Finance Committee on Nov. 24th, 2020

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Right. I understand.

[Mario Dion]

—but apart from that, no. That's what I've been told by my team.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Okay, that is very interesting.

Have you ever encountered a situation in which the government has applied cabinet confidence as a rationale for excluding evidence, preventing you from properly executing your investigatory function?

[Mario Dion]

I've already mentioned, Mr. Chair, what we call the “Trudeau II Report”—the SNC-Lavalin report, as it's called by some.

That was the only instance in which we sought but did not obtain—decided not to insist but did not obtain—the full gamut of documents we were seeking from the government.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Did that prevent you from full discharging your investigatory duties?

[Mario Dion]

It did not prevent me from reaching the conclusion we reached in the report. That's why I decided to proceed in the absence of the additional documents.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

But it does say the following in your report:

Because of my inability to access all Cabinet confidences related to the matter, I must, however, report that I was unable to fully discharge the investigatory duties conferred upon me by the Act.

Is that accurate?

[Mario Dion]

Yes. It reflects the well-known maxim that you don't know what you don't know.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Right.

[Mario Dion]

But I decided pragmatically that we had to come to a conclusion, so I did, back last year.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Yes. So even without all the information that the government deprived you of, you were able to conclude that the Prime Minister had violated the law, and so you just went ahead with your conclusion. I understand that, but it is clear that the government's unwillingness to provide you with all of this evidence rendered you, in your words, “unable to fully discharge the investigatory duties conferred” upon you by the act.

[Mario Dion]

That's what I wrote in the report, and I stand by that, of course—

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Right.

[Mario Dion]

—but I did make the decision not to go back to the Clerk, as you mentioned earlier.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

I understand, but still it is clear the government's use of “cabinet confidences” as an excuse prevented you from doing your duty and completing the full scope of those duties under the Conflict of Interest Act.

Were you able to see any evidence to confirm the information they were withholding was in fact cabinet confidentiality?

[Mario Dion]

No, because I didn't see the information.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Right. So you have to—

[Mario Dion]

That's the egg and the chicken problem. You don't know what there is, therefore you cannot really assess anything.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

So you can't be sure the information the government claims was a cabinet secret was in fact cabinet secrets.

[Mario Dion]

That's right.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

So now the government is telling us, once again, that they can't give us evidence because it's all cabinet secrets. We had the Clerk of the Privy Council tell us today that he can't confirm that these so-called secrets ever reached the cabinet table.

Do you have any way of telling us how we can unravel the mystery of whether these are in fact cabinet secrets they are depriving us of?

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Last question, Pierre.

[Mario Dion]

I'm afraid I don't have any secrets to offer on this one.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

So we'll just have to take the Prime Minister's servant, whom the Prime Minister can fire and whom he hires, at his—

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

A point of order, Mr. Chair.