Procedure and House Affairs Committee on April 8th, 2014

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

The safeguards that are written into the provision include use immunity, in the sense that anything that is given up during compelled testimony can't be used in court, and the Supreme Court has also held that derivative use immunity would apply as well.

You basically can't get something from a witness and then say that it gives you the idea to go and find something else without being able to show you would have found that something else otherwise, correct?

[Richard Bilodeau]

So the Competition Act provides, concerning a person who provides oral testimony under section 11(1)(a), that we cannot use that information against that person. It also provides that we can't use the information under section 11(1)(c), which is the response to written questions.... We can't use that information against an individual. It would be a different matter if it was a business responding to the questions.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Has section 11 proven to be, from your point of view, useful in investigations? If it were to be repealed, for example, would that in any significant way affect your investigations?

[Richard Bilodeau]

It's hard for me to speculate on the impact if you were to remove it. What I can tell you is that our investigations are fairly complex. They involve, oftentimes, anti-competitive conduct that impacts large swaths of the economy, and all of the tools that we have, whether it's section 11 or the ability to search, are all equally important. In any given investigation we use some of them, maybe just one of them, or maybe a few of them—

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

But you do use section 11?

[Richard Bilodeau]

We do use section 11. It is an important tool in our arsenal. We do use it.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Great. Mr. Lortie earlier today talked about how he can't quite figure our why a provision that's proven so useful to go after significant system-wide economic crime can't be available in the context of maybe one of the most fundamental act statute in our system, the Elections Act. So it's important that we know that it's proven important, at least in your context.

Lastly, Mr. Lanthier. Are you an ordinary citizen, sir?

[Keith Lanthier]

I believe so. Yes, I am.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

You're not really in support of this bill. Do you know of other ordinary citizens who are not in support of this bill?

[Keith Lanthier]

What I would say to that is what I said in my introductory remarks, that this is generating a lot of discussion, whether it's in the media, whether it's just in the community that I live in. I know there are going to be different sides to this, people are going to have different points of view. There are different points of view here on this committee.

My concern is twofold. One, Canadians are talking about this and Canadians need to be heard, and there needs to be a process that takes that into account, because without that process and if it goes the way it is now, in my opinion, it will severely affect the legitimacy of this. Canadians want to be part of that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Scott.

We'll go to Mr. Simms for seven minutes.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Thank you.

I'm sorry if some of this seems repetitive, but when you're third sometimes it's hard to come up with new material.

I'm going to start with Ms. Kenny—

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

[Inaudible--Editor]

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

I can hear you, you know.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

That was your outside voice, Mr. Christopherson.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Yes, I apologize.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

I'm used to his outside voice. Trust me, it's as bad as the inside.

Ms. Kenny, when it comes to the new rule where the poll supervisor is now given that job the same as a poll clerk or a deputy returning officer, it seems to me that has now become a little bit too excessive. It's one thing to have two people at the poll doing that, but if the supervisor was fully bilingual, would that be beneficial to areas that are above the 5% you say must be bilingual service?

[Marie-France Kenny]

Actually, no. In our opinion, this provision will make things even more difficult. We recommend doing away with the proposed amendment. Furthermore, we recommend that the Canada Elections Act, if it is to be amended, should provide that from now on, this method of filling positions no longer applies to the other positions, such as poll clerk and deputy returning officer.

There's another thing we haven't talked about. Part VI of the Official Languages Act guarantees French-speaking Canadians and English-speaking Canadians equal opportunities for jobs. In a town like Falher, Alberta, how do you go about drawing up a list of potential candidates, whoever submits it, so that francophones and anglophones in Canada have equal opportunities for a position in the federal public service?

Positions are usually posted. You can see that when the public service posts a position, it has to do so simultaneously in English and in French, so that it is accessible to anglophones and francophones. If a list of names is submitted by some entity, that entity will not be subject to the requirements of part VI of the Official Languages Act.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

This goes to the core of what you consider to be against any official language rights that you have and your group has. Would it be fair to say that?

[Marie-France Kenny]

Absolutely. When I go to vote, I don't want to feel uncomfortable about wanting to vote in French. I want to have the same rights as any other citizen.

The last time I went to vote, people standing in line with me were uncomfortable. Ultimately, I didn't get any assistance in French. It all happened in English, for me.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Thank you, Ms. Kenny.

Mr. Bilodeau, in regard to section 11, I'm very interested in this because I think obviously this was the golden opportunity that was lost. That's just my political angle, and you don't have to respond to that, obviously. Would you say in the business community that section 11 is a pretty good deterrent to use, and people tend to comply? The whole goal here is for compliance before you go to the DPP. Obviously the business community knows about section 11 and they know that they will be compelled to testify. So do you find that you don't get to use section 11 for that reason?

[Richard Bilodeau]

Section 11 is an investigative tool. It's a way to get information to allow us to determine whether or not the act has been violated.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

How often do you use it?

[Richard Bilodeau]

We use it regularly. For example, in the last fiscal year, 2013-14, we asked for and got 26 section 11 orders from—

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

That's more than I thought.