Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Feb. 18th, 2016

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

I guess I'm a little troubled that this would be considered a gift, because it's really part of our role as a member of Parliament. But if you're saying that's the case, I guess my question would be that if we felt as a committee that we wanted to recommend changes so that we would better clarify—

[Mary Dawson]

It would depend on whether it was in your constituency, probably. Each case....

Unfortunately, it is a grey area. There's no way of getting around it. You have to determine, first of all, whether it's a gift, and a gift is anything given to you that you don't pay for, basically.

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

May I just...?

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Go ahead. Make it really short.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate it. This is just a quick follow-up.

It almost sounds to me as though we're presented with the case that every time we were invited to an event, we'd have to come to check with your office to determine whether it's acceptable or not. Is there a way you could suggest that we could write the code so that this would be better clarified, which would then not require a member of Parliament to come to check with you every single time they're attending an event?

Can you suggest how we might write the code to be very clear about what's acceptable and what's not?

[Mary Dawson]

My guidelines under the act, I think, are quite good. I've never been able to get guidelines.... I sort of gave up because of the requirement for this committee to approve stuff. But I think if I had the power, I could put my mind to it and get a guideline out.

I've had letters coming in from lobbyists and I've promised them that I'm going to get an advisory out, which I consider that I can do on my own, around some of these gifts. But you know, there's a whole bunch of different, random questions that go in different directions.

I should just point out one thing, though. If you're there representing your community, I would consider that a protocol gift, and there is an exception for protocol gifts. But it's still a gift. There's a difference between reporting and acceptability.

I think it's not a bad thing, if you're getting value.... I mean, most of these things in your community would not require a ticket of $200, I would think. It's not as though there's a plethora of these things. I agree that it's not 100% easy, but the reason it's not easy is that it depends on the individual receiving it and the relationship with the giver. You have to look at the specific cases.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you.

Mr. Christopherson, you have seven minutes.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Madam Dawson, and your staff for being here today. We have been around and around on this stuff all along. I arrived the year this all started and I have to say it's about as clear now as it was then.

[Mary Dawson]

The easy answer is you can receive no gifts, but I don't think you want to go there. There is a solution. Sorry.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Not a problem. Just a macro and then I'll get into a couple of micros. You opened with—and I've heard it consistently and we've dealt with it here at this committee—where we have the act and the code and the fact that they're not the same, but then we also have the lobby commissioner, as you mentioned. Has there ever been any attempt or thought between you and the lobby commissioner, or anybody else on that side of it, to look at a joint report that makes recommendations that would help clarify that?

It would be for ease of use, rather than us dealing with the individual silos and trying to identify where they overlap, what language would be best, if there's a conflicting language, which one to recommend, or how to outline the arguments for and against each. It seems to me it would be a lot easier if you folks as agents of Parliament sat down—because you have the expertise. You know what you're talking about because you deal with it every day. We deal with all kinds of things all day.

Has there been any thought to that or is there a particular reason why we couldn't approach it that way?

[Mary Dawson]

We've both appeared at same meetings where we're on a panel and had a discussion about things.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

If I recall those meetings, it just helped to point out the problems. I was looking at in terms of the solution side. Could you come in with a joint report that makes recommendations, or can you not do that because you're silo-bound by your separate pieces of legislation?

[Mary Dawson]

One of the problems is that we're dealing with a different group. We're not dealing with the same group of people, and the rules can't be the same when you're not dealing with the same group of people. I understand your instinct. I don't think we have necessarily the same bottom line, and the trouble is we each have our own authority. I take your suggestion and it would be a good thing. The only people that the lobbying commissioner is concerned about are lobbyists. I'm concerned about a much broader group of people: stakeholders.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

In fairness you're the one who raised the fact that we have overlapping jurisdictions, and that it would be helpful if we could separate those out. We've tried it from our end, and you can see how effective we've been in 12 years. I'm trying to find a different approach.

[Mary Dawson]

I think it might help if the two offices were together, but that's for the future.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

You realize you have a whole bunch of people in the lobby commissioner's office all jumping up and down right now saying, “What the heck?”

[Mary Dawson]

It's one solution. It's not a final solution.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

In one way it makes a lot of sense. If there are problems with overlapping, let's get it into one document where the language and the references are meant to be constant.

[Mary Dawson]

Lobbying used to be covered under the previous administration of the Conflict of Interest Act, but it was only the registration. What's different now is that there's this guideline capacity for the lobbying commissioner to make, and that wasn't there before.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Just to pursue this a little further, we're just kind of blue-skying right now, but would that be something the two commissioners would be prepared to look at? If there's an efficiency to be made.... Nobody wants to lose anything. We spent a lot of time on these things, and in many ways these are the defining differences of a modern mature democracy versus some of the emerging ones that many of us are involved in, and the struggles they face. They are nice problems to have.

Is there the capacity to make that recommendation? Is it something we should look at? We're always interested in efficiencies on all sides of the House.

[Mary Dawson]

You're members of Parliament. I think you can make whatever recommendations you want to make.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I was looking for something that had some substance before we do it though.

[Mary Dawson]

The ethics committee made that recommendation at one point.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

They did...?

[Mary Dawson]

Yes, and that's been in the wind off and on.