Public Accounts Committee on May 15th, 2006

[Sheila Fraser]

We said it isn't a matter for the RCMP because it is not a breach of law per se. Perhaps I would ask government what investigation they are conducting, because they've indicated they will be conducting one, I presume, to see that the departments involved have in fact done everything reasonable to ensure they have respected the government's security policy.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I have no problem if the committee decides to wait, because I am not going to let this go. At least, we need to take some action commensurate with the importance we place on it, or change the policy. That's my thinking. Either honour it, uphold and enforce it, or change it and stop pretending. I'm quite willing to wait for the government report.

My difficult with it is—never mind that it's Conservative—the principle that you've got government inspecting government, investigating government, to decide if government did anything that government ought not do. It makes sense that if you want to have people accept that you didn't do anything—if that's the finding—it best comes from somebody who's at arm's length from the government, or an agency or entity. That's why I immediately said the RCMP. But I was open to other ideas. Whether or not, Chair—I look to you—we've got room enough here to send it to the Ethics Commissioner, is this someone who can grapple with it? Do we want to wait for the government report to determine whether or not we are satisfied that it's been a thorough investigation, and if not, what our options are?

I have to say to you, Chair, that if I'm the only one, I'll lose to the majority—and obviously the majority rules—and so be it. But I have to tell you, this is serious enough that we ought not let it die here. We can't make these statements about confidentiality, respecting Parliament, respecting procedures, respecting the Canadian people, and then when it's breached, do nothing because we think it will be too hard to find the culprit. That's not acceptable. We either find some means.... I have to tell you folks that even if we never find out who did this, we have to let it be known that if you do this, you're going to generate some heat and probably find yourself in a position of having to lie to cover your rear end or admit it. We will not treat it lightly and ignore it.

That message has to get out there. Mr. Chair, obviously I'll listen to the rest of the speakers, but I would hope that at the end of this meeting we have some pathway we feel will ensure that this doesn't fall off the table and get forgotten. Then it repeats itself the next time we have a leak. If we've had eight, there's reason to believe that if don't change something we're going to have nine. I'll be interested to hear what further comments come, Chair, but I am very much looking for whatever action this committee will to take to ensure that we are respecting our own policies and ensuring that accountability and ethics are something we will uphold among ourselves and the departments—not just individually as local members of Parliament.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Mr. Christopherson.

Ms. Ratansi, for eight minutes.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Madame Fraser, for being here.

I think we should come back to what Mr. Christopherson has said, that this is an issue of a leak, and it is an issue of accountability. Whatever the audit report comes and finds will be discussed later, but we must address the premise that the privilege of Parliament has been violated. The privilege that is ours, as MPs, has been violated. I was surprised that an FCGA could say, “What is this?” It's an ethical issue.

I remember very clearly, when I was a risk manager at the Province of Ontario, we had the biggest boondoggle under the Conservative government in the form of the Arthur Andersen contract. It was a half-billion-dollar boondoogle, sole-sourced, and the minister was not held responsible, yet ethically we never, ever reviewed it. Nobody knew about it. So I do not know why we don't leave two issues aside: one is the report itself; the other is the ethical premise of a leak.

If I understand the process correctly, you go and meet with the department to discuss the mandate and the objective of the audit, and then once the audit has been done you consult whoever is responsible for getting factual information, and after that you give a draft report, which is marked “A”.

Now, does everybody understand what “A” stands for? I can appreciate where you're coming from. A lot of people used to get the reports, and despite the fact that there was huge political advantage in leaking information about the BTI system that the provincial audit was against, nobody leaked it. I can't understand how a draft report can get leaked. Or is it the briefing that you give, and you think that because it's a verbal briefing...? Do you give the ministers a verbal briefing or do you give them an overview of the report?

[Sheila Fraser]

Let me just go back and explain.

When we conduct the audit, we obviously have to have many interactions with departmental officials, so we start off in the very beginning explaining what the audit is and what the criteria are. We will discuss those criteria with the government departmental officials, and they will generally be in agreement, or if they have concerns about them they will express them.

As we conduct the audit, of course, we have to have discussions with people to obtain information—explanations and context--about certain transactions. Reports on findings are prepared, which will be shared with the public servants, and then an initial draft of the report will be prepared. We give that draft to the department, and it is marked “Protected A”.

Everyone in government should understand the different classifications of protection of documents. That's all part of the security policy. It's fairly common practice within government departments to have classifications, so I would expect that people would understand that.

It is also accompanied by a letter indicating that this is confidential and is not to be shared or copied or whatever. There is a discussion that goes back and forth around the facts, so departments can come back to us and say that a certain issue they've put in is not correct or that they have additional information to give us. They can also give us comments on tone, if they believe that certain aspects of the draft report could be misunderstood.

I would like to think there is only one draft; in fact, there are many drafts that go back and forth over a period of probably six to eight weeks. Then we have a final draft, which we send to the department, actually to the deputy minister. At that time, we ask the deputy minister to provide us with the department's response to the recommendations and to indicate whether they agree with the facts of the report. Once that is done, we include the response of the department in our audit, and then the report is finalized and goes off to the printers. That happens probably a month or two before the actual tabling date.

In this process, of course, the departments will actually share audit findings with the central agencies--the Treasury Board Secretariat and the Privy Council Office. A few weeks before tabling, as I mentioned, we have a briefing with those officials, at which time the people who conducted the audit are available to answer questions of clarification.

Then a few days before tabling, I offer to brief ministers. It is a verbal briefing. In many cases, obviously, they've already been briefed by their departmental officials. It is usually a short briefing--half an hour to an hour--simply to go through the facts, as we see them, and the recommendations that we have made.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

So in fact, if somebody were to do a forensic audit as to where the leak took place, and you have done an investigation that says your department is not responsible, therefore they would have to trace the bouncing ball through the department itself to the deputy ministers, the various managers, the various program people with whom you've had interaction, because they would be privy to the information.

[Sheila Fraser]

Yes. As I mentioned in the statement, we do not believe the journalist actually had a physical copy of the report, but it was rather a verbal briefing. So it could have come from a number of people who would have had information about the audit and about issues raised. But as I also mentioned, there are inaccuracies.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

If you don't mind, Chair, I have a quick follow-up question.

With respect to the government conducting an investigation, have you been consulted thus far in terms of this investigation? Have you been made aware of the magnitude and the scope of this investigation?

[Sheila Fraser]

No. The government has certainly indicated to me that they are very concerned with this, that they are quite displeased with the fact that this leak occurred, and I saw this announcement that there would be an investigation. But I'm not aware of the scope of the investigation or the specifics of that investigation.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

From your experiences and your viewpoint, do you think it makes sense for the government to conduct this investigation? As the member from the NDP indicated, does it make sense that the government conduct an investigation on themselves? In your expert view, don't you think it should arm's length?

[Sheila Fraser]

There is a responsibility in the government security policy that departments should take action if there has been a breach of that policy. Clearly there has been a breach of the policy, and it is the responsibility of the department to take action. And each department will have what we call a security officer who would normally conduct that kind of investigation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you.

Mr. Fitzpatrick, eight minutes.

[Brian Fitzpatrick, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I do want to commend the Auditor General. I know this whole issue puts you in a very delicate position. You have to choose your words very carefully, and I think you've done a terrific job of handling this. Even in the report you gave today, I think you sort of indicate some of the steps you've taken to ensure there is security in your operations. But I realize you can't really go much further than that without maybe even jeopardizing your own security in the matter.

On this committee I want to make something clear. When we do come to conclusions and findings when we've studied something, we try to make factual determinations based on evidence. As much as people would have their opinions or want to speculate on matters, that is not evidence. That's not a way to base factual findings. The whole game that's going on here right now is of people speculating as to who might have been responsible for this thing. I want to have evidence and facts to support that kind of determination.

On the point that Mr. Christopherson raised as to who benefits on this matter, I want to make something quite clear. I'm trained as a lawyer, and every experienced trial lawyer or defence lawyer I know coaches witnesses and the accused, or whoever they're representing: if there is something damaging that the other side has on you, it's much better that we manage it and get it out in advance before they bring it out.

[An hon. member]

Oh, you're suggesting the Liberals were doing this?

[Brian Fitzpatrick, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

He can speculate as to who this benefits, but my legal training tells me quite clearly who might want to get something out there and try to divert people away from the real substantive issue, which is the gun registry itself, which is a sad Liberal legacy in this country.

We had a report a couple of years ago that outlined the sad legacy--the effectiveness of this program, the massive waste of taxpayers' money--and the thing just went on and on. We were told by Allan Rock that the thing would cost us $8 million. There are tons of things we could do to make streets safer in this country for which we don't have the resources or things in place, but we continue along this path of failure.

What we really should be doing is preparing ourselves for the report tomorrow. Hopefully the speculation in this story is without basis, and we will find that the Liberals did correct these massive defects in their gun registry, and this is a great system. But we should be focused on making this government more effective and more accountable.

To me, this sort of thing is problematic. I'm of the view that you can have all the rules in the world and all the security you want in the world, but it only takes one bad apple in the system to jeopardize any security system. I'm sure the President of the United States today and in the last year or so has numerous examples of things that were leaked--security matters that shouldn't have been out there that have caused him no amount of anguish--and he probably has security coming out of his ears to prevent that sort of thing.

If it were that easy--just more rules, as Mr. Christopherson said--why wouldn't we just pass one law and outlaw dishonesty? If we outlawed dishonesty this should never happen again. We can make more and more rules, and more and more things complicated, but if somebody really wants to jeopardize security they can do so.

Let's be clear. We've had eight of these things since 2001. That's an error rate of about 7%. Seven of those occurred under a Liberal administration, and I don't recall having any special meetings to deal with all the breaches that occurred under the other....

To Madam Fraser, when we had these other seven breaches, do you know whether the Prime Minister's Office really conducted a due diligence examination of how these breaches might have occurred, or whether any investigations were ever carried out by Prime Minister Chrétien or the most recent Prime Minister?

[Sheila Fraser]

I'm not aware if any investigations were carried out or not. There may have been investigations within the departments, but I am not aware of that.

[Brian Fitzpatrick, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Those are my comments.

I'm looking forward to your report tomorrow. You have done a wonderful job of exposing the problems in the gun registry.

If there were one person who could come to my riding and run as an MP who could blow me out of the water, it would be you, Madam Fraser. The people in rural Saskatchewan think you are a great person. You're a hero to them for exposing this massive waste of taxpayers' money and the really serious violation in the day-to-day lives of law-abiding citizens as the criminals just carry on doing what they do, ignoring all these laws we try to create with gun registries and so on. That just impacts on law-abiding people who aren't really causing society any difficulty. You truly are a hero to these people.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

You have two minutes left if you want to keep talking, Mr. Fitzpatrick.

[Brian Fitzpatrick, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Well, I think I have said enough.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Mr. Sweet, for five minutes, please.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

There has been a lot of lauding of your capabilities and your integrity, so I'll echo my comments from the last meeting.

Mr. Chairman, I want to cover off a few things.

It was asked earlier whether in the last seven leaks, which by the way were very similar to this one, there was ever an emergency meeting like this called. There is no recollection on this committee of one of these meetings ever being called, of it ever having had this kind of high level of importance for the Liberal Party the last time.

Also, we were talking about who benefits. I appreciate my colleague of the same first name who mentioned the idea that somebody in this government would benefit, but clearly the only people who would benefit would be those, as mentioned earlier, who would want to bring disregard on the report, because the report is very damaging and very damning on the issue of the gun registry.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

How would you know?

[An hon. member]

Did you read the report?

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

No, but we've already had a precursor report from the Auditor General.

I want to ask this. You mentioned in number 4 that what was mentioned in the newspaper was not entirely accurate, but then you alluded to there being substantial inaccuracies. You didn't use the word “substantial”, but you said “when you see the number of inaccuracies”. If I may ask, are there substantial inaccuracies in what was in the newspaper compared to what is in the report?

[Sheila Fraser]

There are important inaccuracies, and that, of course, is what's difficult about a leak on a report that hasn't been tabled. We really can't discuss it. We can't discuss it, nor can the government discuss it. I always find it a bit odd that there seems to be all this commentary about a report that actually hasn't been made public yet, and no one knows for sure if the information being provided to the journalist is in fact accurate. It puts us all in a very difficult position, because I can't even say what's inaccurate.