Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Feb. 20th, 2007

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Mr. Chair, I'm just wondering if that goes to members' privileges, asking them a direct question. Can we have the clerk look into it before we continue?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

The clerk says it doesn't go against members' privileges, that they can be asked questions. The committee doesn't have the power to decide if a breach of privilege has occurred. It's only the Speaker who would be able to decide that.

What Mr. Komarnicki is asking in this motion is that the chair ask.... Are you saying that the chair would ask each member of the committee if they leaked the document?

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

A very specific question, that each member be asked by the chair whether he or his staff, at his or her request, released a confidential study on detention to the press, period. Yes or no.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

At the beginning of the next meeting?

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

At the beginning of the next meeting. It wouldn't have to be necessarily at the next meeting, but in the course of time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay.

Mr. Wilson.

[Blair Wilson, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

A question to the chair. Members here who have copies of this report obviously have those copies back in their office, and their staff members have had an opportunity to take a look at them and assist us in doing our function. I'm wondering if there is anybody beyond members and their staff who would have had access to the report. Specifically, would the parliamentary secretary have passed on this information to the minister? Would the minister or any of the Department of Immigration staff have had access to this? I'm just wondering how broad a net we should cast to undertake this, or is this a document that the member has kept just with himself and just with his staff?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I think the motion by Mr. Komarnicki is that each member of the committee be asked. Is that what you're saying?

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

That each member of the committee be asked.

Could you read the motion, please?

[The Clerk of the Committee]

That each member be asked by the chair whether he or she, or his or her staff at his or her request, released a confidential study on detention centres to the press.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

We invite discussion on that. We'll have Mr. Telegdi and then Mr. Karygiannis.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

I think the point that Blair raised is important, because I have often wondered in the past if parliamentary secretaries did give committee reports to the department to get help or whatever. I'm serious. That occurred under a Liberal government, and that was on this committee, so I think that should be underlined: when you're here, you're here as a member of the committee, not as somebody for the department or the minister. That's important, because as soon as it gets out into the bureaucracy, it just spreads all over the place. I think it's an important point.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

We'll have Mr. Karygiannis, Mr. Devolin, Mr. Wilson, and then, hopefully, that will be it on this particular motion.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

No disrespect to Mr. Komarnicki, but parliamentary secretaries do have staff that is apportioned to them by the department. There is more staff in a parliamentary secretary's office that liaises with the minister's office. I don't think anybody in here would be foolish enough to think that the staff of the minister's office is not liaising with the parliamentary secretary's office, and has not seen the report, and that this report is not somewhere in the minister's office, probably in some bureaucrat's hands, and away we go.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay--

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Listen, I have acted as a parliamentary secretary in two different departments, and I know as well that there are other people around this table who have been parliamentary secretaries, so there's no way you can tell me that the staff, which is seconded to the parliamentary secretary from the department, does not liaise with the minister's staff. There's absolutely no way you can tell me that the minister has not seen this report, or any other reports. Maybe in this case they haven't seen it, but you can't tell me that the minister does not see any other reports that the committee does.

Mr. Komarnicki comes in here and he's got his briefing notes, and you can see that definitely when questions are being asked or stuff is being said, there are briefing notes from the department.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you.

Mr. Devolin.

[Barry Devolin, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

There are a couple of points I want to put on the table--

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

We're speaking to this motion here.

[Barry Devolin, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Yes, sorry, I'm addressing the motion.

This is the first time I've seen the media story, but it seems pretty obvious from reading this that the reporter talked to someone who was in the room during the discussion. So I take Bill's point, which is that if you're going to ask people whether or not they leaked it.... I mean, the report was sent to our offices. My office received a copy of the report last week. Unless the reporter is fabricating some of this, it's obvious that they've talked to someone who was in the room. So I just want to point that out as being relevant information.

The second thing is I think that documents go out the back door lots of places, lots of times. I appreciate that, but I think the first layer of investigation obviously would be the people who were in the room at the time the conversation took place. The minister wasn't in the room. The bureaucrats weren't in the room. Unless the reporter made this up, someone who was in the room--it could be physically--had to talk to this reporter. Some of the quotes here are very specific about the conversation that took place, as opposed to being about the document. I had a copy of the document, obviously, so I guess I'm a suspect for having given it to the media, but I wasn't in the room at the time, so I couldn't speak about what the debate was on the report.

I'm not saying that departments never leak stuff. All I'm saying is that when you look at the facts here, the reasonable place to start the investigation is with the people who were actually in the room at the time, not with committee members who were not in the room, or, quite frankly, not with ministerial or departmental staff. I just think that's a logical point from which to approach this issue.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I have four people who want to speak to this. I have Mr. Wilson, Mr. Siksay, Mr. Telegdi, and Madame Faille.

Keeping in order, we will go to Mr. Wilson now.

[Blair Wilson, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

To respond to Mr. Devolin's comment, I don't think we can assume anything about what gets written in the press and about where their sources come from. When I read articles in papers, I always operate by “half of it is true”. The difficulty is, which half is true?

On the point in question, when we had the committee meeting and were going over this confidential report, I believe that was the meeting where we had three additional new Conservative members to the committee. There were also some rotations in and out. We should make sure we include those people on the list of names as well.

I'd also really like to get an answer on whether or not this report got leaked beyond members' offices. Did this report get leaked to the bureaucracy? Did it get leaked to the Department of Immigration? I'd like that clarified.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I want to remind members that what we're doing now is dealing with Mr. Komarnicki's motion.

Mr. Siksay.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

I largely agree with what Barry was saying. I don't think the issue right now is whether this has gone further into the bureaucracy or not. I don't think that needs to be our first concern, given what we've seen before us. I think he made a very clear statement about that.

I think we do have to put the question to all of the members who were present at that meeting last week.

I would like to add an amendment to the motion: that the chair put that question at the beginning of the next open meeting of the committee, and that all the members who were present at the meeting in question be asked to appear at that meeting.