Finance Committee on Nov. 24th, 2020

[Mario Dion]

Mr. Chair, I don't know what to answer to that suggestion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Well, if you can't answer, you can't, Mr. Dion.

I would ask Ms. Jansen not to continue to go down that road concerning the family of an individual who is not a member of Parliament right now.

I'm getting calls for points of order from the room here. I've allowed considerable leeway on this, so try to hold it to the cabinet confidentiality request that we made in our submission to invite Mr. Dion and the Clerk here.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

I'm trying to wrap my mind around how the Ethics Commissioner makes his decisions. We received this letter, so I'm trying to truly understand how someone like him makes a decision. We know, for instance, that Mr. Morneau did not recuse himself from cabinet discussions about the CSSG—he said so himself—yet you're not allowed to see those cabinet documents. How can you actually do your job that way? I'm just really trying to wrap my mind around it.

[Mario Dion]

I think I suggested in my opening remarks that I'm pleased to have an opportunity to clarify that we did receive all the documents we need in order to conduct these two examinations, including cabinet confidences.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Okay. I'm just trying to wrap my mind around how exactly you go about making your decisions. For instance, you mentioned in your other ruling that Mr. Morneau had no involvement in the decision to fund the WE Charity student entrepreneurship initiative because he told you he didn't.

How exactly do you determine that he had no involvement? Do you simply take his word for it? Is that how that works?

[Mario Dion]

No. In fact, the team that conducts the examinations, as well as the legal team—they sound like they're big things, but we're talking about four people altogether—reviewed the sum total of the documents that I was talking about, as well as the submission made by Mr. Morneau. They recommended to me—and I accepted the recommendation—that, on the balance of probabilities, we were satisfied with Mr. Morneau's assertion. That's how it happens. That's how it works in any examination. It's on a balance of probabilities. We have to decide whether we accept the version offered by the person who is the subject of the examination or accept other assertions elsewhere. It's the totality of the evidence that leads us to a conclusion as to whether the act or the code have been contravened.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you.

Ms. Koutrakis, you have six minutes.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Dion, for being here before us today. I hope you and your family are keeping well. I know that you're working really hard with your team, and we're very grateful for the work that you and your team do.

Can you speak a bit more broadly about the ethical behaviour of our non-partisan public service? What policies or mechanisms are in place to ensure that our public servants will act in an ethical and unbiased manner?

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

I believe you're muted, Mr. Dion. We can't hear you.

[Mario Dion]

I'm back.

I'm happy to receive this question in order to clarify something that's not clear to everybody involved. The Conflict of Interest Act only applies to the most senior levels of government. We're not talking about the public servants at large. We're talking about Governor in Council appointees, ministers, exempt staff, period. We're not talking about directors, directors general, and up to and including assistant deputy ministers. They are governed by something different, by the code developed under another authority.

I'm not responsible for offering educational activities aimed at public servants. It's the responsibility of the Treasury Board and of each line department. My role is to focus on the people I've mentioned: the Prime Minister, the ministers, the secretaries of state, the Governor in Council appointees and such senior people, as well as the exempt staff.

We have 3,000 people, not the 400,000 people who are governed by the other authority.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you for that.

Do you think that there was political interference in the redaction of the Canada student service grant documents?

[Mario Dion]

As I said, we received the documents in their entirety. The question is hypothetical as far as we're concerned. I don't know. I haven't seen and analyzed what your committee received. However, from my perspective, there was no redaction.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

In your opinion, what policies or mechanisms are in place to guard against political interference in the redaction process?

[Mario Dion]

I think that Mr. Shugart tried to answer this question earlier.

This really isn't within my purview. By the way, we have the same power as a superior court of justice when it comes to requesting these documents. When we send a letter to an individual or an organization, I think that the letter is taken seriously. As I said, in the past three years, I've dealt with only one redaction attempt. The issue doesn't exist for me.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

If a committee came to a different conclusion on the same issue, would you find it helpful? Do you think that this could undermine trust in the process?

[Mario Dion]

No. I think that we have very different processes. The office has a non-partisan component, whereas a parliamentary committee by definition can be partisan, and often is. These are two different frameworks.

My job is to conduct an examination. I do so on my own initiative or when a parliamentarian asks me to do so. My job is to get the facts, analyze them, come to certain conclusions and report these findings to the Prime Minister pursuant to the act. That's how the Conflict of Interest Act works. I submit my report to the Prime Minister, and I release it to the public at the same time, an hour later or the same day. I release my report and I tell the Prime Minister that, in my opinion, the act has or hasn't been violated.

This framework is completely different from a parliamentary committee's framework.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you.

Do I have more time?

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

You have time for one more question.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

A recent independent audit of the administration of the CSSG by WE Charity, conducted by Mr. Matt Torigian, the former deputy solicitor general for the Province of Ontario, has shown that the government and the Prime Minister's Office did not predetermine that WE Charity would be selected to administer the program.

To what extent have you taken these findings into account, if you have, when investigating the administration of the CSSG?

I'd like to hear your thoughts on that.

[Mario Dion]

My team has received thousands and thousands of pages of documents. I do not know for a fact whether this report is among them, but I can assure you that, now that you've mentioned it, we will of course obtain a copy and review it to determine whether it contains any information useful to us.

In addition to what we seek and receive, we also, of course, on our own volition do web searches and obtain publicly available documents that pertain to our examination. You've just mentioned one about which I was not aware, but this doesn't mean that my team wasn't.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you.

We'll go to Mr. Fortin, followed by Mr. Julian.

Mr. Fortin.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Dion, for joining us today.

You saw all the documents produced following the July 7 motion. Is that right?

[Mario Dion]

My office received them and the investigator reviewed them. I haven't seen them yet.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

How many people in your office have read these documents? I imagine that it's a team effort. Did you share the pages? Does someone read the first 100 pages, and then another person continues?

[Mario Dion]

In this case, I think that the investigator read all the pages. He's supported by counsel, who also read all the pages. So it's two people.