I have lots of water, paper.... We'll see how we go.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
To continue where I left off, we were talking about the importance of continuing on with this investigation. We have direction from the Speaker. We're trying to convince all members here that Mr. Richards' motion does have precedents, does have a requirement to continue on.
I should point out that these words were not taken by us from out of the sky. They were taken from the Minister of Justice directing us a little further. We feel that by getting this list, it will help us continue in our investigation.
As a journalist, I want to talk about a few things, about how the two articles—Laura Stone's in The Globe and Mail and the CBC's The National the day after—had pretty specific details and very convincing wording that it was fact and not journalistic speculation.
I'll just quickly quote from “Principles for Ethical Journalism” taken from the Canadian Association of Journalists:
Journalists have the duty and privilege to seek and report the truth, encourage civic debate to build our communities, and serve the public interest. We vigorously defend freedom of expression and freedom of the press as guaranteed under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We return society’s trust by practising our craft responsibly and respecting our fellow-citizens’ rights.
I think it's under the first point, “We strive for accuracy and fairness”, that we go into our debate here. The quote continues:
We avoid allowing our biases to influence our reporting. We disclose conflicts of interest. We give people, companies or organizations that are criticized in our reporting the opportunity to present their points of view prior to publication. We respect people’s civil rights, including the rights to privacy and a fair trial. We don’t alter photos, videos or sound in ways that mislead the public.
Then you go to these articles. Again, I go back to the wording of “according to a source”, says Laura Stone in The Globe and Mail, and “according to the source, who is not authorized to speak publicly about the bill”.
Then we go to the CBC's The National on April 13, “Sources tell the CBC...”.
Again, this is not journalistic speculation. These are words of fact, and of course the reporter wouldn't do that, based on their goals of striving for accuracy and fairness. Speaking as a former journalist, and I know there are other former journalists at this table, it's your wording that is important. If it were just speculation, you would not use “Sources tell the CBC”, or say that the piece of legislation will do this or won't allow for this. That is a very important point.
Going back to the principles, journalists are “independent and transparent”. They “don’t give favoured treatment to advertisers or special interests”. They “don’t accept or solicit gifts or favours from those they might cover”. The principles continue:
We don’t report about subjects in which we have a financial interest. We don’t participate in movements and activities that we cover. Editorial boards and columnists or commentators endorse political candidates or causes. Reporters do not.
This is where we tie it in to what we're doing here:
We generally don’t conceal our identities. When, on rare occasions, a reporter needs to go “undercover” in the public interest, we will clearly explain why.
Clearly this is not the case in these situations with CBC's The National and The Globe and Mail with Laura Stone. When you're talking to a source, of course you're not going to identify the source. That's clearly something we all accept and something that is paramount to continuing as a journalist, but again, it's the wording that says that they did have conversations with someone—someone who had access to this legislation.
In this case, we're trying to find the source of this leak, and based on the justice minister's own testimony, it seems a good place to start, or a good place to continue this investigation, Chair, is to find out who had access to this documentation. That is why it is so important to see this list.
I'll go on even further and I'll tie this in.
Again, from the Canadian Association of Journalists:
We keep our promises We identify sources of information, except when there is a clear and pressing reason to protect [the sources].
The valuable reason for keeping their sources anonymous is clear. That's why we do not obviously have any idea of the source, because that source was not supposed to reveal the text of the legislation.
It then says, “We explain the need for anonymity when we decide to grant it.” That's clearly not the case here, but that's our job.
We independently corroborate facts given by unnamed sources. If we promise to protect a source's identity, we do so.
That's from the Canadian Association of Journalists.
Obviously we don't expect Laura Stone or the CBC's The National to disclose their sources, so that again leaves it up to us to continue this investigation. Was this declared before Parliament had the chance to see it? Again, there is very clear wording in these articles.
As a journalist myself, there were many years that you would have sources who, in many cases, would like to maybe leak a story ahead of time, because it's a way of framing the debate the way they want it. It's a way of getting ahead of the story on certain issues that may or may not be controversial. For this case, and if you look at the articles, it did frame the debate how they wanted it.
This was clearly leading the conversation in the direction the government wanted to take it. It's a very controversial bill. It's a very emotional bill. It's a bill of a magnitude that impacts on pretty much everybody across the country. To think that it would not be a good strategy to get ahead of it or steer the conversation in a certain direction...I think it was a good communications strategy.
However, there are very good details that suggest it was leaked before Parliament had eyes on it. If we just give up now and say, “Well, I think we asked the Minister of Justice. She said no. We believe her, so that's good enough”, then how do we prevent this from happening again? How do we stop this?
There are very clear indications in these articles that very clear details were released that certainly give very clear evidence that this was more than just a casual conversation or a reporter taking a wild guess. Going to the ethics guidelines from the Canadian Association of Journalists, it talks here about accuracy. This is where it ties into this, because, yes, I think it was pretty accurate:
We are disciplined in our efforts to verify all facts. Accuracy is the moral imperative of journalists and news organizations, and should not be compromised, even by pressing deadlines of the 24-hour news cycle.
Chair, again these are pretty specific details. It was pointed out that there was one part that wasn't in the bill, but as was pointed out by Mr. Reid and Mr. Richards, in a conversation or one on one, if the reporter was taking the notes by old-fashioned writing, there could have been a minor error. But for the rest of it, that looks pretty clear.
We seek documentation to support the reliability of those sources and their stories, and we are careful to distinguish between assertions and fact. The onus is on us [the reporters] to verify all information, even when it emerges on deadline.
Mr. Chair, I think that both reporters did just that in their articles, The Globe and Mail and The National. To look at both stories and see how close they are in their details, again, Mr. Chair, this tells you that these reporters are not taking a guess because the stories would be wildly different. The wording tells us the same story.
Why, Chair, are we giving up? Why are we stopping this investigation? Why, Chair, do we not ask for a detailed list? Why don't we look into this further?
There are a lot of former political staffers at this table too. I can imagine, should we find this person, he or she might be watching very closely right now and wondering whether we are going to get somewhere. “Are they going to find that list and get to me?” As a former staffer, if I possibly were the source of this leak, I think I'd be sweating right now.
The chair has pointed out that the justice minister said that she asked her political staff, she asked her deputy minister, to conduct an investigation. Her staff said, no, it wasn't them. The deputy minister said they went through the list of people who had the draft legislation and they said it wasn't them.
This is my hockey analogy. As a referee, I'm sure everyone I give a penalty to would say it wasn't them. I would say a number of times that the penalty was correct and it was the correct call, but everyone will say no. I don't blame them. It's only what you do.
That's why this investigation...and I'm hoping I'm convincing the other side here.
