Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Feb. 4th, 2016

[Huguette Labelle]

Thank you very much.

I think that this is a very important part. It can be demonstrated by the track records of the individuals in what they have done, how they have done it, how they have accomplished the responsibilities they have had in the past. Words take you only so far in this regard, so it is very much the background. It is what they have done and how they have done it, how they have succeeded in demonstrating accountability in the responsibilities they have had in previous positions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you.

I'm sorry. Your time is up.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Mr. Chair, on a point of order, Mr. Christopherson asked a number of questions about how Madam Labelle is conducting herself in the role of chair of the advisory committee, which is precisely what I was trying to deal with.

He was permitted to go there, whereas I was not. I agree with letting him go, but the fact is that if you ruled me out of order, he should have been ruled out of order too. He did not ask a single question about Madam Labelle's own qualifications. Therefore, it's clear that you think it's okay to ask questions about how she will conduct herself and how she regards her mandate, which are precisely the kinds of questions that I was seeking to ask.

I assume, therefore, that if we now, on the Conservative side, ask those same questions, you will permit them, and that the Liberals who did not object to Mr. Christopherson's questions will not object to those questions from Conservatives.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you, Mr. Reid. If you want to use up all the time of the committee, the witness doesn't get any questions.

If it's okay with the committee, since the Conservatives did not get time yet to get their competency questions in, I'm going to move Mr. Richards' five-minute round ahead, and then there will be two Liberal rounds. That's just to give them a chance to get some questions in on the topic of this meeting.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Madam Labelle, I appreciate your being here today. With regard to this process, I think Canadians have a lot of concerns about the fact that there's a lot of information that won't be made available to Canadians. Mr. Reid has raised some questions today that I know are of concern as well.

Certainly the idea that you'll be making recommendations to the Prime Minister that will never be known to the public—and no one will ever know whether the Prime Minister chooses from that list or not—and the secrecy around that are things that I know many Canadians are quite concerned about, so we certainly do appreciate the fact that you are here today so that Canadians can at least have some sense of and confidence in the people who are appointed to this board.

The subject matter we have today indicates that in the transitional process, your advisory board would undertake some consultations with groups, and it lists a number of these. I would like to get a sense of your experience in being able to undertake such consultations.

Obviously, there are a lot of questions around these consultations, such as how they'll be undertaken, whether groups will be approached or whether they'll be able to apply to come forward, under what criteria those groups are going to be chosen, how the board would interact with those groups, and whether those groups will be made public so that people are aware of who they are. I wonder if you can give us some sense as to how that process will be undertaken, how the consultations will be undertaken, and whether the groups will be made public. That will allow us to assess that against your previous experience undertaking similar types of consultations.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Ms. Labelle, you can tell him your qualifications to undertake that process.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Just to be clear, Mr. Chair, are you indicating that the witness will not be allowed to answer my questions about how that process would look?

That's important, because if we have no sense as to what the process of the consultations would look like, what types of consultations are being undertaken, and whether those groups are going to be made public, etc., we have no way of being able to assess the witness's abilities to undertake those processes. If we don't know the description of the job, we cannot assess whether someone can do the job.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

The witness can answer what she likes, but she knows she's not compelled to answer questions about anything outside of her competency and qualifications for this job. The witness can go ahead.

[Huguette Labelle]

Briefly, Mr. Chair, what we do first of all is to put up a website so that it can be available to any Canadian. Second, we have worked very hard through press releases and media advisories to ensure that more and more Canadians and organizations are able to understand and, hopefully, make recommendations and apply.

In terms of the organizations, which was your question, we're reaching out very widely to organizations around the country. We're doing this as we're talking, whether we're talking about business, labour, non-governmental organizations, arts, culture, or development. I could go on; the list is very long. There's law, employment, and so on. We are really reaching out very widely at this time, and we are continuing to do that.

They will be reporting—

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Sorry to interrupt, but the Chair's indicating that I don't have much time left, and there's something else—

[Huguette Labelle]

I'm sorry, I just want to say that we'll also be reporting on a regular basis, and I would presume that our report would be public.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Thank you.

It's been made quite clear today that some of the questions that Mr. Reid had, which are very critical questions, have not been allowed. Some of the questions I'm asking, which I believe are very important to be able to assess the qualifications, are not being allowed.

Mr. Chair, I would like to put forward a motion. Given that the committee has called the chair of the Independent Advisory Board for Senate Appointments to appear before this committee to examine her qualifications and her competence to perform the duties for this post, to which she has been appointed under Standing Orders 110 and 111, and given that the full process has not been launched or made public, how is the committee to properly be able to question the witness?

Therefore, I would like to move a motion:

That the Committee invite the Minister of Democratic Institutions to appear before it to respond to questions concerning the Independent Advisory Board for Senate Appointments.

In this way we can get a better sense of the process involved and properly assess the qualifications of the individuals on this board. I would ask that the clerk be instructed to invite the Minister of Democratic Institutions to appear before this committee to answer those questions so that we can properly conduct our duties here.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Okay, Mr. Richards, when we get to committee business later, we will.... We're not going to take time from the witness right now.

We'll go on to Ms. Vandenbeld.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much, Madame Labelle, for taking the time to come here today.

I have looked through your CV. It is incredibly impressive. You have 13 honorary degrees. You've been on numerous advisory boards and have been the chair of a number of organizations, including the WHO, the United Nations, and Transparency International, and there's all of the work that you've done on anti-corruption. I think that's tremendously impressive. I particularly wanted to also note that you were the chair of the board of Algonquin College, which is in my riding of Ottawa West—Nepean, and also of the Ottawa-Carleton United Way, which has done a lot of good work in my riding. I thank you for the tremendous contributions you've made.

This particular position will require a competence to be able to use good judgment, to look at merit-based appointments, and to use the judgment to be able to do that independently. I would like to go through some of your qualifications and background that will allow you to be able to be competent to perform the tasks you will have.

I notice that your understanding of governance is obviously very strong. You've been deputy clerk of the Privy Council and a deputy minister. You were on the board of the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development, which did a tremendous amount of work until it was disbanded. It was a very effective board that promoted international best practices of good governance. Also, of course, all of the anti-corruption work you've done also goes to your understanding of democracy and of governance.

Could you talk a little bit about how you would be able to use your qualifications, your background, and your expertise in order to do the tasks that we've asked you to undertake?

[Huguette Labelle]

Thank you very much.

First of all, you raise the position of deputy clerk of the Privy Council. The deputy clerk, of course, works very closely with the committees of Parliament, because in the position of the clerk, you're assisting as the secretary to cabinet in this regard. That, I found, was very useful in giving me an overview of the government as a whole and in getting closer to the institutions of Parliament as well, to the infrastructure of Parliament.

My work at the UN has been ongoing for many years, but more recently, in the last six years, I have been on the board of the UN Global Compact, which is chaired by the Secretary-General and which really has 10 principles that it is trying to promote around the world in working with governments, with business, and with various organizations. They include human rights, labour, development, and the tenth principle on anti-corruption as well.

I'm still working with some of the staff of the UN Global Compact on one aspect, the Business for the Rule of Law framework, which is trying to get businesses around the world to not just live by the minimum standard but to be ready to top it up and be ready to make representations to those governments that are weak and help in the work they can do. That's one aspect of it.

Also, of course, when you chair an organization, you have to look at the overall functioning of that organization, which I've had to do a number of times, not just with Transparency International but with other institutions in Canada and outside the country. I think that has been very helpful to me.

In terms of the laws of our country, when I was in the Privy Council, but also beyond that when I was working with organizations, I was able to see the importance of the privacy law in protecting private information for people.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

That's wonderful.

I also see that you're a Companion of the Order of Canada and you've received the Order of Ontario. You've also been on the Advisory Council to the Order of Ontario, where you had to make selections, look at people's qualifications and merit, and draw from a wide variety of people with professional backgrounds.

Can you tell us a bit about that?

[Huguette Labelle]

Yes, thank you.

Also—I'm adding to your question here—when I was deputy minister of the Secretary of State, which is now Heritage, by virtue of the position I automatically sat on the selection advisory body for the Order of Canada. I was there for five years. Basically, what I learned through these two processes and a number of others was very important.

I'm also chairing a panel to select young people from developing countries to study at the master's level in sustainable energy development so that they can go back to their country and deal with that big issue in their own sphere.

You need to ensure you have the broadest information possible about individuals so that you're then able to work as a committee. We have an excellent committee, the advisory board, with Indira Samarasekera, who is the former president of the University of Alberta and a research scientist and engineer. We have also Daniel Jutras, who is dean of the faculty of law at McGill University. Again, he's someone with a tremendous background. Then we have two people for each of the three provinces that we're looking at right now; they are also outstanding people. With these people together, we have the wisdom of more than one individual coming to the table. Each one of us identifies who, from all of these people who have surfaced, these individual candidates, are the top people that we could recommend.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you.

Mr. Graham.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Chair, my colleagues across the room seem to be far more interested in the process than in the phenomenal quality of the candidate before us.

I'd like to go a little bit deeper into these qualifications in understanding the context of the role she's getting herself into here.

How do you, Madam Labelle, see the historical role of the Senate as the House of sober second thought?

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

This is not on your qualifications; it's a point of order. You can relate it to your qualifications, or you can answer whatever you want, but you don't have to.

[Huguette Labelle]

Perhaps my answer would be that as a deputy minister I of course had to appear before the House of Commons, but I also had to appear before the Senate. I was able to see, as the senators reviewed legislation, how sometimes particular aspects were identified and how they were able to improve the legislation in the long run. It's been mostly through that kind of experience that I've been able to witness the responsibility of the Senate.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

That's fair. The question does tie into your qualifications in that having experienced the Senate and seen it, you understand the type of person you're looking for. You have the experience needed to have the judgment to do this. I think that was the purpose of the question.

Through your career you've also had to keep a lot of secrets, and I guess when you're hiring somebody in any role you don't want to make public the names of the people you didn't hire. It's sort of bad for them and bad for you. Can you talk about your background in keeping secrets at high levels of government?

[Huguette Labelle]

We have to look at conflict of interest here. You also have to go back to the order in council, which means that you are bound to keep the information that is there in front of you. I think it's through those instruments that one learns to keep information that cannot, either because of the privacy legislation or otherwise, be made public.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

I see that you understand the requirement for privacy for these applicants very clearly.

I'm reading your CV. I'm amused by two words at the very bottom, where I see “January 2016”. I was wondering what the previous months looked like.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!