Public Safety Committee on Nov. 1st, 2016

[Malcolm Brown]

Yes. The Prime Minister is free to seek advice, as is any minister.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Seek advice, and show the draft report from the committee of parliamentarians?

[Malcolm Brown]

Oh, is that the question you're asking?

Ian is the expert, but certainly in the context of a ministerial perspective, the minister will be seeking advice from officials when he is in a dialogue with the committee, or, frankly, with agency heads about what's appropriate information to share. He may choose not to take the advice of the agency heads and, in fact, direct them to share information. The minister will seek advice from a variety of quarters, with the role of the Prime Minister....

[Ian McCowan]

The Prime Minister is given this express power in the same way that ministers are given express powers elsewhere in the statute. He's capable of taking advice from different quarters, as ministers are, in terms of making various decisions under statute. In terms of the framing of the statutes, the decision is framed in terms of the decision of the Prime Minister.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

It's the decision of the Prime Minister. I'm just reflecting on Mr. Di Iorio's comments regarding privacy, secrecy, and those sorts of issues. When one asks for advice, they have to ask a question that is based on something. How does that happen? This feels different from a minister getting advice on other issues. I don't know whether it is, though. If it isn't, I would like to know that.

[Ian McCowan]

The Prime Minister would have to consult in terms of the nature of the information in question. I mean, you can't, obviously, consult in quarters where it wouldn't be appropriate to consult in terms of sensitive information. It sounds like you're interested in more detail on—

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

To be clear, I'm not worried about this Prime Minister.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

You never know about the future.

[Ian McCowan]

If it would be helpful to the committee, I'm certainly willing to undertake to see if there is additional information that we can provide to the committee in terms of how this particular provision would be approached.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

I would like that. Thank you very much.

Mr. Mendicino, go ahead.

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

I don't think I have much time, do I?

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Well—

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

I don't in any way begrudge the chair for using his prerogative. If I had to share my time with anybody at this table, it would be him.

I would just say thank you to all of the witnesses for their evidence today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

I was going to beg the committee's indulgence to go for three more minutes for you and three more minutes for Mr. Di Iorio, if the committee and the witnesses are willing.

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

I'm happy to yield my time to Monsieur Dubé.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Monsieur Dubé.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

I have one last question. I'll keep it short, being mindful of the later hour than we're used to.

My question is on subclause 8(b), which allows a minister to prevent an investigation.

Could you tell me what the reasoning is behind that provision? Many other aspects of the bill and pieces of legislation in force ensure the confidentiality of the investigation. It's confidential. Why would the minister prevent the members of the committee from conducting it to begin with, even though the report might not become public, depending on the various discretionary aspects subsequently exercised?

[Ian McCowan]

I can start, and my colleague can join in as he sees fit.

I want to give you a good answer to your question. If you look at other Westminster jurisdictions, take the issues of the reviewing of ongoing operations. A number of other Westminster jurisdictions don't allow that. A number allow for it in a more limited fashion than what's being contemplated here.

Given that this is a very broad potential right for the committee to pursue, there has to be a check and a balance in the same way that all of the other Westminster jurisdictions have checks and balances. Indeed, as I say, some of them, in the example of ongoing operations, don't even allow any of that to be reviewed by the committees that are parallels to the one that's being contemplated here.

In this instance, you would have to have a minister convinced that this threshold is met in a given instance. Perhaps it would only be met for a period of time, and after some period of time it would be possible for the committee to look at it, but the bottom line is that it's a check and a balance, which is similar to what you see in all other jurisdictions, again, based on the extraordinary brand of information that the committee would have at its disposal.

[Malcolm Brown]

I would very quickly go back to the example that the director of the service gave, which is an ongoing operation that, depending on timing, is at a particularly critical point, and the actual shift of the resources required to respond effectively to what the committee is asking is having a material impact.

It's a very high threshold. As Minister Goodale has said, regular exercise of this check and balance, as Ian has described it, will be a problem. I think you will expect to see it exercised very, very rarely. Certainly, the direction described by Minister Goodale is one that, if it were exercised, it probably would be very rare and temporal, as in “not that particular issue at this time but very soon, as soon as possible”.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

Is that threshold defined or is it just assuming an ideal world?

[Malcolm Brown]

Again, it's like one of the other questions I had earlier. It's hard to create a definition that fits with every possible scenario. I think it is in the practice of that relationship that the minister has talked about—and that many members have—that relationship over time between members of the committee, the service heads, and the various ministers of the cabinet, that people will begin to assess, well, we know we're going to get to that point, so do we need to do that today or can we wait until that particular issue...?

There may be times where there is a conflict, and that's where the role of the minister will come in. It's hard to provide that kind of definitional precision, that is not, as Mr. Clement described...of you're defining something in, or you may be defining something out, as opposed to actually creating a forum where the members of the committee, the agency heads, and ministers actually have a dialogue, in a safe place that's secure, that says, “Well, here's the reason.” It's a very different context than what has traditionally governed the nature of the dialogue with parliamentarians, and a much more open one.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you, Deputy. I hope you see our committee as effective, and now magnanimous as well.

I don't want the committee to move for a minute. I have a couple of things I need to do.

It's great to be surrounded by such fine public servants, so on behalf of the committee, thank you not only for today but for your work on the safety, security, and human rights of Canadians.

Committee members, I want to make just one suggestion for a change to our calendar. We'll have a lot of quality time. We have four more meetings on Bill C-22 with witnesses. Right now, we have the amendments scheduled for November 23 at noon. I'm going to suggest that we move that to the end of day on the 23rd.

On the 25th, I have work with the clerk and analysts. On the 24th, we will receive the summary of evidence from the national security framework studies thus far. Unfortunately, that evidence won't be able to inform your amendments—I know you're already writing them—but it will be able to inform our discussion about the amendments when we come to clause-by-clause on Tuesday, November 29. Clause-by-clause was going to be on the 24th. We're moving it to the 29th so you can get the summary of evidence on the 24th and use it in your deliberations. Is that okay?

I have two more things. Mr. Dubé has presented a notice of motion. We will deal with that on Thursday at our meeting, so we'll take five minutes. I draw that to your attention.

I also want to note that it is Chad Richards' last day in working with Mr. Miller. He served Mr. Miller well this year, and he served our committee well.

Good luck with your next venture. Thank you.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear!

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

The meeting is adjourned.