Evidence of meeting #48 for Public Accounts in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was documents.
A recording is available from Parliament.
3:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair (Hon. Joseph Volpe (Eglinton—Lawrence, Lib.)) Liberal Joe Volpe
I call the meeting to order, colleagues. This is the 48th meeting of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts. We'll go to orders of the day and start off on committee business.
I want to give you a brief report of the steering committee meeting yesterday. I don't have much to report, other than we had a fairly fulsome discussion. We decided to come immediately to today's meeting.
3:30 p.m.
Conservative
Andrew Saxton Conservative North Vancouver, BC
Mr. Chair, I would like to raise a point of order at this time.
3:30 p.m.
Conservative
Andrew Saxton Conservative North Vancouver, BC
We believe that the privilege of the committee and its members has been breached, has been violated.
On Monday, February 28, 2011, the chair surprised the committee members by raising what we believe were documents obtained by parliamentary privilege in the House of Commons before the committee had an opportunity to discuss the handling of the documents requested under the Standing Orders.
I would like to refer to O'Brien and Bosc, page 1071, where it states:
A document submitted to a committee becomes the property of the committee and forms part of the committee's records. Each committee must decide whether such documents will be made public or kept confidential. Confidential documents are for the exclusive use of the committee's members and staff for the duration of the session.
I'd also like to refer to O'Brien and Bosc, page 1032, where it states:
During Oral Questions in the House, a committee Chair may answer questions, provided they deal with the committee's proceedings or schedule and not with the substance of its work.
Mr. Chair, this presents several problems for the committee. According to chapter 20 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, O'Brien and Bosc, page 1030:
The Chair is a key figure on any committee. Chairs are so important that when a committee does not have one, it is not considered properly constituted. It can undertake no work or other activities, and cannot exercise any of its powers.
O'Brien and Bosc go on to state:
As the presiding officer of the committee, the Chair does not move motions. Furthermore, the Chair does not vote, except in two situations: when a committee is considering a private bill, the Chair may vote together with other members of the committee; and, when there is an equality of voices (a tie), the Chair has the casting vote.
We believe that these rules exist to ensure that the chair is viewed as a neutral member of the committee who will ensure impartiality when the chair is performing his duties related to procedural administrative and representative responsibilities.
When the chair used information included in documents obtained through parliamentary privilege for partisan purposes before the committee had a chance to consider the said documents, we believe the chair demonstrated that he may no longer be viewed as impartial and neutral and that the committee's privilege appears to have been breached.
According to Standing Order 108(1)(a):
Standing committees shall be severally empowered to examine and enquire into all such matters as may be referred to them by the House, to report from time to time...and except when the House otherwise orders, to send for persons, papers and records....
Chapter 3 of O'Brien and Bosc states:
Privilege essentially belongs to the House as a whole; individual Members can only claim privilege insofar as any denial of their rights, or threat made to them, would impede the functioning of the House.
We are aware that members may say anything in the House and this does not constitute a question of privilege. However, we believe that in his partisan actions and decision to disclose the nature of the documents obtained by this committee through a motion of privilege, the chair has appeared to breach the committee's privilege insofar as he has impeded the functioning of the House.
We believe that he has impeded the functioning of the House in that he prematurely disclosed information that had not yet been considered by the committee, even though the committee sought legal and professional advice from Robert Walsh, Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, and Ms. Chantal Bernier, the Assistant Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. Therefore, it is our opinion that he breached the committee's privilege to serve his own purposes and that of his party.
Both the law clerk and the assistant privacy commissioner agreed that the committee must decide on how to treat the sensitive documents that it sent for by a motion adopted by the committee on Thursday, February 10, 2011, in connection with the study of the Auditor General of Canada on the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner.
Clearly, the committee had not decided how the documents would be treated, and therefore any action by the chair to discuss, disclose, or distribute any of the documents to anyone other than the committee members appears to be a breach of privilege.
Furthermore, despite the fact that the chair publicly discussed e-mails regarding a disclosure by a potential whistleblower, disregarding the fact that information relevant to whistleblowers and the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner's office is protected by the Privacy Act, the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act, and the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, the chair demonstrated that he knows that the committee has not discussed how the documents should be handled or to whom to distribute them.
The chair, in his own letter to Mr. Whitehall, legal counsel for the former integrity commissioner, writes: “I am unable to provide documents to you without instructions from the committee...”. Let me repeat that. The chair wrote in his letter to Mr. Whitehall, “I am unable to provide documents to you without instructions from the committee...”. The chair thought it was perfectly fine to go public with this information, but he couldn't disclose it to Mr. Whitehall.
In addition, with regard to correspondence with Madame Ouimet's legal representative on other issues related to committee business, the chair has again acted unilaterally. This has been ongoing for some time, and it is unacceptable to this committee. The reply sent to Mr. I.G. Whitehall by the chair on February 25, 2011, was sent without consultation or instruction from this committee. The committee received the original letter from Mr. I.G. Whitehall by e-mail on Thursday, February 24, at 11:38 a.m. The chair should have brought this issue up at the start of the committee meeting, with a draft in hand for the committee to consider. It could have been sent by courier to expedite delivery.
The chair circumvented the will of this committee. The chair has essentially said no to Madame Ouimet's representative's request for documents. We hope this will not cause Madame Ouimet to renege on her promise to appear before the committee on March 10.
In summary, we heard from both the law clerk and the Privacy Commissioner, who both cautioned the committee to deal with this confidential information very carefully. Even though the committee may not have had a specific rule in place, the committee was advised and cautioned on how to use this information and the chair chose not to follow that advice. Not only did the chair not follow that advice, but his actions actually contradicted that advice. He did the opposite.
When I asked the law clerk today whether this was appropriate, he said it was inappropriate.
Mr. Chair, that is our position on this matter, and we'd like to seek the opinion of other members of the committee.
Thank you.
3:35 p.m.
Liberal
Navdeep Bains Liberal Mississauga—Brampton South, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I wholeheartedly believe that this intervention is a distraction from the real issue, a distraction from what we are trying to do, which is to advance the public interest. We have to take a step back and ask ourselves why we asked for this information. Why did we request this information? We did so because the Auditor General, on December 9, published a scathing report questioning the conduct and the work done by the Public Service Integrity Commissioner and her office. It questioned her conduct. It questioned the conduct of how she operated her office.
The office was set up to protect whistleblowers. We have to remember that the purpose of this office was to protect whistleblowers. It cost us $11 million of taxpayers' money. That's clearly understood. It took three years to set up, and 228 cases were brought to the attention of Madame Ouimet and her office, many of fraudulent nature.
She is an independent officer. She is not someone who is a senior bureaucrat. She is an independent officer of Parliament, and in the communication that we requested we clearly saw there was a lot of traffic between her and the PCO. That questions her independence as well. She is accountable to Parliament, and that is why we are asking for this information. That's why this information is important. It addresses the public interest.
All documents are public, as Mr. Saxton said in his remarks, unless the committee had some specific rules in place. Otherwise they are public, Chair. This is not debatable. If the committee determined in advance that there was an issue with these documents, so be it, but there was no such arrangement made.
With respect to the privacy concerns raised by Mr. Saxton, we brought forward Mr. Walsh and the Privacy Commissioner's office as well. Clearly, the Privacy Commissioner said the same thing, that the public interest trumps everything and good judgment needs to be demonstrated. I believe, Chair, you have done that on both fronts.
To the government members and the parliamentary secretary, what are you afraid of? Why don't you want these documents to be public?
In my opinion, it's important that we stop beating around the bush. I would actually request the chair to review what documents are of such concern to the government, and talk about what information the honourable member is so concerned about that was breached in the House of Commons. What privilege was breached? I wholeheartedly believe these documents are public unless the committee says otherwise. The committee never said so. Therefore, with respect to the issues around privacy, those too were addressed very clearly by the Privacy Commissioner, because we're trying to advance the public interest here. We're trying to deal with a very serious issue.
An office was set up to protect whistleblowers, and that same office that is supposed to be independent is in communication with the Privy Council Office. Some of the issues that were brought to her attention were of a fraudulent nature. How is that not important? Documents pertaining to that study need to be dealt with in the public domain.
I don't know what we have to hide here. Again, my question for the government members is what are they afraid of? What are they trying to hide? Why don't we make these documents public so we can advance the public interest?
3:40 p.m.
Liberal
Jean-Claude D'Amours Liberal Madawaska—Restigouche, NB
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
For Mr. Saxton's information, I wish to clarify the following. What he mentioned regarding the Privacy Act does not apply to the committee. That is the first thing he should keep in mind concerning the appearance of the commission's representatives. The committee is master of its decisions, even if that does not suit the government. In the minutes of the meeting of March 11, 2010, the only element mentioned is the following:
That the Clerk of the Committee be authorized to distribute to the members of the Committee only documents that are available in both official languages.
Nowhere is the issue of confidentiality discussed. This is does not figure in the committee's procedures. I believe Mr. Saxton needs to refresh his memory. I would therefore remind him that, on February 8th, 2011, I made an intervention before the committee. There were people here. You will remember the matrix that we asked of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner's office and which it provided to us. We had made this request a little bit before the appearance of the representatives of the office of the commissioner. I will read this intervention, in both official languages, in order to ensure that there is no distortion in the translation. It reads as follows:
Let's take this one step further. Not a single one of the 228 open cases went anywhere. If I recall correctly, based on some of the documents which were provided to committee members, about 40 cases seemed to involve fraud and misuse of government assets. The clerk can tell me if I am going too far, because I do not know whether these documents, which form a matrix, if you like, were confidential and not to be released outside the committee.
I went on. No one interrupted me. I will now read the version in the other language.
Let's take this one step further. Not a single one of the 228 open cases went anywhere. If I recall correctly, based on some of the documents which were provided to committee members, about 40 cases seemed to involve fraud and misuse of government assets. The clerk can tell me if I am going too far, because I do not know whether these documents, which form a matrix, if you like, were confidential and not to be released outside the committee.
The clerk never interrupted me and never said that I was in error. However, no member of the committee, and more particularly, no member of the Conservative Party, of the party in power, ever told me that I had disclosed information without the committee's authorization. Because it is not true that, every time the committee requests information, there is a decision made as to what can be done with the documents under cover of what authorization. That is not the case. That has never happened.
The example I have just given you is a perfectly valid one. We made a request for information. We received the information and I disclosed certain parts of the document. And no one from the government's side complained about it at the time. When it does not suit the government, or when they have something to hide, as we have seen, they say that permission must be given. And when it suits them, then they do the opposite. You cannot say, on one day, that no authorization is required to reveal information we have received.
Regarding the same principle, we had asked a government entity to provide us with the information. It was provided to us. At no point in time did a government member state that an authorization or a decision by the committee was required in order for these documents to be made public. I read out portions of the documents and no one said a word. In such circumstances, if no one says anything, it means they agree. If it did not suit you at the time, you should have said so.
I will now move on to another aspect. Before lecturing committee members with regard to the lack of information or to the appropriateness of discussing their issues, I would like to remind those committee members belonging to the government party of one thing. Unfortunately, there is a member of the committee who is absent. I clearly recall having made a comment, and, if you so wish, I will repeat it to you. A government member of the committee had told us that Ms. Ouimet was, by happenstance, on vacation. I do not remember the exact words used, so I am improvising. Nevertheless, it is odd; while we, the members of the committee, were trying to reach Ms. Ouimet, without very much help on the part of certain individuals, in order to deliver documents to her, members from the government side were, fancy that, stating publicly that Ms. Ouimet was on holiday and that we would be able to speak with her upon her return. If you wish me to dig out these comments, I would be happy to do so.
What was going on? Was it an attempt to hide information? Was it an attempt to prevent us from doing our work here, in committee? I did not make a great to-do. I raised the issue, a made a statement, but I did not make a great to-do about it. Once I had spoken about the issue, that was it. During that time, no one said a word.
I will stop there. I often intervene and go on and on. I will therefore give others the opportunity to speak and I will come back later.
3:45 p.m.
Conservative
Andrew Saxton Conservative North Vancouver, BC
Mr. Chair, first of all, I want to make it absolutely clear that this is not about the documents. We support calling for the documents.
Mr. D'Amours said that the privacy laws don't apply to the committee. That is understood. We are not talking about the actions of the committee. We're talking about the actions of one member of this committee.
Mr. D'Amours said that the committee is the master of its own destiny. We agree with that. It does not say that the chair is the master of the committee's destiny. That is the issue at hand right now.
I think Mr. D'amours' accusation that we know more than what he knows is absolutely ridiculous. We know just the same amount as anybody else on this committee knows and that's it. So I'm not even going to respond to the rest of his accusations.
3:50 p.m.
Conservative
Daryl Kramp Conservative Prince Edward—Hastings, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Chair, I've served on this committee for a number of years, as have others. What matters to me is the integrity of this committee. Never before have we had what appears to be a breach of privilege on the committee. As such, to me it's not the topical issue. It could be Madam Ouimet, it could be any other topic.
The point is we either have a procedure we follow that's accepted by the committee or we don't. If we were to listen to Mr. Bains—and I respect his opinion on this, but he's suggesting that everything is open for disclosure until the committee decides otherwise. If that's the case, why even have a committee then? Just argue everything all out in public.
That is not the answer either. Therefore we have to have a set of rules that we follow. That's all. Regardless of the issue, regardless of the purpose of this committee, regardless of the result we're looking for, regardless of what my thoughts or other people's thoughts are, if we don't have a structure we follow, then we run into difficulties. If we have some difficulties now, it's simply.... And I'm not even going to suggest it's intentional. I don't even want to go there.
All I'm suggesting is let us just learn from this. Let us just learn from this at this particular point. Let's carry on with this committee from this point on, and let us not belabour this point but let's recognize that we have to have a procedure that is followed, and that means the confidentiality of this committee until the committee, master of its own destiny, makes a decision.
Whatever that committee decides to do, then so be it. Then that's the direction. Either information is withheld, it's in camera, or it's wide open, and it can be disclosed by each and any member of this committee at any time—or it's not. We cannot unilaterally have people going and making decisions to distribute information or to comment on information before the committee has ruled. We have every right to do so once the committee rules, but before, I just think it's wrong, and that's the point that I do believe.
To me it's solidly not about the issue in front of us, it's about the integrity of the committee and the manner and the direction in which the committee wishes to move forward. I hope we can put this behind us and just move forward now.
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
Navdeep Bains Liberal Mississauga—Brampton South, ON
Thank you very much, Chair.
I have just two quick points to the comments made by my honourable colleagues.
The first has to do with Mr. Kramp's remarks with respect to the committee decides on the rules. Such a rule does not exist with respect to documents. There is no such rule that exists of when we receive the documents. I'm not aware of any rule, and there's no rule that exists that I've seen in the Standing Orders, the rules in the House and the committee, that the documents received by the committee are confidential, are secret. There are no rules as such that exist.
The second point that I wanted to make, Chair, is with respect to the question of privilege that was raised earlier by Mr. Saxton. The question of privilege pertains to a matter raised in the House of Commons. If that's the case, then the member should raise his question of privilege in the House of Commons, not here in committee, because, Chair, any question that deals with what took place in the House of Commons took place in your capacity as a member of Parliament in the House. So if it's a question of privilege in the House, then this matter should be raised in the House.
The fact that it's being brought forward in committee today again reinforces the point I made before, that this is a distraction. This is a distraction by the government members not to deal with the issue, which is advancing the public interest by making sure we examine these documents so we can get to the bottom of the findings in the report by the Auditor General—particularly some of the elements that come out of these documents that deal with the independence of Madame Ouimet and her office on a very important matter. Many public servants trusted that office, took their complaints and concerns, some of even fraudulent nature—and that's very important to highlight—dealing with government assets, with the mindset that they would be dealt with in the appropriate way, consistent with the mandate of that office. And the Auditor General's office clearly refuted that.
That's the issue here today. I think the question of privilege, again, is a matter that needs to be raised in the House because it pertains to you, Chair, in your capacity as a member of Parliament and the question you raised in the House of Commons.
Secondly, there's nothing in the Standing Orders or in the rules of the House that any documents we receive in committee are supposed to be held in some sort of secret file. I'm not aware of such, and that's why I think that this again is distracting from the issue we need to deal with.
3:55 p.m.
Bloc
Meili Faille Bloc Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC
Mr. Chairman, not wishing to repeat what my colleagues have already said, I would simply add that this question of privilege should have been raised with the Speaker of the House of Commons. If the member wishes to pursue the matter, this would be the most appropriate way to do so. It is my belief that our time is precious and that we should move on to committee business.
In any event, the information we presently have can be obtained under the Access to Information Act. Every time that we made requests possibly involving translation or exorbitant costs and that we were not certain that the information provided by the department was sufficient and correct, we obtained, via an access to information request, exactly the same documents as those obtained by the committee, and, on top of that, within a very reasonable timeframe, often within less than 10 days or two weeks. Consequently, I am not surprised that people have within their possession the same information we have.
Furthermore, one need only consult the Canada Gazette to find information regarding Ms. Ouimet's salary scale. One could also, through an access to information request, easily obtain all of the information we have here. Moreover, a good portion of this information was already available on the Internet, namely that pertaining to the RCMP. I have here access to information requests relating to the agendas and comings and goings of Ms. Ouimet, etc. Approximately half of the document deals with elements that are rather administrative in nature and that have nothing to do with the auditor general's investigation.
However, if the member wishes to pursue his issue with regard to the question of privilege, I believe he should do so in the House. The information is public. We heard the privacy commissioner. She commented on the document. In her opinion, the risk of us receiving private information was minimal. She at that time had no doubts as to the type of information that would be supplied and was convinced that Privy Council and Treasury Board would ensure that no information on the whistleblowers would be communicated. I therefore believe that all of the information we have is public.
An issue that was brought up was that of misuse of public funds, and other such disclosures. In response to our access to information requests, we obtained among other things the following information: that the successive controllers had never communicated with the commissioner's office to inform it of changes made to its administrative practices. All of this is in the public domain and can be easily obtained through an access to information request.
As my colleagues are aware, I research all of my files quite thoroughly. I therefore am of the belief that I am well prepared to question anyone who might appear before us with regard to access requests pertaining to public information, information disclosed on the department's Web sites and on blogs dating back to 2008 or 2009, for example, or even on information dating to 2010. To sum up, the question of privilege should not be discussed in a committee setting, but rather in the House of Commons. I believe that that is what my colleagues from the Liberal Party are trying to get at.
3:55 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Very simply, given that we go way out of our way to make sure that we hear both sides of something, before I comment I'd very much appreciate hearing your thoughts, Chair.
4 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joe Volpe
Well, I have a couple of others on the list who want to speak. But I think Mr. Saxton invited me to elicit any commentary. I don't know that Mr. Saxton intended to debate members on the other side and I don't think Mr. Kramp did either, since they have both had...well, I think Mr. Saxton has commented twice. But I take your point and I'm prepared to address the issue before I—
4 p.m.
Conservative
4 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joe Volpe
Just a second; hold on a moment.
If we do that, I'm going to have to listen to everyone. I know where you want to go with that point of clarification, because you waved the paper.
If you will allow, I'm going to go ahead and give a quick response. Okay?
4 p.m.
Liberal
Navdeep Bains Liberal Mississauga—Brampton South, ON
I'd like clarification on a comment made by Mr. Christopherson, Chair.
4 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joe Volpe
No, I....
Mr. Saxton, I suppose as a member of the committee it's your right to make any observation you want about any member at this table, including the chair. We come from different parties, and that is I think recognized in the composition of this committee. That's okay. If you're going to impugn my motives and my character, however, that's a different story.
I'm going to read for you and for everybody else the timeline that was followed in this process. It is of course all verifiable; I think you know you can verify it with the clerk.
The issue, as you've framed it, is all about information that was elicited for the purposes of the committee doing its job and about my involvement and my participation in that exercise, both in getting information, and then secondarily, because you mentioned his name, negotiating with Mr. Whitehall to make sure that Madame Ouimet comes forward.
I have to say that I'm not happy that you intimated that Madame Ouimet might now use this exercise in which we are engaged to renege on her commitment to come forward. I know that her lawyer is following all of these proceedings, and I hope he did not take your reflection with great weight.
I caution to add as well that I looked at the Standing Orders, which guide the activities of all committees and all members of Parliament. They are silent on the matters you raised, Mr. Saxton. So I went to O'Brien and Bosc, which is a guide for us to interpret those Standing Orders. It is also a guide for us to interpret all of the orders that this committee set for itself.
Monsieur D'Amours made reference to the rules of procedure that this committee adopted in March of last year, before I came to the committee. I noted that on the question of how to deal with documents those minutes were silent. So I then went further.
Yesterday and prior to that—because you know that I invited the law clerk to come to advise the committee, both in public and then in camera, because we wanted his advice to be advice to the committee.... This committee entertained a motion to bring the Privacy Commissioner before it. It was defeated, but I used my prerogative as chair to invite the Privacy Commissioner anyway so that we could avail ourselves of her views on any of the information we might receive.
I'm not going to interpret for members what she said. We were all present, it's on the record, and we can deal with it as individual members of Parliament.
I'll come back to the concept of what an individual member of Parliament's rights might be in the House in a moment.
Pursuant to discussions with this committee, I engaged in discussions with Mr. Whitehall, who purported to represent Madame Ouimet. I say “purported” because I wanted to verify that this was the case. I received a letter from Mr. Whitehall on February 17 and had it distributed to all colleagues immediately that same day electronically. A letter from Mr. Whitehall outlining the conditions to me, dated February 17, was distributed to all committee members on that same day.
It's interesting to note, Mr. Saxton, that this letter from Mr. Whitehall—those of you who have it before you will indulge me for repeating parts of it—says: “It has also come to our attention that the Privy Council Office has produced a departure agreement between Madam Ouimet and the government, pursuant to”, etc.
It struck me, as it should strike all other members of Parliament, that a lawyer in the public domain already had access to the information that this committee had not yet received but was about to receive, because it had to formally ask for it to receive those documents. That information, whatever information Mr. Whitehall referred to, was already in the public domain before it even came to us. Otherwise, he would not have been able to make reference to it.
Because this committee asked me to negotiate a firm date of appearance for Madame Ouimet before this committee, a letter from me was drafted. I can tell you that I passed it by the law clerk. I did that on the 25th. Committee members got it on the 28th, to allow for the weekend, because we didn't send it all out at once, but essentially there was no time lag. The moment we sent it out to Mr. Whitehall, it was sent to committee members.
A memo from the clerk of the public accounts committee to members on February 22 attached the documentation from PCO and Treasury Board and went by messenger to Parliament Hill offices. No electronic copies were provided to members; they had to go by messenger. That happened on February 22. When we got it, everybody else got it. When I say we, I mean the clerk's office.
A memo from the clerk of the public accounts committee dated February 24, 2011, attaching a second batch of documents was sent to all committee members February 24. Fifteen offices received all the documentation to which Madame Faille made reference. Fifteen offices and all of their staff received all of that information. Keep in mind that on the 17th, Mr. Whitehall already made reference to the fact that it was in distribution, but we hadn't received it yet.
A memo from the clerk of the public accounts committee dated the 24th attaching a second batch of documents was sent to all committee members on February 24. Members received that. There's a letter from PCO attached to all documentation sent to all members with respect to a particular document for which it asked some confidentiality. It asked for that, but it did not respect that confidentiality itself. It made it available to committee and to committee members and to their staff, and obviously to Mr. Whitehall. The chair took the trouble to advise all committee members, had they not seen it, to please refer to that.
I note, Mr. Saxton, you did not indicate that I breached that request. So for those who have not read those particular documents, they refer to something that Monsieur D'Amours and Madame Faille have just mentioned, but that I never mentioned.
I want also to bring to the attention of all colleagues the other documents that they have not received but for which they have received an indication that the clerk has them. That is, all the documentation that came from Status of Women Canada and from the Human Rights Commission. They are with the clerk because they are in the language of origin, contrary to the vote by this committee on the motion that demanded all correspondence be in both official languages.
We didn't say we had a mechanism in place to determine whether all of those items were going to be monitored first by the analysts so they could then distribute them to us. We asked in our motion that we all receive them in both official languages so that we could do our job.
Privy Council and Treasury Board indicated that they could not fulfill our request—all of it— for the 19th and asked for an additional week. This committee said no thank you. PCO and Treasury Board indicated in response that the 19th was a Saturday and their interpretation of the word “by” meant the 19th, not the 18th, which would have been a Friday.
Taking into account, on behalf of this committee, that it would involve difficulties in time and logistics for the clerk and her office, I indicated to the clerk on your behalf that she should instruct PCO and Treasury Board to have those documents as the very first item in the morning of the 22nd. That's why the documents appeared on the 22nd. The others didn't comply.
So the issue, Mr. Saxton, is whether we are going to deal with the flow of information to this committee for it to do its work in a vigorous fashion, or not. On that score, I think, as the chair, I've done that job thoroughly.
Mr. Kramp.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Daryl Kramp Conservative Prince Edward—Hastings, ON
Point of order.
With the greatest respect, Chair, I have information here from one of our people covering it in the room that these documents have been released. As you're speaking, the documents you're talking about have been released by the media in this room. Where did that come from?
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joe Volpe
I thank you for raising that and for bringing it to my attention. I hope there is no undue implication that you wanted people to infer from that.
I'm going to conclude by saying that in no way did the chair of this committee ever do anything other than project a vigorous position by this committee so that it could do its job.
I'm going to go back for a moment to the question that elicited Mr. Saxton's attention on Monday.
It's true that on Monday in the House I raised a question and a supplementary of the minister responsible with respect to the connection between Madame Ouimet's office and those offices. It was a question that was almost a repetition of something some two to three weeks earlier. Yes, it had a greater effect because I referred to part of the e-mail trail that appeared in the documents that all of us had in our possession for more than a week. It made reference to it, but it did not go through the entire detail.
What it did not do—and I stress this—was refer to any document that PCO had asked be kept confidential. I respected that confidentiality not only for myself, even though as a member of Parliament I can stand in the House and ask any question I want.
You're right, Mr. Saxton, that as a chair I can answer questions, but when I become chair I don't lose my privileges as a member of Parliament. I've been judicious in ensuring that I do not infringe on anybody else's. But my rights as a member of Parliament to ask a question, which I had previously asked but this time with greater specificity, were not unencumbered.
Mr. Saxton—and I want to thank Madame Faille for raising this point—if you think there was a breach of privilege, surely the place to do that would have been in the House. In this committee—even if I wanted to exercise that authority as the chair—the chair doesn't have that authority to provide a consequence for a breach of privilege, and neither does the committee.
I've been around here long enough to know that's the last thing I want to do, anyway.
Mr. Saxton, I'm going to suspend in a moment because I want to give Mr. Christopherson an opportunity to come back to what he wanted to do subsequent to my intervention. Then after that I think we'll proceed with the rest of the issues.