Evidence of meeting #77 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was code.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:35 a.m.
Liberal
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
So you don't have any issues in terms of people responding in the timely fashion as required.
11:35 a.m.
Legal Officer, Office of the Conflict of Interest Commissioner of British Columbia
Are you also talking about the general disclosure, full disclosure?
11:35 a.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest Commissioner of British Columbia
Well, we have people who miss the deadlines that we impose. They're casual deadlines, but they're unofficial deadlines because there's nothing in the act insofar as the disclosure is concerned, except for material changes, and that is in the act.
11:35 a.m.
Liberal
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
What authority or power do you have if you were to have individuals who were not submitting?
11:35 a.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest Commissioner of British Columbia
It's just the power of embarrassing them, I suppose, among their colleagues and with the caucus, and the caucus chairs and the caucus whips are readily available to us if that becomes necessary.
Alyne is dying to say something.
11:35 a.m.
Legal Officer, Office of the Conflict of Interest Commissioner of British Columbia
Under section 22 of our act, if someone absolutely refused to file a disclosure then we could recommend a penalty, but in our experience it doesn't get to that stage.
11:35 a.m.
Legal Officer, Office of the Conflict of Interest Commissioner of British Columbia
It would go to the House.
11:35 a.m.
Liberal
11:35 a.m.
Legal Officer, Office of the Conflict of Interest Commissioner of British Columbia
Yes, it would be extreme if the member refused to file the disclosure statement within the time provided in section 16. We could come down hard if we absolutely needed to.
11:35 a.m.
Liberal
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Do you fill out your own forms? Do you have to get approval by any committee for changes or anything of that nature to your forms?
11:35 a.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest Commissioner of British Columbia
In terms of the forms themselves, they are prescribed by a regulation to the act. In fact, the form can't be changed, because it's an order in council, except by a new order in council formally changing the regulation, which is the form. That is cumbersome and difficult and is not something that I would like to see continuing going forward. The concern, I think, and it's a legitimate one, is always that you not have commissioners going off on a frolic of their own and suddenly deciding that they want to ask for all kinds of information that has no nexus to the obligations that members have in the act. I think that's, to some extent, why there's some hesitancy. Commissioner Dawson has suggested that this is a power that she would like to have and I can understand why. At the moment, it's a power that you have.
With that pro, there are other cons, for example. This committee is a huge benefit to your commissioner. I'm going to say that in the abstract. We do not have a committee to which we report. We report to the legislative assembly, which sounds better than it is because it's a pretty awkward fit. The fact that this committee meets as regularly as it does with the commissioner, I think, must be of great assistance to everybody, both in terms of exchanging ideas and making sure that however things are going, they appear to be, from everybody's point of view, satisfactory. I wish we had such an arrangement in British Columbia.
11:35 a.m.
Liberal
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
What about your powers to be able to talk to the media. You get an elected official who says that they've asked the commissioner to investigate this. It makes a great news story. It goes to the commissioner and the commissioner says, “No comment.” To what degree do you have the authority to be able to talk to the media?
11:40 a.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest Commissioner of British Columbia
The practice that we have is simply to say to the media who inquire that we have either been consulted or an official complaint has been filed and we have no further comment. In any request for an opinion—I'm using “request for an opinion” and “complaint” as being interchangeable—either way that's confidential. I make no public comment to the media except to say that I have received a request for an opinion.
Typically, as a practical matter, it doesn't become a problem because the member or the member of the public—and remember, that's our largest frequent flyer group—will have gone public before they even send us a letter, although some members have done that in an attempt to, I think, garner a headline too early. I've read very carefully—and I know there's a limited time and my questions impinge on your time—what Commissioner Dawson has had to say, and I frankly agree with her completely in terms of wanting to be able, not to be mute, but not to be a source for the press. I also agree with her in terms of being able to say that there's nothing to this in her view, so that a person's reputation, which has partially been destroyed, can perhaps start to be rehabilitated.
11:40 a.m.
Liberal
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
I guess that's a very important point in the screening process. Some that have absolutely zero merit at first glance versus those that seem to be quite serious at first glance.
To what degree do you have the flexibility to be able to react in a timely fashion? Are there things we could do?
11:40 a.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest Commissioner of British Columbia
Do you mean “react” in the sense of how quickly the process begins? It begins very quickly.
11:40 a.m.
Liberal
11:40 a.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest Commissioner of British Columbia
If it's frivolous then it quickly begins and quickly ends. If it's not frivolous but is complicated, then that's obviously going to take more time. On its face, if it's frivolous, if it's vexatious, if it's all of those adjectives, which have been used for years in describing people's access to the courts and so on, then it's over soon.
But there has to be more than just a fly-by or an indication on a gut basis that this thing sounds crazy so it must be. We do things that will allow us, as far as we can, to find out quickly if there's anything to it.
What we do almost immediately when the short process has happened is to write to the person and say we have made some preliminary inquiries and ask if they have any more evidence. Is it just suspicion? Is it something else? Give us everything you've got if you want us to decide at this stage whether we're going to take it further. If we can't be satisfied that there's some reasonable, probable grounds for doing so, then we're out of there.
That has proven to be successful. People who are serious, and who have what they think is a serious complaint, will follow up very quickly.
11:40 a.m.
Conservative
11:40 a.m.
Conservative
Tom Lukiwski Conservative Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK
Thanks very much.
I'll home in on one question I have and see if any of my colleagues have other questions. I have many.
Currently I just want to deal with the disclosure aspect of your presentation, where you said that you require members to disclose the nature of their investments rather than their value.
I get why you've gone that route, but does not the value have some impact when determining whether or not there's a reasonable expectation of conflict of interest? If I am a minor shareholder, say I have a thousand dollars' worth of shares in a publicly traded company, perhaps even through a mutual fund, and some other member has a majority of shares in the same company, do you not think the difference in value of those two investments might have some bearing on potential conflict of interest?
11:40 a.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest Commissioner of British Columbia
I think the mutual fund example is a bad one, in the sense that it's so broad and so broadly held that—
11:40 a.m.
Conservative
11:40 a.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest Commissioner of British Columbia
On a direct share basis, it of course depends on the company. If it's a public company, no, because most of those are so widely traded. If it's a private company we require a disclosure of the member's interest. We call them private, controlled companies, if they qualify for that definition, based on whether the member has control.
In all the work we do, we don't worry about size, in the sense that in our practical experience it's very unlikely that we're going to have someone who is that wealthy. Indeed, that's proven to be the case. However, for example, we insist on taking things to the next step. Mutual funds are an interesting example. People can say if they have 10,000 shares or if they have 1,000 shares, the difference is really inconsequential. My investment can't influence them and they can't influence me.
But if you have funds that are sector-specific, and if in our milieu you happen to be, for example, the minister of mines and all your mutual funds are in the mining industry, then that very easily takes you into the next step, as you can see. So we insist on having the names of every fund, and we'll Google it randomly and check.
I don't want to dismiss your point, which is a valid one, about does it matter if a person has a $100 million in a particular phase of the market and another person has a $100? Although those are two obviously wildly polarized examples, I think it's a slippery slope.
At some point, you have to decide, what the threshold is for that being important. Frankly I just don't know where that would be.
11:45 a.m.
Legal Officer, Office of the Conflict of Interest Commissioner of British Columbia
I would also just like to add with our act we also have the apparent conflict of interest, so even if someone had a few shares, that could be seen as being important to the public.
