Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Feb. 10th, 2022

[Alain Therrien, Bloc, La Prairie, QC]

Perfect.

[Philippe Dufresne]

Madam Chair, in relation to the question about external activities and guidelines as to what can or cannot be done, the code refers to guiding principles and objectives. I invite you to consult them regarding avoiding the appearance of conflict of interest and encouraging confidence in the system.

The rules of conduct in sections 8 to 10 of the code make it clear that a member may not engage in any activity that might further their personal interests or those of members of their family, or improperly further those of any other person or entity.

I think that is the spirit of the rule about holding another job or office. There is no prohibition at the moment. Section 7 states that there is nothing to prevent a member of Parliament from engaging in other activities, unless they are a parliamentary secretary or minister, according to the law.

So that possibility is there. One of the commissioner's recommendations is perhaps to limit that. So it will be up to you to determine whether you want to go in that direction or whether you are comfortable with the general principle.

[Alain Therrien, Bloc, La Prairie, QC]

All right.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Mr. Therrien, you don't have any more time.

[Alain Therrien, Bloc, La Prairie, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I thank the witnesses for appearing before the committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

We can't accept gifts, but your words are very welcome.

Ms. Blaney, you have two and a half minutes.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair. It's good that we're always generous with kind words.

I have a couple more questions and they're more around clarity.

There is a section of the report we've received today, Madam Chair, that talks about how to deal with a member who is no longer a member at the time the report is considered. I thought that was very interesting.

One of the statements in there is that this issue is addressed under the “Code of Conduct for Members of the House of Commons: Sexual Harassment between Members”. It just seems interesting to me. I just want to get clarity that it is addressed in that piece but that in the other parts it's not addressed at all.

[Philippe Dufresne]

That's right, Chair.

In the code of conduct, in terms of conflict of interest, even if you're a former member, you can still have a report debated about you, if the complaint was against you and you can have a finding of the House as a former member, and that's happened.

In terms of the code of conduct for sexual harassment, it's explicitly provided that if the respondent to a complaint is no longer a member, then the matter will stop. You won't have an order of the House about condemning a former member. If you are still a member, yes, you're under the authority of the House, but if you're not, in the code for sexual harassment, it will stop.

That's a question for this committee. Is this an approach that you want to adopt for conflict of interest, or would you want to change the approach in the code on sexual harassment and say that we want to keep that? But certainly, the more recent sexual harassment code has said that for a former member, it will be off limits.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

That's really interesting.

Another question I have is around the debate. I just need this clarified. When you talk about the unintended consequence being perhaps a longer debate, can you just clarify that for me? I would have had to read it more often to try to understand, but in what context does that happen, and where is the breakdown that we might need to look at?

[Philippe Dufresne]

Madam Chair, what we found interesting is that in the code it specifically says that in the situation where you have a complaint that was upheld or substantiated, you have a maximum of two hours for the debate, but otherwise, you don't.

We wanted to ask whether there was a policy reason why a rejected complaint should be debated for longer than a substantiated complaint. We flagged that for your consideration.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you so much.

Mr. Duncan, we will move to you.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, both, for being here today. I'll echo what many of the questions have been about the internships. I think this is something we need to address as a committee.

I wasn't a member of any internship program, but I started on the Hill as a staff member when I was 18 or 19 years old. But I know the value of these internship programs. I think you said it really well when, yes, there could be a benefit to the member. More importantly is the benefit to that intern of having that political experience and getting their foot in the door. I don't think we can lose sight of this. I look forward to continuing the conversation and trying to get to a reasonable ground on that.

Mr. Vis made some very good points about the parliamentary internship program. We have those witnesses in, and how that program is structured financially.

Madam Chair, I want to open a bit of a can of worms here if I can with Mr. Dufresne on something that was actually addressed. I know this has been a conversation at different times, and the commissioner has raised this. It's around the idea of letters of support and where the line is.

The analyst did a great job in the summaries of talking about this. I'll just read it quickly. It says that “Mr. Dion suggested that the Committee could examine the issue of acceptability of letters of support.“ He indicated that many members have contacted his office to get advice or to ask about it. Currently the Code makes no mention of letters of support. However, section 9 states:

A member shall not use his or her position as a member to influence a decision of another person so as to further the member's private interest or those of a member of his or her family, or to improperly further another person's or entity's private interest.

Actually, I think I'll put Mr. Barrett on the spot. I think he goes to the commissioner very often to ask about these letters of support. Where there is an asterisk here or where I think it requires clarification is immigration cases or case files in our constituency office. I wonder about your thoughts from a legal perspective are on this. I read that to say that if somebody comes in and has a problem with CRA or their bank deposit or child tax credit, we can go in and advocate and get that resolved. But if I think of an immigration case where there's a letter of support to say that I vouch for this person, X or Y, and I read about improperly furthering another person's private interest—in this case to gain Canadian citizenship or something along those lines—I think it's a very big grey area right now. So there's casework and then there are individual letters of support for certain individuals. Have you put any thought into where there may be a line or a legal aspect of where our casework starts and where advocacy or advancement of a private interest starts?

Sorry if I opened a can of worms, but that's the one that needs to be addressed.

[Philippe Dufresne]

I think what I would say is this is the way to look at the code and to identify these issues. This is a situation where the code says you can't do it if it's improper. I think that's really the issue: Is it proper or improper to do a certain thing as a member? I think the more you're at the general level in saying that you're advocating for the proper functioning of a department program, etc.... I think the concern that the code is flagging is if it appears that you're favouring a given individual or organization more than another and there's no obvious reason for it. If there's a concern about whether that specific issue is because you're doing it all the time—with every single constituent who comes in, you will go and do that—and is that appropriate and whether it should be clarified in the code to make it more explicit so that it doesn't become a one-off every time....

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

I appreciate that. As a follow-up to that, when we look at draft recommendations, there may be a case for taking a look at perhaps recommending that the commissioner give some better or clearer guidelines on that casework. I think the same thing as well with infrastructure projects. Mr. Gerretsen said [Inaudible—Editor] start at the municipal level, and Mr. Barrett did as well. We get asked if we can you support this community centre funding or this road project we're submitting. Again, it's the same thing: If we're saying, well, I think this project will be best for my community versus not providing one to another municipality, where is that line drawn as well?

I don't have the answer on that today, but I do think it may be something for us to consider providing clarity on, because as we look at the definition of “family”, you can concretely say whether or not that includes your second cousin twice removed. The issue of discussing friends, as I've mentioned before, is where we get into that.... A supporter of ours who volunteered or took a lawn sign in our campaign suddenly comes into our office to say, hey, I happen to have my cousin or my family looking to come here. Providing that letter starts to cause a grey area. I just think in the optics of it we need to be very clear of what is and what is not allowed in casework and that we know some of those differentiations.

I'll leave it at that.

[Charles Robert]

Madam Chair, I think the issue that Mr. Duncan raises has a lot to do with how you define your role, really, as a member of Parliament. The code of conduct is meant to guide you as to what might be seen to be acceptable from the public view in terms of behaviour. However, it should not really ever be seen as a vehicle that actually prevents you from doing your job, keeps you from doing it in terms of why you wanted to be a member of Parliament. If it goes that far, then it has really crossed a line that actually neutralizes you in your capacity to function as a member. You have your duties in Parliament and in the chamber, and in the committees and in your caucus, but you also have significantly important duties with respect to your electors. If you can't do the work for them, you might start asking yourself why you're here.

From that point of view, there has to be a dialogue with the commissioner so they fully and properly understand what the nature of your work is.

I don't want to end my comments without acknowledging Mr. Vis, who I knew when I was on the other side and met him as a parliamentary intern.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

I thank you for that. You seem to be one of the few people who understand our role as members of Parliament. I thank you for those comments and I thank Mr. Duncan.

The last round will go to Mr. Fergus, for a quick five minutes, please.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Madam Chair, I would like to yield my time to Ms. May.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

That's very kind.

Ms. May, you have the floor.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Thank you, Chair, for welcoming me to this table, and particularly, thank you, Greg, for giving me your time.

I'm going to try to do this concisely. This is a real-life example. It's not hypothetical, but I'll leave the name of the individual out. I will say, I think we have a loophole in our code of conduct.

I will also say, like Ryan, as somebody who studies ethics, although in the context of studying for a theology degree, there's the concept of ethics as a high calling to moral conduct and an aid to understanding of right and wrong, and then there are codes of conduct that I think lead us to looking at the black letter of a code and saying that which isn't specifically prohibited is allowed even if it offends a conscience.

Here's the fact set. A sitting member of Parliament was hired by a U.S. corporation that was in the process of suing the Government of Canada. As a sitting MP, he testified against our government in a secret chapter 11 NAFTA tribunal case where it wasn't known he was a witness until a couple years later when the NAFTA arbitration tribunal ruled that Canada lost, largely due to the evidence of this member of Parliament. The only arbitrator to vote against us losing was the Canadian law professor. Canada had to pay out $8 million. The MP in question never disclosed how much income he obtained from doing this work. He was paid at his normal hourly rate for as much time as it took to do the work. I estimate that was at least $100,000, but we don't know.

He remained a member of Parliament through all this. When he was reelected, I went to the deputy clerk at the time to ask if he was entitled to take his oath of allegiance as a member of Parliament, because it occurred to me that testifying against the Government of Canada violated the oath, and should he be allowed to take it a second time?

That was viewed to be a non-factual complaint. I also then went to the commissioner of ethics. I didn't publicize that I had filed a formal complaint, but I thought the facts here were offensive to the concept of serving your country and being a member of Parliament, to accept private work from a U.S. corporation suing Canada.

I think we have a big loophole. The commissioner ruled that, because of his previous work, this was fine as an MP and he was continuing to be a member of the bar and able to do other work. I wondered when I saw the denouement in the Palace of Westminster with various....

What was dealt with Boris Johnson was called the “sleaze” complaints. Would those members of Parliament in the Palace of Westminster actually violate anything in our code of conduct to take private work for which they were paid?

Have you any comment on this? Do we need to actually fix our code of conduct or be more rigorous in our oath as members of Parliament to be loyal to Canada only and not put our private interests ahead of Canada?

[Philippe Dufresne]

Through you, Madam Chair, I think the issue of work and paid work and conflict of interest is one that has in fact been raised by the commissioner.

Currently the code says with regard to activities outside of Parliament that unless you're a minister or a parliamentary secretary, you can do those activities. There is the broad, general prohibition of improperly furthering another person's interests, so you'd have to capture it here, but the commissioner did raise the question of whether there is paid work that, because you're remunerated and it's inconsistent or appears inconsistent with your duties as a member, should be dealt with by the code more explicitly.

These would be the types of considerations that you might want to turn your minds to.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

I have some more time, amazingly enough.

Does it strike you that it's clear to members of Parliament—regardless of whether we're parliamentary secretaries, ministers or opposition members of Parliament as in my case—that we have to put the interests of Canada ahead of any personal interest as part of taking the oath as a member of Parliament?

[Charles Robert]

I would assume so, but again, it depends on how you look at the code and how you read it.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Does the oath convey something higher for our conduct than the code? As members of Parliament, we swear an allegiance or we solemnly affirm to be faithful and bear true allegiance—our oath says, “to her majesty the Queen”, but I think it's understood by members of Parliament that we're not specifically.... We all love Queen Elizabeth II, but that's not who the oath is to. It's to Canada.

[Philippe Dufresne]

Both the oath and the principles of the code really recognize the public trust, the public commitment and the public interest that members are there to support and promote.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

That brings us to time.

I thank you for that conversation.

I would like to thank our visitors for coming and providing their insights.

If there are some questions you didn't get to but you would like to comment on, we would welcome your sharing that information with our committee. We're sure you'll be thinking about this invigorating conversation later on. As you do, please take notes and share them with us.

With that, have a good day.

We will suspend as we get to our next session.