Government Operations Committee on June 19th, 2008

[Kevin Lynch]

If I may start, in the Privy Council Office and across government, as senior officials we take the protection of sensitive information extremely seriously. It's a complex process, how to do it.

There were two elements to this. First there was the issue of the report itself--who had access to it, who it could be made available to, what its classification was. Clearly, one of the recommendations and one of the learnings from this is that sensitive diplomatic reporting has to be better classified and better controlled. So the fact that it wasn't strikes me as making the recommendation rather valid for the future. I don't find that to be an invalid or invaluable recommendation, but given the circumstances, rather essential. People change jobs, circumstances change. In a sense, security and protection of documents is an issue of continually reminding folks of the value of what they have and how to deal with it.

Second, it would be nice if every investigation found all the objectives. That's not the case. I think it's true, and I'm sure our two investigators would say, that in any world we don't always succeed. That's not to say the investigation wasn't of a high quality, wasn't comprehensive, wasn't definitive. I believe that to be the case.

It was not, though, notwithstanding all the efforts that Mr. Cummins and Mr. Tardif describe in the report, able to determine who leaked it to whom or in how many cases.

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Do you not believe that in fact this particular leak did impact the U.S. primaries and did have, and will have, consequences for our relations with the U.S.?

[Kevin Lynch]

That is not really for me to form an opinion on. My role in this was to try to investigate the two issues on which the Prime Minister asked us to give our best possible advice.

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

You have no opinion in that regard, yet we certainly raised it in the House many times and there certainly is a belief out there, and there was even a U.S. reporter who said that this had a serious impact on the U.S. primaries, particularly on Mr. Obama's campaign.

You don't have an opinion, or you do not wish to state an opinion, on that, yet your report basically states that they were unable to determine whether there was a leak. So you're not really stating anything much. I'm not sure what exactly your report comes to conclude, other than to remind people of their responsibilities and that you were unable to get to the bottom of it.

Would you not think there should at least be more of a public inquiry or more of an in-depth investigation? Why just put a stop to it there by saying, well, we were unable to get to the bottom of it and we are just going to remind everybody to do their job, and then expect the public, and we, as parliamentarians, to accept that conclusion?

I just don't get it.

[Kevin Lynch]

Let me go back to the nature of an investigation, actually. You can't operate on speculation; you can only operate on the basis of empirical evidence, and that's what the two investigators and Mr. Tardif were engaged in. We spent an enormous amount of effort to try to find who did the things.

As I indicated early on, there was no evidence of criminal wrongdoing that came forward after the two months of work by the two principal investigators, both of whom are very seasoned investigators in national police forces. That is a lot of effort.

Secondly, I think the report does give people a much greater sense of what the timeline and sequence of events was relative to the various views and perspectives that were around at the time.

Thirdly, we're able to determine, to the best of our knowledge, what Ambassador Wilson may or may not have said—and Mr. Brodie.

So I actually think that for an area that was complex with a lot of unknowns at the time, the report has carried us forward.

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

I don't think it is speculation to say there was a leak. There certainly was a leak, so that's not speculation. It is also not speculation to say there was no interference in the U.S. primaries, because there certainly and clearly was interference. In fact, it was picked up by the U.S. media, and it did have an impact on Mr. Obama's campaign. So these are not speculations; these are actually reported stories out there in the public.

The other comment I would like to make is that it seems to me, in reading your chronology, that the fingers always point to Ian Brodie, the chief of staff to the Prime Minister, yet there is no conclusion here at all in that regard. All the attribution is toward him.

So how do you reconcile the fact that there is a pointing of the finger toward him, and yet there is nothing in your conclusions that would support that?

[Kevin Lynch]

First, let me start by saying that I indicated clearly that the purpose of this investigation was not to take a view of the impact of this, but to try to find out what was said. The Prime Minister, in the House of Commons, stated clearly that the leak of this particular document was not only regrettable—and our embassy in Washington has already said so—but also completely unacceptable to the government. So I think the Prime Minister, on behalf of the government and the House of Commons, indicated his concern about the impact.

My task was actually to investigate the alleged leak, but not to take a view on the impact in the United States.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

We will go to Madame Faille.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My committee colleagues have asked several questions. One thing appears to stand out, and I don't know if that happens at other committees. I am referring to the Privy Council Office's lack of credibility in this affair, in terms of the way it is managing it. I don't understand. I have worked in international affairs. Given all of the recommendations on management and the sensitivity of information managed by the embassy in the U.S., I believe that rigorous procedures are used to select staff. I find it shameful that we are being led to believe that the embassy was placed in a position of weakness.

When we read the report, we can't see how any conclusions can be drawn. There are so many "maybes". The text is written in the conditional tense. There are whole areas information that were not subject to the investigation. We cannot call this document an investigation. We can consider it a preliminary analysis of what occurred. It says here that you verified the distribution of the report, that you learned that reports may have found their way into the hands of many other people and that you needed more resources and time.

Did you ask for additional time to complete this report?

[Kevin Lynch]

I will ask Mr. Cummins to answer your question. As I said earlier, the investigation was conducted in a comprehensive fashion. If you have specific questions regarding the [Editor's Note: Inaudible], I think it would be helpful to obtain some answers. Perhaps Mr. Cummins could speak to you about the investigation.

[Patrick Cummins]

I don't know where in the report it says that we needed more time.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

It says:

In light of the diplomatic report's extensive distribution,...

[Yvan Roy]

What page are you on, Ms. Faille?

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

I am on page 6, point 4.2.2. The paragraph continues this way:

...interviewing every recipient of the report would have required considerably greater resources and much more time than were available for the investigation. In the interests of conducting the investigation in a thorough yet timely and cost-effective manner, the Director, Security Operations, PCO, concluded that a comprehensive examination of electronic transmissions and telecommunications involving all report recipients within the Government of Canada constituted an efficient filtering mechanism.

So in order to save time, you did not investigate all of the recipients.

[Patrick Cummins]

That decision was made when the scope of the investigation was defined. For this very important investigation, the time factor was crucial. If we had had to verify 232 addresses—the number is perhaps higher, because some of them are general addresses—the investigation would have required more than two investigators, who could have conducted it in two or two and a half months.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Thank you. I understand your limits regarding the investigation, but some of the information could have been obtained from the Privy Council Office, staff could have helped you target certain individuals. You said earlier that you could not investigate Americans, but you are undoubtedly aware that Canadians are working on the Obama and the Clinton campaigns.

Do you have the names of these individuals? Did you raise the possibility of cross-referencing this information and investigating these people?

[Patrick Cummins]

I must admit that I do not see the relevance of going to see Canadians—we call them crats, among other things—who are working for Obama or Clinton. What could these people have told us about the memo that ended up at ABC? Our mandate was to investigate to determine who had disclosed the memo and what Mr. Brodie and Mr. Wilson allegedly told reporters in order to establish a—

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

These people may have had friends among representatives at the embassy, and there may have been a specific interest there.

[Patrick Cummins]

Ms. Faille, you must—

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Did you go to the embassy?

[Patrick Cummins]

Yes, madam.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

To the embassies in Chicago and Washington?

[Patrick Cummins]

We met with the Chicago and Washington staff on Canadian soil.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

The ones who wrote the report?

[Patrick Cummins]

Yes.