Thank you, both of you, for being here. During our discussions of Bill C-2 and otherwise, your advice was very precise and very helpful, even if it was not always followed.
Now, the two regimes and the complexity you describe are inherent in our particular exercise of parliamentary democracy. At this stage--but not always--in our parliamentary history, a minister is also a member of Parliament. I think at one stage in our history if people were to join the cabinet they had to resign their seat. Perhaps some of this complexity was meant to be overcome by that practice.
The complexity goes far beyond what we're talking about in having separate codes. I often refer to ministers as “administers”, because they straddle that line between the political or partisan and the administrative. One has a partisan aspect to it, whether you're putting forward your platform in an election or putting forward legislation and debating it or appropriating funds or whatever. Once you've done all that, you cross a line and you have a duty of fairness. That's the administrative side. Ministers are bound by that. As public office holders, they and the others are bound to treat everyone equally, not in a partisan way.
The confusion about the distinct roles on either side is increased by the fact that people play the same role. It's often not obvious to people when they're playing one role or the other.
But in this situation--and I understand the theoretical problem you're posing--I'm having difficulty playing it out in a practical way. If a public office holder, as a member of Parliament, is going to have a conflict of interest, they will have had it, as well, as a public office holder, and they would have been recused of the decision-making around that. But when they step into Parliament, already having recused themselves, or having been recused of the role, as a public office holder, are they already immunized from the conflict of interest because they've recused themselves there? If not, are they part of that general duty of a parliamentarian that speaks to legislation in general? Certainly in British Columbia's conflict of interest code, with people who have private interests, it is seen to be more of a general responsibility than a specific one.
There was the case in B.C., which was a leading case in the conflict of interest jurisprudence, about spouses of members of the legislature, many of whom were teachers, when the legislature was dealing with, for instance, a back to work order or a salary increase or something very specific. They would have a personal interest as a member of a general class of “spouse of a teacher”.
I'm wondering whether, as a practical matter, the theoretical problem you correctly pose will be screened out in most, if not all, cases. I'm trying to think of a case where it wouldn't, but--