Evidence of meeting #67 for Public Accounts in the 39th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was asked.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Brian Fitzpatrick
Folks, you know we have a lot of stuff on the plate here, and we have a lot of questions being asked. We have people here who can answer the questions, and we can debate these points for a long time here and not get to the root of the issues that are before us. So it's up to committee members how far you want to go on this thing.
Mr. Williams, one last point, and then let's decide what we're going to do here.
Conservative
John Williams Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
I just want to make one last point in response to Mr. Christopherson. The Parliament of Canada will never be in front of the courts.
Number two, the testimony that's given here by the law clerk or anybody else will never be in front of a court unless we allow it to be there.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Brian Fitzpatrick
So with that, maybe we could have the law clerk enlighten us on the very important questions, which we're all anxious to find answers to.
Rob Walsh Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, House of Commons
Mr. Chairman, just before I answer the question that I think is the question, my colleague Steve Chaplin has gone to the Library of Parliament to check the Auditor General Act to see what it may or may not provide. I don't walk around with that statute in mind. It needs to be checked to see whether some of the questions that are being asked here could be answered with some assurance.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Brian Fitzpatrick
We know you know 95% of the law, and there's the 5% that's a little bit grey from time to time, so we accept that.
Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, House of Commons
On the other question, which I think is a question relating to Mr. Laforest's motion to call the former Lieutenant Governor of Quebec before the committee, it's a matter of what you might call constitutional comity, as it were, that viceregal appointees—indeed, that means the Governor General or Lieutenant Governor—are not subject to being called before parliamentary committees in respect of their function. It would just be, in my view, a constitutionally rude thing to do and disrespectful of the constitutional hierarchy we live with. This is not that I suggest for a moment any committee members wish to be constitutionally rude. What they might do, however, is call upon the administrator of that office, it being a public office, to come to the committee and explain how moneys were expended and why that official would appear to have allowed these expenses to happen without the appropriate oversight. There must be some administrator in that office. I appreciate it may not be a large office, but there must be some functionary whose job it is to administer the expenditures and the budgetary decisions taken by that office. I would have thought that would be the appropriate person who might be called here.
I seem to recall, Mr. Chairman—my memory may fail me—that we had a controversy with the Governor General several years ago regarding travel, and the trip taken by the Governor General met with some public comment. If I'm not mistaken, the secretary to the Governor General appeared before this committee, I suppose, or maybe it was the foreign affairs committee--I'm not sure—and answered questions of a House committee relative to that matter. I think that's accepted as being appropriate, but not the person of the Governor General.
Now, admittedly here the person being sought is a former Lieutenant Governor, so you might be able to summon her as a person, but as soon as she got here, you'd be into trouble as to whether it would be right for you to ask questions pertaining to her functions as Lieutenant Governor.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
Actually, right at the tail end I'd made a note to myself that she no longer embodies the Crown, so she's just a regular person like the rest of us. I would assume she could be summoned without being rude to the Crown and she could be considered a witness with relevant information on what transpired in the same capacity that an official from that office would be. You seem to have made that point at the end, but....
Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, House of Commons
What I meant to say about my opening remarks about constitutional apology was that primarily it applies where the person is in office. However, I allowed, toward the end, that if they're no longer in office, you might be able to summon the person before the committee, but then, once you get into questions about what the person did when in office, you are then into the same problem of challenging the viceregal representative about his or her official functions. Again, we're not talking about some statutory rule here; we're talking about tradition and the constitutional niceties of better practice. You don't hold a viceregal person to account for their official functioning.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. We're asking an official, who no longer represents the Crown, for information that person has of whatever transpired in the set of circumstances. Just because that person, at a different point in time, happened to have represented the Crown, that's totally separate. Should it not be considered separate from that individual? The Crown is not an individual; an individual is embraced during that timeframe. So even if you ask questions, you're asking questions of information that a person has of a person who, at a point in time, encompassed the Crown. So it's....
Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, House of Commons
Let me suggest this scenario. You understand the Lieutenant Governor or the Governor General went to the horse races, and it was tradition that the Governor General or Lieutenant Governor would go to these horse races every year. You also understand that the Governor General or the Lieutenant Governor spent money on the horses, betting, and then you understand that in fact public funds were used for betting on the horses.
Now, the person's no longer Governor General. Your interest is in the betting on the horses, not her attendance at the function, because she was doing her official function. Your interest is the use of public funds for betting on the horses in this example.
Arguably, as your scenario puts it, after she's no longer in the office but had personally used public funds for her own amusement in a manner that ostensibly was wrong, you should be able to talk to this private citizen about how she used public funds wrongly on this earlier occasion.
On the other hand, you can't talk to her about why she went to the races, period, because that was part of her official duties as Lieutenant Governor. Do you know what I mean? Now, somewhere in there I'm trying to articulate the idea that there is a distinction, but it's very hard in a particular situation to find that distinction, and you get yourself into a scenario in which you appear to be offending the rule, if you like, of respecting the office when you put questions of a kind that aren't clearly outside the domain of official function.
If you are so clearly outside the domain of official function and in fact what you're inquiring about is corruption, then arguably that's a criminal matter that presumably the authorities would pursue in due course.
I don't know if I make myself very clear, Mr. Chairman, but it's very hard to discern a legitimate area of questioning that won't in fact trespass upon the official functions of the Lieutenant Governor while in office. It's just very difficult.
Conservative
Bloc
Jean-Yves Laforest Bloc Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
I agree that we are walking on very thin ice in terms of respect for the position. However, since we are talking about a former lieutenant-governor, I think that the ice is thicker. We are talking about an individual who has been called into question by the Auditor General.
Were she to come here, we would, as the representatives of the people, have an opportunity to ask her some questions. We are not accusing her in advance, but that would enable her to justify what she has done and explain her conduct to the general public. Our objective is not to go on a witch hunt, but to obtain answers to questions in order to inform the people well.
Conservative
John Williams Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My memory's a little vague back then, but I think it was either 1642 or 1644 that King Charles I went into the House of Commons and arrested the Speaker, and the monarchy has been denied the right to get back into this place ever since. That is why that protocol has been observed; the Queen and her representative have never yet set foot in the House of Commons--in England, here, or elsewhere--since 1642, because of the fact that we are beyond the reach of the Crown.
We went through this with the sponsorship investigation and the Bill of Rights of 1689, and how we are beyond the reach of the courts and beyond the reach of everybody in this land, provided we are doing our parliamentary business.
There's a separation between us and the Crown. I would say it's a serious affront, if not a breach of the unwritten constitution, to think that we could bring the Queen's representative--albeit former--in here and ask her to account for her function while she was the Queen's representative. Therefore, I'm very strongly opposed to bringing in the former Lieutenant Governor.
Just to finish up, Mr. Chairman, I believe the government has announced that it is very concerned and committed to accountability, and that is why the government has asked the Auditor General to do this audit. It will be asking the RCMP to follow up on the report and determine if any illegal acts have been committed. They're working with the Government of Quebec to see how the question of reimbursement could be addressed.
I think the matter's being addressed in another forum, Mr. Chairman. Therefore, that is why I think we should leave it at this point in time--because of the constitutional aspects of the Queen's representative and the House of Commons that go back 350 years.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Brian Fitzpatrick
Thank you very much for that background information, Mr. Williams.
Borys.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
Thanks, Chair.
Perhaps Mr. Laforest would consider a friendly amendment to add to the potential list of witnesses the individual or office manager—as suggested by the law clerk—who was in charge of expenses in the Lieutenant Governor's office. I'm not quite sure what that person's exact title would have been, but I'm sure there was someone within that office. So I move that we add that individual to the list—not subtract anyone, but just add one more individual to the list. Leave all those people there, but add whoever the office manager in charge of expenses was, or whatever their actual correct title was. Chief of staff or...?
Bloc
Jean-Yves Laforest Bloc Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
Mr. Chairman, I have not been convinced that an individual who has been appointed to represent the Queen, namely the Lieutenant-Governor of Quebec, is above the rules of ethics and transparency which usually guide us. No one in Canada is above these rules. I understand full well that this constitutes a breach of ethics, but it is essential that we obtain answers, because when we talk about respect for the position, we must also think about respect for the people.
In the final analysis, if the committee members were to give their unanimous consent to summon Ms. Thibault's administrative secretary to appear, I think that we would be in agreement with this subamendment.
Bloc
Jean-Yves Laforest Bloc Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
It is an addition. We could add the name of an individual who would be able to answer questions.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Brian Fitzpatrick
It looks like there's an agreement on that point and that we can move to—
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Is that list, then, with the former Lieutenant Governor, in or out? It's just unclear.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Brian Fitzpatrick
Well, my understanding is that she would still be on the list; we're just adding the person who was in charge of approving the accounts...the paymaster.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Instead of her, or in addition to her? I understood Mr. Laforest to say “instead of”.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Brian Fitzpatrick
I think a lot of us would feel a lot more comfortable if one were deleted and the other were added.