Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Feb. 23rd, 2016

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

I would know nothing about that.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

No, you wouldn't. No.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Okay, so we're going to take that report. Maybe we'll have a brief discussion of whether or not we do anything on the conflict of interest code before we get into the nitty-gritty details.

Are there any comments?

Mr. Richards.

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

If we're going to look at this and do something with it, I don't know that it's appropriate to begin with some recommendations and start deciding one way or the other without the committee having some of the background, context, and information that would be required to make those kinds of decisions. We heard from the commissioner, but we might want to hear from some other witnesses and get some more background, information, and opinions on some of these types of changes before we start making decisions about them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Maybe we should hear from the caucuses, too.

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

That would probably be advisable, I would think.

[Arnold Chan, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

I know that the evidence was taken in camera in the last Parliament. It would be helpful to at least have the opportunity to review that evidence. Maybe we could go in camera just to review the evidence—not to make any comment about it, but just to know what was on the table. Then we could come back in public. Alternatively, we could have an opportunity to review the transcript from the clerk's office, but I would like to know what was under consideration by the 41st Parliament.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Go ahead, Mr. Reid.

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

Without violating the confidentiality of what happened, I can say that it was not really that we took evidence per se. There were no witnesses presenting before us at these in camera meetings. It was internal discussion.

It's largely a matter of going through transcripts. I would recommend that you allot a reasonable amount of time for just reading through the record. Also, like all transcripts, it tends to wander around in a somewhat undirected format.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

You can blame it on me.

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

It's not on you in particular. All of us were guilty.

I'm sure our clerk has already thought of this, but it might be a good idea to organize the transcripts so that if someone comes to your office to look at them, they would know which ones to go through and could take those to a desk in the corner or something.

[The Clerk]

Thank you. I'd just like to point out one thing.

The committee has a routine motion in effect currently that says that members can review an in camera transcript in the clerk's office. However, when we think about going back to a previous session, members who are currently members of the committee but were not members of the committee in the previous session do not have an automatic right to view those transcripts.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Mr. Reid is next, and then Mr. Christopherson.

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

There must be a technical workaround, if that's the case. We could adopt a motion or something that will let us go forward

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

We can do anything by unanimous consent. If we agree unanimously that we want to have them, we can do that.

Also, while I have the floor, Mr. Reid is offering very sage advice when he talks about the time commitment. There's a lot there, because the discussion was free-ranging. We were working together, trying to find solutions.

I've never seen it done, but I think we should be open to examining the transcripts at this session, because what's going to happen, Scott, is that we're going to come here, and half of us will not have done it and will have memory of it and will be playing with that, while some are going to go and actually read it because that's their work ethic. Then there are others who will come in and kind of skim over it because this isn't their priority committee. It's going to create a different knowledge base, which is exactly the opposite of what you're trying to achieve.

I'm trying to work with you. I don't know if there's some way to bring them forward, but perhaps we could take 20 minutes at the beginning of the meeting to peruse them, or do it section by section. Your point is well taken, but if we're going to go to the extraordinary length of pulling confidential records from a previous parliament to make them accessible, we ought to make sure it works, that's all.

Those are my thoughts.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

I guess another consideration is whether the Bloc will give us unanimous consent to do that.

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

Is it unanimous consent of this committee, or is it the House?

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

No, it's this committee.

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

I think we're getting an answer to this right now from the experts.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Could you answer that question? Does this committee have the authority to bring forward those confidential statements before all of us, including the ones who were not on the committee before?

[The Clerk]

What I could suggest is that if the committee wants to make an agreement that those transcripts be produced for the committee's review in an in camera meeting, then I would do that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Go ahead, Mr. Chan.

[Arnold Chan, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

I've read most of these recommendations and I don't have a problem with most of them. However, my issue at the end of the day is that I would like to have a full understanding of why it was bypassed and what the substantive concerns might have been.

I have a few concerns in a couple of these items about the breadth of what the conflict of interest commissioner is asking for. However, above and beyond that, a lot of it seems reasonably sensible to me, so I want to understand the rationale for why these recommendations were not moved forward. I'm not saying there weren't legitimate reasons, but that's what I'm trying to get to the bottom of.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Mr. Christopherson was suggesting that if we do a study on this, we do that in the first 20 minutes.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I guess so.

I put that out as a thought to work with, Chair.