Public Accounts Committee on Dec. 9th, 2010

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

No opposed. Good.

Those in favour of number three?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

All right. So numbers one, two, and three are accepted.

I think all colleagues have before them the suggestion by Mr. Saxton that number four be put off to a later date.

Mr. Christopherson has suggested that if there are people who are available, specifically the Auditor General, then Tuesday shouldn't pose a logistical problem.

Madame Faille I thought went in favour of that, but then she came to a second question.

So let me deal with that first.

Those in favour of attempting to go with holding number four--a hearing on the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner of Canada--on Tuesday...?

I guess that's the question that's on the table now--

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Mr. Chair, perhaps you could...[Inaudible--Editor]...what the alternative is.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

Well, the alternative is that it would have to be at another time.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

No, what we'd discuss on Tuesday would be the alternative: what other issues.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

We have another report. We have other reports.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Right. Exactly.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

No, no, as I said earlier on, Mr. Saxton, we left Tuesday and Thursday relatively free in the event that the parliamentary schedule would allow us to have a sitting and to continue our hearings. We were going to leave it relatively free either to do a continuation of reports or, as you see before you in the report by the steering committee, a study of the presentation made by the Auditor General today. So those are the two.

Mr. Kramp.

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

Chair, I just have an observation.

The reason I'm in favour of a study is that the report is disturbing. I really think the committee should be looking into this. But I would like to have, at our hearing, both parties here. I would like to have the Auditor General and the commissioner at the same time.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

She resigned.

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

That's fine. She--

[An hon. member]

She won't come.

[An hon. member]

She's a citizen.

[An hon. member]

We can direct her to come.

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

We can ask.

It would be good to have them both so that we don't have a one-off he-said-she-said. It's pretty difficult when someone's right there. So if that could be arranged....

That's why I suggest that I don't think we would be ready by Tuesday. Potentially we could be ready by Thursday. Certainly the clerk could ascertain the possibilities.

I'm just throwing that out there. It's always nice to have the whole picture at once so that if there is rebuttal, it's right there, and we can sort of get into it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

Mr. Christopherson.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thanks, Chair.

To my friend Mr. Kramp, on his last point, the Auditor General gave the previous commissioner an opportunity to comment on either her criteria, her study--there was some opportunity for feedback--and got nothing. She just would not respond. And when the time came, if you recall, she resigned but didn't even announce it until two days later. So there's a good chance she won't appear, no matter what.

There's something I want to point out, Chair, that makes this a little different. Again, I'm very sensitive to Mr. Saxton's point, but if there was a lot of research for the government members to do to defend themselves--you know, you're under a bit under attack--I'd be wide open to that. I try to be fair-minded. But I don't know that it's necessary in this case; quite frankly, I wish there was more blame on the part of government than there is, but the fact is that it looks like we have a governance problem.

My point, Chair, is that the AG told us at the morning briefing that she is going to be holding a meeting with the other six officers of Parliament to come forward with a report to us that speaks to the accountability of mandates and whether they're being met--in other words, a mechanism to allow this to be caught long before it goes on. She is seeing potential problems with other officers, too, in terms of the lack of that oversight. More than anything, a component of governance seems to be missing.

The reason I like the idea of meeting on Tuesday....

Again, I don't sense that the government is under attack; you're under a little bit, just because you're the government, but you're not the focus of the attack here. There is not a big blame. There isn't a lot of work for you to do.

It would be nice to have them come in and publicly be able to do that on Tuesday. It would set us up nicely for her follow-up report, which I sense is going to come fairly soon. I got a sense that she saw this as urgent, and was looking....

Again, it would just unfold nicely if we did it that way. Otherwise, I would be very sensitive and open to the idea that the government, in particular, needs time to prep, but in this case, I'm not sure there is that much to do.

So I would say from a point of fairness, we're okay to go, and from a view of process it makes a lot of sense. Hit this while it's hot. Deal with it straight up. Get the AG's actions out there on the public record, and then, come January or February, when she is ready to table her report, we're all set to go in a very timely fashion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

Mr. Young, do you have a comment?

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Yes.

I'm very, very concerned about this report, just looking at it, on the face of it. I don't know anywhere near enough to decide whether this is worth investigating now. I don't think it's a good idea to do it when it's really hot--because it is hot. It's in the media. It's emotional.

My concern generally is that this could easily be what it appears to be--an incompetent manager who got paranoid or nasty or whatever it could have been. It could have been a group of people who were close together, had vested interests, and thought they were going to be promoted, and when this new person came in they decided to pile up on her and just make her life miserable.

I don't know. It could be a massive....

Pardon me?

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Well, the conclusions are pretty clear if you read her--

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

No, I understand; I understand. But she says it's “founded”. She doesn't say it's “well founded”. What criteria did she use? What rules of evidence did she use? Did the commissioner have someone there to represent her interests? Did she have a third party, an objective person, or did these auditors arrive—who, by the way, usually do mathematics, and economics, and financial statements—and all of a sudden start questioning people and come to conclusions? What due process was there for the commissioner?

Anybody can look at this and see how it looks, but what was the process? What criteria were used to evaluate testimony? How, on the face of it, can you decide if it wasn't one big nasty-detailed personality conflict that just got totally out of hand?

I'm concerned with a lack of a due process. When I came here, I determined I was not going to become part of a lynching, and I want to make sure that this isn't a lynching. I want to find out what the criteria were and how the evidence was evaluated. I want to find out what the true conclusions are.

When somebody says to me that something is well founded, I understand that: “That's well founded. Yes, we found evidence.” But it doesn't say that here: it says it's “founded”.

What does that mean? Well, founding something means to put it in place, to set it up.

So I'm really concerned about dealing with this as a hot issue, as an emotional issue, while it's in the media. I'd like to be very clear on what we expect to get out of this before we start going into a whole lot of personnel issues when somebody has already resigned.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

I don't want to curtail anybody's enthusiasm, but I have three more speakers and then I'll cut it off at that, okay?

I have Mr. D'Amours, Mr. Christopherson, and Ms. Faille.

Monsieur D'Amours.

[Jean-Claude D'Amours, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I think we have to be careful about the report we received this morning from the Auditor General. In my opinion, reading the report 25 times is not going to give us any more information. The only way to obtain more information is to ask witnesses to appear.

Ms. Faille made that very point clear. The information we received from the Auditor General this morning is extremely relevant and important. I think it will have to be made public, which is something that cannot happen now. No name is mentioned in any given chapter because no one has been identified and it will not be possible to know the details of each case.

To my knowledge, Mr. Chairman—correct me if I'm wrong—information contained in the report is confidential. The Auditor General has done her job and all of this is currently being investigated. Comments and information have been provided by certain individuals, for the most part, government employees.

No names will be disclosed and we will be unable to obtain any details. On the other hand, were that to happen, we would basically be doing something that is contrary to the whole idea of having a Public Sector Integrity Commissioner. The commissioner is there to provide protection. Yet we can see that system failed and that the Office of the Public Service Integrity Commissioner has not served the Canadian public well. Public servants' trust in this system has been destroyed.

We are not talking about 2,000 pages. If you take away the beginning, what's left represents about seven or eight pages. So, let's not go overboard. It is possible the Auditor General could appear on Tuesday and provide some explanations and answer our questions.

I can assure you, Mr. Chairman, that there will certainly be enough questions to fill two hours—no problem there.