Public Safety Committee on June 17th, 2008

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Would you know what those are? Since this a secret document, and it was still left in a place where anyone could have had access to it, whose responsibility would it have been to trace this to know that it was missing? Would it have been the deputy minister's? Would it have been Treasury Board's? Whose responsibility would it have been?

[Margaret Bloodworth]

The short answer is that I don't know, because the review has not been completed in this case. But if I can try to be a little more helpful, deputy ministers are responsible for setting out the procedures for handling documents in their departments, but the ministers are also responsible for things that are within their office. In this case, we have a former minister who took responsibility for the fact that an error was made, and he has resigned.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

But only after the documents were missing for a period of time—five weeks. So I'm puzzled that there is a system is in place that has secret documents missing for five weeks and does not have a trace done to at least alert the deputy minister to that. That is not your responsibility.

Do I understand you to say—and I'm not arguing your point—that you would only initiate further background checks if the RCMP alerted you to the need to do that? Would you accept information from any place else, or would it only be from the RCMP? I ask this for other than the regular background checks that you do; I understand that part.

[Margaret Bloodworth]

Let me say, first of all, that if there's any reason to do any criminal investigation or any security investigation, that would not involve me—and in fact, it would be inappropriate to involve me in that. I don't control any of that, nor should I.

The purpose of background checks is to provide advice to a Prime Minister when a Prime Minister is making decisions about his or her cabinet. The purpose of what we do is to provide that information to the Prime Minister in order for him to decide whether he wants that person in the cabinet or not. That's the whole purpose of background checks.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Yes, I spent 10 years in a cabinet and I understand that.

So if there were a reason for the RCMP to be concerned about someone's background from a criminal perspective, or from an attachment to a criminal perspective, if that is not your responsibility—and I take your word that it is not—whose is it?

[Margaret Bloodworth]

It's the RCMP's responsibility to conduct criminal investigations.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

If they conduct a criminal investigation on someone who is a partner of a minister, does it just stay within the RCMP? Is the Prime Minister never informed?

[Margaret Bloodworth]

No, but that's a different issue. I would expect that if there was a significant security concern relating to a minister, the RCMP would inform me, but not in order to do something about it. They would inform me so the Prime Minister could do something about the cabinet minister.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

I perfectly understand that you would not be doing something about it, that you would simply be alerting the Prime Minister. I realize it's the Prime Minister who's accountable for doing something. But that information would be passed to you, and you would then pass it to the Prime Minister.

[Margaret Bloodworth]

I would expect that if there was a significant security concern involving a minister of the cabinet that the RCMP was aware of, they would tell me or, in my absence, Mr. Lynch.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Okay.

I want to reaffirm a statement that I think you made earlier, that it is possible that Mr. Lynch would have information that you do not.

[Margaret Bloodworth]

It's certainly possible, but I said that in the case before the committee he didn't. I know that because I've discussed it with him, and he doesn't. But it's not impossible—in fact, it's quite probable—in some cases that Mr. Lynch could have information I don't have.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

All right. So your expectation would be that if the RCMP had security concerns or criminal concerns about someone who was connected in a significant way to a minister, that information would be transferred to you to transfer to the Prime Minister.

[Margaret Bloodworth]

That's not quite what I said. If I could correct that, I said I would expect that if the RCMP had significant security concerns relating to a minister of the cabinet, they would let me know.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

That's what I thought I said, but perhaps it's a matter of words.

Is it only the RCMP that would pass information on to you? Would there be anybody else?

[Margaret Bloodworth]

If it's criminal, yes. It's not impossible that if it were a national security concern of some kind, it might have been CSIS. It depends on the nature of the concern.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

That's fine for now. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you very much.

Mr. MacKenzie, please.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Bloodworth and folks, for being here today.

I think your answers have been very clear and understandable. I'm not sure if everybody wants to look at it that way. But what I think I heard you say, and perhaps you can clarify it for me, is that these procedures have been in place for a number of years. The only exception is that this government, this Prime Minister, has asked that those checks for cabinet ministers be updated every two years.

[Margaret Bloodworth]

Background checks have been in place for a number of years. There have been amendments made over the years to the way in which background checks are done. For example, they did not involve a tax compliance check at the very beginning, and they now do. I'm not sure if there was always a check about bankruptcy; that has been added. But the checks themselves have been conducted since at least the early 1960s, some form of background check.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

So there has been no change. It has been basically the same for a number of years. Sometimes if people want to believe it's another way, they can believe that, but in fact that's the way it is. And if we wanted to change it going forward, we could change it, I'm sure, if that was the desire.

[Margaret Bloodworth]

I've tried very hard to stay with what the facts are related to this—

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Absolutely.

[Margaret Bloodworth]

—and that's what I did set out in my opening statement. But of course processes can always be changed.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

If I understood you correctly, you did not have any information that your office went to the Prime Minister with. There have been allegations that PCO must have told the Prime Minister about this situation, whatever is perceived to be wrong with it, but that in fact is not true. You have not had information provided to you by the RCMP, so you have not gone to the Prime Minister with something you don't have.