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.
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
12:05 p.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest Commissioner of British Columbia
We have a sort of self-imposed set of guidelines. We report extensively in our annual report on these statistics. We are very conscious of being timely in our responses.
I mean, we live in the real world, as you do, and we don't see us residing in an ivory tower. If you have a problem, it's typically a problem that you, or your assistant on your behalf, needs to have solved right away in as practical, principled, and thorough a way as time will permit. It's not like having judgments reserved, if you're talking about going to court. It's not like, “We'll get to that tomorrow.” Most of it is done very quickly. Notwithstanding that we have only one full-time employee in our office and everybody else is part-time, including me, there's an urgency involved in what we do. It's an urgency that is not only obvious; it's an urgency that essentially has to do with whether or not we are providing the service that members, who have, Heaven knows, given up what they've given up for public service, deserve.
That's my commercial, sir. Thanks for letting me answer that.
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Thank you.
That brings us to the end of our time.
Yes, Mr. Lukiwski.
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
Tom Lukiwski Conservative Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK
I have a point of order, Mr. Chair, if I may.
I'll just throw this out to all members of the committee. We've had Mr. Fraser and Ms. Mochan come a fairly long distance. We're certainly fine from our standpoint if there's a willingness for another round. If you have more questions, we're certainly willing to do that. I just hate to see these two people come all this way if there are still unanswered questions.
We're quite willing, if you wish, to have another round to participate in that.
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Is it okay with you? We're happy to have you stay and answer some more questions.
12:05 p.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest Commissioner of British Columbia
We're delighted, if that includes my ability to be able to explain to you the hold-mail accounts on the blind trust side that I mentioned. I think you'd find this to be rather interesting.
12:05 p.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Perhaps you could start with that and then we'll do a round of questions.
12:05 p.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest Commissioner of British Columbia
All right.
12:05 p.m.
NDP
Craig Scott NDP Toronto—Danforth, ON
On a point of order, Mr. Chair, that's great, but I'm just suggesting that it could be more open than just another round. Anybody else who has questions...because we may not—
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
I'll be pretty flexible.
We've been pretty flexible. We'll keep there.
Go ahead.
12:05 p.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest Commissioner of British Columbia
Here's the deal. Blind trusts have frailties, as we've discussed here this morning. We have a formal blind trust arrangement, as does Commissioner Dawson. The real need is for people to be able to stand in the House and speak to any subject that comes up without there being an assertion or an accusation that there's a ventriloquist dealing with them and the ventriloquist is their portfolio.
We've had some interesting situations. We had a premier of the province, Gordon Campbell, who was negotiating with Alcan to renew some arrangements up in Prince Rupert with respect to one of their installations. The government and Alcan were in heavy negotiations and suddenly there was a complaint that the premier had shares in Alcan. It was obviously a conflict for him to be, in those circumstances, negotiating with Alcan. That came to our office before I arrived, but just as I was arriving.
Mr. Campbell, as it turned out, had 10 shares in Alcan. More importantly, because we're worried about how and not how much, Mr. Campbell got statements every month from his brokerage firm, but he never read them because he didn't have time. Most of us around this table would probably put ourselves in that same category. He had no idea that the broker to whom he had given all kinds of discretion had made that quite small purchase. Anyway, that was an embarrassment to him.
That led us to discuss whether there was some way we could easily and effectively deal with that kind of thing. We have what we call hold-mail accounts, which are exactly as the title would describe. All of this only works if members are prepared to give to their brokers complete discretion on how they will be investing. If you're not prepared to do that—and some people aren't—then this isn't for you. If you are prepared to do that—and most people now do give that kind of discretion, as a practical matter, to their brokers anyway—then what you're saying to your broker is to go out and make the investments you want, but hold the mail. Don't tell me in a statement what I have. I want to receive a statement from you, but I only want to do it in bottom-line, global terms. I want to know how much the account is worth because I want to see whether you're driving me to the poorhouse or whether you're being successful. I can get that weekly, monthly, quarterly, however.
We found immediately that the brokerage firms and the securities industry, which are obliged by every law in the land to make full disclosure of everything and tell their clients everything, went nuts. They said they couldn't possibly become involved in a scheme that would prevent them from giving information out to clients. We negotiated that and got a few of the large firms on board by explaining why we were doing it.
Then we had a problem in the sense that shares in some companies create or attract dividends, and that money is income that has to be disclosed for tax purposes. That's why there's now a side agreement whereby the accountant for the member and the broker correspond, to the exclusion of the member, in terms of reporting.
The bottom line is that we have a lot of people who are probably living their financial lives in exactly the same way that they used to, but they were running the risk before of standing up and saying something that might be interpreted as having been influenced by the fact that they had shares in Bell Canada, or they had shares in something else. It costs nothing. The large firms will do it for nothing. They'll only do it because of the competition and because we got some people on board early who were prepared to understand why it's important.
It's something that every member should have, in my view, to help to innoculate yourself from assertions of conduct based on investments.
12:10 p.m.
Legal Officer, Office of the Conflict of Interest Commissioner of British Columbia
It also makes disclosure very easy. You just say “hold mail”, no other details are required.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
It's fantastic. I know right where those envelopes are that I haven't opened yet. You're right. In practicality, we all live in that world, so why not formalize it and make it work?
12:10 p.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest Commissioner of British Columbia
Right.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
Ted Opitz Conservative Etobicoke Centre, ON
Actually I just have one really. You talked about objectivity versus subjectivity. Ultimately though the buck stops with you because you're the guy who makes the decision.
If you find your objectivity compromised in any way, or you can't come to a decision, how do you resolve that? Who do you go to for advice?
12:10 p.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest Commissioner of British Columbia
Upstairs, I guess.
I had one incident, Mr. Opitz, where I handed off a file because, to my astonishment, a member who had asked me to express an opinion told the press—not me, but the press—that he had an apprehension of bias if I were to deal with it, so I passed that off to Commissioner Gerrand from Saskatchewan, who dealt with it. That's an easy one. It's obvious.
I think the member or the requester, because it applies equally to members of the public, is entitled to a fulsome explanation of a decision, which we release to the clerk who sets it before the Legislative Assembly. We release it publicly when the member releases it, if the member does, and with the member's consent otherwise. So people have an opportunity to read it and ask whether this person is living in a dream world, whether he is some kind of ideologue that no one should have to suffer, if he is being too soft in all of the circumstances.
What you see is what you get. Sure, it's perhaps a long way between appointment dates, but you get a reputation. I haven't been attacked actually for any of the decisions I have rendered—at least not openly. No doubt there have been disappointed people in some cases. I'm not aware...except in Alberta, frankly, where within the recent past the commissioner there was attacked by the press and by members of the House and the public was left to come to its own judgment based on the decision.
I share your concern. I'm alive to it. If we were simply putting up a sign that said yes or no, that would be one thing, but if you're going to give reasons, as you must, then people can decide whether you're meeting the objective test or whether you are not.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Ted Opitz Conservative Etobicoke Centre, ON
You answered my question but I have just a supplemental on that. The only person you can really hand off to is another commissioner in another jurisdiction, so basically the same rank level.
12:15 p.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Conflict of Interest Commissioner of British Columbia
Yes, that was my view then. It happened that we wanted somebody who was well experienced. There are other jurisdictions that have some provisions. We have none for what should happen under those circumstances. We were making it up as we went along. We've now made a recommendation, which the committee in B.C. has accepted, that the chief provincial court judge could, at my request, appoint somebody. But it helps to have somebody who has had some work in this area and the decision in that particular case was very well accepted.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
12:15 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Thank you very much. I very much enjoyed this.
I just wanted to raise one issue. One of the things that we've been struggling with is trying to get a common-sense approach to some of the gift areas, and I'm sure that remains one of your constant bugaboos to deal with on all sides.
Here's the thing. Under our laws right now, someone could hand any one of us a cheque for $1,500, straight up. Here's $1,500 to help you get re-elected. I haven't even looked at the darned thing carefully, but two or three weeks ago we all received a paper bag that had soap and some other products—