Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to thank you for inviting me here this morning. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before the procedure and House affairs committee. I believe we have meaningful work to do. I realize that I did not have to appear before this committee today, but I believe this is an important matter to all of us as parliamentarians. It is my hope that my testimony will be of assistance to the committee.
I would now like to take a few minutes to outline the events as they unfolded.
On November 18 my legislative assistant, Emrys Graefe, brought to my attention that Mr. Ullyatt had forwarded the draft pre-budget report by e-mail to Lynne Hamilton. At that moment I knew that a breach of confidentiality had occurred and Mr. Ullyatt had to be fired. I was made aware of the breach as I was leaving for the airport and about to get into a taxi. I arrived just in time to board my flight.
Since my flight to Saskatoon was connecting through Toronto, I contacted the chief government whip from the Pearson airport to inform him of the breach of confidentiality and let him know that the employment of the individual who was responsible for the breach would be terminated. Further, I asked for the chief government whip's assistance in securing my office so that a proper investigation could take place. The chief government whip agreed to help me in that regard.
Before boarding my flight, I also called Emrys to ask that he be in the office early the next day to ensure that security was informed that Mr. Ullyatt was not to enter the building. He was further instructed that if Mr. Ullyatt did make it past security, he was to call security immediately and have him removed.
I arrived in Saskatoon around midnight. Early the next morning I called Mr. Ullyatt before he would have left for work to inform him that I had been made aware that he had forwarded the draft pre-budget report to Lynne Hamilton. He admitted he had done so. I then informed him that his employment with me was terminated immediately.
After my discussion with Mr. Ullyatt, I contacted the chair of the finance committee, who encouraged me to contact all other members of the committee. While I was doing that, Emrys worked with the chief government whip's office to ensure that Mr. Ullyatt would have no remote access to any office files, computers, or e-mail accounts. Passwords were changed for all e-mail accounts for my office and IT services cut off Mr. Ullyatt's government BlackBerry.
I instructed Emrys to contact the office of every other member of the finance committee and provide my personal cellphone number to them. It was a Friday and many of us were in our ridings.
He asked each office to have their member of Parliament call me about an urgent matter concerning the finance committee. Emrys confirmed with me that he spoke to the staff of all other committee members--Conservative, Liberal, Bloc Québécois, and NDP--except Mr. Pacetti's office, where he left a voice message.
Through the course of the day I spoke with Liberals members, Mr. Brison and Mr. Szabo. I spoke with the Bloc members of the committee, Mr. Paillé and Mr. Carrier. I also spoke with all of my fellow Conservative members of the committee. The only two members I was unable to speak with that Friday were Mr. Pacetti and Mr. Mulcair.
To the best of my knowledge, Mr. Pacetti did not return my call, but the chair informed me that the two of them had spoken. Regrettably, I missed Mr. Mulcair's call. He did leave me a voice mail with a number that I believed was for his constituency office. Since I did not retrieve Mr. Mulcair's voice mail message until late Friday evening due to events in my riding, I did not call him back until Monday, when I left a voice mail in his Ottawa office.
After the passwords for the e-mail accounts had been changed, Emrys did a search of the sent folder in the e-mail account Mr. Ullyatt had used. That was when it was discovered that the report had been forwarded to two other individuals. I informed the chair of the finance committee of this new information.
On Monday morning, I again called the chair of the committee and advised him of which members of the committee I had spoken with. During my conversation with the chair, I was encouraged to contact the clerk of the committee to ask him to call the lobbyists in question and advise them not to forward the report and to destroy any copies of it they might have, and I did so.
After Monday's finance committee meeting, I returned to the House to rise on a point of order. It was then that I apologized for the actions of my former staff member. Later, I was informed that a fourth lobbyist had come forward, and through a subsequent request to IT service, I learned that Mr. Ullyatt had sent the report to a fifth lobbyist.
I want to be clear: nobody could be more disappointed than I that this has occurred. I have always had and will continue to have the utmost respect for the confidential nature of the business conducted in our committees, and I think my actions in dealing with this have demonstrated as much.
There is no doubt that this was a breach of privilege. This has impeded my work, the work of the finance committee, and indeed the work of the House as a whole. I only hope that some good can come of this terrible situation.
It is my hope that we develop some process or a set of protocols that can help prevent further breaches. It is also my hope that through my testimony today I can help guide any other member of Parliament who may find themselves in a similar situation.
In summary, Mr. Chair, I found that there was a breach of confidentiality. I fired the employee immediately. I contacted all members of the committee--Conservative, Liberal, Bloc Québécois, and NDP. I asked the clerk to notify the recipients of the draft report. And finally, I apologized before the House for the actions of my former staff member.
Once again, I would like to thank you, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to present these facts to the committee, and I do look forward to answering any questions the members may have, for a full hour.
