I did say I'd take requests and I've been asked if I would start from the beginning on this important document. I think repetition is probably not part of the rules in terms of speaking to a motion. As much as I'd love to go back for those who have just joined us and go through this in the Finding Freeland exercise, I will finish this document, as it is in the interest of helping the translators and moving on to the next points I'd like to make on ministerial accountability.
For the interpreters, I'm sorry I can't refer you to this. You don't have page 479, so I will go more slowly. It reads:
Accountability is socially contingent, and while ministerial codes can be ambiguous, ministers know that they will have to at least justify their judgements, actions and decisions to cabinet, party—
At this stage, previously, just in case interpreters didn't get it, there is a Liberal Party convention this weekend here in Ottawa. I suggested that perhaps it might be efficient for the committee to relocate to the Ottawa convention centre, now called the Shaw Centre, in order to find Freeland and see if attendance would be more convenient for her there, perhaps before or after her fireside chat with the former first lady and senator Hillary Clinton.
She has found time for that, but apparently hasn't found time to be accountable here at the committee for her budget of—I was corrected earlier—$490 billion, as my colleague MP Lawrence said. I was underestimating her spending capability and I apologize for that.
The article continues:
—and parliamentary colleagues, as well as the prime minister. The ambiguity at least captures the complexity of executive accountability and better reflects the original convention, while emphasising the pre-eminent role of the prime minister in upholding individual ministerial responsibility.
Furthermore, whatever codes say or do not say, there is media and political pressure for ministers to have to provide some account of departmental actions. Often that account will be to blame the department or to claim 'plausible deniability'....
We saw that today, by the way, in the House, where all the evidence and leaked documents from security show that the government was informed two years ago about the attempts by China to interfere in the voting ability of a member of Parliament. We learned today from the Minister of Public Safety that he claims now to have only known about it on Monday. That may be true. It seems to me that it's a claim of plausible deniability. It could be incompetence or it could be that perhaps he's just not a player in the cabinet. While the Prime Minister's Office knew and was briefed—as we know, since his chief of staff said he reads all security documents—the Prime Minister may have kept him in the dark, as he appears to have kept other ministers like Jody Wilson-Raybould in the dark.
The article continues, saying, “but holding the department to account and instituting corrective action is part of a minister's role”, so I assume the Minister of Public Safety is somehow correcting the department's failure to inform him, as he claims. These CSIS agencies all report to him, yet apparently they told The Globe and Mail before they told him. I think it might take, as this author says, the minister to hold the department to account and institute corrective action, as is part of his role.
I'm surprised, actually, that he has time to come to question period now, because of this revelation. He obviously needs to be meeting with the institutions that report to him to find out what's going on there. He needs to be asking how come The Globe and Mail learned about this before he did—or before the Prime Minister, for that matter.
On page 479, towards the end of this study, it says:
The codes at least are an acknowledgement of the importance and existence of individual ministerial responsibility, which counters populist criticisms that it has become so weak as to effectively no longer exist. Stricter codes risk transforming ministerial responsibility from convention and removing prime ministerial discretion, which would have significant implications in these four countries...
I'll remind you that these four countries are Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United Kingdom. The report says, and I'll repeat:
...significant implications in these four countries as so many of the “rules” of the game are adaptable in order to accommodate changing political circumstances. Accountability has become more complicated so the convention has had to adapt, and while weakening in parts, is stronger in terms of being recognised as integral to parliamentary accountability.
That's the end of the paper. There are a long series of acknowledgements. Would you like me to go through some of those?
The author thanks “Jenny Lewis for organising and convening the Accountability workshop where this paper was first presented". I think these people deserve recognition, because it's an important paper.
The author continues his thanks:
...Janine O’Flynn for coordinating this special issue with Jenny and Helen Sullivan. Special mention to Jenny Menzies and the two anonymous reviewers who both engaged with the paper and helped me to draw out some new insights. Finally, the University of Melbourne provided funding for a larger project through an Early Career Researcher grant, and this paper is one of a series of articles and book chapters.
I'd like to read some of those books and book chapters. I'm wondering, though; in Canada we have a lot of issues around some of the academic funding structures, such as, mainly, our granting councils and the actual amount of co-sponsored Chinese government research, but I won't go there because I want to stay on the same issue of ministerial accountability.
The Library of Parliament, which is an institution I know we all depend on quite a bit, wrote a background paper entitled—I appreciate my colleague helping me—"Ministerial Staff: Issues of Accountability and Ethics".
It was first published in 2006, then revised in 2008 and reviewed again in 2012 by an author named Alex Smith. I don't know if he's still with the library.
I won't go through it all. I'm sure you'll be happy that I won't go through it all. Perhaps, though, some of the ministerial and other assistants there would like me to go through it all, because it deals with their responsibilities in accountability to Parliament. I will spare them that. Perhaps I'll make copies for them later.
I draw attention, for the interpreters, to page 2, section 3, called “Accountability”.
Mr. Chair, I will just go through this piece of research by our much-lauded—and deservedly so—Library of Parliament.
It says:
By legislation and convention—
There we go; we heard that in the academic study.
—ministers are accountable to Parliament for the operation of their departments.
Again there are similarities.
It goes on:
The senior public servant of the department, the deputy minister, is accountable to the minister, and in turn, public servants within the department are accountable through the bureaucratic hierarchy to the deputy minister. Similarly, ministerial staff—
That's for those around, and I used to be one of those.
—are accountable to their minister.
On behalf of the prime minister, the Privy Council Office provides general advice to ministers in a guide entitled “Accountable Government: A Guide for Ministers and Ministers of State”....
I think that document has now been revised under this government and has a new title, because they like to brand things with new titles but not really change anything. “Open and accountable government" was released in 2015.
I noticed that after eight years, it hasn't been revised. I don't blame them for not wanting to revise it, given the performance of some of the ministers in terms of ethics, because when these get revised, they become more difficult. Had this government revised this document, I think that they probably would have taken out some of these guidelines so that they're not in breach of their own rules and can continue to operate. Maybe it doesn't matter, since there are no sanctions for breaching these rules.
Page 2 of the library's report says in the last paragraph:
On behalf of the prime minister, the Privy Council Office provides general advice to ministers in a guide entitled “Accountable Government: A Guide to Ministers and Ministers of State”, which includes a section regarding ministerial staff. According to the guide, “Ministers and Ministers of State are personally responsible for the conduct and operation of their office.” While ministerial staff regularly interact with departments within the minister's responsibility, “[e]xempt staff—
That's what we call them here, because they're exempt from the rules of the public service.
—do not have the authority to give direction to public servants, but they can ask for information or transmit the Minister's instructions, normally through the deputy minister.”
I did that job for eight years. I'd say it's a little different than what happens practically. I rose up through special assistant to legislative assistant to policy adviser to executive assistant to chief of staff in the Mulroney government.
I know most of the staff who are here. Maybe their parents weren't even born when that happened; I don't know, but sometimes you can feel old in this job. I know that the job hasn't changed that much and that I often interacted. A good political staffer has good relationships with people at all levels in the department if they want to get things done and work well with the officials to develop policy for the betterment of our country. I could talk about that role and how important it is, and maybe I will later.
If I go back to this page 2, the last sentence of the last paragraph:
“Good working relations between the Minister's or Minister of State's office and the department...are essential in assisting the Minister and deputy minister in managing their departmental work.”
I will skip down now. For the translators, it's at the bottom of page 3 under section 4 of this report, in the section called “Controversy”. These are some examples that Mr. Alex Smith from the Library of Parliament wrote about in 2006. It was revised in several editions, but the last time was in 2012. It's about the role of ministers and accountability.
I'll give you advance warning. The first example—