Public Accounts Committee on March 3rd, 2011

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

Mr. Chair, a point of order, or point of clarification. I just have a brief clarification for a statement, and asking for verification. I have documentation. I can read one paragraph and that would be it, and it would just clarify a statement that Mr. Bains made that was inaccurate. I would just like that read into the record.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

We can read that into the record, Mr. Kramp, in a moment. But before we go into that exercise as well, I—

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

I think it might impact on Mr. Christopherson's thought processes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

Well, I don't know. Mr. Christopherson asked me to make an intervention so that he could comment and I wanted to respect that. And then after that I want to have an opportunity to consult with the clerk, so we can deal with any other documentation that you want to have read into the record. Okay?

Thank you.

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

Yes, Mr. Chair. I just wondered if this might have an impact on Mr. Christopherson's thought process. It's from O'Brien and Bosc.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

Mr. Christopherson?

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

How long do you need?

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

About 30 seconds.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Take it out of my time. Say it.

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

From O'Brien and Bosc.... Mr. Bains said, of course, that we decide what we want to do individually and we make our decision. Well, in O'Brien and Bosc, on page 1071, 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

--it doesn't say “committee member”--

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.

It goes on, so I don't want to belabour it. But the fact is, it is a committee's decision. That's the crux of this. It's not about individual ability; it's the committee. We must respect the committee's privileges.

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

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order.

Concerning Mr. Kramp's comment, I wish to emphasize that the Standing Orders of the House of Commons are the only rules that should be taken into account. As I said earlier, the minutes of proceedings are clear relating to this matter. I was not there in 2010, but it remains that no committee member decided on the way in which documents should be dealt with, with the exception of the requirement to have them distributed in both official languages.

One could refer us to 25,000 files or documents or even pull out the dictionaries, but that would in no way change the fact that the Standing Orders of the House of Commons are what take precedence and must be followed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

It's on a point of order, so that's what he's coming in on.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

He's done now, is he?

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

One of the other things that's happened, of course, in this exercise is that I think people are using a point of clarification or a point of order to continue debate on my response to you, without giving you an opportunity to answer.

It's worth noting, Mr. Christopherson, that the documentation made available to us by Mr. Whitehall and the Privy Council Office—especially the Privy Council Office—made a note of only one item that they wanted to keep confidential. They didn't have any commentary on the rest.

Irrespective of what guidance O'Brien and Bosc provide, it would lead a reasonable person to think that the PCO, with all the paper that it provided, was interested in the confidentiality of only one document, and that was respected.

Mr. Christopherson.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I don't have a lot to say. It's hard to believe, but I really don't.

First of all, we do have a problem. There are documents out there that may or may not be determined by this committee as needing to be confidential, and we no longer have that option. We've lost control of that, and if there are any implications, then we're going to have to deal with those. I just make that as a stand-alone statement. That's a problem. It's a problem for us. We need to come to grips with it.

Really, I don't have a conclusive comment. I've got a couple of observations. One is that I think I'm still the longest continuous serving member on this committee, and I've been racking my brain--and I would defer to the analysts, who would know better--but I don't recall that we ever made it clear what our policy and the rules are about documentation that's being sent, to be fair. I do stand to be corrected, but if that is correct and we didn't, then I'm no lawyer, but it's hard to find someone at fault for breaking a rule when you never set the rule.

Hang on, now. I listened when everybody else spoke.

I think that we maybe need to have a little bit of a discussion at some point, maybe even at steering committee, about the issue of the chair of the committee exercising his or her right to ask any question, given that the chair....

I'm just saying that given what's happened, we need to look at it. I'm suggesting to the chair that whoever is in the chair does have a bit of an advantage. That person would know sooner than the rest of us when documents have been.... Well, I see the chair shaking his head. I'm assuming that if I were the chair and documents came in that come into the clerk, I'm likely to be the first person, not always, but I'm likely to be, and if I wanted to make a point of it, I sure could be.

And as the chair, you're mandated by this committee. Remember, it's unlike any other committee. It's a different creature here.

So there's the possibility also of the chair being mandated to make phone calls, as we've done, to draft letters, in which case they'd consult with people—all of which could put the chair ahead of the committee, legitimately so. But the potential could be there for someone who wanted to make it a personal advantage to grab—and I'm not suggesting that's what happened here, at all. But I'm just saying that given that this has been pointed out, I think it's something we maybe need to talk about, Chair, as to what some of our thoughts are about that, because I do think there's the potential there.

I recall some of the bigger issues we've dealt with. This is my last point, Chair. Particularly I'm thinking of the RCMP pension scandal. That was a long.... We held I don't know how many meetings, documentation going all over. I think you were even with us then, Mr. Laforest; it's been that long.

[Jean-Yves Laforest]

I remember.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

You remember? Well, it's hard to forget.

And I do recall, and that's why I want to be careful here. There was a lot of media attention, a lot of documents coming and going. I certainly could see a situation if someone wanted to point out to me where I made comments in the media about something that had been technically tabled with the committee but that the committee hadn't yet become seized of it and done anything, and yet I was making comments on it.

Now, I think we can make some guidelines that differentiate, because where there's the potential for matters that should be kept confidential.... Remember, we went out of our way to bring in both the law clerk and the Privacy Commissioner so that we would at least try to avoid making mistakes. So that exercise is not something we've done, and maybe we need to talk about that in the future, that there are categories of information, and once we slap a certain category on it, for instance, from that moment forward, all members are embargoed from commenting publicly until the meeting convenes. Something like that.

But many, many times, as Madame Faille has pointed out, the documentation is already out there somewhere and we're just getting copies of it. And if somebody wanted to get it online somewhere, they could have got it long before we did. So why would we go out of our way to make every single document we get a matter of confidence, and the media call up on something that's already out there? They know the whole story, and we have to do this silly little “sorry, I can't comment”, which really at that point would be a fig leaf on the truth. It's just a silly thing to have there.

Therefore, my wrap-up--I know that was kind of long, but for me it wasn't that long--is that I think Madame Faille is again correct in suggesting that the quicker we get this resolved and move on, the better.

Chair, I'll just throw this out for consideration. At steering committee let's have a talk about this, discuss things we think need further discussion, and then begin that discussion or recommend back to the committee that we do that. I think there are a number of lessons we can learn here. But I have to say at this point to Mr. Saxton, given that he didn't ask for any remedy but merely for comments, he has those. I think he has our attention. I think he's raised some legitimate issues that need to be addressed.

At this point I'm not convinced there's really anything here—and it's a very strong step—based on which we would take a step to admonish the chair for actions we didn't approve of. I don't think we're anywhere near that, and I don't see anything to that extent. But I do hope that we pick this up at steering committee. Even after all these years, I'm seeing yet another area in which we can improve the way we do our deliberations.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

Thank you, Mr. Christopherson.

I think you're right. We gave everybody an opportunity to fulfill the request that Mr. Saxton made, which was for commentary. Mr. Kramp was indicating to me a little while ago that he wanted to bring this to an end. We've satisfied, I think, the first issue. Rather than continuing to have a discussion going forward, I think we've aired everything.

The suggestion you've made is a solid one. At the next steering committee the issue of how to deal with information on the basis of going forward will be raised.

Right now we apparently have documents out there, as you've said and as Mr. Kramp has pointed out. I don't know that.

I take note that Madame Faille has indicated she has documentation from other sources. I'm not going to tell her what to do with the information she has from other sources.

I've pointed out for everybody the information that they have....

Madame Faille.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

The information that I obtained from other sources comes from the Prime Minister's Web site. It was a simple mathematical calculation: it was the start date and the end date of the work, as well as the GCQ salary ranges. I understand the other sources, but I simply wanted to be precise because I would not want the committee to think that I have whistleblowers in the different departments.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

Thank you, Madame Faille.

I'm going to suspend for a few moments.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Mr. Chair, just before you suspend, I would like--

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

I'm suspending for a few minutes.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

I'm going to allow for one last very brief comment of about two minutes for each of the parties, should they wish to exercise that opportunity before I make a declaration on the matter.

Mr. Saxton.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Yes, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

Did you want to make a closing two-minute intervention on behalf of your party? Or did you want to give that opportunity to Mr. Kramp? Only one of you is going to do it.