Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Like the ministers, I am here with my entire entourage, although I am only appearing as an individual. I haven't seen The Mikado, the opera that focuses on...
Let me introduce myself. I'm Mel Cappe. I happen to be the president of the Institute for Research on Public Policy for the next month, and I am and will continue to be a professor in the School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Toronto.
I had a career of over 30 years in the federal public service, culminating as High Commissioner in the United Kingdom, and have been Clerk of the Privy Council and secretary to the cabinet and head of the public service as well as deputy minister in several departments. Lest anyone think that because I was the Clerk of the Privy Council for Jean Chrétien I was somehow partisan, I want you to be aware that the first order in council naming me to the ranks of deputy minister was during the Mulroney government, and I've served seven prime ministers in my time.
Let me offer a disclaimer at the outset. I've been out of Ottawa for nine years and I've been out of government for five; therefore, I am dated. I earned this grey beard and therefore offered to help the committee.
There are two issues I'd like to address. The first is the question of cabinet confidences. I heard the conversation this morning with the law clerk and the Information Commissioner. I want the committee to understand that I'm a big defender of cabinet confidences, and I think that it is necessary for good government to have candour in cabinet exchanges. Frankly, it's been recognized by Parliament. Parliament passed the Access to Information Act and chose not to exempt cabinet confidences, but to exclude cabinet confidences, so when the government claims privilege on cabinet confidences, I think the're doing the right thing. It's recognized by Parliament in section 69 of the Access to Information Act. As well, there's an absolute exception, which I know Mr. Walsh talked about this morning, in section 39 of the Canada Evidence Act, which states that the clerk, with absolutely no review or restriction, can claim confidences of the Queen's Privy Council to be exempt.
Given the wording of Mr. Brison's motion and the finance committee's request for information in which you asked for “documents”, I can understand that it could be possible for the Prime Minister and the government to have interpreted this as a request for cabinet documents. As such the government claimed privilege and said that cabinet confidences will not be released. That was a legitimate response of the Prime Minister.
The committee, I think, was asking not for cabinet confidences; rather, it was asking for information. I heard the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Public Safety just now indicate that they were prepared to provide the committee with information. I think it's much better to view this as a demand for information, which brings me to my second point.
There is no doubt in my mind, and certainly the Speaker made this clear, that Parliament has a right to adequate information on which to pass legislation. Therefore when you parliamentarians come to judgment on legislation, you need to know what the implications of that are and what the long-term costs are.
Citizen Cappe, appearing before you, wants to make sure that parliamentarians have adequate information before they pass legislation.
When I was Deputy Secretary to the Treasury Board in the 1990s, I spent four and a half years appearing before committees such as yours explaining the process for identifying program costs.
First there is the expenditure management system, which continues now, as far as I understand it. The Treasury Board Secretariat and finance officials insist that all new programs or proposals for programs or for legislation that go to cabinet must have a notional costing of anything for which there will be implications of costs.
However, those costs cannot be put into main estimates until they're elaborated, so this notional costing takes place, and therefore, for instance, the government's tabling of main estimates might not include some of the announcements that were in the budget. They will wait for an appropriation act wherein the costs have been elaborated, so therefore supplementary estimates come to Parliament for approval in an appropriation act.
I bother to elaborate this because I want to distinguish that notional spending estimate from the actual spending required. It's in that context that I want to conclude by saying that cabinet confidences must be protected and, at the same time, Parliament must have adequate information for making judgments on legislation. I'm not going to pass judgment on the binders you've just received that I have not seen yet, but it strikes me that this is the kind of material that parliamentarians need in order to come to judgment and say, “Is this in the public interest?”, and pass legislation.
Thank you.