Procedure and House Affairs Committee on April 21st, 2015

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

I'll say this only for example purposes—I'm not trying to score any cheap political points—but we had a sitting prime minister, a former prime minister, whose family had controlling interest in Canada Steamship Lines. So it would seem to me that in that particular case, even though that was held in a blind trust, that would have more bearing on whether or not there was a conflict of interest because of both his position and the value of the shares, than some individual member who might have had a $1000 invested in the same company.

[Paul Fraser]

Yes. I understand that point.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

One of the things we, with Commissioner Dawson, have been dealing with is gifts that are given to MPs and what value the gift has to be before you actually make the disclosure. We also talked about acceptability. Commissioner Dawson has put that before us. In British Columbia, how do you deal with the acceptability? For example, in British Columbia, obviously tourism is a big industry, skiing is a big industry. If a member were given a ski pass, would that be considered acceptable?

[Paul Fraser]

I'm going to ask Alyne to answer this. Alyne is the maven of gifts. This little brochure is one that she authored and that has been bicycled around the country and just about everybody has now, with acknowledgement, accepted. Gifts are the bane of the existence of every conflict of interest commissioner in this country. This is an attempt to not only help members, but sometimes, as you can imagine, even though it says in fine fashion that this isn't gospel and you must consider every case, it helps your assistants more than it does you.

So the poor person who's sitting in the constituency office or in your Parliament Hill office who has a problem or thinks that you may have a problem, has an opportunity to look at something like this.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Do you have an extra 308 of them?

[Alyne Mochan]

I think Commissioner Dawson actually has a very good gifts bulletin as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Please, you helped us with this too but I want a copy of your book.

[Alyne Mochan]

Ms. Dawson does have a good gifts.... It's in a little bit of a different format, but she does have a very good gifts form.

[Paul Fraser]

They're on the website, but we'll....

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Okay, great. Thank you.

[Alyne Mochan]

We have a provision similar to other jurisdictions. Basically, you're not supposed to be accepting gifts in relation to your duties unless they're what we call—what's our phrasing?—incident protocol or social obligations.

To answer the ski hill question, that would not normally be something that you would need to do to carry out your duties. We have seen other instances where it's something that you would do. Regarding airport lounges, we've said that's something where you could actually go to find a quiet place to work, so something like that might be acceptable.

We take a very case-by-case look at it, but we do have a similar issue to Ms. Dawson's. She's expressed that there's a misunderstanding between the acceptability level and disclosure level. Our disclosure level is $250 rather than $500. Most members—because we have the bulletin and we have the regular meetings with Mr. Fraser—do understand that the first question is, “Who is the donor, what's it going to look like, and how is it related to my role? Can I accept it?” It's not the dollar amount.

But we do get many questions about different circumstances, a lot related to travel, that kind of thing too. We encounter very similar issues to Ms. Dawson. Hopefully with our resources, we can refer people to that quickly and they can take a look.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Super. Thank you.

Monsieur Blanchette, you're up. I was pretty free with Mr. Lukiwski's time. Please try to keep it around five minutes, but I'll be a bit flexible.

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses.

My comments will be in the same vein as my colleague's.

You seem to have a slightly different philosophical approach. You say that you are more interested in the nature of the gifts rather than their value. But their nature is by definition imprecise and vague. This is more a matter of judgment on the part of the person who must evaluate it, assess it—such as someone in your position—and for the person who receives the gift.

We are discussing things that happen between human beings. The capacity to influence someone is variable. My colleague and I may have very different powers of influence. I may be more sensitive and he may be more virtuous than I am, for instance. It is quite difficult to measure.

So, how can you rate the nature of a gift, when basically everyone is going to be using parameters such as cost, or the actual value? How do you work with all of those parameters in British Columbia?

[Paul Fraser]

Well, you raise a profound issue. From my point of view, it underscores that any test that is to be superimposed upon a transaction or a piece of conduct has to be very objective and not subjective. In coming up with a solution based on a principled objective test, which is what I think we have in British Columbia, you take into account what everyone has had to say about what occurred and weigh it up.

At the end of the day when you've done that, if all that remains is a determined approach by the person who has apparently misbehaved that their conduct was fine but the rest of the world, in a small sense, is opposed to it, then I think you have your answer. Frankly, it's because the issue is as profound and as complicated as you indicate, sir, that we have increasingly had members seeking advice early on.

We have a provision in our act that says that not only can members of the public request an opinion, and not only can members request an opinion with respect to the conduct of other members, but members themselves can request an opinion. Increasingly, our work is more devoted to that category than to either of the two others. People will come and we'll have a relaxed, fulsome conversation in circumstances where the person has every opportunity, without there being bombs going off in advance, to discuss whatever it is they have in mind. So far it's worked.

I'm being discursive and I don't want to take up your time, but if this is helpful.... When we started 25 years ago, the conflict of interest regime was effectively a kind of killing field for members of the legislative assembly. All of the requests for opinions were coming from members against other members. It was tragic. It did nothing for the reputation of the House or the people involved in it.

In the seven years that I have been involved in the job, thanks largely to the preventative approaches, if you like, the sort of prophylactic treatment of my predecessors, we've had two members complaining about members. I view that as progress.

If you put the statistic out on a raw basis, people would say, “What's this all about?” That's progress. If you ask me now how many members are coming in and asking confidentially for comprehensive opinions, I can give you statistics that would impress you in that respect, and of course, the members of the public are our wild card.

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

You talked about the level of acceptability. We are increasingly heading toward greater transparency, and so the degree of social acceptability is important. This is an evolving concept. What was acceptable 20 years ago may not be today, and what is acceptable today may not be 10 years from now. This is all quite fluid.

In connection with the level of acceptability, you talked about the concept of a reasonably well-informed person. You already have experience and so you can see the evolution there. However, in your assessments, how can you take the reasonably well-informed-person evolving concept into account? Of course this is defined differently from one generation to another. The way my father was reasonably well-informed differs from the way my son is. Those are two completely differently worlds, but you have to evaluate the same case. How do you go about doing that?

[Paul Fraser]

We do that essentially by simply doing the best we can to understand the mores of the day and to overcome, as my children encourage me to do every day, our age. I'm alive, as we all have to be, to the fact that there are generational changes and generational views.

You can't have dinner with my children without them texting during dinner. Your father and my father probably wouldn't have approved of that, but it's one of the mores of the day. That's perhaps a ridiculous example, but it is one. Toleration is difficult for all generations.

Interestingly enough the demographics in our group of 87 people are probably the same as those in your group of 308 people. Those in their fifties and up predominate, there are very few young people, and about one third are women. There's some pollination and some cross-pollination, but I think one must understand that's the reason commissioners don't have to be reappointed. They are considered for reappointment and it's pretty quickly evident whether they're yesterday's person or today's.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Richards, we're going to go to you for five minutes to finish this off.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks for being here. I have a few questions for you.

First, with regard to the reporting threshold for gifts, I think your reporting threshold in B.C. is $250 and our commissioner is recommending the amount be less than $500, as it is currently. I'm just kind of curious about your reporting threshold. I know it's $250 and it was indicated to us that it is similar to the threshold in most other jurisdictions. How long has that been in place and do you have it set, whether it's indexed along inflation lines or it's reviewed regularly? Obviously a gift of $250 was not the same 10 or 20 years ago as a gift of $250 is today.

I'm just curious as to how long that's been in place and whether it's adjusted on any kind of regular timeline or indexed in any way.

[Paul Fraser]

It's always been that amount since the beginning.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

It's been that amount since when?

[Alyne Mochan]

It's been that amount since 1990.

[Paul Fraser]

It's been that amount for 25 years.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

It's never been adjusted in that time. Okay.

Second, in relation to gifts, we've had a suggestion from Commissioner Dawson regarding attendance at receptions.

You've indicated to us that her recommendation that a reception to which all members are invited, which obviously would apply to situations here in Ottawa when people are in session at Parliament, is great when you're talking about a parliamentary reception. But a number of times various members here in committee have raised the question about local events.

You can pick whatever city you'd like in Canada—Toronto, Calgary, Winnipeg, Vancouver, or wherever you want to choose—and you can use the example of someone holding a reception there and maybe wanting to invite elected officials from the area. They may invite all the members of Parliament from that area and they might invite members of the legislative assembly or local municipal officials, etc., but of course they wouldn't invite all parliamentarians from all across the country.

I know you indicated that this isn't an area you're particularly concerned about for British Columbia, but I just wanted to see if you had any opinions or thoughts on how that might look if you put in that requirement.

We could even be more specific than that and talk about your own specific riding or a community in your riding. Of course they wouldn't invite all members of Parliament, but they might invite me and the local provincial representative and the local municipal representatives.

What are your thoughts on something like that when it applies to a reception to which all members of Parliament would be invited? Do you think it might be worth looking at something such that locally all officials would have to be invited, or something along those lines? I'm just wondering whether you've had any thoughts on that.

[Alyne Mochan]

We don't differentiate between those kinds of gifts or travel or invitations and so forth, and others. They would have to meet the same acceptability test that other gifts would. In an example like that, if it was a local event and you were the local representative and it was related to your role, then obviously that would be acceptable. There wouldn't be an issue there.

Where we've run into some things has been for things that are not related. For example, if it were the symphony and you were not the local MLA, why would you be invited to that? Again, we look at who the donor is and what the circumstances are. Certainly for something like that, if it's a constituency or a regional event and you have a proper role there, then that fits that part of the protocol.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

That actually might bring me pretty nicely to the next question I wanted to ask. One thing that relates to that as well is within some of the changes and recommendations that were being made by our commissioner, where there is more of a strict timeline on the annual reporting process, as an example, and I think there are others as well, where there's a very strict deadline in which members must complete that process.

One of the things that I feel...and you do hear it anecdotally from members from time to time here. I don't know if you hear it from members there as well. This is about the standards in terms of service, and maybe consistency in rulings as well, but more the standards in terms of the service. When you're talking about requiring members to complete their review, is there some kind of a service standard required of the commissioner's office as well? I guess it would kind of apply to that, where you're talking about applying some common sense but trying to apply to each situation depending on the circumstances. Obviously that would require a member to proactively come for advice on whether something would be acceptable for them to attend or not attend.

Has there been any consideration given in B.C., or what are your thoughts, on applying a specific service standard or a timeline in which those kinds of responses would be required from the commissioner's office in order for members to be able to make determinations as to what's appropriate for them to attend or not attend, or accept or not accept?