Evidence of meeting #11 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was clerk.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
The Chair NDP Pierre-Luc Dusseault
Do we have unanimous consent to publish the documents we have been asked for?
Go ahead, Mr. Martin.
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
No. I don't agree at all. In fact, I'm surprised we're going in that direction. A similar request came out recently regarding testimony at the committee dealing with the Hells Angels at the West Block and stuff like that, and we refused to release any committee business because of parliamentary privilege. If we start down that slope we'll be inundated with ATI requests, and they won't be innocuous e-mails between the clerk and someone else, it will be background information that we discuss as parliamentarians. Unless I'm confusing my issues here, this seems to be a slippery slope to making public things that we, for good reason, keep among ourselves.
Liberal
Gerry Byrne Liberal Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL
Mr. Chair, I have to admit that I'm caught off guard by my own ignorance.
Would the clerk be able to remind us as to what exactly the new rules are which the House of Commons passed that we're considering or applying?
The Clerk
It is a complex set of rules. The House decided to divide into several categories all the documentation on committee work that could end up, for one reason or another, in an access to information request to a department or a federal government agency. For example, public documents, like the evidence in today’s meeting, will be made public and posted on the website. Then the House says that, if ever those documents become part of an access to information request, we have no need to express an opinion, given that the documents are made public immediately.
However, another category deals with in camera documents. The rules of the House stipulate that everything related to in camera meetings, such as briefing notes provided by the analysts and studied in camera, or documentation that is supplied by a witness and studied in camera, will be raised at the committee, but the committee will say no to those documents being published in an access to information request.
In this case, the document in question is one to which the public has not had access. It contains the correspondence between the clerk and a public servant. Under the new rules adopted by the House, this has to be brought before the committee. The committee makes the decision as to the publication of the documents. There must be unanimous consent. If there is not, the documents cannot be published.
Finally, to follow up on Mr. Martin’s remarks, I must mention that, in the case that was examined last fall, the issue was removing the protection by parliamentary privilege afforded in the past from evidence before the committee. In this case, it is not at all the same thing. What we are talking about is making available correspondence between a clerk and a public servant, on the condition that the documents remain protected by parliamentary privilege.
NDP
The Chair NDP Pierre-Luc Dusseault
In a word, a public servant communicated with the clerk and that information could be subject to the provisions of the Access to Information Act as long as the committee approves it. The information belongs to the committee in part, actually.
Liberal
Gerry Byrne Liberal Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL
Just to clarify, access to information that was filed against the department...?
NDP
The Chair NDP Pierre-Luc Dusseault
The official in question communicated with the clerk of this committee. The access to information request was about the official, not our committee. It is about information shared between two people, the clerk and this official.
Mr. O’Connor, your name is on my list. I assume you want to speak to the matter.
Carleton—Mississippi Mills, CPC
I was just going to say that, like Mr. Martin, I worry about precedents. If you start giving out these things, you get to a stage where you can't say no any more and you could be into problems.
I'm just one of those who believe that if you have to come here to ask for it, you're not getting it.
Conservative
Bernard Trottier Conservative Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON
The challenge we have as a committee is to get consent, as much as we rely on the skill and professionalism of our clerk, but we don't know what we're consenting to.
At a minimum I would expect perhaps the chair and the vice-chairs to sit down and examine the documents, but it's hard to consent to something we haven't seen.
NDP
NDP
Anne-Marie Day NDP Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC
Thank you Mr. Chair.
The clerk explained clearly that the discussion was “dull and boring”, that it was just about acknowledgments of receipt and chatting. If the committee decides to make everything public or to reply to every request, it could be a significant amount of material. Anyway, as soon as the communication stops being dull and boring and the content becomes more substantial, control becomes very difficult. I do not think we should leave the door open to choices like that.
Basically, if the content is nothing but an acknowledgment of receipt and some back-and-forth with no documentation or content, I do not see what interest there is in submitting an access to information request about it. If things get trickier, like the access to information request about the Hells Angels, we are going to end up stuck. We will already have left the door open.
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
There are two reasons I would deny the unanimous consent that you've requested. The first is, I don't fully understand the issue, and we as a party, as the official opposition, haven't had a chance to talk this through as to this new development. The other is that unless there was some compelling public interest override on behalf of the applicant, I would stand in defence of the privilege that we enjoy for this kind of communication, because it will change forever the way we conduct ourselves if we go down that road.
Gordon is absolutely right. You're opening the door. News would spread like wildfire, frankly, if we started divulging this kind of benign, banal correspondence to access requests for things that are not benign, and there is good reason they are confidential.
To cut it short, we're going to be denying the unanimous consent that you seek until we can deliberate as a party.
NDP
The Clerk
I would like to add a final point.
I respect the decision of the committee, whose faithful servant I have been since 2009. That said, if you wish, I can send you the electronic link to the report from the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. The report was tabled last fall and contains the exact new rules on this matter that were passed by the House. This is just so that you have a better idea of the process and the different categories of documents. There are public documents, confidential documents for in camera study, public documents not of a sensitive nature, public documents of a sensitive nature, and so on.
This kind of thing is likely to happen again, perhaps in this committee, perhaps in another one. I will send the information to committee members if they wish.
NDP
The Chair NDP Pierre-Luc Dusseault
Thank you.
In any case, I see no unanimous consent today.
There is nothing else on the agenda.
Mr. Trottier, did you wish to add anything?
Conservative
Bernard Trottier Conservative Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON
If there is no other business, I'd like to move to adjourn now, please.
NDP
The Chair NDP Pierre-Luc Dusseault
A motion to adjourn has been made and it is not debatable.
(Motion agreed to)
The motion is agreed to. The meeting is adjourned until February 25.
Thank you for being in attendance.
(Meeting adjourned)