Evidence of meeting #42 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 40th Parliament, 3rd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was document.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Vice-President, Public Affairs, GCI Group, As an Individual
I've never worked on the Hill.
Liberal
Liberal
Judy Foote Liberal Random—Burin—St. George's, NL
It's really difficult to sit here knowing what has transpired here, knowing that it was completely inappropriate, knowing that this should never have happened, and you being the recipient of that confidential document and expecting us as members of the committee and Parliament to believe that at no point in time between when you received it on your BlackBerry and when you got a call from Mr. Ullyatt the following morning did you not know that there was something amiss here.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Conservative
Conservative
Terence Young Conservative Oakville, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I agree with Mr. Christopherson. I think we're flogging a dead horse here. As I mentioned before, I'm concerned with the process, that the process can so easily become abusive. Because people appear before committees and they have no right to remain silent. They can have counsel, but counsel can't participate: they have no right to ask questions; they have no right of reply. The list of rights they don't have makes me very uncomfortable with the process.
I think we've got the answers here. We had about four members of this committee asking the same questions and getting the same answers and making the same comments, that they don't find it believable.
I just want to say for the recordthat I find the testimony quite believable. I operated a business in government relations out of my home for eight years, and it's information overload. I would have gotten maybe 70 or 80 e-mails a day, and what you do is triage. You go through your e-mails, you zip and you decide what you're going to look at and you do it so quickly, it's based on who sends it to you. If somebody sends me a report, that's a person who sends me information that's helpful to serve a client. So you click on that e-mail. Then you make a split-second decision, am I going to print the report? And I often would do it.
I do it to this day. I still operate a volunteer organization called Drug Safety Canada. I do it on weekends at home. So I might go home and there are 50 e-mails. People send me reports, I click on them, and I print them. Now, if I look at it and I go to print it and it says 100 pages, I might not print it. But if it says 5, 10, 20, 30 pages, I print them and I carry them around. I read them on airplanes, I read them at airports, and I look at them later.
I just want to say I find it perfectly believable what Ms. Hamilton has said to us today. I thought it's important to say that for the record, having been experienced in the same in business and operating the same way out of a home office.
Thank you.
Conservative
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
I'll be brief.
I don't know, Ms. Hamilton, if you know the answer to this question. How many pages was the report?
Vice-President, Public Affairs, GCI Group, As an Individual
It was a stack. It's a good stack.
Conservative
Liberal
Marcel Proulx Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Hamilton, you've answered Mr. Lukiwski that you are not using any more the “I heart you” that you had been using previously. How come Mr. Ullyatt interpreted your “I love you” in your response as thanking him for supplying you with such a document? If he had received other e-mails from you before with the same “I heart you”, why would this one be different?
Vice-President, Public Affairs, GCI Group, As an Individual
Can you clarify that question? I'm a little bit unsure.
Liberal
Marcel Proulx Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
You said to us that you had been using this expression “I heart you”, instead of saying “thank you” or “love you” or whatever. Yet Mr. Ullyatt said when he received your answer for the acknowledgement to his e-mail containing that document, when he read “I heart you”, he understood that you were telling him “I love you for supplying me this confidential document.” Why would he think that, if he'd received previous e-mails from you with your “I heart you”?
Vice-President, Public Affairs, GCI Group, As an Individual
I can't speak to what Mr. Ullyatt....
But I would want to say, and I will leave you with this, that I forwarded the document to no one; I shared the document with no one. I didn't tell anybody about it; I didn't tell my clients. I didn't do anything with it, and I think that's important to note.
I hope I've done the best I can to at least enlighten members of the committee about my situation that day, what had happened, and I appreciate you giving me time to chat.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Thank you very much for coming today. It's been great having you here. We thank you for being here.
We'll suspend for just a minute. We have a small amount of committee business.
The committee will have to decide, are we going in camera for that committee business?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
In camera, okay.
Ms. Hamilton, thank you for coming today, thank you for your answers, and thank you for the documents you've shared with us today.
We'll suspend and go in camera.
[Proceedings continue in camera]