Public Accounts Committee on June 11th, 2007

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Brian Fitzpatrick]

We're going to have the report on Wednesday.

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Okay, so let's just have the discussion on whether or not we are going to support this.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Brian Fitzpatrick]

That's the way I understand it. But we already sent that to the House at last week's committee.

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

I'm confused here. A letter was received by the Speaker from the RCMP. The Speaker forwarded it to the committee, and the committee dealt with it in the steering committee. It says right here that we “do present a Report in the House in which it reaffirms its privileges and immunities”, and if we concur with the report the decision is made. So let's have the discussion before we make the decision.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Brian Fitzpatrick]

Are you prepared to have this tabled for Wednesday so we can hash it out then?

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Do you mean the fifteenth report? Okay, I'll table it for Wednesday.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Brian Fitzpatrick]

Okay, the tabling motion is there so we'll deal with it on Wednesday.

Mr. Poilievre.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Something strange happened at the last meeting when we invited Mr. Pelletier to explain contradictory testimony between his appearance here and his appearance at Gomery. He spoke of a Privy Council request that he look into a donation to the Liberal Party of Canada. This raised some serious alarm bells for me about why the Privy Council would be involved in monitoring donations to the Liberal Party. In particular, he indicated that the Privy Council asked about a donation to the Liberal Party and actually knew the account number whence that donation came. That's clearly in the testimony.

I'm just requesting the chair write a letter to the current Clerk of the Privy Council to inquire why in that instance the Privy Council would have been cognizant—

[An hon. member]

Privy.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

—privy—no pun intended—to donations to a political party and account numbers whence donations came. That is not information that's typically in the hands of a non-partisan public service department.

So I think there should be a very simple letter from the chair—there should be no problem getting unanimous consent for this—to the Clerk of the Privy Council asking what records there are of this information. It would simply ask for an explanation from the bureaucrats at that department why it was involved in such partisan activity.

I'll just call for unanimous consent. I suspect you won't have any problem—

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Brian Fitzpatrick]

This is in the nature of a motion. Do we have unanimous consent?

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

I want to speak to that.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

But is there unanimous consent?

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Let me speak to it first.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Brian Fitzpatrick]

I'll let the Honourable Judy Sgro speak to it.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

In the document the clerk prepared for us, that was one of the issues up for discussion. We did discuss it. Someone specifically asked Mr. Pelletier how that happened. It was pretty irregular for someone in his position to end up knowing about that donation and redirecting it.

I think his answer at the time satisfied everybody, but I don't remember precisely what the answer was. Maybe we should get the blues of that meeting.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

The answer was, “ask the PCO”.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

I think he elaborated a bit more on it, but I don't recall exactly what he said.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Brian Fitzpatrick]

Mr. Laforest.

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Mr. Chairman, I do not necessarily want to judge Mr. Poilievre's request, but I think it would be better to wait until Wednesday. It's already on the agenda. That would give us enough time to review the testimony he referred to. I do not necessarily object to his request, but I think we should take a little more time to think about.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Brian Fitzpatrick]

Would that be okay, Mr. Poilievre? We have this matter on the agenda. On Wednesday we can insert that as an item. It's in camera and we could sort it out at that meeting.

Mr. Christopherson.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

On another matter, Chair—

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Brian Fitzpatrick]

If we're in agreement on this to bring it up on Wednesday, good.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Notice is considered to have been given.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Brian Fitzpatrick]

Yes.

Mr. Christopherson.