read from the source
http://www.ourcommons.ca/DocumentViewer/en/42-1/ETHI/meeting-85/evidence
Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics
|
l |
|
l |
|
EVIDENCE
Tuesday, January 9, 2018
[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
[English]
I call the meeting to order.
This is meeting number 85 of the Standing Committee on Access to
Information, Privacy and Ethics. We're here to discuss a letter from Mr.
Peter Kent.
Peter.
Thank you, Chair, and happy new year to colleagues around the table.
I thank you for your decision to call this meeting in response to my letter, Mr. Chair.
Just
to remind the committee, and for the record, my request to you was to
place this motion today to be considered by the committee:
| That, the Committee invite the Prime Minister to discuss Commissioner Dawson's finding in The Trudeau Report released by the Commissioner's office on December 20th, 2017, and that this meeting take place either on January 17th or January 18th, 2018. |
To
explain the logic behind this request, Chair, I'll remind all members
that the commissioner released her report, “The Trudeau Report”, one
week after the House of Commons rose in December. Several hours after
that report was released, the Prime Minister
did meet with the media in the lobby of the House and held what I think
is most fairly described as a disjointed news conference, struggling to
answer some very basic questions from journalists with regard to the
commissioner's findings.
The Prime Minister
did make an apology in that news conference, but it was a qualified
apology. In the same sentence, he made clear that he disagreed with
Commissioner Dawson's finding against his claim of a deep and lasting
relationship with the Aga Khan.
Why today's meeting? Why my motion before the committee today?
Well, most members of Parliament should be back on the clock. We've all
had an appropriate holiday break. Just as important, the Prime Minister's
schedule this month is somewhat more flexible than it will be, I
anticipate, come the end of the month, when the House resumes and when
he will have obligations elsewhere in the country and abroad.
Why this motion to invite the Prime Minister?
Well, questions with regard to his holiday in the Caribbean, in
question periods throughout this past year, have not been met with
meaningful answers.
This committee is empowered by the Standing Orders of the House of
Commons to respond to the report and the consequences reported by the
Ethics Commissioner. This is a calm and respectful setting in which to
discuss the commissioner's findings with the subject of that
investigation and that report: the Prime Minister of
Canada. There is no heckling, questions are respectfully answered, and
questions can be put in a relaxed manner over a period of an hour or
two. This committee has had a succession of ministers, departmental
officials, deputy ministers, and commissioners here in recent months,
without mishap and without complaint.
What would such a meeting discuss with the Prime Minister?
Well, aside from questions about his initial qualified apology, there
are elements of the Prime Minister's testimony contained in the
commissioner's report, observations and conclusions by the commissioner
in this extensive report of 60 or 70 pages, depending on how you measure
them, and comments by the Prime Minister—for example, on the way he
sees himself as Prime Minister in situations with stakeholders or those
petitioning for favours or financial benefit from the Government of
Canada.
I would point to the commissioner's observation that she concluded the Prime Minister
felt that he could appear on two occasions with the Aga Khan, for
example, exposing himself improperly under the Conflict of Interest Act,
on the excuse that he wasn't there on official business: he was there
to build relationships.
To come to the motion before us, yesterday the spokesman at the Prime Minister's
Office said that Liberal members of this committee were not influenced
in the decisions they would take here today, and that they were open to
vote with their conscience, to make their own choices on whether to
support this motion.
I must say that this morning I was disappointed in the Prime Minister's
remarks from the east coast, when he said that he wants to avoid the
Ottawa news “bubble”, that he wants to take questions on this matter
from Canadians at round tables and in town halls across the country.
I would simply respectfully remind the Prime Minister
that he has the same duties and obligations as every member of
Parliament to be accountable to Parliament and to respect the rules,
regulations, and laws of Parliament, particularly the Conflict of
Interest Act. Given the unprecedented serious findings of four
violations of significant elements of the Conflict of Interest Act, I
believe it is his responsibility to make himself available to members of
Parliament to discuss the report and his feelings about the
commissioner's findings, and there is no more appropriate location, I
believe, than before this committee, which is responsible for the
ethical practices of the House of Commons.
That
said, I'll close here, Chair, and simply invite my Liberal colleagues
to walk through the door that was so generously opened by the Prime
Minister's Office yesterday and support my motion to invite the Prime Minister to attend this committee in the near future.
Thank you, Chair.
I share the salutations: happy new year to everyone around the table.
It is somewhat unusual to have a meeting at this particular time, but I
think we're into uncharted waters a bit. We've never had a report quite
like this from an Ethics Commissioner, so I think our response should
also meet the seriousness of what has happened.
My
colleague mentioned the notion of an opportunity. I would put this to
my Liberal colleagues in particular, because I suspect the instinct
might be to oppose a motion like this: a political calculation about a
sitting Prime Minister
appearing before a committee and answering questions. While this is not
unprecedented in Canadian history, it is unprecedented to have a Prime
Minister who has been found in violation of the ethics act. We have not
had that before. I, too, watched the press conference that followed the
release of this report, as I'm sure some of my friends across the way
did. It was clear not only that some of the questions caused the Prime
Minister some challenges in answering directly, but that the average
Canadian watching that and looking for answers to some pretty specific
points and decisions the Prime Minister and his office made with regard
to this trip would have left that press conference still not having
those answers.
I
don't want to knock down question period too much, Chair, because it
does serve a purpose. It allows certain things to be demonstrated from
time to time, but as members of Parliament, we all know that when
something is of a serious nature that requires time and examination,
committees are where the best work of Parliament happens. I think—and I
hope my colleagues share this view—this committee works very well, even
when discussing issues that have been difficult, issues around access to
information and privacy and ethics. Only in rare instances have I felt
any of the bad elements of partisanship enter into our conversations. I
think this committee works very well in producing our reports, and often
those are unanimous.
Now,
I want to be completely open about the intention behind such a meeting,
for me. Here, I am addressing mostly my Liberal colleagues. I've heard
Mr. Kent's
sentiments; I share some of those, if not all of them. I take this
incredibly seriously. Influencing office holders—as we all are—is about
something that's very important to me, and I think it's important to the
people I represent.
I hope it's important to all of us and to the people we represent that,
regardless of our partisan interest and regardless of the specific
issues we fight on, the issue of not being influenced, of having clear
ethical rules and clear consequences for breaking those rules, is
important for the trust that Canadians need to maintain in all of us.
Regardless of what views those Canadians hold, we hope they all hold the
idea that ethics matter, that this isn't a game.
I think there was an unfortunate analogy used by the Prime Minister
this morning in referring to this as partisan games. I don't take
ethics as a game. I think this is actually incredibly important. I
assume the Prime Minister
didn't intend the comments to be taken that way, but referring to
things that happen here in Parliament as partisanship and games and to
everything else that happens as serious is a wrong interpretation of our
world, because then it implicates Parliament as being nothing but that.
Prime Minister Trudeau
set a very high bar coming into office, particularly in coming out of
the previous government—no offence, Mr. Kent and others—in which
accountability and transparency were a problem; we saw the affairs of
the Senate and other issues, such as the Elections Act and whatnot. The
Prime Minister came forward as a candidate and then as a sitting Prime Minister
with some very strong and clear directives. I remember being quite
taken by some of those commitments around things like conflict of
interest, not just in the letter of the law, but in the spirit of the
law: not only to not be found in a conflict of interest, but to not even
have the appearance of a conflict of interest. I remember thinking,
“That's a very high and appropriate bar for us to have as public office
holders.”
One
of the questions—again, being transparent to my Liberal colleagues so
they cannot concern themselves about this being some sort of malicious
attempt—would be in regard to the Prime Minister's
mandate letters, which he set out for all members of cabinet and which I
assume applied to him as well: that in entering this Liberal cabinet,
one of the clear rules would be not to be in a conflict of interest and
not to have the appearance of a conflict of interest, and that's a clear
mandate that we are all familiar with. Whenever an organization or a
leader sets a rule, if the rule is broken, there are consequences. I
assume that in putting that rule down, if a cabinet minister were to
fall into a conflict of interest or the appearance of a conflict of
interest, there would be a consequence to that action. Otherwise, what's
the point of having the rule? The challenge we have in this case is
that the boss himself has broken the rule, as has been found by the
Ethics Commissioner.
I'm
trying to imagine the average Canadian workplace. You go to work for
somebody and they say, “If you're going to work here, these are the
rules you have to follow.” For example, if you're working at a bank, you
can't accept gifts from somebody who is doing business with the bank.
Then the next day you come into work and you see the bank manager
accepting a gift from somebody doing work with the bank. You can draw a
couple of conclusions. You can say, “Well, that rule doesn't really mean
anything and I, too, can do it,” or you want to raise concerns about
it.
My assumption is that, in setting these rules, the Prime Minister's
intention was good: to restore the public faith in elected office that
had been lost, and to combat the cynicism that we often deal with from
those who are not in politics saying, “It's all just a game. It's all
just people looking out for themselves.” We set these rules. If there is
no consequence other than a report and an awkward—if I can use that
term—press conference, then that doesn't seem to be much of a deterrent
for those who are intentionally looking to break the rules.
Another
question I would have would be about his choice and decision—as was
reported by Ms. Dawson, the now former commissioner—not to recuse
himself from meetings that pertained to the foundation that was
established by the Aga Khan to lobby the government.
I
misspoke. The foundation exists. There is a lobbying group that has
been established to lobby on behalf of the Aga Khan Foundation. Having
just a few days prior returned from a trip that was essentially paid
for, except for the commercial flights, by the Aga Khan, he was in a
meeting dealing with business that affected the Aga Khan Foundation's
interests and did not recuse himself from that meeting. That is a
question I have for the Prime Minister. It's a question that remains unanswered to this date.
This
is the forum to do it. This is the forum where we can have a civil
exchange, as Mr. Kent talked about, and find out where the lines are in
the Prime Minister's
own mind. Clearly, how he interprets these rules and their application
affects not just him but everybody in his cabinet, and I would think, by
extension, all of Parliament.
I'm
trying to imagine a scenario in which we, members of Parliament who are
not prime ministers, would find ourselves if somebody offered us a nice
painting. We said thank you and we accepted it. It was later determined
by the Ethics Commissioner that it was accepted inappropriately. We
should never have accepted the painting. The natural justice, to me—I
don't know about my colleagues—at a bare minimum would be to return the
painting. We wouldn't keep it, would we?
For the Canadians watching, a relevant question I would put to the Prime Minister
is this. I don't think he has denied this. I could be wrong, but
someone will correct me. He has now admitted that accepting this trip
was inappropriate, that to ask for and receive a vacation to a private
island for him, his family, and some friends, while the Aga Khan was
also lobbying the Prime Minister's Office, was inappropriate and broke
the ethics rules that we have. Why hasn't there been a suggestion from
the Prime Minister to pay that back?
I'm
going to disagree with my Conservative colleagues about the payment
back of security fees. I have a different view of things. I think the Prime Minister
incurs security costs just by nature of being a Prime Minister, but,
for me, the cost of the trip itself remains. What's the difference
between accepting that painting on the wall and accepting a free trip?
If both of those gifts were found to be against our ethics rules, why
does the Prime Minister remain in the enjoyment of that free vacation
when that would not be offered to somebody else? As the commissioner
found in her report, the argument of friendship—“Hey, do you want to use
my cottage for the weekend, old buddy?”—doesn't work. It did not
qualify and did not satisfy our commissioner.
I
don't want to go on more than this because I'm curious about my Liberal
colleagues and what their views are. I believe questions remain
unanswered.
The Prime Minister
is, by law and nature, accountable to Parliament. Town halls are great.
I do them all the time. But they do not substitute for this and should
not be seen as substitutions for this. I think Canadians would broadly
agree. They enjoy the opportunity to ask their Prime Minister questions.
The Prime Minister of Canada is accountable to Parliament, ultimately.
None of us sitting around this table are in the government. None of us are in cabinet. We don't work for the Prime Minister's
Office, none of us. Our job, collectively, is to hold the government to
account, because the government has an extraordinary amount of power.
The founders of our country built this for us to do our jobs.
It is not unprecedented, but is maybe unusual, for a Prime Minister
to appear before a parliamentary committee. My commitment, and I hope
my colleagues know this of me from our experiences, would be to treat
him with the utmost respect deserving of his office and to ask questions
that I believe are pertinent and on the minds of Canadians about the
rules as he interprets them, about the consequences for breaking those
rules as he interprets them, and about the culture that has been created
in his office and in his cabinet with respect to ethics and conflicts
of interest.
We've
heard, Chair, previously, in conversations, that the Liberals are open
to the idea of reviewing and strengthening the act, as Madame Dawson has
urged us to do in many Parliaments now. I think it would be encouraging
to hear from the Prime Minister
an actual commitment to make some of the changes. I would be curious
about his ideas. What changes could we make that would more firmly and
clearly define what the rules are, remove some of the loopholes that
have been identified by the Conflict of Interest and Ethics
Commissioner, and move this forward so that it does not simply concern a
scandal or an issue raised about the Prime Minister's choices around a
trip but actually demonstrably improves Parliament and the trust
Canadians can have in it?
I
look forward to comments from my Liberal colleagues across the way, and
to our resolving this. While I appreciate that the instinct might be to
resist such a scenario as calling the Prime Minister, I think he is
more than capable of answering questions—hopefully thoughtful ones—from
us as committee members so we can understand how we can make things
better and understand the decisions that were made.
[Translation]
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
First, I too would like to wish all of the members of the committee a very Happy New Year.
I want to begin by saying that the motion to invite the Prime Minister
to testify before the committee is quite relevant. We owe it to
ourselves to go through this exercise. Some may think that the committee
is acting relentlessly, but I think that this aligns with the purpose
of our committee.
The
Conflict of Interest Act exists to help all of the members of
Parliament. We need guidelines to help us in our work. If there are
excesses, we have the opportunity to discuss things with the Conflict of
Interest and Ethics Commissioner. If there are things that need to be
changed, it is up to the members of the committee to make
recommendations and continue the work.
There is a lot of concern surrounding the Prime Minister's
trips to the island belonging to the Aga Khan. There were, in fact,
three trips, two of which were quite complicated. They were prepared by
the Office of the Prime Minister. The decision to make these trips was
not made at a moment's notice. Those who took the trouble to read the
report will know that the preparations for the December 2016 trip began
in the summer of 2016. Those who did this preparatory work would have
been very aware that transportation to the Aga Khan's island posed
challenges and required special means of transport. There were surely
other ways of arranging these transfers while avoiding conflicts of
interest.
Throughout
this whole affair, I've been wondering how the Prime Minister could
have avoided this type of conflict of interest.
What is unfortunate is that he breached not one, two, or three sections of the Conflict of Interest Act, but four. A Prime Minister
breaking a federal law is an unprecedented situation in the history of
this country. We expect our Prime Minister to be above reproach and to
respect our federal laws, and all legislation. The Prime Minister has to
set an example for all Canadians.
I
have other concerns regarding his last trip, when he was accompanied by
members of his family and other guests. We do not know who these guests
were. Did they receive special advantages?
Moreover,
we have to realize that the Aga Khan heads certain foundations, and the
Government of Canada has a relationship with them, as it invests over
$15 million dollars in them.
Why did the Prime Minister
benefit from so much attention on the Aga Khan's island? We were told
during 2017 that they were close friends. However, it is hard to believe
that persons who have not spoken in 30 years are close personal
friends. Suddenly, now that Mr. Trudeau occupies a high position in our
country, he has become very interesting and much sought after.
Unfortunately, the person who invited the Prime Minister is also
registered as a lobbyist. Gifts of a value far superior to that
prescribed by law were given to him. Could these gifts have influenced a
future decision? We aren't privy to that, but that is the sort of
question we could put to the Prime Minister when he appears before our
committee. These are very interesting questions.
In
the report, certain aspects of the Prime Minister's defence are
bizarre. It even says that the English and French versions of the act
are contradictory. In light of that, people may use the version that
suits them. If the two versions of the act are really inconsistent, we
could examine that situation and make sure that the translation is
accurate and that the law is fair in both official languages. This is
something we need to look at.
What is peculiar in this story is that the Prime Minister
and his government proposed changes to the Conflict of Interest Act in
2015 in order to strengthen its provisions pertaining to trips, and
these amended provisions are the very provisions breached by the Prime
Minister's travel. So, must we conclude that what is good for all MPs is
not necessarily good for the Prime Minister, and does not necessarily
apply to him? I doubt that that is the case. The act is clear: it
applies to all members of Parliament, including the Prime Minister. There is no provision excluding the Prime Minister from its application.
The Prime Minister's
role in connection with the act is really important. It is incumbent
upon him to set an impeccable example. He may have had good reasons for
what he did, but it would be courageous of him to come and explain
himself; it would be his duty to do so. He would not just be explaining
his actions before committee members, but before all Canadians. It is
the Prime Minister's duty to explain his actions in this case. If he has
valid reasons, Canadians will accept them. If not, we will see what the
future holds for him politically.
This morning I was disappointed to learn that the Prime Minister
seemed to say that being asked to appear before the committee was petty
politics. I am very disappointed by that. We are all members of
Parliament and we are all equal. We don't all have the same duties, but
basically, we all get elected in our ridings and it is incumbent upon us
to represent all Canadians to the best of our ability, while complying
with the laws of the land. I hope that Mr. Trudeau will have the courage
to come here and that the members of the committee will permit us to
invite him to appear.
I
don't want to belabour the point any longer, but it is my duty to speak
out here. If there are loopholes in the provisions regarding travel, I
hope we will be able to make recommendations together. We accept the
Conflict of Interest Act, as we should, but we can strengthen it so that
this kind of situation does not arise again. All Canadians have to
understand that we are here to work for them and that we don't use
taxpayers' money for our personal holidays. I think we are all able to
pay for our own holidays.
When
it concerns issues that affect our nation, taxpayers are ready to spend
money so that we can travel to other countries. However, when we travel
for personal holidays, we must be more circumspect.
I will yield the floor to my Liberal colleagues.
======================================
continued ....
read from the source
http://www.ourcommons.ca/DocumentViewer/en/42-1/ETHI/meeting-85/evidence
======================================
continued ....
read from the source
http://www.ourcommons.ca/DocumentViewer/en/42-1/ETHI/meeting-85/evidence
No comments:
Post a Comment