. I think that the committee orders documents to be produced, not the Prime Minister or his office. As I just said, there are ways for the committee to protect confidential information.

Mr. Dufresne, we heard about 5,000 pages of documents related to the WE scandal. Of course, the committee didn't ask for all these documents to be produced. However, if it had done so and had analyzed all the documents in camera, to ensure confidentiality, of course, do you think that it would have found additional relevant information? Again, the committee must determine whether the information is relevant to its study.

[Philippe Dufresne]

It's hard for me to answer that question. At first glance, if the documents were included in the response, it means that they were relevant. Our role was to look at the documents to determine whether any information fit with the grounds provided.

I want to clarify something. The reference to the percentage concerned the number of pages, not the number of documents. Mr. Gauthier told me that the irrelevant documents that were included in the July disclosure and that we didn't receive amounted to about 20 pages in the second disclosure.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Thank you.

Do I have any time left, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Yes, you do.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

I'll go back to my first question.

You said that, on a few occasions, officials decided to redact documents without being asked to do so by a committee. You spoke about the Afghanistan case. Do you remember other cases where this has happened?

[Philippe Dufresne]

I need to think about the other committees that conduct investigations. I can tell you that this has happened before. It's a common practice. According to the evidence given by the Clerk of the Privy Council, the public service seems to be taking this approach. The Privy Council Office considers that it's bound by the Access to Information Act and that it has no choice but to proceed in this manner.

We see this practice and it comes up from time to time, as it did with the documents concerning Afghanistan.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

I understand that you don't recall all the details. However, could you send the response to the committee?

[Philippe Dufresne]

With the committee team, we could try to determine the prevalence of this practice, to give you an idea of the order of magnitude.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

You could also check what practice is in place regarding content. Sometimes it's a matter of quality, not quantity.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you both.

We'll move to Mr. Julian for about three and a half to four minutes and then we'll go to, I believe, Mr. Kelly.

Mr. Julian.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Gauthier and Mr. Dufresne, thank you again for being here today. We're learning a great deal.

According to the latest figures that you just gave Ms. Gill, roughly speaking, over 620 pages were wholly or partially redacted. Is that figure correct?

[Philippe Dufresne]

If it would be helpful to you, we can send you written confirmation of these statistics. However, I think that the figure is indeed around 600 pages or a little more than that.

Nevertheless, I want to make it clear that whole pages aren't redacted. In some cases, a small part of the page is redacted, but it still counts as a redacted page.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Yes, but sometimes a whole page is redacted. I understand the need to be accurate. I'm glad that you made this clarification. My Liberal colleague suggested that only a few phone numbers were redacted. However, in the vast majority of cases, it was more than that.

We received documents just before the prorogation and after the filibusters that dominated the work of the Standing Committee on Finance for a few months.

First, about 1,000 pages of documents were wholly or partially redacted, right?

[Philippe Dufresne]

I'll need to confirm this information.

You should know that my office also redacted these documents, as requested by the committee. As I said in my August letter, my office redacted the names of officials, given the committee's reference to protecting officials in this matter.

So some of the redactions came from me and some came from the government.