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This is meeting nine of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. Our order of the day, pursuant to Standing Order 81(4), is the main estimates for 2010-2011, vote 15 under Parliament, referred to the committee on Wednesday, March 3, 2010.
Our witnesses this morning, from the Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, are Mary Dawson, who is the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner; Lyne Robinson-Dalpé, assistant commissioner, advisory and compliance; and Denise Benoit, director, corporate management.
Commissioner, with your colleagues, welcome to the committee. I apologize for the delay in starting the meeting, so we won't delay any further. I understand you have opening remarks, and we'll hear from you now.
:
Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me to appear before you today as you consider our budgetary submission for the 2010-11 Main Estimates.
[English]
I'm accompanied at the table by Lyne Robinson-Dalpé, assistant commissioner for advisory and compliance, and Denise Benoit, director of corporate management. They will assist me in answering your questions after my opening remarks.
I see there are a number of new members of this committee. For their benefit and to refresh the memory of the others, I will begin by providing a brief overview of the mandate and work of the Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner. Then I will outline how our renewed budget will help us continue our work as the current fiscal year unfolds.
As most of you know, my office administers the conflict of interest code for members of the House of Commons and the Conflict of Interest Act for public office holders. These two regimes seek to ensure that public officials, whether elected or appointed, are not in a conflict of interest. I'm also mandated to provide confidential advice to the Prime Minister about conflict of interest and ethics issues.
My staff and I review confidential reports of assets, liabilities, and activities, maintain public registries of publicly declarable information, and investigate and report on cases of alleged non-compliance. Our primary goal is prevention. Our focus is not on penalizing people for non-compliance, but on assisting them to comply with the code and the act.
Through the hard work of my staff, we have eliminated what was once a large backlog of members and public office holders who were not in compliance. In addition, in recent months we've been putting a great deal of effort into working on several high-profile investigations, and my intent is that my reports on these will be released in the near future.
For the last three years my office has been allocated annual funds of $7.1 million. Although we lapsed a portion of funds in each of the previous two years, each year we lapse less funding as we move forward with the organization and staffing of my office. We're very close now to being fully staffed and expect to utilize most of our allocation for 2010-11.
Mindful of the budgetary constraints facing the government, my office has already implemented measures consistent with those required of departments and agencies. These include capping travel, conference, and hospitality expenditures, as well as limiting salary increases to 1.5%. Those increases will be absorbed within our existing budgetary envelope, as we're not seeking an increase to the $7.1 million we were allocated in each of the last two fiscal years. Salaries and benefits account for the largest single component, some $5.3 million of our budget.
In the years ahead, my office will continue to focus on helping members of the House of Commons and public office holders to comply with their obligations under the members code and the Conflict of Interest Act. Our advisors will continue to assist them in setting up arrangements involving trusts, which are quite unique in many cases, and advising on outside activities. These arrangements are subject to review each year. Our advisors will continue to respond to inquiries from those who are covered by the code or the act, and to take a number of other steps through meetings, correspondence, guidelines, and information notices to help members and public office holders understand how the code or the act applies to their specific situations.
We will pursue, as we have in the past, a wide range of communications, education, and outreach activities and initiatives. For example, my staff and I will continue to meet with ministerial staff, make additional presentations to party caucuses, and provide advisory opinions on issues of general application to members and public office holders. We will also continue to make improvements to the way we provide information to our clients, in particular, through our website.
We are taking steps to strengthen our ties with organizations in other jurisdictions. My office has a new coordination role in the Canadian Conflict of Interest Network, which includes federal, provincial, and territorial commissioners; and we're continuing our involvement with the U.S.-based Council on Governmental Ethics Laws, known as COGEL.
I hope to continue to work with Parliament and its committees to make improvements to the rules I'm administering, or make them more widely understood. For example, last year my office advised the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs on possible amendments to the code relating to gifts and other benefits. This resulted in significant changes to the code. At the request of the committee, we have recently submitted proposals to it for improvements to the code in the areas of disclosures and inquiries.
As you can appreciate, there's an element of unpredictability associated with the operations of my office. In recent months we've been involved with a number of investigations, each of which must be given due process, and some of which have been quite complex. Of course, I have no way of anticipating how many investigations we will deal with from year to year or the amount of work each will involve.
Mr. Chair, I would like to conclude my opening remarks by restating my belief that our proposed budget for 2010-2011 will be sufficient for our needs as they currently stand. Within it, we will be able to sustain our efforts to ensure that members and public office holders meet their respective obligations under Canada's conflict of interest regimes.
[Translation]
Thank you once again for inviting me to come before the Committee to discuss the Main Estimates. I will now be happy to answer any questions you may have.
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I should direct you to the rules of the conflict of interest code--the code, not the act; the MPs' code.
There's a very specific set of conditions that have to lead up to an inquiry under the code. There are two ways of getting in an inquiry. It's an inquiry under the code, an examination under the act, and you always have to remember there's a difference. Under the code, the first thing that happens is, if I receive a request from a member, I have to determine whether that request contains reasonable grounds to suggest that somebody has not complied with the code. If I do think that's the case, I would then notify the person the complaint relates to, and the very first thing that happens is they have 30 days to get back to me to let me know what they have to say about the matter. When that's up, I have 15 days to look into it as best I can, and to decide under a preliminary investigation whether there are grounds to proceed to a formal inquiry. So no inquiry can take place under the code until about 45 days have elapsed.
During that 45 days, it would not be appropriate to comment on what I'm doing. My activities are confidential.
What confuses these things is that sometimes requests come in to me under both the code and the act. The act has a different set of rules entirely. Under the act, if a request with reasonable grounds has come in to me—we call it an examination under the act—the examination would commence with my notifying the relevant person.
Thank you for coming, Ms. Dawson, and for bringing your colleagues with you.
I appreciate that this is a difficult time for all of us, sorting through all these issues.
I know that in the past you told us that there is some confusion about your role and some misinformation in these kinds of situations, partly because of the title you have, which includes the word “ethics”. None of the backup to that includes that language. So I appreciate that it's sometimes confusing for all of us.
My questions, at least at the beginning, are related to the situation concerning Ms. Guergis. I just want to make clear that the Prime Minister didn't make an official complaint or request an investigation or an inquiry or an examination, either under the code or under the Conflict of Interest Act, to your office.
:
You're correct, it's not an easy decision. You'd have to look at all the surrounding circumstances.
Obviously, right off the top, if it's under ministerial letterhead, then you conclude she must be acting as a minister. In this case, it was on MP letterhead. Then you ask, did it have something to do with her portfolio? You look at the portfolio of the minister, and if it was energy, mines and resources or something, you'd question, “Does that matter have something to do with EM&R?” There are probably four or five other questions you'd ask. You wouldn't need to ask questions sometimes because you would look at the circumstances and figure it out.
Look at the converse. Imagine if every time a member who was a minister did something as a member, and members are allowed under the.... It's expressly written out that a minister can act and do things that a member would normally do for their constituents. There's a whole plethora of activities that MPs do all the time for their constituents. I would have to ask myself, is there something being done over and above what is the normal course of an MP's job that suggests that their role as a minister has been implicated? I look at that, and, again, you can't decide that overnight. You have to ask around, ask the person involved, think about it, and understand the circumstances.
:
Oh, gosh, that's hard to pick, there are so many.
I would say one of the most difficult things was getting the office staffed with good staff, and I think that's been an accomplishment.
We've found ways of being open, and we really do feel it's very important to be as transparent and open as we can. I take great pains with my annual reports, both under the code and the act, to give information about what I see as issues and what I think is important. And I'm using my website more.
I would say it's communications, and getting my office staffed.
:
Okay. I suspect the committee would probably like to have a copy of the letter. If that's not possible for a specific reason, maybe you could advise us of the reason. But still provide us with what information in the letter you can confirm to us the best you can. I understand you have rules to follow.
Colleagues, I think we've had a robust conversation about the estimates, and I now have to put the vote.
Shall vote 15 under Parliament, less amounts voted in interim supply, carry?
Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner
Vote 15--Program expenditures..........$6,338,000
(Vote 15 agreed to)
The Chair: Shall I report the estimates to the House?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
The Chair: Thank you, colleagues.
We're adjourned.