Evidence of meeting #130 for Public Accounts in the 44th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was change.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Jake Stewart Conservative Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB
—and who instructed you that you could not release the information?
Deputy Minister, Department of the Environment
Advice of the department; and to be fair with you, this is something we've been doing for years.
Conservative
Jake Stewart Conservative Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB
Hold on. You were advised by the department, but over here you're saying it was cabinet confidence. Which is it?
Deputy Minister, Department of the Environment
No. Those are two different—
Conservative
Jake Stewart Conservative Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB
Yeah, exactly—two different answers to the same question. I agree with you.
Deputy Minister, Department of the Environment
No. It's not the same question.
Conservative
Jake Stewart Conservative Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB
No, I agree with you; it's two different answers to the same question.
Conservative
Jake Stewart Conservative Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB
I have another question. Was it the Prime Minister, the Minister of the Environment or the Minister of Industry who put the gag in the cabinet? Who instructed you that you couldn't release public information?
Deputy Minister, Department of the Environment
This information has nothing to do with the net-zero accelerator. This is information coming from Environment Canada. This is not cabinet. We never pretended it was cabinet confidential. What we said was that the information, as you read in the letter, was unpublished. That's what we said. It may have—
Conservative
Jake Stewart Conservative Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB
That's right. If it's not cabinet confidence, you can release it, then.
Deputy Minister, Department of the Environment
As I said before to your colleagues, there is due diligence to be made in terms of whether it is information that should be protected under certain legislation—
Conservative
Jake Stewart Conservative Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB
You just said yourself that you could release it if it wasn't cabinet confidence. Which is it?
Conservative
Jake Stewart Conservative Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB
You guys are going to have to start coming in here and learn to be accountable. None of you want to be accountable.
Conservative
Deputy Minister, Department of the Environment
This is the accountability under the Federal Accountability Act—
Conservative
Deputy Minister, Department of the Environment
There's more than one legislation that actually manages confidentiality. So yes, we have to do the due diligence, and ultimately it's a decision that governments can make—
Deputy Minister, Department of the Environment
I answered the question.
Conservative
Jake Stewart Conservative Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB
You're an apologist for the government. You didn't answer anything.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
That is the time, Mr. Stewart.
Ms. Khalid has graciously ceded her time to Mr. Morrice.
Mr. Morrice, you have five minutes.