Evidence of meeting #40 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 41st Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was code.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
I have discretion as to whether to apply the penalty, and in many cases I don't even think of applying a penalty because there's a legitimate reason. To not impose a penalty goes along with discretion.
Liberal
Marc Garneau Liberal Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC
Some MPs are upset with the fact that they have to provide what they consider to be too much information on their spouses' personal.... I happen to believe that is a reasonable requirement, but I'd like to hear in your words why the requirement exists with respect to the disclosure of information from spouses.
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
It's because in a marriage you're in it together. What's good for you is usually good for your spouse and vice versa. It's information that I think is important to have.
I stress as well that this information is not made public. Only very general, broad statements are made public. But it assists us in seeing whether there is anything we need to discuss with the individuals with respect to potential conflicts, because conflicts go not only to you but to your family. If I had my way, it would be a little broader than that, which is in my other recommendations.
Conservative
Conservative
Greg Kerr Conservative West Nova, NS
Mr. Chair, Mr. Hawn has to leave, so I'm going to give him a very brief part to start.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Madam Dawson.
Recommendation six talks about solicitation of funds. I do a lot of charity work, and I'm sure most of us do. I do a lot of charity walks. I simply register for most of them, write them a cheque for a couple of hundred dollars, and go to the walk. Often I speak at it to welcome people, thank them for coming, and that sort of thing. The one exception to that is for HIV/AIDS in Edmonton. I've been the top individual fundraiser for a number of years, obviously soliciting funds, as I think most of us do for things like that, to the point that in these last couple of years they have used my name from the point of view of “Let's beat Laurie Hawn”, which is fine. They haven't done it yet, but that's okay.
Is that a violation? When it talks about benefiting a friend or family, if I had a family member suffering from HIV/AIDS and I'm doing that, is it a violation of the code? How far do we go with that?
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
No. With charities there are broad class exceptions to private interests. If it's not targeted to a narrow group of people, then you don't have a problem.
The problem in fundraising is that if somebody is looking for something from you, then you may be able to use that fact to fundraise from them. That's not normally the situation you're talking about, but that's what the rule is about.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
So if I'm doing a charity walk, soliciting colleagues to contribute to that walk doesn't violate anything.
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
No, because it wouldn't appear that a private interest would be involved there.
Conservative
Greg Kerr Conservative West Nova, NS
Thank you, and I am surprised.
Thank you, Ms. Dawson. I'm very pleased.
Time is very limited, but I'm going to comment on the meal thing, as we all have.
First, I think it's really important that we've had a chance to chat briefly about some of this.
When I think back on this, what you do is incredibly important, and the clarity of what you do for us is incredibly important. But I think if there were guidelines, an additional booklet, or something you could provide.... A lot of MPs, particularly those starting off, are very new and inexperienced and at that stage are likely to make innocent mistakes.
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
You've given me the perfect opportunity to say that the problem with guidelines is that I have to take them through this committee, and that is quite slow.
Conservative
Greg Kerr Conservative West Nova, NS
That's understood, and I don't want to give my friends over there an immediate chance to go back over it, but I am saying that it's a chicken-and-egg thing to a degree. Anything you could do to tighten up, even an opinion page, is extremely important as a warning.
On the gift thing, we're going to keep changing the number over the years. It seems to happen, and it's important.
I'll tell you the problem with the reception and meal thing. Unlike what some people think, MPs do put in very long days, and often this is a targeted time to have discussions to learn about something on a national basis. If I'm here from Nova Scotia, and a national event is sponsored out west, whatever it might be, that's one of the best learning curves we have to do that; otherwise your committee is doing other things. If there's a suggested way to somehow get you a list of all the receptions and so on and let you analyze it, I think that would be great.
For me to have to think beforehand and decide whether I go to one because they might influence me is not going to happen. It's unlikely that would ever take place. We don't stop to think every time as to what exactly they're trying to do. Everybody is trying to influence politicians all the time. That's part of the job. It's called politics.
We want to do it right. We get in trouble enough all by ourselves without adding to it. With this kind of thing, it's not just about the receptions, but it's important that we could somehow determine the best way to do it, because our committee has to make a decision, and I think we've got a way to go to reach that point.
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
It's a difficult problem, because I've never felt that I've had all the facts to figure out an appropriate solution. But I would say that I would not have a problem if you folks wanted to figure out what it is you wanted to exclude from these rules. The problem I have is that they're not excluded at the moment. What we need is to define what it is that you don't want to be caught by.
Conservative
Greg Kerr Conservative West Nova, NS
We'll be back and forth on this, and I'm looking forward to getting a copy of your guidelines as a follow-up. But I think—
Conservative
Greg Kerr Conservative West Nova, NS
I was going to say that the idea of putting a list together....
Conservative
Greg Kerr Conservative West Nova, NS
If the chair had not used all the time on this issue, wondering about egg sandwiches or whatever it was—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Thank you, Mr. Kerr.
I apologize if I've taken any of your time today.
Next we have Mr. Cullen.
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
I'll be very quick and then I'll pass to Madame Turmel.
In seven years that you've been on the job, how many breaches—