Merci, monsieur le président.
I'd like to start with two very preliminary comments.
You kindly mentioned my role in the background preparation of this document. In fact, I worked very closely with Mr. O'Neal of the library on this; essentially I took the work that had been prepared under his tutelage and worked with that. I did not draft this particular document. That's the first matter.
The second is to set the parameters of this discussion. What we're looking at today and what is being compared in this document prepared by the library are the testimonies given before the public accounts committee during the 37th Parliament and before the Gomery inquiry. In fact, I want to signal to the committee that there is more, in the sense that there were several court actions—in particular the criminal prosecution of Mr. Guité—in which testimony was also given, so in that sense this document is perhaps the entire encyclopedia of what was said on this issue.
That being said, with your permission, what I should do is to set out the different avenues that the committee may wish to pursue. I'd like to start with the one that comes most readily to mind, which is the issue of perjury, as Mr. Walsh said.
So that's false testimony.
Of all the possible options, this is probably the one where the path is perhaps a little bit tortuous.
We start off with section 12 of the Parliament of Canada Act, which says “Any person examined under this Part who wilfully gives false evidence is liable to such punishment as may be imposed for perjury.” My colleagues and I in legal services interpret this provision as being a door opening onto the Criminal Code, where perjury is defined and where the specific criteria required for a charge and a conviction of perjury are set out.
Rather than read the Criminal Code provision, what I'd like to do is give you a logical sequence of the criteria required for a charge and eventually a conviction of perjury.
The first one is that a false statement has to have been made.
The second is that the statement was made under oath or solemn affirmation. The significance of that is that in order to start proceedings for perjury, we would have to go back—Mr. O'Neal, perhaps, and myself—throughout the testimony given before the public accounts committee in the 37th Parliament to see who was sworn in and who was not.
The third criterion is that the testimony should have been given before a person authorized by law to permit the statement to be made before him. That of course is the committee and the previous chair, and that certainly does apply.
The fourth criterion is that there be knowledge that the statement made is false—knowledge on the part of the witness, of course—and finally, that the witness have intent to mislead the person or body to whom the testimony is being given.
There is one other criterion that's of significance to this recounting. That is that the relevant provision of the Criminal Code assimilates affidavits and declarations and depositions to false statements, so in whatever manner the statement is made or the testimony is given comes under the provision of the Criminal Code.
For the information of the committee, I'd like to point out that in case a charge of perjury under the Criminal Code is made and substantiated and in case there is a conviction, the maximum punishment is 14 years in prison. So we're talking about a serious matter here.
The next step along the path is, if this is the avenue that the committee decides to pursue, what are the steps along the way? Considering that neither the committee itself nor Parliament is a prosecutorial body, we have to refer to section 92.14 of the Constitution Act of 1867 and hand the matter over to the appropriate provincial attorney general. In most likelihood, that would be the Attorney General of Ontario. The Ministry of the Attorney General Act of the Province of Ontario has all the parameters to enable the AG to undertake a prosecution if that's what is decided.
However, once the committee or the House decides to hand over the file and to request that perjury proceedings be commenced, the Attorney General's prosecutorial discretion comes into play. In a sense, whatever the wish of the committee or the House, it's the objective or subjective assessment of the Attorney General that comes into play and the criteria the Attorney General would apply in deciding whether to prosecute or not: the seriousness of the offence, the availability of evidence, the importance of this particular prosecution vis-à-vis other potential prosecutions, a reasonable chance of conviction, and ultimately the public interest at large.
So this is not an easy matter to undertake. Rest assured that the other steps along the path are perhaps a little bit easier to pursue, and with the committee's permission, I'd like to enumerate them as well.
It's always open to the committee to decide completely outside the parameters of section 12 of the Parliament of Canada Act that it can deem what appears to be untrue testimony to be a contempt of Parliament. The way to use that idea is that the committee can then report to the House that it believes XY has committed contempt of Parliament, and then ask the House to undertake contempt proceedings.
Perhaps a less severe variation on that would be for the committee simply to write a report to the House pointing out that it thinks discrepancies have appeared in the testimony of one or more individuals. Similarly, the committee can, if that is its wish, bring back witnesses for further questioning, or the committee can simply write to the witnesses and ask them to clarify their testimony or to clarify the differences between various testimonies they gave.
Finally, perhaps the two simplest and quickest ways of dealing with this issue are, first of all, to take this document that's been prepared by the library and to render it public, and perhaps distribute it with explanations or comment. Finally, of course, the last avenue open to the committee is to determine, perhaps in the next hour, that it will move on to other business.
So in a sense, those are the options that I see open before you. Of course, I'm ready to answer whatever questions you may have.