Information & Ethics committee  Mr. Brassard, can I finish my answer?

Information & Ethics committee  I'm sorry. I didn't hear that.

Information & Ethics committee  It was not specifically to call her, but my recollection of it—and you can read me back my testimony—is that he wanted to find out what her rationale was for not pursuing the DPA at the time.

Information & Ethics committee  It was one of many issues that we discussed at a Christmas holiday wrap-up meeting.

Information & Ethics committee  I'm not aware of the conversation that Ms. Telford and Mr. Butts had at the time. When I had my call, I wouldn't have been aware of that, and this was before Mr. Brison resigned from cabinet and created the need for a cabinet shuffle.

Information & Ethics committee  You're hypothesizing an intention to fire her, which I was certainly not aware of at the time.

Information & Ethics committee  That's for the police to determine.

Information & Ethics committee  I think that was all covered at the justice committee and the production of documents for that. I don't have any of that material in front of me—

Information & Ethics committee  I believe that everyone involved in this case—including the Prime Minister, individuals at the Prime Minister's Office, myself as clerk, the deputy minister of justice and policy advisors—tried to do their jobs as effectively as possible and in good faith.

Information & Ethics committee  Since then, Canadians have had the opportunity to have their say in two general elections. It's a form of accountability for Canadians. If you, as parliamentarians, aren't satisfied with the rules for transparency, you can change the legislation.

Information & Ethics committee  I don't talk about this affair as a specific.... You can read my book on governance.

Information & Ethics committee  Parliament can change the laws, so I have two specific recommendations. One is that the law that was drafted and implemented by this Parliament in 2018 about deferred prosecution agreements has some ambiguity in it in terms of the evaluation of economic interest, which was the subject of one of the conversations.

Information & Ethics committee  Well, I'm not an expert on the RCMP. I've never worked for them and I've never worked at Public Safety, but they are the federal police force. They're also community police forces in many parts of the country, as you know. In terms of their acting as the federal police force, they are there to investigate and pursue violations of almost any federal crime, so largely it's criminal law, but there are other laws that they would act as the enforcement body on.

Information & Ethics committee  No. Parliament, over the years, created a number of watchdogs and investigative bodies to look at the enforcement of other laws. The ones that are relevant here, I think, are the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner and the Commissioner of Lobbying.

Information & Ethics committee  I was deputy minister to the Prime Minister, so I was there to support him in all of the roles that our Prime Minister plays. I've been before parliamentary committees of the House and Senate probably 30 times. This is the sixth time since I retired. I'm not intimidated or worried about helping Parliament do it's job.