Procedure and House Affairs Committee on March 18th, 2011

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Thank you.

I'm unfortunately going to have to change the nature of this question, given the amount of time.

You said in your conclusion that whether the minister lied is the easy question. I think it's easy because the answer is no. At no point do I find her saying that the department instructed her or advised her not to fund Kairos.

I'm just reading here from the House of Commons. The question was asked and she said:

After due diligence, it was determined that Kairos' proposal did not meet government standards.

She did not say “was determined by officials”; she said “was determined”.

In committee, she stated:

The department puts forward to the minister a recommendation. They don't make the decision; they put forward a recommendation. So at every step of the way it's the recommendation that comes forward. The ultimate decision, however, is made by the minister.

It's “by the minister”.

She said:

I sign off on all of the documents.

She said:

I did not say I was the one who wrote the “not”.

She said:

The responsibility of the department is to give its best advice to the minister. The minister then has the discretion to make the ultimate decision. As I've indicated, we had discussions with the department regarding this file.

She said:

Mr. Rae, I did not put the “not” in. I did not sign the document. The document reflects the decision of the minister.

She said:

No, I made the decision. The document then reflects the decision of the minister.

She said:

I personally did not sign that document. I made the decision. I gave my decision, and the document then would reflect—

She got cut off by Mr. Rae part-way through that answer.

She said:

It's my signature, which is either pen-signed or personally signed. I do not sign, as any minister does not sign, every document required to be signed—

So at no point does she ever say that she was advised this. There was one point at which Mr. Dewar seemed—

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you, Mr. Reid.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

—to be confused, but she never said it, ever.

So how can it be said that she lied? How can that be clear to you, Professor Franks?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you, Mr. Reid.

[Dr. Ned Franks]

May I respond to that, sir?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

If the next questioner allows you in his time, that will work, but other than that—

[Dr. Ned Franks]

It will be a 30-second response.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Well, we'll see if we have time for you to respond at the end, I guess.

Monsieur Laframboise.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Professor Franks, in your presentation, you said that you would instead observe—and Mr. Reid raised this—that, as you understand it, the minister admitted that she misled the House. As the lawyers said res ipsa loquitur, the facts speak for themselves. I am going to refer to Speaker Milliken's two rulings.

In his ruling of February 10, he said: “In particular, the senior CIDA officials concerned must be deeply disturbed by the doctored document they have been made to appear to have signed.”

In his ruling of March 9, he said: “...I have taken great care to study the evidence in view of the very serious allegations regarding the conduct of a minister, who as a result has been subjected to harsh and public criticism...”

You mentioned that we are aware of the seriousness of the incident, but Speaker Milliken also mentioned the gravity of the situation that the minister has put herself in.

Do you think that, if our committee decides that there was contempt of Parliament, that would be exaggerated?

[Dr. Ned Franks]

We have two sides to the question here. One side says that the minister said that she never supported the grant and tried to make that clear, and did to Parliament, is correct. The other side is saying that the document presented to Parliament, which purported to represent the agreement of three individuals to something, is not correct.

The second one, in my view, is a contempt of Parliament; the first is not. I can't see any consensus coming out of this with the two different views.

Again, I apologize for the errors in my presentation, but I was writing it in haste to try to get something on paper so we could discuss it. I appreciate the government side pointing those out to me.

Thank you, sir.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Mr. Martin, two minutes for questions and answers.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Well, we are splitting hairs and putting everything Minister Oda said under a microscope, as we should, given the gravity of the situation. There's something kind of Chrétienesque about Minister Oda's comments throughout, and it's hard to nail it down, but we do expect ministers to conduct themselves at the highest standard of honesty.

I mean, do you accept that a minister could be in contempt if the offence is by omission rather than commission, if the minister allowed us to believe what a logical person would believe in reading that document, that the CIDA officials recommended not funding?

[Dr. Ned Franks]

I'm going to give you an Irish answer to that, this being the day after St. Patrick's Day.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

A Catholic Irish answer....

[Dr. Ned Franks]

There are things that are offensive, and those, normally, the courts of law will not rule on. Then there are things that are harmful, on which they will.

The issue that faces the committee here is do these problems, in both issues of contempt of Parliament, reach the point of actually harming the parliamentary system, rather than being just offensive? And on that I think you people have to exercise your judgment. I cannot give you any advice except that I think that's the issue you have in front of you.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

That's very helpful. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

You have 30 seconds if you want to....

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

You used the term “breaking the bond of trust”. When you break faith with the Canadian people, does that in itself not undermine the position of trust given to cabinet ministers under their oath of office?

[Dr. Ned Franks]

I might, if I dig back into my 60 years' memory on this, find one or two places where I felt a cabinet minister had actually broken the bond of trust. But by and large, I have the utmost respect for the politicians of Canada, even when I've firmly and basically disagreed with them. And on that side, I can say that I have the utmost respect for everyone around this table. And I wish you luck in your deliberations.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you, Professor, for helping us in doing so. And thank you for coming today.

We will suspend for two minutes while we change our witnesses.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

I call this meeting back to order, please.

Thank you, all.

I did forget something in my opening comments this morning, if the minister will just give me a second.

We switched studies today. We're into this study on this question of privilege. I shared with the group back on Thursday morning my conversation with the Speaker on prime facie. He suggested that the study we were doing over the previous two days could speak for itself. I asked him about this one, and he suggested to me that his ruling also stated that it is a prime facie case. I asked him how we would tell if we could get further, and he said, “I'm not sure you would. It's a prima facie case.”

I thought I'd best share that.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Chair, I would question the appropriateness of the chair sharing a private conversation with the Speaker.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Well, as I've said, the convention has been that the Speaker would come to this committee--

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

I understand the convention, Chair, but--

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

--so I took it on myself to have that conversation.