Proceedings of the Standing Committee on
Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament
Issue 4 - Evidence - June 23, 2015
OTTAWA, Tuesday, June 23, 2015
The Standing Committee on Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament, to which was referred Bill C-518, An Act to amend the Members of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act (withdrawal allowance), met this day at 9:31 a.m. to give clause-by-clause consideration to the bill; and for the consideration of the case of privilege relating to leaks of the Auditor General's report on the audit of senators' expenses.
Senator Vernon White (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Welcome everyone to the Standing Committee on Rules, Procedures, and the Rights of Parliament. Good Tuesday morning.
This morning we have two items we'll be moving forward. The first will be clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C- 518. If there are no objections, discussion or debate, we'll start with Bill C-518.
Seeing none, is it agreed that the committee proceed to clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-518, An Act to amend the Members of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act (withdrawal allowance)?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall the title stand postponed?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall clause 1, which contains the alternative title, stand postponed?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: I'm coming up on clause 2 and I would like to propose an amendment, if I can have it shared with everyone here, please. The amendment would be:
That Bill C-518 be amended in clause 2,
(a) on page 1, by replacing line 16 with the following:
"occurred while the person was a member or was a candidate as defined by subsection 2(1) of the Canada Elections Act, a''; and
(b) on page 2, by replacing line 11 with the following:
"offence under the Canada Elections Act or any of the following provisions of''.
And then it continues with the other offences.
There's also a consequential change that would be required:
That Bill C-518 be amended in clause 3, on page 3, by replacing line 25 with the following:
"the person was a member or was a candidate as defined by subsection 2(1) of the Canada Elections Act, a withdrawal.''
That is similar to page 1 replacing line 16.
Does everyone have that amendment?
Senator Fraser: So that I can be really sure of what you're saying here, this would apply to offences while somebody was a candidate, if that person was elected?
The Chair: No. For example, if a candidate had been in the house for 20 years and ran for election and was convicted but not elected, it would also include them.
Senator Fraser: Okay. But it could not apply to a candidate who never got elected at any time?
The Chair: They wouldn't be eligible for a pension, that's correct.
The ultimate goal of this is that it would include Canada Elections Act offences, which I think was raised by many people. Secondly, it would also include a candidate, not just those who are elected.
Is there a debate or discussion?
Shall the amendment carry?
Some Hon. Senators: Agreed.
Senator McIntyre: No.
The Chair: On division?
Senator McIntyre: I object.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
I will come back to clause 2.
I also introduced a consequential amendment as a result of clause 2. Does the amendment to clause 3 carry?
Some Hon. Senators: Carried.
Some Hon. Senators: No.
Senator McIntyre: No.
The Chair: On division. Thank you very much.
I'll come back to clause 2. Are there other amendments to clause 2?
Senator Furey: I have a proposed amendment for clause 2.
I want to say first that I support the intent and purpose of this bill. I think it's a good bill in many respects. However, there are aspects of it that will cause egregious harm for simple circumstances that was never the intent of the sponsor of the bill, for one, or the House of Commons.
Normally it's not appropriate for this chamber to stand in the way of legislation that enjoys full cross-party support, but it's our responsibility to look closely at the bill. Where we see issues that arise that are contrary to the intent of the bill, then we have an obligation to fix those. I'm speaking specifically of the hybrid offences in the bill.
When I raised this with the sponsor of the bill at committee, Mr. Williamson himself, when I asked him about hybrid offences, said:
I don't think there's any hybrid. I think they're just straight-up indictable offences.
The sponsor of the bill was not aware of the fact that there were hybrid offences in this particular bill, which means that a member of Parliament, convicted summarily, probably given a discharge, conditional or otherwise, will be stripped of their pension if the bill stands the way it is now.
So I move, chair:
That Bill C-518 be amended in clause 2, on page 2,
(a) by deleting lines 30 and 31; and
(b) by deleting lines 38 to 41.
We have copies of it in both official languages. The impact of that is to remove hybrid offences so that somebody convicted summarily of an offence will not be stripped of their pension. That was not the intent of this bill. Clearly, Mr. Williamson himself was not aware that there were hybrid offences in the act.
The Chair: On debate? Seeing none, does the amendment carry?
Some Hon. Senators: Agreed.
Senator McIntyre: No.
The Chair: Carried, on division.
Shall clause 2, as amended, carry?
Some Hon. Senators: Agreed.
Senator McIntyre: On division.
The Chair: Carried, on division.
Shall clause 3, as amended, carry?
Some Hon. Senators: Agreed.
Senator McIntyre: Nay.
The Chair: Carried, on division.
Shall clause 1, which contains the alternative title, carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Carried.
Shall the title carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Carried.
Shall the bill, as amended, carry?
Some Hon. Senators: Agreed.
Some Hon. Senators: On division.
The Chair: Carried, on division.
Shall I report the bill, as amended, to the Senate?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Since that's the first time I have ever done that, I want to make sure I did it well.
As a result of the amendments, is there agreement to do the renumbering and adjustments specific to the bill before reporting it to the Senate?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
The second item on today's agenda refers to the case of privilege relating to leaks of the Auditor General's report on the audit of senators' expenses. We've requested a number of things from both the staff and the clerk in relation to the issues that were raised by the senator and also raised by the questioning here. To be fair, we didn't anticipate having the material this week nor do we have the material this week.
I wanted to look for agreement from this committee that as we receive the material, it will go to steering throughout the summer break. At that time, we will approve that it be sent out to the whole committee so there's no delay in our receiving that information.
The information includes certain things. Under parliamentary privilege, it talks about whether it was a report of committee or subcommittee at the time it was leaked; when copies were received and who they were received by; the timing of the release of copies by the Auditor General, and things like that.
If it's agreed by this committee that we can receive the material during the break, we will share that material as soon as the steering committee receives it.
I would also like permission to share that with the senator who brought forward the issue, if that's okay with this committee. It's not normal, but I think it's important that as the committee receives it, there not be a situation of those of us who know that information and the person who raised the issue not having it.
Senator Frum, do you have concerns?
Senator Frum: No. I agree.
Senator Martin: I have one question for clarification. Everyone on the committee would receive a copy, and you said also the senator who brought it to attention?
The Chair: Senator Hervieux-Payette.
Senator Martin: And it would stay within, as a committee document?
The Chair: It is a bit of an anomaly that we would share with her as well, but I just think it's from a fairness perspective, since she brought it forward. That's correct.
Do we have agreement?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
Senator Jaffer: I have another topic. We had asked for research to be done on this. I would also appreciate that when the research is done, it be shared with us.
The Chair: The bulk of the material we're referring to will be the research we've requested.
At some point, hopefully after we've received most or all of the material, there could be a dissolution, which would cause the committee to no longer exist. I guess then we will be hoping this committee again brings forward the issue that Senator Hervieux-Payette brought forward, but that really will be up to the new committee.
Senator Fraser: It's my understanding that that could be done in the next Parliament on this committee's own initiative. At that point, it wouldn't have to be a report on a case of privilege; it could be just a report from the committee recalling that this question was raised in this session and setting out conclusions.
I actually think this is a very important issue. I was fascinated by the very strong language in the Commons' report on leaks of Auditors General reports.
The Chair: As was I.
Senator Fraser: It would be nice if we had our own version of the same thing.
The Chair: Agreed.
Senator Joyal: Should the chair not write to the Auditor General to inform him that this committee is studying that issue and that we might at some point want to listen to him? I don't see how we could ever conclude our discussion in relation to that question of privilege without hearing from the Auditor General.
The Chair: We will be requesting the document-release information from the Auditor General's office. I have no problem advising the Auditor General what we're doing now and where we're hoping to go with this. I'm not sure what they're going to come back and tell us. I'm not sure I need to hear what he has to say. If he tells us that the reports were released three hours after the reported leak, then it may be helpful to us. But if he tells us that he released it at 8 a.m. and in fact the leak came at noon, then it's probably more an internal issue.
Senator Joyal: Yes, but he should inform us of the practice of the Office of the Auditor General — not him necessarily. Following the 2007 report from the House of Commons that I quoted here last week, recommendations were made to Treasury Board and Treasury Board was supposed to implement them. Those guidelines, training and so forth should have taken place. So to ask him the kind of follow-up that was brought by the Auditor General following that report is, in my opinion, a question that is, I should say, neutral in terms of understanding the policy that the office is following versus the specific case of a leak.
I think those are two different kinds of issues. Certainly the first one — which is to ask him what are the guidelines, how he functions, how he maintains confidentiality of the studies in his office — seems to me to be public knowledge. We need to know about that.
The Chair: It should be public knowledge.
Senator Joyal: It should be public. This is not CSIS or any other secret agency. This is one aspect of information that we would want to canvass with him. The second one is the specific case of —
The Chair: This leak that's been brought forward.
Senator Joyal: Yes, exactly.
The Chair: If the committee is in agreement, the steering committee will sign off on a letter or approve a letter to go to the Auditor General. I don't think there's any disagreement. We'll try to get to the bottom of this.
It's a great point in relation to 2007, because a number of expectations were brought forward that don't really have a conclusion, from what we can see.
Agreed?
Senator Joyal: Agreed.
The other thing is that perhaps the research people from the Library of Parliament, who always do a very good job, could look into past decisions — I think it was a question raised by Senator Tkachuk last week — and what kinds of sanctions we can take and the list of sanctions that might have been applied in the past.
The Chair: In relation to a breach of parliamentary privilege?
Senator Joyal: In relation to a breach of confidentiality, so that we know how deep the waters are that we are swimming in at this stage.
The Chair: And we're referring to sanctions both from an employee's or a senator's perspective.
Senator Joyal: Yes. We would know; we would have a general perspective of where we are heading. I think they would have time, since we might reconvene on the issue, for that information to be available, with the circumstances and so forth, of course, under which those sanctions were imposed.
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: That is important. I am not a lawyer, but I think we were bound by the letter of confidentiality we signed with the Auditor General. I worked in the business world and I know that a letter of confidentiality is very serious; it is a legal contract.
We have always told the press that we could not talk about this, because we were bound by a confidentiality agreement. Other parties — I do not know who, and I am not accusing anyone — did not respect that confidentiality agreement. In future, if parliamentarians are asked to be bound by a confidentiality agreement, we will not be sure that confidentiality will be respected. That is an important concern for me. Thank you.
Senator Joyal: I would like to comment on the point you just raised, senator, as I also mentioned it last week. I am going to repeat what I said.
[English]
I apologized to my colleague last week, but I think for the benefit of Senator Maltais, it will be important.
[Translation]
I experienced a personal situation where a journalist found out I had received a letter from the Auditor General, like most of us, in which the Auditor General did not accuse me of any unjustified expenses. The reporter asked me if I had received the letter and what was in it. I had to say that I could not comment, since I had agreed to the same confidentiality agreement you referred to, stating that I had to maintain the confidentiality of the information and exchanges between my office and that of the Auditor General. The journalist concluded that I was probably among those who had to reimburse certain sums or were in trouble.
I could not defend myself in order not to breach — I was going to say betray, but the word is rather strong — the confidentiality agreement. This places us in a situation where we cannot defend ourselves, and as you know, people then presume that we are guilty. We hope that this agreement we have made will be respected by the other side, because if it is not, this then puts us in the untenable position of having to breach the agreement.
This is an example of the situation you just referred to, which is exactly the one I raised with the committee last week. The fact that the report was leaked has certainly caused embarrassment for people who had in principle done nothing wrong. Obviously the reporters became insistent, and called repeatedly — I will not say they harassed us, because they were doing their job — and asked us for information that we could not release, because we had entered into this confidentiality agreement with the Office of the Auditor General.
As you know, so long as the report has not been made public, there can always be changes. We have to remain extremely prudent, for reasons you can readily appreciate.
We had raised this matter, and what you say this morning relates to the same circumstances.
[English]
Senator Jaffer: It's true that we got the report one day and then there were leaks. My concern is that, before that, the auditor was talking to the media about many issues. I'm not going to set them out; we all know. But when it came out that there were a number under number one, we knew the categories and everything before we saw the report. I think it put us in a very bad position. People were asking us, "Which category are you in?'' and we couldn't say anything.
I think we need to look at how this confidentiality works. I feel it was one-sided and it put us at a real disadvantage.
The Chair: Certainly most would agree that our expectations as to how the report was going to be presented and the manner in which it was going to roll out was different from what happened. I think for many it put people in a bad position for a number of days, not just a number of hours. I think that was one of the primary concerns raised.
Senator Batters: Further, the last time we were here, Senator Hervieux-Payette admitted that she knew of the three leadership people from the Senate who were going to be on that "less serious'' list of 21. She knew that beforehand and there was some discussion about that. That was even before the report was delivered to this building. That was the day before.
The Chair: Senator Seidman, did you have a comment as well? I saw your light go on.
Senator Seidman: No, only to second Senator Joyal's suggestion that we request that the Auditor General tell us what the convention is for handling such documents in his office, and then how this particular document was handled. I think that comes straight out of the 2007 report.
The Chair: Agreed.
Senator Cools: Colleagues, I would like to say that I'm very supportive of the initiative in respect of this committee looking very carefully at the whole phenomenon of the leak. I think we're being gentle when we call it a leak; it was a hurricane-type flood.
Senator D. Smith: We got hosed.
Senator Cools: It was the most interesting thing. Every single journalistic report would cite the report and then say, in the same sentence, "But it's going to be presented in the Senate next week,'' or whenever, and no one ever seemed to draw out the point that there was something fundamentally wrong here.
So I think it's an ambitious thing. I think it's a good thing. I gather we're grappling as to where quite to begin. I believe we should begin at the beginning, which is to establish the facts. The first fact to establish is who exactly had possession of that report and how many people had access to it. Who were they?
Senator D. Smith: There were 50 copies.
Senator Cools: We've heard all of this stuff. There's a whole gossip mill, a rumour mill and, as always, the senators were the last to know anything. I think we should begin there. We have to extract that information somehow.
My colleague across the table was saying that we should find out from the Auditor General what his conventions or practices are to protect the subject matter.
The Auditor General has no conventions around Senate audits. Auditors general don't do Senate audits, so they don't have practices around them. I don't think that the practices that they have around government departments would be particularly helpful in a situation such as the Senate, which is so highly politically charged, with every single journalist ready to get a peep or sneak or hint of what was going on. So my suggestion is that we begin very early to discover who had copies and how those copies were treated.
One could even go a little bit further. One could even identify certain media outlets and see if we cannot discover gently — I don't think we should be rough and tough and hard — how they were able to have access to these documents. Many of them feature the Auditor General making commentary on the journalists' discoveries, so it was all very cozy.
I think we should begin to ascertain those facts. Maybe we should either ask the Auditor General directly or we could ask him by letter, but there are thousands of ways to do this if we know how to handle it.
The Chair: Thank you, senator. That's what we have directed the clerk to do: Send a letter to ask who internally had access, also who had access upon release, who they were released to, what dates and times they were released, and try to develop a timeline so we have an understanding. We may still, at that point, call witnesses to explain.
Senator Cools: Would that be under your signature?
The Chair: That's correct.
Senator Cools: Very well. You said send a letter, but okay. You will send a letter.
The Chair: It will go through steering first.
Senator Cools: You should be very careful about every single word drafted and scripted in that letter. I think we should be extremely careful.
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: There is another part in the confidentiality letter. As you will recall, we authorized the Auditor General to obtain private information on each senator regarding our bank accounts, property titles, and in fact everything that concerned our personal lives and even that of our spouses.
May we have some kind of guarantee that all this information will not one day be made public?
Senator Joyal: Senator Maltais, you are raising a question I in fact asked myself last week. I took the initiative of sending a letter to the Auditor General in which I ask him, in light of the fact that his study is finished and the report has been tabled, to return to me all of the personal documents he has in his possession about me, and to which he had access through the Senate, or which we voluntarily provided to him for his study.
I also said to him that I had not signed the letter asking me to renounce my parliamentary privilege, because these documents are protected by parliamentary privilege, and these were expenses I incurred in the course of doing my parliamentary work. Moreover, I specified that I still had in my possession the documents he had given us when he began his study, which he said were confidential, and which we were urged not to make public.
So I asked him to return the documents that belonged to me, and added that I would return his. I said I was making this request because the study was complete, and he no longer had any right to retain that information.
I sent this letter last week. I have no objection to making it public since he has now received it. I did not want to disclose it before he received it, but now that he has, I have no further reservations in making it public. Each senator can decide what initiative they would like to take in that regard.
[English]
The Chair: If I may ask, senator, did you get a response?
Senator Joyal: Not yet, no.
The Chair: On the same point, Senator Maltais.
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: That should be automatic since the study has now taken place; the documents should be returned to us without our having to ask. That would simply be logical, because senators are still wondering if he may make these public someday.
Since there was a lapse on his side regarding the confidentiality agreement, there might be another regarding these documents, involving not the auditor, necessarily, but his office.
I think it should be a matter of course that all of these documents used in his audit be returned to us.
Senator Joyal: I would not go so far as to say that he is at fault. We have not completed our study.
Senator Maltais: Presumed to be at fault.
Senator Joyal: I always give people the benefit of the doubt, according to the principles of our justice system.
Senator Maltais: You are right.
Senator Joyal: The objective of this study is to determine where the leak occurred in the system, and to determine whether his office is responsible for that leak, or that flood, as Senator Cools said earlier. However, as far as I am concerned, since his office does not seem to be absolutely waterproof, I don't see why we should leave these documents in the hands of the Auditor General, who has now completed his study. His mandate has been discharged. Under the law he no longer has the rights he had when we adopted the motion asking him to do an audit on the years 2011 and 2012.
As I have no conflict with him or with his office, since he stated that he was satisfied with the audit he did of the expenses of my office, my conclusion is that he has to return my documents to me.
[English]
I think I will give to you, Mr. Chair, a copy of that letter and you could circulate it among the members.
The Chair: I will. Thank you very much.
Senator D. Smith: I don't have any personal complaints about my own situation, but there's a precedent here that is very important. I think that in terms of the research being done for this, he did some TV interviews on the subject. The parliamentary library probably has those. I think we should get transcripts of those as to the dates, because he was going on TV at a point where I don't think he should have been. I think it's very important that we get those interviews and have the transcripts of them with the dates, because there's a precedent here that I just think is very important.
Senator Wells: It might be instructive to go back to the letter that was requested that we sign. I didn't sign mine, like Senator Joyal didn't sign his. Instead, there was a section near the end of the letter that talked about confidentiality of the information gathered during the forensic investigation, which is essentially what it was.
The part that gave me trouble, and that I declined to accept, was the part that said that the Auditor General would keep all the information confidential until the report was delivered. In the section that I rewrote, I said that I will provide private information that is requested upon receiving an undertaking that it would not be made public. That was the letter that I signed.
In the course of the audit, that did come up. I said I would not release information unless I had the undertaking that it was on specific information that they were looking for, and then they declined to further request the information because they would not provide the undertaking.
To go back to the letter that said that they would not make public any of the information until the report was delivered, the report was delivered on a Thursday afternoon. I don't recall the date, but it was a Thursday afternoon.
The Chair: June 4, black Thursday.
Senator Wells: It was delivered by those who received the report. It was delivered on the following Tuesday to the public. The report itself was delivered on the fourth. I'm sure most of the leaks — I don't know, I don't recall — but I suspect most of the leaks came out after the report was delivered, in which case the Auditor General was probably in his right to say what he wanted to because in that letter he said he wouldn't release any information until the report was delivered.
The Chair: To be fair and a good point, Senator Smith's comments, at least one interview on TV that I watched, was a day or two before that he referred to numbers in each category and who.
Senator D. Smith: We need those transcripts.
Senator Wells: Leaking on a macro level, if you go on TV and say it, it is not leaking; it is telling.
Senator D. Smith: Shouting.
Senator Wells: I bear that in mind on the timelines.
Senator Fraser: I had understood that the Auditor General was, in fact, going to be returning papers, and if I'm wrong on that, it would be good to know.
In the matter of the leak, we're focusing right now and for understandable reasons on the Auditor General and his office. I would agree that the TV interview where he was talking about numbers and whatnot was questionable, not to pre-judge our findings for this report. However, I do not recall seeing a single news story — and there were dozens of news stories, not only after June 4, but before — I do not recall seeing a single one that suggested that the source was in the Auditor General's office.
We have even in the Library of Parliament document Jordan Press reporting: "The details come from multiple Senate sources with knowledge of Ferguson's final report and of the Senate's planned response.'' If my recollection holds, other news stories also indicated that they had Senate sources.
Now, in my experience, you never find out who leaked something. You can't. You just can't do that.
I would strongly suggest that in the course of this study we focus not only on the systems and the rules for the Auditor General, but the systems and the rules within our own house. Reporters tend not to lie about sources; if they say "multiple Senate sources,'' they had multiple Senate sources. We need to focus on the whole thing, not just on the AG, fun though that might be.
Senator Batters: I want to bring to the committee's attention again, Thursday, June 4, in the morning, what that day was like, because the first salvo in that particular part of this story was the leak that the three members of Senate leadership were among the 21 senators in the less serious category. That leak was before the report was ever delivered to this building.
That day when we came to work there were media at every office building, every building, every meeting room, at the chamber entrance, everywhere all day long, looking for more leaks because the leaks had started.
I recall that that morning CBC was outside the Victoria Building. It was Julie Van Dusen. Hannah Thibedeau was outside the Senate entrance. They had that information. Those were the people who were the victims of the very first leak. Then they had to go out and talk about their personal situations. I know that it was difficult for them to do, to breach what they thought was potentially breaching the terms of their confidentiality agreements that they had signed, but they had to do that because that was then front-page national news all day long and all day long the next day.
Senator Joyal: And all the weekend.
Senator Batters: And all the weekend, yes.
Senator McIntyre: There's no question there have been leaks, but assuming the person or persons responsible eventually are identified, what do we do next? What about sanctions? I noticed that there are different approaches, whether it is the Senate or the House of Commons. As far as the House of Commons is concerned, a privilege concerning leaked reports will not be considered unless a specific charge has been laid.
The Chair: Yes.
Senator McIntyre: And they will say, "Well, it is contempt of Parliament.''
Over the years there have been a lot of leaks, especially in the House of Commons, as nothing has happened; no sanctions. So where do we go from here? Leaks are one thing. What about sanctions? I think eventually we should look into that.
Senator Joyal: There is a point I want to raise about the importance of this study, which is the following: If you read the recommendation of the Auditor General — and I'm sure all honourable senators have read them — there are recommendations whereby the Auditor General recommended there is a continuous oversight of the same nature as, in fact, the one that he has conducted, and, as Senator Wells mentioned, a forensic audit.
I have always contended that it was a forensic audit. You will remember when I stood up in the Senate and questioned Senator Marshall, who happened to be an auditor general by profession. There was no doubt in my opinion that it was a forensic audit. We can see the results.
The main point I want to underline is the following: If we are to eventually embark on a system whereby the control will be as tight as the one that we have gone through for those two years, 2011-12 — and that seems to be what he recommends in his report — then the system has to be watertight, to use the expression of Senator Cools. Otherwise, what kind of trust will we have in cooperating and providing information to a system with leaks time and again?
The trust relationship is very important. If we want to establish a system whereby we will want to cooperate spontaneously — as we do with the Senate Ethics Officer — to open our books and question and seek an opinion before engaging in expenses and so forth and be sure that we are on safe ground, well, it has to be watertight. That's why this study is important, because it will help us if there's a need to take special measures to prevent what Senator McIntyre says is happening again and again.
I think it is important that we come with specific conclusions in relation to that in the future, how we will want to make sure that the expenses of honourable senators are under control and that we rely on the persons who will be charged with that responsibility eventually, depending on the follow-up we're going to give to the recommendation.
The Chair: That is a great point. Our Senate Ethics Officer is a great example of someone who deals with senators every day, and we hear nothing about it. That's exactly what we expect from somebody in that role.
Senator Joyal: That's what I think.
Senator Cools: I would like to make a parliamentary suggestion. It is clear that we don't have enough time to do this study justice, or even fairness, in the amount of time left.
The parliamentary practice is — and I would suggest it to you, chairman — that we should prepare a very short interim report for presentation in the Senate, which was always thought to be preparing the path to get a reference again from the chamber. That's the practice.
We should prepare a short report saying that we have looked at this, done preliminary work, but time is short and we hope to continue it in the new session.
The Chair: Thank you, senator. Let me think about that for a minute, if you don't mind.
Senator Cools: That's parliamentary practice.
The Chair: I understand. We did it with parliamentary privilege last month, in fact, to try and entrench that in this committee. Let me think about it for a minute.
Senator Cools: It is a way that the committee expresses to the Senate its interest in continuing the work.
The Chair: My point is we did exactly that for the parliamentary privilege research we were doing.
Senator Cools: Okay.
The Chair: That's what we did. We did an interim report so that we could try to entrench it in this committee when they return.
Senator Martin: In listening to all of my colleagues, I realize how much I have buried in terms of this whole ordeal, and a lot of thoughts are coming to my mind.
Looking at the motion that we adopted in the Senate, that this case of privilege relating to the leaks of the Auditor General's report on the audit of the Senate be referred to the Standing Senate Committee on Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament for an independent inquiry to be ordered and a report publicly released without delay, it seems fairly open-ended when it says just "an independent inquiry'' about the leaks.
There's been quite a bit of exchange so far on concerns and looking at not just what is happening within the Auditor General's office but what may have happened within Senate administration.
I wanted to ask for clarification. Looking at the motion, it seems a bit open-ended for us as a committee to decide what to do, how far we want to go with this inquiry. Am I reading this correctly?
The Chair: My perspective, and I think others will probably agree, is that we are on a good path. Our issue is timeliness.
Senator Martin: Right.
The Chair: Senator Cools brought forward a good point. That's why I wanted to discuss it.
Senator Martin: We think about confidentiality agreements, but I was concerned about the fact that over the course of the audit, the same people weren't necessarily involved from the beginning to the end, because more people were added. I was wondering what kind of training these new people were given to ensure that, within their own office, confidentiality was met at the highest level.
The Chair: We will add that to our letter as well, senator.
Senator Martin: Thank you.
The Chair: Are we of a mind that we want to present a three-liner to the Senate?
Senator Batters: On that point, I would see the difference between an interim report on this particular matter as compared to the interim report we provided to the Senate on the other matter. We have an entire document to provide to the Senate with that. At this point, we really have no information to relay.
We still do have the ability to continue our work as a steering committee, and we have already indicated the information that will be forwarded out to other senators during the summer months. I think we can continue our work.
Senator Cools: Maybe I wasn't clear enough about the proposal. A committee, once dissolved, everything dies, and it is not automatically restored. A lot of people think it is. The practice has always been to put in a report.
We use the word "interim,'' which shows that you didn't get to the complete end of the study, but the way to secure interest and a place in the queue in respect of studies, and so on, is the practice of putting in an interim report. It is very hard, technically, to get back to a study if you don't do that report. It makes it easier.
The Chair: Timing is a challenge.
Senator Cools: The problem we have right now is time because we're adjourning in the next day or two.
The Chair: If we can get agreement, steering will meet sometime over the next few hours and try to figure out whether or not we have the time to put something forward.
At the end of the day, regardless of what we bring forward, the Senate could ignore it anyway.
Senator Cools: Well, yes.
The Chair: We knew that going forward with the discussion on parliamentary discussion.
Senator Cools: The thing is, it doesn't take much to put it in. The report says how many meetings we had, that sort of thing. Obviously people aren't used to the experience, but it is commonly done.
Senator D. Smith: Get the hound dog sniffing around.
Senator Cools: That's right. This is one problem we have; no one knows Parliament anymore.
The Chair: I will let Charles explain what he just told me so we are all on the same page.
Charles Robert, Clerk of the Committee: I think Senator Cools raises a good point. The real challenge with us is that this may be the last sitting day — we don't know — but time is short.
What could be done, perhaps, is seek permission to table backdoor so that today does not become the due date for preparing a report, however short or brief it may be. As Senator Cools points out, we would have on the record the fact that we have looked into this matter, we're still interested in this matter, and we need more time to do more comprehensive work.
The Chair: I understand National Defence and Security is doing that with their interim report as well.
Senator Cools: That is the custom.
Senator Fraser: I am familiar with interim reports. What I'm not sure about is the propriety of what I am about to suggest. The only witness we have heard is Senator Hervieux-Payette. We don't have that much witness material to work with, but we do have this very interesting document from the Library of Parliament, and even a condensed version of it, to give a formal sense to the Senate of the parameters of this issue, of how other folks have tackled it, with copious reference to the House of Commons report, I would suggest. Is it considered okay to quote from Library of Parliament documents?
The Chair: We did with regard to parliamentary privilege, but it was a bit different.
Mr. Robert: It might be possible to repurpose the document.
Senator Fraser: I'm not saying from the library, but just big chunks of it.
The Chair: Can I get agreement to leave this with steering? I know we're going to end up spending the next hour talking about this, otherwise. Can we get agreement that the steering committee will meet over the next couple of hours and try to decide our way forward? I want to make sure what we put forward is actually valuable and not just what we do when we come back is valuable. Can we get agreement with that?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
Senator Joyal: I don't think this document would be offensive whatsoever. It contains the motion that was adopted in the house in relation to the case of privilege. Then there is background in relation to the motion that was adopted to instruct the Auditor General to conduct the audit, and then there are the various news media reports. It is facts. Then there is the Auditor General Act, which I think is very helpful, and then there is the information on parliamentary privilege in Canada and so forth.
I would have been concerned if one could infer responsibility from the documents, because we didn't give a chance to the Auditor General to present his views or to the people of the Senate to present their views. But as long as it is only facts, I have absolutely no reservations about supporting it.
The Chair: Facts as provided by the media.
Senator Joyal: You understand my preoccupation. We have to abide by the principle we want to follow. As long as the report is only factual, I have no hesitation.
The Chair: Steering will meet before lunch, if that's okay. I was just reminded that we're eating up time for that meeting now.
Nothing further?
I want to thank everyone for the past year, in particular the clerk and staff. It's been a fun year. Thanks to all of you. Have a great summer.
(The committee adjourned.)