Government Operations Committee on June 19th, 2008

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

Then let us get to that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Please, let's return to Mr. Angus.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair. I understand my colleague is getting a little rattled by the line of questioning because it's going back again to the role of the PMO in this.

So CTV stands by their story. It's a very serious thing when an ambassador for Canada says, “I wasn't quoted”, or “I was misquoted”, or “That's not true”, and CTV stands by the story and Michael Wilson says, “Oh, well, there may have been 'miscommunication'.” That, to me, is diplomatic jive for “I just shot my foot off.”

It's after this that someone produces the memo. The question here is why we are focused on the memo and not on the fact that there's a clear lineup of involvement of a PMO spin doctor and a PMO political appointee who have obviously spoken to the media to try to derail a story that affected the U.S. presidential primary but had to be derailed because it was threatening the credibility of a prime minister in a minority situation.

Why not look at that?

[Kevin Lynch]

I can start by saying what I said at the outset.

The scope was to look at both, to look at the allegations of alleged verbal disclosures, what they may or may not have been, who they may have been delivered to, and the issue of the unauthorized disclosure of a sensitive diplomatic report, both of which were important at the time and became the scope of what the Prime Minister asked us to look at.

If you look at our report, Mr. Angus, you'll see that in the timeline we and the investigators have tried to sort out, in a sense, the various kinds of interactions and now provide a much greater clarity about what people may or may not have said than was available as speculation at the time. I think that's why it's very mportant, as Mr. Cummins mentioned, to establish the timeline first and foremost.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you for that.

I guess my concern is that in the recommendations, who gets the blame? It's the unknown staffers. There is nothing in this that says that there has to be responsibility taken by the Prime Minister's spin doctors and by political appointees who are ambassadors not to shoot their foot off and influence and interfere with the U.S. primary. That, to me, is the fundamental recommendation that's missing.

Speaking of recommendations, I was very interested when Mr. Cummins said very clearly—and I think he's correct—that Mr. Brodie hadn't done anything wrong. You said that his comments were in the public domain, that they weren't confidential, and that it was just as though people were talking about the World Series. He didn't leak anything. No, he didn't leak anything; he was seeding a story.

Yet the one recommendation that's very clear is that when people like Mr. Brodie seed stories to the media, they are not to be named. That's very clear in here. Mr. Brodie is to be exempted so that he can go into a lock-up or he can go anywhere and seed stories to influence a media story. Yet the media are being told to treat this as confidential when clearly the investigators didn't see Mr. Brodie's position as confidential. Why the contradiction?

[Kevin Lynch]

I'll turn to Mr. Cummins in a moment, but the comment on the budget lock-up speaks to the issue of clarity of the rules of the game. In a budget lock-up, you have complex budget documentation. You have a great number of officials from various departments and you have people from ministers' offices there.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

He was not speaking about the budget. He was seeding a story about the U.S. Democratic primary, which is completely different. I think Mr. Cummins is correct. That wasn't confidential information.

Here was the Prime Minister's chief spin doctor, taking him aside and saying he had just been in Washington and not to worry because this NAFTA stuff was going to blow over, and we had it on good authority. The media should not be on the hook for keeping their mouth shut when they're told that.

[Kevin Lynch]

Mr. Angus, I guess the intent of the recommendation is not to put anybody on the hook, but to be absolutely clear about the rules of the game for everybody. If you want officials to provide the maximum amount of information of all sorts in budget lock-ups, then you'll have to be clear it wasn't directed at anyone, and it's actually just for the budget lock-ups to work around.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

But it's directed at the media. You're protecting the ass of the PMO spin doctor. There is nothing in these recommendations that says that people like Ambassador Wilson need to go back and get trained on how to speak to the media on such a sensitive issue, or how Mr. Brodie has to actually take responsibility.

We see in these recommendations that we're going to do an online training course for diplomats, because they didn't somehow know their job. Mr. Brodie doesn't have to worry, because from now on if media are going to be allowed into a lock-up they have to keep their mouths shut about what stories are being seeded to them, or who is seeding them.

[Kevin Lynch]

I'll turn to Mr. Cummins, but I'll just reiterate that you raised the recommendation about the rules of the game for the lock-up. I was just being very clear that if everybody in a lock-up understands the rules, it works well. There is a lack of clarity. It's useful to have that clarity or else it will not work in the way it's worked for many years, which I think has been effectively.

Mr. Cummins.

[Patrick Cummins]

I wanted to bring a point of clarification. I believe Mr. Angus on two occasions indicated that Mr. Brodie doesn't remember speaking to the reporter, and that either the reporter is lying or Mr. Brodie is lying.

Maybe I misunderstood your characterization. You will hear from Mr. Brodie later himself, so he can speak for himself. But Mr. Brodie has never denied to us and I should say he has always recognized that he did speak to the reporter in lock-up. That's never been an issue. What he doesn't remember is speaking about NAFTA.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

That's the issue we're talking about. We're not talking about the budget, and whether he spoke to them. It says he doesn't remember speaking to them about NAFTA.

[Patrick Cummins]

That's right. But he never denied speaking to reporters, actually, in the lock-up.

Secondly, my observation and characterization of the information he provided was that it was in the public domain. All I can tell you is that that was being talked about in the capital, and I can assure you that in the investigation there is no doubt that there was no briefing on NAFTA for the chief of staff by anybody at the embassy.

That was not the purpose of the trip, and it was incidental. It would have been a discussion, but only in the same vein that it's a topic of conversation pertinent today around the Hill. That's all I'm saying.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

It appears there may be a vote. We will find out the length of the bells.

We will take a break to vote, and if we're finished with these particular witnesses, we will come back for the next witness. There are more questions.

I'm going to make a comment here. There are thousands and thousands of these diplomatic notes that float everywhere around the word every day. It's passing strange that somehow this one surfaced just at the right time.

Unfortunately for you, gentlemen, you made a report about the machinery of government. From what I can see, there's a lot more politics than machinery of government. You can only make comments on machinery of government. Therefore, your report is as complete as you can make it. As Mr. Cummins said, you cannot go and interrogate the Americans.

Politics has really been at play here rather than the machinery of government, and somehow the leak of the particular document happened at a very opportune time for some.

[An hon. member]

That's speculation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

It is speculation on my part, but it's a fact that your report cannot go into politics; it's not your job.

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

The chair is coming to conclusions on her own.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

It's not your job. So I thank you for your report.

Mr. Brown wishes to speak, I think. We can take a few more questions, and then we will break.

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Part of the problem is that we have discussions like this and some people adopt the approach that if you say a false allegation ten times it becomes correct. A false allegation is a false allegation, and unfortunately some people on the other side of the table don't seem to comprehend that.

I have a few questions to help clarify the matter. The first one is to Mr. Lynch.

To be clear, can you assure the committee that there was no political influence before, during, or following the conclusion of the review?

[Kevin Lynch]

Absolutely.

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

Are you confident that this report reflects an accurate representation of the events as they occurred?

[Kevin Lynch]

This completely reflects the investigative findings of the investigators.

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

I have a question for Mr. Cummins.

In your opinion, how complex was this case?

[Patrick Cummins]

It was reasonably complex. I mean, you had missions around the world. The clerk has indicated that there were 232 recipients, literally around the world, so the complexity of recovering end data was.... I'd have to defer, as I'm not a technical expert with respect to data recovery and what not. I have been involved in a number of investigations that have required it, and I always relied on experts to do it.

I can tell you that the Department of Foreign Affairs, through the PCO and the IT, managed to recover an incredible amount of all the data that was requested, which we had identified as we felt it was appropriate during the time period. Sometimes we'd go back and they'd have to reload. As far as the technicalities, I would leave it up to them. But we got that information.

At the same time, the PCO provided all the information we had requested with respect to the telephone logs and the fax logs from the embassies, the missions around the world. Everywhere that document had been sent or received, that information was recovered and analyzed. In that sense, you may not say it was complex, but it was quite complex from my perspective.

Plus, you have the distinction of the different roles between the embassies and the PCO, and the PCO and the PMO, and the information. But I can tell you that everybody, without exception, was incredibly cooperative. We did not meet a reluctant witness who wouldn't come forward. As far as Mr. Bird and I were concerned, they were open and honest and forthright with respect to what they knew and what they didn't know.

I think it's important to reflect that the embassy personnel, the consulate personnel, the PMO's office, the PCO's office, DFAIT, literally everybody we approached responded in an expeditious and forthright manner. We found no reluctant witnesses. We didn't find any flubbing. We did go back to some witnesses on more than one occasion. I think it's important, Madam Chair, to indicate that was not because they were suspected of anything; it's because as a result of subsequent interviews they were in a position to add clarity. I went back to one young staffer four times because he was in a position to provide me with additional details in certain matters.

They were very, very cooperative, and I might say extremely distressed over the consequences of this unauthorized disclosure.

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

It's certainly encouraging to hear that you had no reluctant witnesses. It certainly augments the credibility of your review that you were able to get such cooperation. It's certainly encouraging.

How lengthy was the list of the individuals you interviewed?