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?