HAFF Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON PROCEDURE AND HOUSE AFFAIRS

COMITÉ PERMANENT DE LA PROCÉDURE ET DES AFFAIRES DE LA CHAMBRE

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, October 18, 2001

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[English]

The Chair (Mr. Peter Adams (Peterborough, Lib.)): Order. Let's begin. I think everyone has the agenda.

Our first item, pursuant to Standing Orders 92 and 108(3)(a)(iv), in relation to private members' business, is our subcommittee report. As is indicated here, we will consider it first.

I believe you all have copies of a dissenting opinion. You should have that for later, when we get to that point.

Then we'll move on to the question of privilege. With the terrorism legislation, as you know, Anne McLellan is very occupied at the present time. We are assured she'll be here by noon. However, as you know, these are unusual circumstances. John Reynolds has agreed that when we get to that item he will proceed. We obviously will have the discussion and any questions and answers necessary with that, and then, if necessary, we'll simply pause for a while.

I've arranged for some lunch. The lunch is available only to people who stay after the noon hour. But that's just in case things get prolonged.

You should all have a copy of the subcommittee report and a copy of Senate Bill S-7. That's important.

For the question of privilege, you should have Jamie's notes; the fourteenth report of the committee, which dealt with a similar matter; the National Post article concerned, and a translation of that article; and a letter from Don Boudria, the government House leader, relating to this matter. You may not have it with you, but you received it in your offices.

You don't have that. We may well circulate that a little later.

So people do seem to have most of these things. This is so that you can be thinking about these matters before we go on.

I would point out to you the camera here. We were given appropriate notice for this camera. It will remain here, throughout the meeting, or at least until what the regulations describe as a “natural break”. It stays in the same position, but on the other hand, it follows the proceedings from where it is. So you should know it's here. It's perfectly above-board.

Colleagues, we'll proceed with agenda item A, which is the subcommittee report.

Carolyn Parrish, could you proceed with that.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish (Mississauga Centre, Lib.): First of all, by way of explanation, Bill S-7 is to be dealt with separately from the report, as we have done in the past. A bill that comes from the Senate does not add to or take away from votable items, but it has been the practice of the subcommittee not to decide on them, because chances are they wouldn't make it through. We've always referred them to the full Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. As a courtesy, the standing committee has always made them votable. They come from the Senate, they're sponsored by a member from the House, and they don't cut into our votable items.

So that's the second one.

The Chair: Can I, as a new member of the committee, repeat that? We're going to deal with your report first, quite separately, and then we're going to deal with the Senate bill.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: Bill S-7, yes.

The Chair: Okay. Go ahead, Carolyn.

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Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: The report recommends votability for two bills: Bill C-248, an act to amend the Competition Act, Mr. McTeague; and Bill C-344, an act to amend the Contraventions Act and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. These are the two that received fairly unanimous approval in the subcommittee, so I present those to you now. I would like an opportunity to comment on the dissenting opinion if I can.

The Chair: No. I think if we could, we should proceed with the dissenting opinion first. Have you finished the presentation of the report?

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: Yes.

The Chair: Okay. I'll be glad to return to you, Carolyn.

Garry Breitkreuz.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz (Yorkton—Melville, Canadian Alliance): Thank you.

I just have a little background information as to why this has been submitted. The House on June 12 adopted a motion unanimously. This is the will of the House of Commons, namely that all private members' business be considered votable unless otherwise indicated by the person submitting it.

Now, given this reality, we really believe that this committee should deem votable all private members' business that has been drawn and, if they so wish, decide on criteria as to how long it should be debated and so on—but that's a separate issue.

My concern is that the House has expressed its wish that this take place, and I feel that what happens at that committee really goes counter to the wishes members of the House of Commons expressed. A survey was done, and it was quite clear that more than 50% wanted to move in this direction. The deadline given for this was November 1. Many of the items that will come forward after that time will not be deemed votable, so I raise my objection to this. I was not allowed to submit this at the committee, so I submit it here to this committee. I feel very strongly that we undermined the rights of private members in this House to introduce issues and have them properly debated.

This has all arisen in the last few years because of the feeling that much of what happens in the House of Commons is not what the public would like to see debated—that is, is not the public's agenda, and that through their elected representatives they should be able to bring things to the table that would be fully debated and decided on by their elected representatives. So for a committee of only a few members to not allow this to happen I think is a real disservice to the people of Canada, and that's the primary reason. I could go on to other reasons, but that's the primary reason I have introduced my dissenting opinion.

I would appreciate discussion on this, and we can air this. I think this is the will of most members of the House of Commons.

The Chair: Garry, this matter of votable items is the matter the committee will be dealing with next Tuesday and next Thursday. It's the same matter.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Yes, I understand that, but—

The Chair: Yes, just for my own—

I'll go to Carolyn Parrish, and then Yvon.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: Mr. Chairman, with all due respect to Mr. Breitkreuz, who I have a lot of respect for and who does a very good job on the committee, I think his dissenting report is almost out of order.

There is an order from the House we all have before us, and we're going to deal with it, that suggests that the House come up with a viable alternative by November 1. This meeting that's under discussion took place on October 3. If the committee does come up with suggested improvements or a way to implement all bills being votable, I can't see it being retroactive to October 3. On October 3 we had to do the business of the House as we were instructed and as we have the guidelines to do. I don't want to get into a debate on whether they should all be votable, but the point I'm making is that at that time, October 3, we were still functioning under the old rules and the current rules, which say that subcommittees shall select votable bills. So this dissenting opinion is, in my opinion, out of order. I think the whole debate should be postponed until next week, and I would like to pass the motion as I brought it forward.

The Chair: Yvon Godin, and then Michel Guimond.

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[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Godin (Acadie—Bathurst, NDP): I would just like to comment, Mr. Chairman.

I did not hear the first part of what was said by our Canadian Alliance colleague, but I think that these things cannot be dealt with separately. If we are looking at a votable motion, and also at the length of a debate—be it one, two or three hours long—these two things must be considered together.

I really do have reservations. If we say that all motions are votable and that, in order to do this, we lose our three hours of debating time, I would have a great deal of trouble with that. I suggest we wait until next week, until we receive recommendations directly from the committee.

Sometimes, in the first hour, we manage to get everyone's attention. In the second hour, we try to convince everyone. In the third hour, we occasionally succeed in convincing our colleagues to vote for the motion. That is why I do have my doubts and I say that we must consider all the elements together. We cannot say that we will first vote to make all motions votable, and that we will look after the rest later. I think that everything must be worked on at the same time.

[English]

The Chair: Monsieur Guimond, and then John Reynolds.

[Translation]

Mr. Michel Guimond (Beauport—Montmorency—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île-d'Orléans, BQ): I believe that we should put things in perspective. As members of the committee, we have to adopt the report of a sub-committee. That is the point of the exercise that we are getting ready to do.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to disagree with Ms. Parrish who, I might add, is doing an excellent job as chair of the Sub-committee on Private Members' Business. She seeks a consensus using admirable tact. She attempts to bring the members of this sub-committee to share a common view. Decisions are never adopted three to two or four to one. Decisions are always unanimous, and I think that it can be partly attributed to the efforts of Ms. Parrish.

However, I wish to disagree with her view that the dissenting opinion of our colleague in the Canadian Alliance is out of order. It is not our place to rule a dissenting opinion to be out of order. Our colleague from the Canadian Alliance is perfectly within his rights. The opposition parties and some members of the government majority have done the same thing in the past with certain reports.

When this is done by MPs from the party in power, we do not refer to them as dissenting opinions but as accompanying notes, I believe. We have already seen this at the Transport Committee. Let me add that these accompanying notes for the most part go against the view of the governing majority. In the case of a Liberal member, it is perhaps less diplomatic to talk about a dissenting opinion.

However, I think that our Alliance colleague is fully entitled to table a dissenting opinion. We should not challenge this right; it is a fundamental right that is provided for in the Standing Orders of the House of Commons.

However, where I do agree with Ms. Parrish is on the motion that was unanimously adopted on June 12. I do not agree with the way that our colleague from the Canadian Alliance interprets it. What I am saying is that the House asked us to come up with another way of proceeding. At the committee's last meeting 15 days ago, we simply continued to operate according to past practices because, until the situation changes, the past practices are in force.

[English]

The Chair: It will be John Reynolds and then Paul Macklin.

Mr. John Reynolds M.P. (West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast, Canadian Alliance): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to agree with my colleague Michel that this should not be considered out of order. I think a member of that committee has a right and a duty, especially when it's such a strong issue. The committee was not unanimous because a member of our group left when he couldn't get any agreement. The fact is that there were nine spots available and only two were made votable. Was it seven? I'll stand corrected, but there were certainly more spots than were made votable.

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I think a lot of members of Parliament are a little tired of a small group of their colleagues making the choices as to which are going to be made votable for political reasons or for whatever reason. I think the majority of members of Parliament—and I'm one of them—believe that everybody should have a right to bring up issues, no matter what that issue may be, how sensitive it may be, or how disruptive certain issues we don't agree with may seem to some of us.

The example of the bill we voted on last night was quite a good example of a very close vote with some very strong feelings on both sides. I think there are a lot of other issues in this country we could look at and help build national unity on, because certainly there are differences between the west and the east on a lot of issues. That's why we're so strong on making these things votable.

I would hope, Mr. Chair, that you would leave the dissenting opinion in, and certainly we all look forward to the debate in the next couple of weeks to try to resolve this issue in this full committee.

The Chair: I should point out to you that it's not a technical decision; it's a decision of the committee. It's perfectly legal to put the motion. The committee has to decide whether it's—

Mr. John Reynolds: Then I hope my colleagues, Mr. Chairman, will vote for it.

The Chair: Thank you.

Paul Macklin, then Geoff Regan, and Joe Jordan.

Mr. Paul Harold Macklin (Northumberland, Lib.): I'd just like to comment, Mr. Chair, that there does seem to be some degree of agreement on this, but in fact we're dealing with the Standing Orders of the day today. If we look back at the draft text that was passed within the proceedings of the House, it really is for us to bring forward for consideration a workable proposal to the House, and then the House will deal with it in its good time.

I think that as of today it's rather clear that although Mr. Breitkreuz is certainly free to bring forward any opinion at these committee meetings, the reality is that we have to deal with the Standing Orders as we see them today, and as of today not all items are votable. That, as you've mentioned, goes on next week when we get a chance for discussion. Obviously, there are many issues that need to be discussed as we look at the future of the Standing Orders and the revision we might be able to bring forward.

The Chair: Okay.

Geoff.

Mr. Geoff Regan (Halifax West, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

It seems to me there's been a fair amount of debate here about whether it's in order for the committee to accept this report, this dissenting opinion, and it's not clear to me whether Ms. Parrish has asked you to rule that it is not in order.

The Chair: I would correct that. I have already tried to correct that. We're not discussing a standing order or procedure here. We're discussing whether the committee wants a dissenting report added to the subcommittee's report.

Mr. Geoff Regan: Yes. It's not a question of whether it's in order or not. It's simply a question of whether we wish to add it or not. That's what I wanted to raise.

The Chair: Okay. Thank you very much.

Joe Jordan.

Mr. Joe Jordan (Leeds—Grenville, Lib.): Mr. Chair, this is just to sort of discuss the issue, and I realize that our intention is to discuss this next week. I guess the committee will vote on whether to accept the dissenting opinion when we table the report in the House; that's yet to be determined.

As somebody who, like a lot of members, has served on this committee before, I just want to point out that it's important to emphasize that this is not a traditional subcommittee, because the Liberals don't have a majority. Rather, this is a consensus-based process, so if it isn't working, we're all sort of guilty of it not working. This isn't the heavy hand of the Liberal government dictating its wishes through a majority on the committee. That simply isn't the case here.

In terms of the larger issue, I think things are improving, as opposed to getting worse. Carolyn might correct me because she's a bit of an expert on this, but my understanding is that prior to 1994 there had been three items of private members' business brought into law in this country since Confederation. Since 1994 there have been 14.

I think we're going to have to engage in a very fundamental discussion about what private members' business is for. I agree absolutely with Mr. Godin. You can't take the votable aspect of it in isolation, because if you don't also talk about the hours of debate, all you're going to do is have a lot fewer items that are votable. The bottleneck and the crunch that is causing frustration among members is only going to get worse. You're going to have a few winners and a lot more losers.

The other thing is that if we're moving ahead, that every motion is votable, you're going to—

The Chair: I don't want to interrupt you, and you can proceed in a moment, but I want to say we're debating a motion by Garry that this opinion be attached to the report. Okay? I have been reasonably lenient here, but I just want you to know that. This debate will continue next week.

Please carry on.

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Mr. Joe Jordan: I forgot what I was saying.

I think the other issue that is going to have to be looked at are the criteria for what a private member's bill is. I just want to let other members of the committee know that if we're going to get into this debate, we're going to get into it. We're talking about an issue that could fundamentally change how legislation is brought into this country. It's not something we're going to do lightly. I think the notion that we just make everything votable is a little oversimplistic.

The Chair: Carolyn Parrish.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: For expediency, I would like to move that we accept the dissenting report. I think it's not particularly relevant to the original report, but I have no problem with it being attached. Would that speed this up and get it over with?

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Carolyn. I appreciate that. All I was trying to do today was indicate there isn't unanimous agreement on the committee. I just wanted the committee to accept mine, so I appreciate your comments very much. A lot of the commentary around here has not been relevant to what I've been trying to do. Thank you.

The Chair: So it's agreed the dissenting opinion will be attached to the report.

Carolyn has moved the report, as amended.

(Motion agreed to—See Minutes of Proceedings)

The Chair: Thank you, colleagues.

Carolyn, could you lead us in discussion of Bill S-7? It's the first time I've done this. This is the Senate bill, which the subcommittee has referred to this committee, as I understand it.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: The subcommittee has made it a general rule of thumb not to deal with the Senate bills as they come to us because we don't feel comfortable judging these. We think the full committee on procedure and house affairs should do it. It is a courtesy that all these bills have been made votable in the past because they've already passed through the Senate.

The concern of the subcommittee is that at some point it may look like an easy way for members of the House to get a bill to go through the Senate first and come back here. That has not been the case to date. These have all been legitimate Senate bills. They've all passed there. But we feel more comfortable presenting the case here at procedure and house affairs.

I move that this be accepted as a votable bill. It does not take a space away from the House of Commons. It's an add-on at the end. It's up for debate in the House tomorrow, and it's sponsored by Mr. John Harvard in the House. The reality of life is that every one of the bills that passes through the House has to go to the Senate, and they extend us the same courtesy.

The Chair: Thank you. That was going to be my question. So the Senate extends the same courtesy to us.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: Yes.

The Chair: Colleagues, there's been discussion on it. We have Carolyn's motion.

(Motion agreed to)

The Chair: I'm told I need a motion that a report be tabled in the House today.

An hon. member: So moved.

(Motion agreed to)

The Chair: Could we move to item B?

John, for the record, before I welcome you in your new capacity, item B is the question of privilege raised on October 15, 2001, by the member for West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast regarding the matter of the media receiving information on the contents of Bill C-36—an act to amend the Criminal Code, the Official Secrets Act, the Canada Evidence Act, the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) Act, and other acts, and to enact measures respecting the registration of charities in order to combat terrorism—before members of Parliament received the information.

We welcome our colleague, John Reynolds, who was the person who raised this in the House of Commons. John, we're in your hands.

Mr. John Reynolds: Mr. Chairman, there's not a lot to report with respect to the sequence of events that led to the question of privilege. It's pretty straightforward. During the weekend I was shocked, as were many members, when I read the contents of Bill C-36 in the National Post. At that time, Bill C-36 had not yet been introduced in the House and members had not yet received their briefing on the bill. The briefing for members was scheduled for the Monday following the weekend article in the National Post.

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When I asked about the anti-terrorism legislation during the Thursday question period on October 4, I sought assurance from the government House leader there would be no leaks about what is in the legislation. I was being facetious, of course, because I never expected the Minister of Justice or her department to be so bold as to become a repeat offender. I'm referring to the previous contempt charge against the minister recommended by this committee involving Bill C-15.

Mr. Joe Jordan: I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

The Chair: Yes.

Mr. Joe Jordan: That hasn't been proven yet, that it was the justice department. I think we should stick with the facts. That's what we're here to determine.

The Chair: Let's continue, John.

Mr. John Reynolds: Mr. Speaker, I'm referring to the previous contempt charge against the minister recommended by this committee involving Bill C-15. While the speaker viewed the offence involving Bill C-36 as essentially the same as the offence involving Bill C-15, there is one important difference. In the Bill C-15 report, your committee said, and I quote:

This incident highlights a concern shared by all members of the Committee: apparent departmental ignorance of or disrespect for the role of the House of Commons and its Members. Even if the result is unintended, the House should not tolerate such ignorance within the government administration to undermine the perception of Parliament's constitutional role in legislating. The rights of the House and its Members in this role are central to our constitutional and democratic government.

In the case of Bill C-36, Mr. Chairman, there cannot be any claim of ignorance. As I said in my statement in the House on the question of privilege, the minister and her department officials have been down this road before.

The government House leader arrived at the same conclusion. During his comments in the House on the question of privilege, he said measures were put in place since Bill C-15, and I quote:

Measures were taken and a cabinet directive was issued. Summaries of the cabinet directive were made public. It gave instructions to public servants and others that when briefings were given to the media they had been given in a lock-up environment, and in virtually all cases they had to be made available to members of Parliament.

Mr. Geoff Regan: I'm sorry to interrupt, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Reynolds, but it appears there is no translation into French.

The Chair: John.

Mr. John Reynolds: The minister went on to say, and I quote:

I cannot say much more other than to apologize on behalf of whoever is guilty of this. I use the word “guilty” because that is what comes to mind. Given the respect that I have for this institution, anyone who breaches that respect is guilty of an offence in my book.

It is clear we are now dealing with the deliberate act of disrespect for the role of the House of Commons and its members, Mr. Chairman. The committee should be mindful of this during its deliberations on this question of privilege.

The committee should also be mindful of its warning to the minister and her department. This committee gave a warning in its report that it was prepared to recommend to the House that it use its power in a more severe way if this problem reoccurred.

If this committee concludes a contempt has occurred, something beyond an apology must be recommended. Repeat offenders should be dealt with more severely. Procedural authorities have noted the House rarely exercises its authority in these matters, usually accepting an apology or deciding not to take any action at all. If that is the case, then I suppose we only have ourselves to blame. Not only have we been negligent in protecting the authority of the House, but we've also let other important traditions wither away.

After the Speaker delivered his ruling, the Minister of Justice approached me. She was adamant that it was not her or any member of her staff who had breached the security measures of Bill C-36. I have no reason to disbelieve the minister. But I point at the minister. She is responsible. This is not just a case of privilege; it also touches on ministerial responsibility.

From the minister's comments, I have concluded that we no longer respect to the same degree as in the past the principle that ministers have a duty to Parliament to account and to be held to account for the policies, decisions, and actions of their departments.

For example, in 1976, following comments André Ouellet, then minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, made on the acquittal by Mr. Justice Mackay of sugar companies accused of forming cartels and combines, Mr. Justice Mackay cited him for contempt of court. He was found guilty on that charge by Associate Chief Justice Hugessen. Mr. Ouellet resigned his cabinet post over that incident.

A charge of contempt by the House should be considered just as serious if not more serious than a contempt of court. Being charged twice should be taken extremely seriously by any minister or the Prime Minister.

That having been said, the committee has the authority to deal directly with the minister, or go around the minister and deal directly with an official, if necessary.

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There was such a case from November 9, 1978, on page 966 of Hansard. The then Speaker said, and I quote:

...it appears that we are now embarking on a different course in having the House, through a question of privilege, reach around the minister and examine directly the conduct of an official.

I suppose this committee could choose to make recommendations involving both ministerial responsibility and contempt.

Mr. Chairman, this is a serious matter that affects both of these principles.

There's another principle that the government House leader added to this case in his statement on the question of privilege. He said that the leaking of information on Bill C-36 was a breach of government security. In response to a comment from Peter MacKay he said, and I quote: “I believe the House leader for the Conservatives referred to this as privileged information”. Actually it is more than that. It is secret in the very sense of government secrecy. If the minister was suggesting that there's been a breach of the Official Secrets Act, or perhaps he meant cabinet confidence, either way, there may be another layer of guilt and a separate set of consequences waiting for this individual or these individuals who leaked this information. The committee could well look into this matter.

I ask all members to refer to the briefing that you received from the government House leader. It's not as if ministers haven't been warned, Mr. Chairman. And I'd like to read that into the record because I think it's very important. It says under briefings:

Government bills are not made public until introduced and, therefore, briefings of parliamentarians and the media on bills follow introduction. However, pre-introduction briefings of parliamentarians and the media may be appropriate in exceptional cases, such as with particularly important or complex legislation.

If a media briefing occurs before the introduction of a bill, effective measures (such as an embargo or a lock-up) must be taken to ensure the protection of the information until the time of introduction...

Mr. Chairman, that's the key here. We as parliamentarians are going to be usurped by staff or anyone else leaking information before it's introduced in the House. We have to come to some solutions here.

Mr. Chairman, I'm going to finish Mr. Boudria's statement. I quote:

The briefing of parliamentarians may take place before or at the same time as the media briefing, but not after. Any pre-introduction briefing of parliamentarians must be offered both to Government and opposition members.

Immediately after introduction, a sufficient number of copies of the bill shall be made available for parliamentarians and the media. These principles also apply if a Government bill is first introduced in the Senate.

That's an extremely important message that Mr. Boudria sent to all the ministers after the last situation we had, to outline how serious this matter is.

Just think, Mr. Chairman, if a member of the opposition who was in a lock-up—and as you know, members can leave early—if we saw them on television talking about this bill before it was introduced, we would all be up asking for contempt of that member and asking for penalties. We have to get a message somehow to staff. As I said earlier, I'll take the minister's word. She doesn't think it's her staff members, but then who is it? Somebody did it, and we have to have a way of finding out how.

I'd like to see the committee tackle all of these issues, because we cannot let these important principles of Parliament deteriorate. Without them we'll be inviting more disrespectful behaviour from ministers and departmental officials.

This committee must use this case in an effort to restore the respect that Parliament deserves.

The Chair: Thank you very much, John.

Just for the record, the quotation there was from Guide to Making Federal Acts and Regulationsro, second edition, September 2001.

Ms. Cheryl Gallant.

Ms. Cheryl Gallant (Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, Canadian Alliance): You mentioned ministerial responsibility. Are you aware of any other resignations that would relate to this case?

Mr. John Reynolds: Not particularly this case, but there are many examples of ministers who have resigned when charges were unfounded. Later on they were found to be unfounded, but they resigned, whether it's provincially or federally. You certainly don't see that much any more. If you want to go back into history, there are a number of cases.

I have a document somewhere in my file here that lists 24 pages of ministerial recommendations, and we could go through that. That tradition of ministerial responsibility seems to have disappeared to a great degree in our Canadian system.

It's the old story of the buck stops here. Something that's been done here is wrong. How do we get to the bottom of who did it? That's the key issue. Of course, we have to hear from the minister. Once we've heard from the minister, we can perhaps find out where that next step is going to be.

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The Chair: Joe Jordan.

Mr. Joe Jordan: I don't disagree with virtually anything you said. It's very clear that the privileges of members have been breached through this event. I guess the challenge we have as a committee is to figure out exactly what we do about it.

You answered part of my question when you elaborated on ministerial responsibility and what the scope and scale of that is. I think that's something we need to discuss. One of the things the minister will hopefully be able to tell us is exactly what the process was and how many individuals may or may not have had access to this information at various stages of drafting. Because the article, as I read it, almost looks like a smorgasbord in terms of taking a little from here and a little from there and making some assumptions. How many of those assumptions were based on hearsay?

In answer to the Thursday question the week before break, the House leader was very specific and he went through the sections of what would be in there. But I think clearly from the details in the article, it goes beyond that. Somebody who has seen either a draft or a final copy of this bill divulged the contents.

I also take the minister at her word. Even though the other incident was a deliberate event that was found to be wrong, the question here is were they acting under instruction from the minister, or should security measures have been in place that weren't? That's what we're struggling with.

In terms of intention, there's some very strong evidence that this wasn't something the government would have done, given the channel that was chosen. I still think we need to look at who may have known, how many people, what measures were taken to make sure this was secret. At the end of the day, I harken back to Michael Wilson and the budget, where it was deemed to be a criminal act. This committee is going to have to grab hold of that issue and look at it. Hopefully the minister will be able to provide us with information about the process and the number of people who conceivably could have had access to part or all of this legislation.

Mr. John Reynolds: The government House leader, Mr. Boudria, and myself are both equally incensed. I put no blame on him whatsoever, or the minister. If the minister tells me she didn't do it, I'll take her word for that, as any parliamentarian would.

We all know something was leaked. When they start quoting the number of pages in a bill and certain aspects of it, it's better than just guessing. We all know that the week before as an opposition party we asked a bunch of questions: put these things in your bill. We were fairly certain some of them were going to be there, because we knew they were fairly popular things to do. So they could have speculated. When you see the comments—a senior government official said... the number of pages in a bill... We all agree, as we did the last time, it has to stop.

We talked about respect for parliamentarians. We have to have respect for each other so that we can go into lock-ups and look at information ahead of time so we can debate it properly. We have to have respect for each other, whether it's secrecy in committees when we put them in camera...

We were all home in the west on the long week we were off. A lot of people thought we should have been here—we were getting that—but we all agreed we wouldn't be. I'm not going to blame anybody for that. When you walk in at home and what's coming out next week is already in the paper, it's fairly frustrating. It does demean the job, when the officials think they're more important sitting down talking to their media friend.

I don't blame the media. When I was in the media I'd try to get every leak I could, and who wouldn't? Three cheers to the guy who wrote the article. Somehow or other, we have to get the message across, and hopefully the minister will better explain how many people had access. I know it's considerable. How do we get that message across so it doesn't happen again?

The Chair: Yvon Godin.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Godin: First of all, I would like to thank our colleague, Mr. Reynolds, for raising that problem, because it is an unacceptable problem. I believe that our committee should put an end to this and also propose solutions. Such things should not happen. If Parliament is to be respected and if parliamentarians are to feel good about their responsibilities as parliamentarians, I suggest that we cannot tolerate a situation in which public officials or anyone else present bills to the press and the public before parliamentarians have had the opportunity to see them. There are reasons for having rules to this effect.

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Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask a question about that. I'm ready to show respect towards the minister and to believe her when she says that she did not order that. However, did you ask her whether she was investigating to find the guilty party, the person who did that, and what does she intend to do if she finds that person?

[English]

Mr. John Reynolds: I can tell you I talked to the minister in the corridor shortly after we brought this up, and she was quite upset. She advised me that it wasn't her or her staff. I told her I accepted that. I assume she knows we're coming here, and hopefully today she will have a report for us.

I did say we've got to find out who did it. I think that's the bottom line. I remember, as we all do, our good friend and colleague, Mr. Scott, who talked to somebody on an airplane—

An hon. member: I remember.

Mr. John Reynolds:: —you remember it well—and had to resign. We were all upset about that. No matter who you are in politics, whatever side you're on, you hate to see somebody lose a job over a conversation. But he did the right thing. He resigned because he embarrassed the government and did something he shouldn't have done. There has to be ministerial responsibility. He was an upholder—one of the few in the last ten years I know of—who really upheld that tradition.

The Chair: Very short, Yvon, please.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Godin: I will put my question again. Did you ask the minister whether she is investigating the matter and whether she intends to take disciplinary measures or something of that nature? You said that you had a conversation in the hallway, but did she answer that not only was she taking the matter seriously and that she was angry about it, but also that she intended to do something to prevent any further leaks in the future?

[English]

Mr. John Reynolds: I would expect she'll be here today to tell us exactly what she's done.

The Chair: I think you'd want to ask the question of the minister. The minister will be here soon. And by the way, these are very difficult times for her, so I'm trying to get these questions finished before she arrives.

Paul Macklin.

Mr. Paul Harold Macklin: Mr. Reynolds, thank you very much for bringing this forward.

I don't think there's any doubt that all of us share the concern that this sort of activity is simply something we cannot tolerate within the confines of this institution.

In listening to your comments, I know we today have heard from you on facts. Your allegations referred to possible penalty suggestions you might bring forward. But one of the allegations being brought forward, which seems to go well beyond the last case to which you referred having to do with the justice minister, is an allegation of a breach of the Official Secrets Act. I wonder if you could give us any indication or submissions as to why we might consider this would fall in that category.

Mr. John Reynolds: I think if you read Mr. Boudria's presentation and the briefings to the ministers, if you read his comments in the House of Commons, you'll see we both share the concern that government legislation is considered secret until it's introduced in the House of Commons.

The minister has the choice of allowing briefings beforehand, in lock-up, to both media and the House of Commons at the same time. This was done, obviously, prior to Saturday. To me it's an absolute breach. I think Mr. Boudria and I both agree on that. So that's the breach: the secret information. When I was a minister it never happened, thank goodness, and I introduced a lot of legislation. But it's got to be sacrosanct.

My staff knew there was only one person in the ministry who talked to the media—that was our media relations officer—and myself. And the media relations officer's job was to set up a time for me to do the talking. Staff doesn't talk to the media.

Mr. Paul Harold Macklin: All right, thank you.

The Chair: You may go next, Garry, if you would, please. I think it should be fairly quick, because the minister will arrive very soon.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We're all very uncomfortable dealing with this issue, because we are dealing with one of our own, who we work with. It makes us very uncomfortable to do that. But having said that, I must emphasize that we, especially on this side, really feel this undermines our ability to do our job effectively. That's why this is a question of privilege.

• 1155

In a democracy, two things have to exist. You have to have a media that adequately covers the issues and makes sure the public knows what's going on—and of course they're attempting to do that—but secondly, you must have an effective opposition. That's why this strikes at the very heart of what we do in this place. We have to, on this side, hold the government accountable, and this makes it very difficult.

My question for you, John, is this. You have had a lot of experience; you were a minister in B.C. I may be putting you on the spot, but can you explain if there were ever similar incidents in your province? How did you handle these? How do you feel about ministerial accountability? I'd just like to read part of the report that was put out by this committee previously, the 14th report. It says, and I quote:

In all of these circumstances, the Committee has come to the inescapable conclusion that the privileges of the House and of its Members have been breached in this case. ...reoccurrence of this problem, in which case the House would have to consider using its power in a more severe way. Each case must be judged on its own merits; in the future, however, the acceptance of an apology will not necessarily be considered a sufficient response.

You have a lot of experience. What do you recommend we do? You have quoted the government House leader. Maybe I'm correcting the record here. You were not judging this to be a breach of government secrecy: it's actually a quotation. So I'd really like you to... I've given you a couple minutes here to think about this. How do you feel?

Mr. John Reynolds: I remember a number of ministers in British Columbia who have resigned over the years—none of them, to my recollection, for a leak of government information. One example involved an expense account that was filed by a staff member, though. Ministers just get people to do it. He filed it, and somebody found something wrong in it. It wasn't a lot of money, but that minister resigned.

Another minister's phone calls were being intercepted by somebody. They printed them in the paper, and he resigned over that, because there was a relationship with another person involved.

I go back to Mr. Scott: a conversation on an airplane that is leaked and that embarrasses the government. Most ministers, if they're going to embarrass the government, take a certain route, and we don't see that at the federal level very much any more, other than Mr. Scott.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: So what do you recommend we do?

Mr. John Reynolds: I would like to see this committee listen to the minister. First, we can't prejudge. She may have come up with a solution already. She may have found out where the leak came from—I hope she has—in her own investigations. But if not, maybe we have to talk to the Privy Council. Maybe we should invite the head of the Privy Council here to talk, because they're the ones who control all this. They control all the ministers. Maybe they should be here to talk to us about how something like this was allowed to happen.

The Chair: Geoff Regan.

Mr. Geoff Regan: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I want to say first that I agree completely with Mr. Reynold's last comment, that we ought to really hear from the minister and see what facts are available on this case. I agree that the comments so far about the seriousness of the case and what might be the consequences are preliminary comments. I think we should wait to consider what the consequences should be until we have more information about the matter.

Along those lines and to that end, I want to draw to your attention what I see in the article being referred to here that may offer a distinction or may be worthwhile considering. I see a distinction between the first and second paragraphs of this article.

First of all, let me say I agree that this is a very serious matter. It's clear there are things in this article that ought not to have been disclosed, that someone attached to government has clearly disclosed things that were secret and ought not to be disclosed. So it's a very serious matter. And I share the frustration of other members of this committee when we met this spring in relation to the introduction of Bill C-15, when there was a similar incident, as has been discussed.

But I want to bring your attention to the distinction between these first two paragraphs. The first one says: “Sweeping legislation will be tabled in Parliament on Monday to provide Canada's first definition of terrorism and ban participation in terrorist groups, senior government officials say.” Now, for senior governmental officials to say that is no surprise. We heard that, I think, from Mr. Boudria and from Minister McLellan already.

• 1200

Now let's look at the next paragraph:

The 150-page omnibus bill will give police expanded wiretapping powers, including the ability to intercept Internet communications, impose severe penalties on groups that fall within the new definition of terrorism and ban fundraising for terrorist purposes, according to sources who have seen drafts of the legislation.

I see a great distinction between sources who have seen drafts and senior officials. Maybe the reporter meant the same people, but I don't know that from reading. And it strikes me there's a major distinction here. I'm not suggesting there's not a breach of the House's privileges; I'm not suggesting it's not a serious matter. But I'm anxious to see what we get when we hear from the minister.

The Chair: Okay.

And I understand that the minister is here now, John, so if you could, be very brief.

Michel?

Mr. Michel Guimond: I have a question for John Reynolds.

The Chair: Okay.

[Translation]

Mr. Michel Guimond: Mr. Reynolds, tell me briefly whether, in light of your experience as a parliamentarian in British Columbia, in the early 1970s, you believe that it would have been good for the committee to invite both journalists who wrote the article, in the faint hope of shedding some light on the issue.

Secondly, the article states that:

The bill was prepared by the Minister of Justice, Anne McLellan, and the special Cabinet committee on security matters.

I think that that is the committee chaired by Mr. Manley. Would it have been good to invite Mr. Manley? Would it have been good to invite other ministers who sit on that special Cabinet committee? If I go by the discussions you had in the hallway with Ms. McLellan, perhaps we will not hear much about the leak in the presentation she will make in a minute. Would it be good for the committee to invite other members from the special Cabinet committee on security?

[English]

Mr. John Reynolds: I think, Mr. Chairman, once we've had an opportunity to listen to the minister, all of those ideas may be very good ones. But we should look at inviting others once we've had a chance to hear what the minister has to say.

The Chair: John, thank you very much.

Michel, thank you very much.

John, if you want to take your place again, and if the minister is here, I'm sure we'd be glad to receive her.

By the way, it's past dinner, folks; we could eat.

A voice: Precisely.

The Chair: Colleagues, we're taking a pause for about three minutes.

• 1203

• 1205

The Chair: Colleagues, could we resume?

We welcome the Honourable Anne McLellan.

Minister, we appreciate you taking the time to be here. We know it was very short notice and we know this is a very complex week for you.

We would be grateful, for the sake of organization, if we could have the names of your colleagues, please. Could they give them to us?

Mr. Morris Rosenberg (Deputy Minister of Justice): My name is Morris Rosenberg. I'm the Deputy Minister of Justice.

The Chair: Thank you, Morris.

Mr. Richard Mosley (Assistant Deputy Minister, Criminal Law Policy, Department of Justice Canada): I'm Richard Mosley, assistant deputy minister, criminal law policy, Department of Justice.

The Chair: Richard, thank you very much.

Minister, we're in your hands.

Hon. Anne McLellan (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada): Thank you very much, Peter.

Before I begin my formal comments, I do want to thank all honourable members for their unanimous consent for the early introduction of Bill C-36, the anti-terrorism act, on Monday of this week.

Since September 11, the Department of Justice has been working with other departments and agencies to develop effective and appropriate measures to respond to the threat of terrorism. As with all matters dealing with national security, and more generally the introduction of legislation, my department took steps to ensure the information in this bill was kept secret. As such, I can assure you that I was as surprised as anyone when I read the Saturday, October 13, edition of the National Post and the Sunday, October 14, edition of the Toronto Star.

I think I speak on behalf of all my cabinet colleagues when I say I am dismayed that some elements of the bill were made known before it was introduced in Parliament. I share the concerns of all honourable members in terms of the disrespect it showed for the role of the House and its members. What seems to have occurred is completely unacceptable. As the government House leader indicated in his comments on the point of privilege, it not only represents a breach of the rules of Parliament, it is a breach of government security, and there is obviously no place for this.

I have been assured that no member of my exempt staff or department was involved in any leaks of information. Members should be aware that this bill was developed in consultation with many departments and agencies across the federal government. I am not here this morning to speculate on where any leak might have originated.

I read the point of privilege raised by the member for West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast on Monday. I share his concerns and those of other members regarding the lack of respect shown to Parliament. But I take issue with the accusations he levelled against me and my officials. Without any evidence, the member stated that I and my officials had shown contempt for the House. He also stated that the National Post had been briefed by officials of my department, and he attributed the quotes as coming from a senior official of my department.

I've reviewed the article, and it does not refer to a justice department official. It refers to an unnamed senior government official. I would hope that the member would not draw conclusions and make allegations without having evidence or facts. Furthermore, the details that were contained in the articles were in partly erroneous, and in other cases the information was not new—for example, our extensive discussions around the government's intention to meet our commitment to the two UN conventions on terrorist bombing and the supression of terrorist financing. As well, much of what was reported reflected our commitment to look at the legislative framework as a whole to ensure that it continues to be effective.

Finally, the member from West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast has suggested that two members who were at the briefing said they could have got all they wanted out of the National Post.

The briefing was comprehensive, extensive, and went well beyond what was reported in any newspaper anywhere, at any time, including up until today. This briefing included key components of the bill, such as the definition of terrorist organization, that were made known for the first time upon introduction. Furthermore, my officials made themselves available until no questions remained from those who attended the briefing.

• 1210

I also take issue with the same member on the statement that no effective measures have been taken to secure the rights of House members. I believe that he was referring to incidents surrounding the tabling of Bill C-15. As the government House leader pointed out in his remarks on Monday, following the introduction of Bill C-15 measures were put in place to deal with administrative errors. Those measures included the issuance of a directive from cabinet, and I believe the committee has seen that directive.

As the government House leader has indicated, the tabling of Bill C-15 is not comparable to the issue at hand. With respect to Bill C-15, the media was briefed prior to introduction on an embargoed basis where no paper was provided. Proper precautions were not taken to prevent the media from leaving the lock-up before introduction took place. I took responsibility for those errors and apologized for them at that time. In this case members of the government and opposition, and at the request of the opposition some opposition staff, were briefed prior to introduction on an embargoed basis.

Let me be clear. There was no briefing of the media until after the bill was introduced in the House, and then only after a press conference was held at which my colleagues, Ministers Manley and MacAulay, and myself were present.

While I am committed to ensuring that we resolve this issue, and I know that we all want to resolve this issue, I must say, Mr. Chairman, that I am not prepared to point fingers at any officials or any department's officials without evidence. And unfortunately, at this point I think we have no evidence.

Let me say again, I will assure you that I have consulted with my exempt staff and with department officials. Mr. Mosley, for example, has consulted with those who worked on this bill in my department, and they have assured him that at no time did they talk to the press. I can assure you of the same thing in relation to my exempt staff. When my exempt staff talk to the press, it's for attribution and it's on the record.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you, Minister.

I have John Reynolds, Joe Jordan, Cheryl Gallant, and Paul Macklin.

Mr. John Reynolds: I want to thank the minister for being here.

Although she may be upset with some of my comments or object to them, the minister did say in her opening remarks that she was surprised when she read the stories that there was a breach of security. The minister said it's not in her department, and I think I mentioned the other day I'll accept that. I certainly have a lot of respect for both the people sitting with you in this room today.

You might object to my comments in the House, but the Speaker did say they represented a prima facie case and sent it to this committee. You take issue with the fact that we said no effective measures were taken. You may have taken measures, but the fact is we had a leak, and there does have to be some responsibility somewhere.

Minister, you say you don't know where to go, there's no evidence, and it's hard to make a charge without evidence. But there's some responsibility from the government. You are the minister.

I was just thinking when you were talking that if a husband and wife were driving down the street and the husband said to the wife, “I have to stop into the bank”, and they did and she dropped him off and sat in the car and he went in and robbed the bank and came out and got in the car and they drove away, if they were stopped by the police, the wife would be charged with bank robbery. She wouldn't even have known what he'd done. But there's a crime there. They didn't have to know about it.

You are the Minister of Justice. You're the one responsible for your department. You're the one responsible for these leaks. We can't blame them on anybody else. There has to be somebody. The fact is we have a leak. We all want to work together to solve the problems. So I ask, how do we get the evidence? What would your recommendations be as the Minister of Justice as to who this committee could bring before it to try to find out where that leak took place?

My colleague from the Bloc asked, do we bring the reporters here to talk to them to see what they have to say? I mentioned that we should perhaps bring the head of the Privy Council here to talk about the process. If somebody's leaking it outside your department, I take your word for that. But we do have a responsibility as parliamentarians to work together to solve this problem. Can you suggest to us how we do that? You are the Minister of Justice.

• 1215

Ms. Anne McLellan: Let me correct the hypothetical example you provided. The wife would not be charged with robbery—

The Chair: If I might, Minister... If we could address our remarks to the chair, Minister, I'd be grateful.

Ms. Anne McLellan: Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Chair.

[Translation]

Mr. Chairman—

The Chair: The chair is still here.

[English]

Ms. Anne McLellan: In relation to the hypothetical example Mr. Reynolds suggested, let me make it absolutely plain to everyone that the wife, without knowledge, would not be charged with bank robbery in that situation. There's absolutely no way she would be charged.

Let me go to the point you are making here. There was apparently a breach of security, and I am the first to say that is serious. We all believe that it is serious, and we must take it seriously, which is why in fact I determined, through my executive assistant on the exempt staff side, through my deputy minister within my department, that there were no leaks in relation to this bill coming from my department.

Now, I also know the Clerk of the Privy Council has begun a review of all the departments involved in relation to the drafting and formulation of this legislation. So the Clerk of the Privy Council has taken it in hand. Maybe my deputy could say more about this if you need more details, because Morris has spoken with the Privy Council Office in relation to this.

We do take this very seriously, and I take the point that all of us... There's nothing more frustrating for me when we all know how important it is—especially with a key piece of legislation like this—that it be introduced into the House and parliamentarians have the opportunity to be briefed first and see this. I think, Mr. Reynolds, you can appreciate how frustrating and irritating I find this, because of course I'm the one who ends up here. Therefore, there's no one more than me who wants to get to the bottom of this and find out how this happened and how we prevent it for the future.

The Chair: Mr. Rosenberg.

Mr. Morris Rosenberg: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have spoken with Richard Fadden, the Deputy Clerk to the Privy Council, about this. They have requested and I understand have begun through the security services within the PCO, in liaison with the security people in all the departments that would have been involved in the preparation of this legislation, to make inquiries as to whether anyone would have spoken to the press. I do not at this date have the results of those inquiries, but they will be forthcoming in the days ahead.

The Chair: We hope you'll provide them to the committee as soon as you have them.

Mr. Morris Rosenberg: Either I will, or I will certainly pass on to the Privy Council Office, who is overseeing this inquiry, the request of the committee that this be done.

The Chair: I would hope the results would be handed on to this committee as well.

John Reynolds.

Mr. John Reynolds: I have a short question based on this.

I'm very pleased to know that the Privy Council's investigating this. And I agree, I would expect we will see their report. If we do find there's somebody in whatever ministry—and due to the fact that you were a great law professor, I would like to ask you—what's your interpretation if somebody in a minister's department is found responsible in this issue?

Ms. Anne McLellan: Ministers are responsible, obviously, for what happens in their departments, and no one would suggest otherwise. The only question then becomes what is the appropriate remedy for that—should it be the minister dealing internally with the issue, or a censure or reprimand of the minister? It's something better left to others; I wouldn't speculate on it and I can't comment on it. We're all committed here to trying to get to the bottom of this.

The Chair: The order will be Joe Jordan, Cheryl Gallant, Paul Macklin, Michel Guimond, Peter MacKay.

Mr. Joe Jordan: Madam Minister, one of the unusual aspects of this particular omnibus bill is the number of ministries that would have been involved. Do you have a number? Was it four, five?

Ms. Anne McLellan: Well, it depends how you define involved, because of course there are ten ministers on the national security committee, then there are the PCO and the PMO, and the various agencies who were consulted in relation to parts of this legislation. Clearly, you don't draft legislation like this that is targeted and focused on terrorism without talking to the key agencies that gather intelligence and investigate allegations around terrorist activity.

• 1220

Mr. Joe Jordan: If somebody were intentionally going to commit what may or may not have been a criminal act, to leak this, were there not a considerable number of people who could have done it?

Ms. Anne McLellan: Mr. Mosley and Mr. Rosenberg were working virtually around the clock on this legislation with groups of their counterparts. It's fair to say that they could tell you more precisely than I. But it's fair to say that a large number of officials and then deputies and then in fact ministers were involved in this in one way or another and would in fact have knowledge of at least some parts of it, if not all of it.

Mr. Joe Jordan: The sense I get from the article is that they seem to know quite a bit about certain aspects, but they made mistakes in terms of the overall bill. The page numbers, for example, were wrong.

In fact I talked to one individual who was contacted by this reporter on the Friday before. When asked specifically if terrorism was defined in this bill, the person refused to talk. The same reporter called back an hour later and said, “I now know terrorism is defined”. The media may have been able to hit 30, 40, 50 people with calls and piece together bits of information.

We have to be careful in terms of defining what we're dealing with here. We may be dealing simply with a situation where, given the scope of this bill, so many people were involved that little crumbs from each one could be put together to make a loaf of bread. Because as you say, there are some things they nailed, there are some things they were wrong about.

Since the PCO is conducting an investigation, I think it's prudent of us we to wait on that internal investigation. But do you see this as an issue that may end up with the RCMP?

Ms. Anne McLellan: I don't know. It probably depends on what the investigation by the Privy Council shows.

I am actually one of those who was involved, because in an earlier situation there was a leak involving some legislation and in fact I requested the Clerk of the Privy Council to provide evidence to the RCMP to begin an investigation. The clerk took that up and in fact there was an RCMP investigation in that case.

I must say that it was an exercise in futility for all of us, including the RCMP, who worked very hard to try to get to the bottom of what happened in that case, because I wanted to know. And as you can all imagine, it's very difficult for any investigative agency, including one as good as the RCMP, to be able to reach any definitive conclusions in matters like this.

Let me just say you raise an interesting point in terms of the content of those articles, and especially the National Post article. Keep in mind how very candid we were with everyone, including the public, because we wanted the public and members of Parliament to understand generally where we were headed and what we were going to do. So if you actually had looked at the Convention on Terrorist Bombing and the Convention on the Suppression of Terrorist Financing, you would have seen much of what is now in our legislation, because of course one has to implement those UN conventions, and we did what was required to do that.

The Chair: Thank you, Minister.

Cheryl Gallant and then Paul Macklin.

Ms. Cheryl Gallant: Mr. Chairman, we are at war. The leaked information pertains directly to how this country will fight this war. This is the second incident relating to justice legislation, as has already been mentioned.

How can our coalition partners have confidence in our ability and our resolve to guard intelligence information when the very legislation relating to international secrets is exposed in our media?

Our Solicitor General in Ontario gave information to the media in the throne speech. This incident involved exposing the name of a juvenile. He did the honourable thing and resigned until an inquiry was completed in full and he was exonerated. Will this minister do the same? Will she do the honourable thing and resign until the issue is resolved?

• 1225

Ms. Anne McLellan: Excuse me, but I think if you're referring to Solicitor General Runciman, he released the name of a young offender, which violated a provision of the Young Offenders Act. Therefore, it is a very different situation.

I will say what I have said already, which is that we take this matter very seriously, as do all my cabinet colleagues and the Government of Canada. We will work with the PCO and anyone else who is asked to investigate this matter. As I have already said, no one wants to know what happened here more than I do.

Ms. Cheryl Gallant: Releasing official secrets and unreleased legislation are also breaches of the Criminal Code, so there is a similarity here.

The Chair: I'll move on to Paul Macklin, Michel Guimond, Peter MacKay, and then Yvon Godin.

Mr. Paul Harold Macklin: Thank you very much, Madam Minister, for being here today and raising a great deal of doubt as to whether or not your ministry was involved in this process.

On the concerns I have, first, I presume you've conducted an internal investigation. Secondly, I think for this committee's sake we ought to know who had access to any copies of that bill. I think it's important that we at least have that available for consideration.

One other part of this process that's of concern is this term “reference to the Official Secrets Act”. This is a new element that wasn't in the previous matter that was before us as a committee. On these allegations of breach of the Official Secrets Act, I wonder if you have any comments about whether or not—since you are from the Department of Justice and representing the Department of Justice—there is a potential here for a breach of the Official Secrets Act, or if we are simply dealing with the issue of privilege of members within this House.

Ms. Anne McLellan: We have always, I think, dealt with this matter as a matter of privilege, and certainly that's the way I would interpret this matter.

You talk about a list of those who had access. Certainly, as I've indicated, a wide number of people were involved. I would think that if the committee wanted such a list, the appropriate place to ask would be the Clerk of the Privy Council. They have a coordinating function, in relation to all the departments and agencies that participated in the policy formulation process and the drafting.

Therefore, Mr. Chair, if you wanted to make that request to the Clerk of the Privy Council, I would think it would be the appropriate place to have an expectation that the information could be brought together in a fairly expeditious fashion.

If you're referring to our department, we could provide you with that list internally, but my guess is that you will want the broad panoply of those who were involved.

The Chair: If I could interject—I don't want to break the flow here—with respect to something the deputy said before, if this is a matter of privilege, this is the place where the information should come. This was referred to us by the House of Commons, and in this matter we represent the House of Commons. I think it's extremely important—and that includes the Clerk of the Privy Council—they realize that. It's the House of Commons that is involved here, not the executive—if that's the right word—of the government.

Ms. Anne McLellan: Certainly we will share that with the clerk, but I know the clerk has always been very accommodating in the past.

The Chair: I'm glad you're sharing with the clerk, but if you could understand my point, Minister, it is the House of Commons, not the Privy Council.

Paul Macklin.

Mr. Paul Harold Macklin: That is the point I'm trying to ultimately get at. If this is not a matter that is within the purview of the Official Secrets Act, then this is the place where we should be dealing with it.

The allegation has been out there that this could be a breach of official secrets. I briefly looked at the Official Secrets Act, and had difficulty seeing how that might happen. I was concerned whether the ministry itself felt that might be a possibility.

Thank you very much.

Ms. Anne McLellan: You're welcome.

The Chair: Michel Guimond, and then Yvon Godin.

• 1230

[Translation]

Mr. Michel Guimond: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Madam Minister, without giving me a list of the people who worked on this bill, would you tell me how many persons worked on it? Are we talking about 2, 12, 22, 132 persons? Could you tell us, approximately, how many people worked on it?

[English]

Ms. Anne McLellan: Mr. Mosley will speak to that because he was one of the key officials from my department who worked with officials across government.

[Translation]

Mr. Michel Guimond: I will be back with other questions.

[English]

Mr. Richard Mosley: Most of the work on the bill was conducted within the criminal law policy branch, so there were the counsel within that branch, which I supervise, and there were our counsel in the human rights law section of the department.

In my branch probably about twenty lawyers and half a dozen support staff, at the most, had access. About five human rights lawyers had access to the bill while it was being prepared, and roughly the same number of counsel from our national security group and federal prosecution service played a role in it.

With each printing of the bill, one of my officers—and it was the same officer on each occasion—went to the printer, personally picked up boxes of the bill, returned them unopened to our floor, where they were opened, and then anyone who was working on the bill had to sign for it.

In addition to the counsel working on it and the support staff, there were our legislative drafters, our counsel in legislative services, who actually did the writing of the bill. There were a number of teams of legislative drafters. They were supported by editors, who checked to make sure there were no mistakes. They were supported by jury linguists, who read the English and the French versions to ensure they corresponded. Finally, there was the support staff, who looked after the myriad little details that needed to be done in order to ensure that the bill was pulled together.

Within the Department of Justice, then, there were probably at least fifty people working on this bill.

[Translation]

Mr. Michel Guimond: Thank you. Let me come back to my question to the minister.

We are talking about 50 persons approximately. Madam Minister, now you are telling us that no one from your political personnel or from your department is responsible for this leak. You cannot elude the issue, as you are a professor emeritus in law. How can you be sure of that when 50 persons knew about it? How can you be sure that it was not revealed to the media? Were you there 24 hours a day with these persons to make sure—

[English]

The Chair: Colleagues, that is a 30-minute bell, which gives us a good idea of how much time we have, just so you know.

Sorry, Minister.

Ms. Anne McLellan: I first asked all my executive assistants, in relation to my exempt staff, and then I asked my deputy minister, who in turn asked Mr. Mosley to ask every individual who was involved within our department whether they had spoken to the press. The answer to that was no, and that is what I am reporting to you. I believe that when those people were asked that question they did not lie. I have to believe that.

That is what I am basing my information on. That is the best information I have, which is that the inquiries were made and the response was clear.

[Translation]

Mr. Michel Guimond: Madam Minister, you have certainly read the article in the National Post. If you are certain that it does not come from your department, it must come from somewhere else. The information in this article was not obtained through the work of the Holy Spirit inspiring the conception of the Virgin Mary. Someone must have committed an act somewhere. Apart from some technical reasons, let me disagree with what Mr. Jordan said. I find that it is very simplistic to say that the omnibus bill does not have 150 but rather 159 pages. This might simply be a cosmetic effect, but you did read the article.

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Let me finish with a second supplementary question. Did you discuss this leak with your colleagues who sit on the Cabinet committee on security matters? If you are 100% sure that this did not come from your department, are you equally confident in your colleagues from the Cabinet committee on security matters, who also had this bill in their hands, as well as the apparatchiks of their departments, who also might have had it in their hands?

[English]

The Chair: Minister.

Ms. Anne McLellan: I have every confidence that my cabinet colleagues did not speak to the press. I did not discuss this matter directly with the members of the national security committee because the Clerk of the Privy Council has taken up this issue, and he has begun an investigation that will involve all departments that had access to this legislation. As we have already said, we all await the results of that investigation.

Let me just point out as well, when you refer to the article in the National Post, keep in mind that most of the content of that article—we have reviewed it line by line—was already in the public domain.

The Chair: Peter MacKay, Yvon Godin, Geoff Regan, and Garry Breitkreuz.

Mr. Peter MacKay (Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, PC/DR): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister and your officials, for being here.

I was part of that briefing, and I can assure and reiterate what you said. It was a very comprehensive, thorough briefing, and I thank you and your officials for that.

I think the context of the time we're living in—after September 11—is what makes this perhaps more disturbing than the previous incident. I know it has to be extremely embarrassing for you to be back here again within such a short period of time.

I want to begin my questioning by telling you that I believe you when you say you're not responsible for this personally. However, you're more than familiar with this concept of ministerial accountability. The difficulty here, for you and all of us, as you've enunciated, is that there are a lot of suspects. We have ten different ministries. You named the PCO and the PMO. Presumably CSIS and the RCMP also would have had specific knowledge. This is a pretty broad dragnet if we're supposed to suss out who's responsible here.

Putting it into this context of national security is... I would say, given the wording in this National Post article, I don't accept the fact that it came from a lot of different sources tapped together. There are specific sources named. Unfortunately, we don't have the ability to call Mr. Fife or any reporter before us to question them on their sources, but there's sufficient information here, when you look at the evidence—

The Chair: Peter, we do.

Mr. Peter MacKay: Well, thank you, Mr. Chair. It may very well come to that.

The question I have is with respect to the bill itself being removed from the premises. I want to know if that happens, if in the process of drafting there is paper permitted to be taken off the Hill, or if there is any draft of the bill that leaves the premises.

We members of Parliament and our staff were kept in a lock-up until eleven, so I wanted to question about that.

More importantly, you've told us there have been internal investigations done. Has there been contemplation of asking for an RCMP investigation? Has this entered into the equation in terms of finding out who's directly responsible here? Internal investigations are one thing, but there's a vested interest. I'm not accusing or pointing the finger at anyone, but if there's an internal investigation of the people where the leak originated, there's a real credibility problem in terms of whether a thorough investigation will take place.

The Chair: Minister.

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Ms. Anne McLellan: I will let Rick talk about how the particular legislation was dealt with in the context of the drafting and the various printings of the bill, and where that took place. I think he's alluded to that already, but he can reiterate that for you.

I would say, in terms of the possibility of any RCMP investigation, Mr. Chair, I think that is something that probably awaits the review of the Clerk of the Privy Council. Certainly I would want to know what information that review turns up before suggesting such an investigation would be useful.

The Chair: Mr. Mosley.

Mr. Richard Mosley: Let me say at the outset that I've been intimately involved in this process over the course of the past three to four weeks and have discussed it with colleagues, and none of us in the Department of Justice who have worked on this bill believe that whoever may have spoken to the reporters had actually seen the bill. They may have heard second-hand some of the proposals. They may have seen some of the briefing material. But we do not believe, given the language they used to describe it, they had seen any of the actual prints of the bill.

With regard to the meetings that took place, departments were provided with material to brief their deputy ministers and their ministers for the discussions on the policy. This is consistent with the process that is currently followed with cabinet documents in advance of cabinet committees addressing policy proposals that are put before them. Officials have to be able to know what is being proposed in order to provide advice to their ministers.

In the meetings I attended of ministers and deputy ministers where these proposals were discussed, the materials were provided in the room and then picked up at the end of the meeting. They were not carried away from those rooms. Departments were provided with documents in advance of those discussions to assist in briefing.

With regard to the bills, I'm not aware of any ministers, apart from the Minister of Justice and... I won't speculate about which ministers actually saw the bill. But the number of people—

Mr. Peter MacKay: Mr. Mosley, if I could stop you just briefly, in your opening comment you said you don't believe the person quoted in the article actually saw the bill. In the second paragraph it says “...according to sources who have seen drafts of the legislation”.

Mr. Richard Mosley: I don't know where Mr. Fife got that impression. I have no idea. That's his language.

From the language used to describe the proposals, my sense of it is that whoever may have described them had not seen the bill. They were not sufficiently accurate to suggest they were talking from first-hand knowledge of the content of the bill.

The Chair: Peter, would you wind this up? We'll complete the round of the parties, if you don't mind.

Yvon Godin.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Godin: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Madam Minister, for having come before this committee.

Some good questions were put here and there is no use in repeating them. The committee received a French version of the National Post article. Let me read a few paragraphs of it, because I think it is quite relevant. Here is what it says:

"The major thrust of it is to put definitions of terrorism into existing legislation because it doesn't exist now and you need to do that, so that means an overhaul of the Criminal Code and a whole bunch of other acts," said a senior official, speaking on background.

"It is not out of line with what the rest of the world uses. That is what we have tried to do, by and large, is to get ourselves in line with the British and the Americans as much as possible, bearing in mind we are different countries and that we have a Charter of Rights and Freedoms that has to be balanced in."

This sounds like someone speaking to the press. This is not the publisher of the National Post, but a high government official. I do not think that this is a high official from my office.

And it goes on:

According to our sources, the bill includes measures meant to prevent innocent citizens and legitimate charitable organizations from being caught up in a repressive sweep against terrorist groups.

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Here is my question. Were the 40 or 50 persons who had access to the document or who contributed to preparing it all sworn to secrecy?

[English]

Mr. Richard Mosley: Mr. Chairman, when staff are hired by the Department of Justice, they take oaths, and there is a common understanding among them that they do not disclose matters such as this to the media. It's inconceivable for us to believe that this was disclosed by a member of the staff of the Department of Justice.

Ms. Anne McLellan: Keep in mind, too, that of course there are inaccuracies in what you've read. We do not define “terrorist” in this legislation—we deliberately do not do that. We define “terrorist activity”. The person quoted didn't even understand the basic structure of the legislation.

Some of the things you've read I said after September 11, and those are clearly in the public domain—things I've been saying for weeks, ever since the event. So I'm not quite sure of the point of the quotes you read. Some of them are inaccurate. Whoever was quoted doesn't know very much about what we're doing. Other parts, such as the importance of distinguishing between fundraising to support terrorist activities and legitimate fundraising—I've been making that point since the second week of this horrible tragedy, and I will continue to make it.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Godin: Mr. Chairman, I do not want to start a debate to find out whether the journalist did a good or a bad job. If it is not clear then I will clarify it. He said: "said a senior official, speaking on background". Let us focus on those words.

I repeat the question I put to the minister, Mr. Chairman. Were all the 40 or 50 persons involved in that sworn to secrecy, or were there any among them who did not have to do that? I do not want to begin arguing about the merits of the journalist's article, but this journalist did say that the statement was made by a senior official, speaking on background. That is my point. I hope I am being clear.

[English]

Ms. Anne McLellan: I think Mr. Mosley has been quite clear: we do not believe that anyone from the Department of Justice who was involved in this process talked to any journalist in relation to this story or any other.

The Chair: Thank you, Minister.

Thank you, Yvon.

Colleagues, in practical terms, we have about ten minutes left, and we have to discuss what we're going to do afterwards. We've now had a full round of the parties, and the official opposition has had particular attention, but there are members who have not spoken, and some members are asking to speak again. So we'll hear the three who are left—Geoff Regan, Garry Breitkreuz, and Marlene Catterall—and then we'll stop to discuss what we do next.

Geoff, it's you, and then Garry.

Mr. Geoff Regan: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I think it's important for us to hear more about this matter. As I said earlier, I don't think it's correct for us to proceed to judgment, and certainly not to sentencing, until we've elicited as many of the facts of this case as we can.

It seems to me that if the Privy Council Office does undertake an investigation, we ought to have the Clerk of the Privy Council come before us in due course and report on the results of that investigation.

I think we have to maintain some perspective here. This committee works on a very non-partisan, or bipartisan, basis on behalf of all members of the House of Commons. I think it's important that we avoid theatrics and fear-mongering.

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If we're concerned about breaches of national security, I'd like someone to tell me what parts of this National Post story they would consider to be treasonable leaks.

In terms of national security, in a situation where our troops left yesterday for the Middle East, clearly there's a question of whether you're going to talk about a so-called war, and breaches of national security, and start fear-mongering. But let's be a little more reasonable here. Let's restrain ourselves a bit, and consider the fact that there's a distinction between a leak—which may be criminal if it contravenes the Official Secrets Act—and an act that might be considered treasonable.

This is a very serious matter, and I do have great concerns. But I see, for example, that the article refers to a 150-page omnibus bill. Well, I refer members to page 171 of the bill—so it's obvious the article is inaccurate.

I think that engaging in the kinds of theatrics we've seen here from Ms. Gallant, and calling for the minister's resignation, when we haven't yet elicited all the facts of the matter—I think that's showing undue haste to find someone's head on a platter.

The Chair: Thank you.

Minister, do you want to comment on that?

Ms. Anne McLellan: No.

The Chair: Okay. Garry.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: I'm going to look at the big picture here. I know the job of this committee is to protect the rights of MPs, especially opposition members, whose job it is to hold the government accountable. That's why we're here today. And this issue strikes at the very heart of the democratic process.

You know that we've complained about this practice for years. I've been here for a long time, and I believe a pattern has developed over the years: nothing is done; officials are not disciplined; heads do not roll, so to speak; those whose responsibility it is to take this kind of thing seriously really don't; so we end up with this situation today, where it's very difficult to tighten up security. And with all due respect, Madam Minister, I get the feeling from your testimony that you don't really feel responsible.

Policy is often made by floating trial balloons. The annual budget is a prime example. If employees in the department knew that an independent investigator was going to come in whenever something like this happened, maybe things would change.

My question to you, Madam Minister, is how do we reverse this trend? As a committee, we have a job to do—and I sit here in great frustration, because nobody seems to be taking responsibility. What do we do about this?

Ms. Anne McLellan: No one is more frustrated than I am, as I've said. There have been independent investigations in other situations, and in fact they've turned up nothing.

No one wants more than I do to know what happened here, and who is responsible for this. Because my department is intimately involved, it's unfortunately much too easy for people to suggest that it's someone in the Department of Justice. So indeed, I share your view: let's get to the bottom of this.

You're right, this committee is charged with ensuring that the privileges and rights of members are respected. So I hope the committee does look at this matter and make recommendations we can all act on. I think that's very important as we move forward, because I know we all share this frustration.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Very concisely, a trend has been developing. My question to you is, how do we reverse this trend? I don't hear any answers.

Ms. Anne McLellan: Well, I think it's up to this committee to come up with the answers. Last time this matter was discussed, a process was put in place that all ministers now understand: it covered media briefings, embargoes, lock-ups. The matter was clarified, when it was not clear before. And that was a direct result of the work of this committee.

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Now you're dealing with a quite different issue and set of facts, and as I've already said, I'm as concerned about it as anyone. I hope that based on what you hear from a wide range of people, your committee will be able to provide recommendations to help us all, because we're all in this together.

The Chair: Colleagues, we can discuss briefly what to do next.

Unfortunately, there's a vote on the bill we're dealing with. I think we should meet as a group after the vote. On the other hand, in recognition of question period, I'm not convinced... Minister, I think it's imposing a great deal on you.

Ms. Anne McLellan: I have to go to the vote.

The Chair: My view is that the committee should meet after we vote, but the minister has plenty to do.

John Reynolds, a point of order.

Mr. John Reynolds: I want to thank the minister for being here.

I know the committee is very busy next week with the private members' bills, but we've been told that the Clerk of the Privy Council has an investigation going. Maybe the chair should invite the clerk to appear next Tuesday with his report, if it's ready, and then we don't have to meet after this.

I'm happy that we've discussed the issue with the minister, and I'm happy to let the investigation take its course. And if the committee agrees with that, we don't have to come back.

An hon. member: Very good idea. I move that.

The Chair: You don't need to move it if we're comfortable with that.

We have one more question—Marlene Catterall.

Ms. Marlene Catterall (Ottawa West—Nepean, Lib.): The most important question is this: The House leader has said that this information is more than privileged, it's actually a government secret. So I'm wondering why there's only an administrative investigation going on, and why not something more serious, such as an investigation by the RCMP.

Ms. Anne McLellan: First of all, as I say, we treat this as a matter of privilege, but that's something the committee could investigate. I think that at this point, until the Clerk of the Privy Council finishes his review, it's not really possible to know whether there is reason to provide the RCMP with information that may lead them to initiate an investigation. Of course, no minister of the crown can ask the RCMP to begin an investigation.

The Chair: Marlene.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: A very specific question: Were any non-government employees involved in drafting this legislation—in your department, or in any other department? If so, were they sworn to secrecy? Were there any people not sworn to secrecy who worked on this legislation at any level?

Ms. Anne McLellan: Mr. Mosley will answer that question.

Mr. Richard Mosley: Everyone who worked on the bill had either a secret or a top-secret clearance. In fact, we had one counsel who was formerly in the office of the leader of the official opposition. His clearance had not yet come through, so he was unable to touch this bill during that process.

The Chair: Colleagues, we meet again on Tuesday, same place, 11 o'clock, dealing with votable private members' items. We return to this matter the week after next, when I will proceed as directed—and I hope I have your confidence. If I have any other useful ideas, I'll build those into the meetings.

Thank you.

The meeting is adjourned.