Government Operations Committee on Dec. 3rd, 2013

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for appearing.

I'm one of those newbies so I'm probably going to ask some questions that seem pretty elementary to you. I really didn't hear an answer to Mr. O'Connor's question. I'd really like to hear that.

It's a wonderful thing and we all agree on the importance of human smuggling, but why is the PCO office involved in it? Why is that part of your office as far as those investigations and the work that's being done is concerned. I just don't understand.

There was another one, the sockeye salmon commission. How does that happen? How does it become part of their function?

[Michelle Doucet]

Thank you for the question.

Mr. Chair, let me speak to why Mr. Elcock's function is nested in the Privy Council Office. It's because the Privy Council Office has the mandate to coordinate initiatives that are the priority of the government. Regarding illegal migration, Mr. Elcock's mandate is part of that. Whenever we have a national objective that requires system-wide coordination generally speaking that gets nested in the Privy Council Office.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Does it get shifted over to another department at some point?

[Michelle Doucet]

If it gets to a point where it can be operationalized, yes, it does. If the requirement for coordination disappears and it can be operationalized, it does.

I'll give you an example. For a number of years we had at the Privy Council Office the Afghanistan task force, which coordinated the efforts in the Afghanistan mission out of PCO. When Canada withdrew from its combat role Canadian efforts remained in Afghanistan but that was handled out of the respective departments.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Generally, say it was handed over to Public Security, the minister would be responsible. Under whose directive does this portfolio fall? Is the Prime Minister directly responsible for the actions of Mr. Elcock?

[Michelle Doucet]

Yes.

Mr. Alcock reports to Mr. Stephen Rigby, who is the national security advisor to the Prime Minister. Mr. Rigby reports to the Clerk of the Privy Council. The Clerk of the Privy Council reports to the Prime Minister.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Okay.

This is a division of government that has a little bit of a cloak-and-dagger aspect to it. Maybe it's not something that is necessarily deserved. You mentioned something about the confidentiality. Oftentimes we speak of caucus confidentiality.

What are the rules of engagement when it comes to confidentiality within the Privy Council for all those who work there? To what extent can they make any contact with the public or with the press?

[Michelle Doucet]

The rules of engagement are for all public servants, and PCO is no different in this regard, and they are governed by how materials or conversations are classified. So whether they are not sensitive, whether they're somewhat sensitive, whether they're pretty sensitive, or whether they're really sensitive, there's a classification system that governs that. For instance, if Mr. Elcock had been here before us today, and he apologizes for not being around—he's actually in Indonesia—and if you had asked him about details on what he's doing, he probably would have had to say that he's not at liberty to discuss that.

With respect to communications with the public, if you were working in a department and in a program where you're engaging with citizens as stakeholders, it's part of your job to talk to the public. If you're working in the communications shop and you're the immediate spokesperson, it is your job to talk to the press. So everybody has roles and responsibilities, and you're expected to play your position and fulfill those roles and responsibilities.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

I just have a curious question. You offer advice and assistance to cabinet, to the PM, and to committees. Is there a shift that's happened in recent history? Is there more energy, perhaps, going to the PMO? Or is it pretty much consistent throughout its history?

[Michelle Doucet]

That's a really interesting question, so thank you for the question.

I don't know that I feel qualified to answer that question, because, like you, I am a bit new to PCO. I've been here for two years so I have a pretty good sense of what we do right now, but in terms of the longer history of the Privy Council Office, and the political science analysis of how decisions are made, I think that's probably best left to others more qualified.

You had asked me a question about commissions of inquiry, and if I have a few seconds left, I'd be happy to speak to that, because it's an interesting aspect of our mandate at the Privy Council Office.

If you look at our program alignment architecture—the jargon is the PAA—we have five areas of business. One of them is commissions of inquiry, and there's a piece of legislation that supports that. What that does is it supports the Prime Minister's prerogative to call a commission of inquiry into a matter that he feels warrants more in-depth investigation. Most recently, of course, he did that with the commission of inquiry into the decline of salmon on the Fraser River. It's the job of the Privy Council Office, when the Prime Minister does that, to work within the government system to secure the funding for that, and then to provide the administrative support so that the commission of inquiry can perform its activities in an independent and impartial way and report back to the Prime Minister.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Thank you, Mr. Van Kesteren. Your time is up.

Mr. Martin, you have the floor.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I just have one brief question, really, to follow up my original line of questioning.

Madame Doucet, the letter from the PCO that announced that somehow Benjamin Perrin's e-mails had been spared the shredder said that they had been spared the shredder because they were the subject of an unrelated litigation. What was that unrelated legal matter that caused you to preserve those e-mails instead of destroying them, which you say is your customary protocol?

[Michelle Doucet]

The nature of the unrelated litigation had to do with another federal government department.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Which one?

[Michelle Doucet]

HRSDC.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Mrs. Day will use the rest of my time.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you.

I was very interested by Mr. Martin's questions and I would like to get some further clarification on your part.

The Privy Council Office must keep up the highest standards of professionalism and ethics in the federal public service. It recently made the headlines because it found emails related to an RCMP investigation that were previously thought to have been deleted.

You stated earlier that you destroy emails after 30 days. Where were these emails between the time the RCMP requested them and the time the office found them? Were there individuals who had access to these emails? I think my questions are quite clear.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Before Ms. Doucet responds, I would like to point out that several questions are about specific emails belonging to specific individuals.

It is within the scope of the Departmental Performance Reports and supplementary estimates (B) to ask questions about email management generally. However, it is more problematic to ask questions about specific emails. I can allow you to reword your question so that is falls under the scope of the two topics under consideration.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Chairman, my questions are about the Privy Council Office.

Ms. Doucet, are you able to answer those questions?

[Michelle Doucet]

I would like to thank Mrs. Day for the question.

I would draw your attention to the letter that the Privy Council Office sent to the RCMP on December 1, 2013. The letter speaks for itself, and I can't comment further on that.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Do you know if individuals were aware of those emails in the office?

[Michelle Doucet]

Again, I would draw your attention to the letter that we sent to the RCMP on December 1, 2013.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

I will ask you another question.

There has been discussion about border safety and smuggling. Does that include the border between the United States and Canada?

[Michelle Doucet]

Thank you for the question.

At the Privy Council Office, we are engaged in implementing a couple of priorities related to borders. We talked today about Mr. Elcock's efforts with respect to illegal migration, but there's another aspect of the work we do at the Privy Council Office, which is led by Mr. David Moloney, and that is to implement the Beyond the Border initiative together with the Regulatory Cooperation Council.

The Beyond the Border initiative does speak specifically to borders. It reflects the action plans that were agreed to by the Prime Minister and the American President on December 7, 2011. Folks at PCO have been working with federal partners and our American counterparts over the last couple of years to deal with matters related to the border in order to address threats early, and to facilitate trade and economic growth and jobs, cross-border law enforcement, critical infrastructure, and cybersecurity.