Public Accounts Committee on Oct. 23rd, 2024

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 146 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts.

Today’s meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the Standing Orders. Members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application.

Before we begin, I would like to ask all in-person participants to read the guidelines written on the updated cards on the table with respect to the audio system to prevent any feedback incidents. This is to protect the health and safety of all participants, especially our interpreters.

I have a kind reminder for all those in person and online. For your safety and the safety of our interpreters, it is very important that microphones are muted when individuals are not speaking.

All comments should be addressed through the chair.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(g), the committee is resuming consideration of report 6, Sustainable Development Technology Canada, 2024—reports 5 to 7 of the Auditor General of Canada, referred to the committee on June 4, 2024.

I was going to welcome Mr. Cannings to the committee, but he is not here. He is a new member.

We have a substitute today. Welcome.

I'll turn to our witnesses, and we will welcome our new member at a later date.

From the Privy Council Office, we have Donnalyn McClymont, deputy secretary to the cabinet, senior personnel and public service renewal; and Rima Hamoui, assistant secretary to the cabinet, senior personnel.

Ms. McClymont, you have the floor for five minutes, please.

[Donnalyn McClymont, Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet, Senior Personnel and Public Service Renewal, Privy Council Office]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon, honourable committee members.

I want to start by recognizing that the lands on which we're gathered form part of the unceded traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe nation.

Further to our appearance last month, my colleague and I are here today to assist the committee in its study of Sustainable Development Technology Canada.

I understand that the committee is specifically seeking clarity on the process by which Ms. Verschuren was appointed to the Governor in Council position of SDTC chair in 2019.

In September 2018, an open, transparent and merit-based selection process was launched to find qualified candidates to fill the chair position. This process, as I mentioned previously, yielded a total of six candidates who were recommended to the then minister.

I recognize that the committee has asked for further details related to this appointment. On that point, I would like to just take a few moments to provide some context on our approach to the management of candidate information.

There are two key elements that guide us in our work. First, the Privy Council Office has a legal obligation under the Privacy Act to protect personal information. We take this obligation seriously, as well as the responsibility it entails. Second, as only a small fraction of individuals who apply for GIC positions are appointed, the fact that an individual has applied can be sensitive if released and could cause both professional and reputational damage.

In addition, throughout our selection process, we gather a lot of detailed personal information, including responses to interview questions, information gathered through reference checks, and assessments made by the selection committee. Protecting this information is vital to our work. Applicants and candidates can reasonably expect that it is kept confidential, as it would be in any standard human resource practice. This is to maintain the integrity of the process so that individuals are not dissuaded from applying for these important roles.

That said, we recognize that the committee has sought clarification on the selection process for Ms. Verschuren, and we know that it is very important to your study. We have, therefore, taken a very exceptional measure to seek Ms. Verschuren’s consent to provide to the committee the details related to her appointment. This information has been sent to the committee clerk, but I will go through it in detail.

I would also just like to mention that I have discussed this approach with the Privacy Commissioner, given this unprecedented action on our part, and he thought that this was an appropriate approach in the circumstances.

I'll just go through it quickly.

Ms. Verschuren applied to the selection process through our open online portal on April 30, 2019. She was interviewed on May 14, 2019. Her application, interview and references were assessed by the committee, and she was found to have met the criteria. As such, she was identified as a qualified candidate and was provided, through an advice letter, to former minister Bains as a recommended candidate on May 21, 2019. The Governor in Council appointed her on June 19, 2019, to the position.

I hope that this information will be helpful to the committee. Thank you for your attention. We would be pleased to take your questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you.

Next, we will begin our first round of questions by members. You each have six minutes.

Mr. Perkins, you have the floor, please.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, witnesses. It's nice to see you again.

In response to a production order or documents motion here at the committee around Ms. Verschuren's appointment, PCO, as the witness has referenced, provided documents, and there are 107 pages. Pages 12 to 30, pages 48 to 66, pages 78 to 84 and pages 97 to 103—in total, 41 pages—were redacted. You can see them here. They were redacted, which seems to be a PCO habit these days.

Can you tell me who told you to redact these pages?

[Donnalyn McClymont]

Mr. Chair, as I noted from the outset, as public servants, we are obligated under the Privacy Act to protect personal information.

That said, I would really emphasize for the committee that we have taken some very exceptional measures to provide as much information as possible to strike a very delicate balance of giving the committee the information that they need to do their work while respecting the personal information of the individuals who were qualified for the various processes.

I would just say that, above and beyond that, we also sought Ms. Verschuren's agreement to provide details about her appointment.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

That wasn't my question.

Who authorized or said that these pages should be redacted in PCO?

[Donnalyn McClymont]

Mr. Chair, we operate under the auspices of the Privacy Act, and we would have gone through the pages ourselves. My team would have looked and applied the Privacy Act. If we'd had any questions, we would have consulted with our legal counsel.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Did the Prime Minister's Office review this before it was released?

[Donnalyn McClymont]

Not to my knowledge, Mr. Chair. If they had an opportunity, not from our office.... They wouldn't have reviewed it, no.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Will you table with this committee all the emails within PCO and PMO with regard to what should be done with these documents before they were tabled in committee?

[Donnalyn McClymont]

I'm not quite sure I understand the question.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Well, you would have had lots of communication and emails back and forth when you got the stack of documents about what to redact and hide from the committee and what not to, so will you table those emails with the committee?

[Donnalyn McClymont]

We'll endeavour to see if we have any records on hand that could be helpful in that work, for sure.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

It's really hard to get at the details of this thing because, of course, Ms. Verschuren testified, and the first answer is usually the correct answer. She testified three times that she has not applied for anything in her life and that Minister Bains called her twice before that. A week later, she wrote a letter saying that of course she applied. I suspect that she applied after she had had the two calls from Minister Bains.

Does anything that you've redacted here deal with the issue of Minister Bains' phone calls to Ms. Verschuren to talk about taking this on, the job she didn't apply for?

[Donnalyn McClymont]

Mr. Chair, we have provided the information as requested, and that would include the advice letter. As I mentioned, the advice letters that were requested would also contain personal information about the applicants.

I would just underscore that we did note in our letter back that we didn't have any documents that had any transaction, to the member's question, between ourselves and the minister or the minister's office or the Prime Minister's Office, for that matter, on her application or any further details.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

The witness is obviously aware that we've now been three weeks in the House dealing with a privilege motion about the breach of privilege of the House order for documents related to SDTC from every government department, which did not say to censor them or redact them, but the government has redacted quite a few, and PCO is on the list.

If these documents were provided to the law clerk, were they provided in this redacted form?

[Donnalyn McClymont]

Yes, Mr. Chair, we would have provided exactly the same redactions to the package that we would provide to the law clerk. It would be consistent with the law.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

This is a list from the law clerk of the latest departments that redacted documents versus the ones that didn't. There's a small list of those that didn't redact, and a long list of those that did, and a couple of agencies that have refused to comply.

What I'd like to know, because you're part of the Privy Council team, is who in the Privy Council Office made the decision to send the order out to government departments saying, “We want you to filter the House of Commons request through the Privacy Act and the Access to Information Act.” That filter was not part of the House's motion, and this is the point that we've been discussing for the last three weeks in the House. Who made the decision to send that filter out?

[Donnalyn McClymont]

Mr. Chair, I wouldn't really be in a position to answer that. My assumption was that I was here today to discuss the appointment.

To try to be as helpful as I can be on this point, I would say that we would apply the legislation, the act, to our redactions.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

I appreciate that, but that's not what the House order was. I'd like you to please table with the committee—

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Hold on for just one second, Mr. Perkins.

Yes, Mr. Drouin.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Again, I respect that my honourable colleague, who was himself a Governor in Council appointment before this time, is asking questions the witness is clearly not able to answer and it's not her responsibility. He's asking a—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Mr. Drouin, you are up in just a little bit—

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Yes. I'm just saying to have a little respect for witnesses and maybe we can get somewhere.