Proceedings of the Standing Committee on
Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration
Issue 1 - Evidence - November 28, 2013
OTTAWA, Thursday, November 28, 2013
The Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration met this day at 8:38 a.m., in public, to consider other matters.
Senator Gerald J. Comeau (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Colleagues, Deloitte is expected in about 10 minutes. What we could do is wait until Deloitte comes in before we get into the business, if that would be agreeable. As soon as Deloitte comes in, we will proceed at that point. Thank you.
Okay, we'll get going again. I'd like to introduce Mr. Gary Timm, who will introduce his colleagues. My understanding, Mr. Timm, is that you might have an opening statement which you might want to provide.
Gary Timm, Partner, Financial Services, Deloitte LLP: Yes, we do, if that would be agreeable.
The Chair: Okay, Mr. Timm, if you would not mind introducing your colleagues.
Mr. Timm: That is Peter Dent and Alan Stewart. Peter Dent will lead off with the opening remarks.
Senator Cordy: I would like to raise a point of order, please. I wonder if I could ask a couple of questions, first of Mr. Dent.
The Chair: On the point of order?
Senator Cordy: It is a point of order. I would like to clarify —
The Chair: Okay, I'll entertain it for —
Senator Cordy: — if you give me a couple of seconds. I know I'm asking for some leeway.
I wonder if I could have the position, Mr. Dent, that you hold within the Deloitte firm and are you from the Ottawa office? And can I get that answer before I continue with the point of order or do you want me to keep going?
The Chair: Keep going and I will allow a little bit of leeway again.
Senator Cordy: On April 16 we heard from Mr. Timm, Mr. Stewart and Mr. Vadeboncoeur regarding living expenses from Senator Duffy and Senator Wallin. On April 30 we heard from Mr. Timm, Mr. Vadeboncoeur on the examination of primary and secondary residence status of Senator Duffy. On August 12 we heard from Mr. Timm and Mr. Stewart regarding Senator Wallin's expenses. On June 13 we heard from Mr. Timm and Mr. Vadeboncoeur, and Mr. Dent you appeared at that time. That was when we were receiving an update on Senator Wallin's status because we were wondering when the final report was going to be brought forward and the committee wanted an update.
So Mr. Dent, you did appear at that time, but that was relating to Senator Wallin. We are here today as a committee. We have invited Deloitte here today because of allegations that we've heard that there may have been interference in the investigation of Senator Duffy. I am curious to know why Mr. Dent is appearing today as a witness, number one —
The Chair: Okay, I will stop it right here. I don't feel that this is a point of order. I think Mr. Dent may, in the course of his presentation, address many of these issues. So rather than accepting points of order at this point, I would like Mr. Dent to provide the opening statement.
Senator Cordy: I also wonder, chair, Mr. Vadeboncoeur was an integral part of the investigation and he is not a witness.
The Chair: At this point, your steering committee did discuss the witnesses that would be appearing this morning. If your steering committee erred in not inviting other individuals, that may be the fault of the steering committee, but a decision was made at that point to invite these three individuals and my understanding is they have the principals of the audit group. I was wondering if we could continue, then, with the opening statement.
Senator Cordy: Could Mr. Dent explain his position in his —
The Chair: At this point, if you would not mind, we are getting into questions. I am not going to accept that as a point of order. I am going to ask that we get an opening statement from the witnesses and at that point, we then may proceed with questions. Senator Furey, on the point of order, which I'm asking not be entertained?
Senator Furey: Whether it is a point of order or not, I think what Senator Cordy is getting at, she is harkening back to the last time Mr. Dent was at our committee meeting. And my recollection is that every time a question was asked, there seemed to be a huddle down at the end of the table before we could get an answer. We had never heard of Mr. Dent before. We had always had good dealings with Mr. Timm and Mr. Stewart and any questions we asked them, they were quite capable of answering them. We don't want to go through that exercise a second time.
The Chair: Okay. That's —
Senator Cordy: If you recall the last time, even when such-and-such an event happened, there had to be a discussion of three people to answer what was a fairly straightforward question. So if we could avoid that today, because that was extremely time-consuming and extremely frustrating, certainly to those on our side. I'm not sure about the other side, but it was very frustrating for me to wait for straightforward answers to straightforward questions that there had to be a conference at the end of table before we got an answer.
Senator Tkachuk: Are you saying that they can't consult each other?
Senator Baker: Mr. Chair, on the same point of order —
The Chair: Which I have asked that it not be a point of order.
Senator Baker: I would just like to point out that Peter Dent — and it is Peter Dent of Deloitte & Touche — is on the board of the Alliance for Excellence in Investigative and Forensic Accounting, which sets the standards and principles so he is necessary for the committee.
The Chair: Here is what we will do then: I have already indicated that I would not entertain a point of order at this —
Senator Furey: I don't have any problem with Mr. Dent being here. I am delighted he is here because he does have a lot of information with respect to forensic accounting, but our problem was if we are asking Mr. Timm or Mr. Stewart questions they are quite capable of answering them themselves. Those were the people who were engaged in these audits, primarily. And most of the questions that we will be putting to the witnesses will pertain to that. In the past, they never seemed to have any problem answering them.
The Chair: I'll leave it to the witnesses to not huddle as much as they did the last time around.
Senator Cordy: Thank you for your wise counsel.
The Chair: Thank you.
Peter Dent, Partner, National Leader, Deloitte LLP: Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee. My name is Peter Dent and I am the national leader of Deloitte's forensic advisory practice. Attending with me today are Mr. Alan Stewart, a partner in our Toronto office, and Mr. Gary Timm, a partner in our Ottawa office. I myself am from the Toronto office as well.
As you know, they are the partners who worked most closely on this engagement. You have asked that we appear before you to answer questions related to the forensic examination of Senate expenses, and we welcome this opportunity to answer any questions you might have.
But before we do, I would like to take a very few minutes to provide you with an overview of the approach we took and the processes we followed to ensure our objectivity and maintain the confidentiality of this forensic examination.
Deloitte believes that our professional reputation is our most valuable asset. The independence of our forensic examinations is of paramount importance and we go to great lengths to ensure that such independence is always upheld. We take this responsibility very seriously. In the case of the work that we undertook for the Senate of Canada, this was absolutely the case.
Our reports for each of the four senators in question reflect our objective view of the facts identified in each case. I would like to address the matters considered in the information contained in the affidavit of Corporal Horton, which was dated November 15 of this year.
Regarding the structure of the team and the maintenance of our files, our work was conducted to the standard of utmost confidentiality being maintained at all times. This meant that the flow of confidential information was restricted to ensure that only those who required the confidential information in order to fulfill our mandate had access to it.
Some of the steps taken by us in that regard included keeping all information relating to the forensic examination mandate in a separate, secure room, not accessible to anyone other than the investigative team; keeping all electronic information on secure stand-alone computers within that room; all investigative team members having separate security clearance and adhering to the standard of utmost confidentiality throughout the engagement.
Regarding the communication and our reporting, at no time was any communication regarding the status of the forensic examination or the findings therefrom made known by the investigative team to anyone other than the two Senate subcommittees and the Senate staff involved in the process.
In particular, at no time was any communication regarding the status of the reviews or the findings therefrom made to any other Deloitte partner or employee outside of the investigative team, or examination team, any senator or staff member, except as described above, and anyone from the Prime Minister's Office.
At no time prior to their issuance were any of the reports reviewed or commented upon by anyone outside of the forensic examination team.
We would be pleased to take your questions now, and I will strive to refrain myself from huddling too much with my counterparts.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Senator Furey: Thank you, gentlemen, for coming this morning. Mr. Timm, I note from your engagement letter to the Senate that you are the lead person on the audits; correct?
Mr. Timm: Myself and Alan Stewart were the two co-leads on this assignment.
Senator Furey: I'm looking really at your engagement letter, which says: Our services will be led by Gary Timm, who will serve as lead client service partner and be responsible for the forensic services provided to the Senate.
Does that put you in charge?
Mr. Timm: In that letter, that is correct.
Senator Furey: Okay.
Mr. Timm: But Alan and I both co-led this. Just by way of background on that, we started off with — the process grew in terms of the number of senators. As that grew, Alan came in to be a co-lead with myself.
Senator Furey: Thank you. It wasn't a situation where, say, Mr. Stewart was responsible for Senator Wallin's audit and you were responsible for somebody else's. You worked as a team?
Mr. Timm: We worked as a team to bring experience to the matter.
Senator Furey: Thank you. I was glad to hear Mr. Dent's opening comments, because it is not our intention to in any way, shape or form impugn the reputation — the sterling reputation, I might add — of your firm. Deloitte has quite an excellent reputation across this country. That's not our intent. But we are responsible for the expenditure of taxpayers' monies.
As you know, allegations have been made through mostly the ITO of Corporal Horton, that there were some sort of attempts at, if not actual, interference with the audit process. So obviously our purpose for calling you back here today is to try and clarify some, if not all of that, so we can rest assured here at this committee that none of those allegations are, in fact, true.
I am going to bring you to a couple of items that I would like you, Mr. Timm, if you wouldn't mind, to comment on.
In page 36 of Corporal Horton's ITO, on March 1, 2013, Nigel Wright responded — this is from an email:
Please stay close to Chris and Patrick, Carolyn. As for Wednesday night and Thursday, we got a draft report, we asked for necessary changes. You should have been part of those conversations.
Do you have any idea what Nigel Wright was talking about? Was there in early March any kind of a draft report from Deloitte?
Mr. Timm: No.
Senator Furey: You have absolutely no idea what he was talking about there?
Mr. Timm: I have no idea about that draft report, no.
Senator Furey: If the PMO were talking about having a draft report, it must have come somewhere other than from you and the people that you had working on Senator Duffy's audit?
Mr. Timm: That is correct. We did not have a draft report at that stage.
Senator Furey: Did you ever suspect or think at any time that the PMO was making inquiries of your firm about Duffy's report?
Mr. Timm: In terms of inquiries from the PMO's office, no, I wouldn't know that.
Senator Furey: Did you hear second- or third-hand from anybody either within your firm or close to your firm of any questions that were being asked by the Prime Minister's Office pertaining to Duffy's report?
Mr. Timm: In terms of from the Prime Minister's Office, no, that's correct.
Senator Furey: Or anybody outside of the Prime Minister's Office, like another senator who wasn't directly involved in this?
Mr. Timm: No. I have read the media reports, but no.
Senator Furey: One of the other allegations is set out on page 37 where Nigel Wright wrote:
Today I asked Sen. Gerstein to actually work through senior contacts at Deloitte and with Sen. LeBreton. . . .
Now, who is Mr. Runia?
Mr. Timm: He is the managing partner for our Ontario region, which is everything but Toronto, in the audit practice of Deloitte.
Senator Furey: Did Mr. Runia have occasion to contact you about Senator Duffy's report?
Mr. Timm: He contacted me on one occasion, one phone call. The call was — he wanted to know if Senator Duffy were to repay, how much would that be. I told him I can't divulge or disclose any confidential information. He understood my reply. I directed him to public information where if he wanted to find out what the total entitlements that a senator could have for living allowances was. It was a short call and it ended there.
Senator Furey: Did you ask him why he was making the call, or on whose behalf he was making the call?
Mr. Timm: Okay. In terms of that, given my background, I wanted to keep everything confidential and I wanted that call, like I said, to end shortly, so I ended it. No, given the question, no.
Senator Furey: All right. But he did call you about the report?
Mr. Timm: He called me about that one question.
Senator Furey: I am delighted that you cut him off because you were building, I guess, what has recently been referred to by your firm as an ethical wall. Is that correct?
Mr. Timm: Okay. In terms of building that, yes, that's correct, our investigative team completely. It was alluded to by Peter with the forensic work, the three of us are of that background so we had a complete team with the items that Peter disclosed, making sure and everybody was aware they were not to communicate with anybody outside the team.
Senator Furey: On page 38, again, of Corporal Horton's report, Patrick Rogers states:
Senator Gerstein has just called. He agrees with our understanding of the situation and his Deloitte contact agrees.
Would you know who he was talking about there?
Mr. Timm: I don't know on that at all.
Senator Furey: ``The stage we're at now,'' he continues ``is waiting for the Senator's contact to get the actual Deloitte auditor on the file . . .'' That would be you, I guess, Mr. Timm, ``. . . to agree. The Senator will call back once we have Deloitte locked in.''
Do you have any idea what they were talking about?
Mr. Timm: I have no idea on that.
Senator Furey: If there was, in fact, something going on with respect to anybody else outside of your firm, and any of your partners regarding Senator Duffy's file, with the exception of the phone call you received from Mr. Runia, you knew nothing else?
Mr. Timm: I knew nothing else, and for your information, I checked with our complete team, and nobody else had any other contacts, either.
Senator Furey: Now, I will take you to page 39, and I know you don't have the document, so I'll read the paragraph that I find quite disturbing:
Patrick Rogers later wrote:
``. . . I would propose that the Senator continue to not engage with Deloitte. I believe that we should make arrangements for repayment knowing that Deloitte will not say one way or another on his residency. . . .''
How would he have known that? Because that basically reflects your response in the Duffy report. The Deloitte report actually does not arrive at a conclusion about his residency. This is March 21, almost a full month before you briefed the committee. How do you think Mr. Rogers would have known that?
Alan Stewart, Partner, Forensic Services, Deloitte LLP: Perhaps I can answer that, senator.
Senator Furey: Sure, Mr. Stewart.
Mr. Stewart: We have looked at the ITO, clearly, and that paragraph was troubling for us, too.
The details of that paragraph — I do not have it in front of me — but I believe it goes on to say that Deloitte will be unable to reach a conclusion on Senator Duffy's residency because we will not be receiving information from Senator Duffy. I'm paraphrasing.
That was not our position. That was never our position in the investigation. The reason that we did not reach a conclusion on Senator Duffy or any of the other three senators' residencies, when we were asked to look at it, is because of the lack of criteria in the rules for establishing a primary residency.
It was not the position of the investigative team at any time that we would be unable to reach a conclusion on Senator Duffy's residency because he would not be providing us information.
So I don't know where that information came from, but it did not come from the investigative team.
Senator Furey: You have to admit, Mr. Stewart, that it accurately reflects the findings, the actual findings, of the Deloitte report on Senator Duffy's primary residence issue.
Mr. Stewart: It does not, no. It reflects the ultimate conclusion.
Senator Furey: That's what I mean.
Mr. Stewart: But it does not reflect the findings. I think of relevance, as well, Senator Furey, is — on February 28, we briefed both subcommittees, so the subcommittee dealing with Senators Brazeau and Harb, and also the senator — the other subcommittee dealing with Senators Wallin and Duffy. That was on February 28. I attended those meetings with Mr. Timm.
At the meeting with Senator Tkachuk and that committee — sorry. At the meetings with both committees, we provided an update on the status, and we indicated not our conclusion but our likely conclusion regarding our inability to come to a determination of primary residency. We were concerned at that stage about the lack of criteria, and we communicated that to both committees.
Senator Furey: At the end of the day, Mr. Rogers was quite clear a month before you gave your report to the committee that Deloitte was not going to reach any kind of conclusion with respect to residency, and that fairly accurately reflects your report, the conclusions in your report. So you are telling me and you are telling the committee, actually, that have you no way of knowing how Mr. Rogers would have known that.
Mr. Stewart: That's correct.
Senator Furey: Thank you.
Mr. Timm, on this issue of primary residence — I'm not going to take too much longer, chair — you will recall that on at least two or three occasions, I argued with you about the primary residency issue.
You said you couldn't come to a conclusion. I said, as did other members of the committee subsequently, some in camera and some in public, but I said consistently to you that I thought it was a very simple exercise. When a senator comes to Ottawa to work, they ask themselves the following question: Did I come more than 100 kilometres from where I normally live to work in Ottawa? If the answer is yes, you are entitled to a housing allowance and per diems. If the answer is no, you are not. We had a couple significant debates about that and you insisted that it wasn't that clear.
Just refresh the committee's memory as to why you think a matter, even a matter that sets out a principle about when you can collect public money while travelling around travel status was so confusing for you.
Mr. Timm: It is not confusing. What we indicated in our report, and what we indicated was that we were looking for criteria to be able to measure against to say: Was it a primary residence or not? And we indicated that there is not sufficient criteria to allow us to do that, and that was — and that's contained within our report as well.
Senator Furey: Okay. Now, I'm going to take you to your report on Senator Wallin. A couple of months later, you make the following conclusions and statements in your report with respect to Senator Wallin's primary residence. You say:
. . . we conclude that her primary residence was more than 100km from the NCR.
How could you conclude it in her case if the information you had from the Senate wasn't able to give you enough information to conclude it in the other senators' cases?
Mr. Timm: And I don't have that report in front of me, but if we read on as well, we said we couldn't conclude — we concluded that it was other than the NCR, because there were specifics that if we looked at it, virtually any time she was in the NCR, but for four days, if I recall that correctly, she was on Senate business. That was the only time she was in the NCR. So that allowed us to say primary residence was not the NCR but we didn't know where it was because it still lacked criteria is what we still have in that report.
Senator Furey: Your report states very clearly, and I will read it again for you:
. . . we conclude that her primary residence was more than 100 km from the NCR.
Mr. Timm: But again, you have — like I said, there is within that report explanations as to what I just said right now as to why we're able to say that it is other than the NCR.
Senator Furey: And you talked about travel patterns and a few things like that and time spent.
You were asked about the travel patterns of Senator Duffy, when we talked about this before, and you didn't say that that had any impact on your finding, or your lack of finding, with respect to primary residence for Senator Duffy. I'll just read your last part of that sentence in your document. You say:
As such, the NCR living allowances claimed by Senator Wallin appear to be appropriate in keeping with Senate practice.
I don't have any problem with that conclusion, but you could not possibly reach that conclusion without determining where her primary residence was and that it was beyond 100 kilometres. That's what I find confusing.
As I said, I have had this argument with you many times before about primary residence because I think, as did this committee in its report, that it was very simple, and we actually — we actually in our report said that contrary to what you found, that it was unambiguous.
Mr. Stewart: That's correct, senator. Part of our mandate — our mandate was to classify each of the claims into one of three possible categories, acceptable with — I'm paraphrasing because I don't have it in front of me — acceptable with Senate practice, reimbursable to the Receiver General, or we were unable to determine and we put it back to this committee. That's what we did with the living allowances for Senators Duffy, Harb and Brazeau.
Senator Furey: That's a little bit different than what I'm asking, Mr. Stewart. You can understand why we find it troubling, I hope. We have these allegations that the Prime Minister's Office knew a month before the committee that you weren't going to reach a finding in Senator Duffy's case about primary residence, and, indeed, you didn't, but you are telling us you have absolutely no knowledge of how that happened, which is fine. But then we go a couple months later to Senator Wallin and you have no problem finding that her primary residence is more than 100 kilometres from the NCR, so that her expenses claimed in Ottawa are fine. That's what I find troubling.
Mr. Stewart: I'm not sure quite why you find it troubling, Senator Furey.
Senator Furey: I find it troubling because the allegations around what happened here pertain to your firm not bringing back to this committee any determination as pertaining to Senator Duffy's primary residence, even though we pointed out on many occasions that his travel pattern was Ottawa, Charlottetown, Ottawa. Even on the occasional time during the summer, when he drove to Charlottetown or PEI, his travel pattern was drive from Ottawa, Charlottetown, Ottawa.
That travel pattern always seemed to indicate to most people we spoke with that, it doesn't sound like a guy who spends most of his time in Ottawa, or in Charlottetown, I mean, in this case.
Mr. Stewart: I understand. I believe Senator Harb had the same travel pattern.
Senator Furey: The exact same problem with Brazeau.
Mr. Stewart: We came to the same conclusion or lack of conclusion on Senators Brazeau and Harb.
Senator Furey: Those three reports came out around the same time. But three months later you came to a different conclusion with respect to Senator Wallin. As I said, it is not my intention here to impugn Deloitte, far be it from that because I have the greatest respect for you people. I just want to get this clarified.
Mr. Stewart: Sure. I think the big difference between Senator Wallin and the other three senators is that the other three senators spent a lot of time in Ottawa that was not Senate business. Therefore, we couldn't determine their primary residence. With Senator Wallin, as Mr. Timm said, I think it was all but four days of the days that she spent in Ottawa during the period that we reviewed were on Senate business. Therefore, the other time that she spent presumably was at her primary residence, which, by definition, is more than 100 kilometres from Ottawa, either in Wadena or in Toronto or other places.
Senator Furey: I'm not going to argue with you again, Mr. Stewart, but I think it is very simple. Every year a senator signs a declaration of where their primary residence is. Every senator that I know of, certainly 95 per cent of them, know that the intent of signing that is to say, ``When I'm coming here to work, I'm coming more than 100 kilometres from where I normally live.'' I'm just a bit puzzled that you didn't reach a conclusion with respect to that, that Mr. Rogers and the PMO knew, apparently, at least as it is alleged, that you weren't going to reach that conclusion a month before we got the report. Then two months later, you reached a conclusion about primary residence with respect to Senator Wallin. Let me move on, because I know many other senators have questions.
I wanted to very quickly ask you, Mr. Timm, if you met with anyone, with respect to Senator Duffy's audit, outside of the committee that you had been responsible to — Ms. Jill Anne Joseph, the clerk, or any other Senate employees that you knew you had permission to meet with? Did you meet with anybody else?
Mr. Timm: No.
Senator Furey: Did you have any correspondence of any kind, oral, written, electronic, including phone?
Mr. Timm: No.
Mr. Stewart: Sorry, just to be clear, there was communication with Senator Duffy's counsel.
Senator Furey: I would include that as Senator Duffy, yes, which is fine. I don't have any problem with that.
Did you meet with any members of the committee alone?
Mr. Stewart: I did not.
Mr. Timm: Again, I don't recall any, no.
Senator Furey: Let me refresh your memory. Senator Tkachuk reported to me and Senator Stewart Olsen on one occasion that he had met alone with you. Can you recall that?
Mr. Timm: Not offhand — I don't recall it. I can check and see for you, but I don't recall.
Senator Furey: There may have been staff present, I don't know, but Senator Tkachuk did report to us that he had met with you —
Senator Tkachuk: As chair of the committee.
Senator Furey: As chair of the committee. I thought it was unwise at the time, though, and I told you that; but you did report back to us. I just wanted to get Mr. Timm's recollection of what went on.
You can't remember that meeting?
Mr. Timm: I don't remember the meeting, actually, no.
Senator Furey: If you wouldn't mind refreshing your notes and probably just sending me an email or something as to what the context of that meeting was — what was discussed, I would appreciate it.
Mr. Timm: Yes.
Senator Cools: Just a point of order: Should we address that to the chairman of the committee? Because any information goes through the chair.
The Chair: Yes, that would be a good idea, if you wouldn't mind, and then it would be passed on.
Senator Furey: Thank you, chair.
Senator Marshall: I wanted to go back and talk about the investigative team, and Mr. Dent did mention it.
Can you tell me all of the people that were on the investigative team? You were on it, Mr. Timm and Mr. Stewart. Was Mr. Dent considered a member of the investigative team?
Mr. Stewart: Yes.
Senator Marshall: He was. So who else? Obviously, there were other people involved in the detailed analysis. Could you list off the people who were involved or part of the investigative team?
Mr. Timm: This the investigative team for the four senators.
Senator Marshall: Yes.
Mr. Timm: It would be Guillaume Vadeboncoeur, Dean Bowes, Chris Shadbolt, Erin Creighton, Melissa Brown, Grace Ramos, Chelsea Leighton — I'm sorry, I just want to make sure I don't miss anybody — and Corey Fotheringham. Because we have a number of reviews that we go through, Roddy Allan was another partner from Toronto, who was quality assurance partner on this as well.
Senator Marshall: Okay.
Mr. Timm: I'm going to confer to make sure I haven't missed anybody if that is okay.
The Chair: We don't mind if you huddle once in a while.
Mr. Timm: I just want to make sure that it's okay. As well, there was Brian Casey, who was an IT forensic specialist.
Senator Marshall: Who was the lead? There had to be somebody in control. Was that you? Were you the lead person?
Mr. Timm: Well, what it came to was Mr. Stewart and I, quite frankly, were there day to day doing the file, looking after it and managing the decisions throughout the file.
Senator Marshall: Either you or Mr. Dent indicated earlier how you tried to keep this contained because of the sensitivity of the audit. What kind of controls did you have in place? I mean, you had — one, two, three, four, five — in addition to yourselves, a dozen other people who had access to either some or all of the audit information. How do you control all of that to make sure that confidentiality is preserved and that information doesn't leak out?
Mr. Stewart: Before any team member is brought on to the investigation, they're basically met with and that's described to them — that the confidentiality of this engagement was described to them. Not all team members were privy to all information. Some only worked on a certain small piece of one or more of the senators' investigations.
There was a core team of probably half a dozen who worked on most of the investigations. All of the information was contained in a secure room within Deloitte's Ottawa office. Access is restricted to that room. The information in that room is twofold: hard copy and electronic. The hard copy information is maintained in filing cabinets that have a password padlock, and that password is only known to members of the team. The electronic information is maintained on two standalone laptops, which do not have Internet access, and, again, passwords are only known to the members of the team. No one is allowed to bring a mobile device or other laptop into that room.
What am I missing?
Mr. Timm: As well, even printers are contained within the room; they're not within our overall system. You can only print from the laptop to the printer.
Senator Marshall: So am I correct in understanding that the report itself was not accessible by all of these individuals, that many of these individuals would have access to part of the audit project but not necessarily the audit report?
Mr. Stewart: That's correct.
Senator Marshall: So who would have access to the audit report?
Mr. Timm: It would be me and Mr. Steward. Peter Dent would have had access to it. Guillaume Vadeboncoeur. Roddy Allan because he would have come in and had to do the review. Dean Bowes. Dean Bowes and Guillaume are both senior managers within our practice, so they would have been involved in drafting that as well. And Chris Shadbolt, because he actually put together our visual presentations that we did, so he needed access to the reports to them to do that for us.
Senator Marshall: I think you named seven people. Are you confident that the confidentiality of the report was maintained and didn't get outside of that core group?
Mr. Stewart: Yes.
Mr. Timm: Yes.
Senator Marshall: When you reported to the two subcommittees, basically what your audit report did was it laid out the audit evidence, and then your audit team came to a conclusion. You put it in the report, and then you gave it to the two subcommittees of the Senate. They had access to the audit evidence, and they came to their conclusion.
I can tell you, for the subcommittee that was responsible for Senator Harb's and Senator Brazeau's audits, we kept it within a very small group. It was the three members of the subcommittee — Senator Campbell, Senator Comeau and myself — and the clerk of the committee, and we debated the audit evidence. Can you tell us how you came to the conclusion that you did with regard to Senator Duffy? Who would be in that group?
Mr. Stewart: I'm sorry; I am confused, Senator Marshall. You mentioned your committee. Our conclusion was reached within Deloitte.
Senator Marshall: Yes, but who?
Mr. Stewart: Who within Deloitte?
Senator Marshall: Yes, who was in that group that talked about what the conclusion should be?
Mr. Stewart: That group was, first of all, Gary and me and then Peter, as a quality reviewer, and then Roddy Allan, as the ultimate — he was the final partner who reviewed our conclusions. Gary is right; Guillaume Vadeboncoeur and Dean Bowes were also involved in the preliminary discussions.
Senator Marshall: Okay, so Mr. Runia wouldn't have had any input into the conclusion?
Mr. Stewart: Absolutely not.
Senator Marshall: Okay, I also wanted to talk about: Who did you see as your client when you were carrying out the audits of Senators Duffy, Harb and Brazeau?
Mr. Stewart: The two subcommittees.
Senator Marshall: So any change in plans with any regard to the change in mandate, because you had terms of reference, would have had to come from those subcommittees? Is that correct?
Mr. Stewart: Absolutely, yes.
Senator Marshall: Any direction or any request from any other source would not have been considered?
Mr. Stewart: Correct.
Senator Marshall: Okay, thank you. Those are all the questions I have for now, Mr. Chair. I may wish to go back after.
Senator Segal: I guess it's the obvious question, which I think you've answered, but I think I should just put it on the record. To your knowledge, as the audit group that was working on the Duffy file, at any point, was any influence brought to bear regarding the report, its dimensions, as defined by your audit team, or its conclusions, from any external source at all?
Mr. Stewart: No.
Mr. Timm: No.
Senator Segal: Thank you. In the report, you said on page 7 of the Duffy report:
During the period of our examination, one significant change was made to the SARs that has bearing on our analysis. The change was made June 5, 2012 to introduce the Senators' Travel Policy, which effectively replaced the previous SARs Section 4:03 Travel Entitlements and Expenses.
Would it be your view — this is a hypothetical, so you may reject it on that basis — but would it be your view that, had those changes that were brought in in June of 2012 been in effect from the very beginning, your ability to come to a determination without the problem of lack of clarity between different provisions around residence would have been enhanced? In other words, if, as you said, there were so many different definitions that you could not come to a precise view, which I think was your conclusion, would your ability to have come to a precise view been enhanced substantially if the rules that were brought in in June of 2012 had been brought in, let's say, June of 2009? Would your circumstance have been easier? Would it have been more simple for you to come to a conclusion that had, perhaps, greater clarity than the one that the circumstance in place at the time allowed you to reach?
Mr. Stewart: If we may.
It may have been a little more straightforward, Senator Segal, because there would have been less use of multiple terminologies, which we did set out in the report. I'm sorry that I don't have it in front of me, but I don't recall there being any criteria still around the determination of primary residency in the June 5 rules. So I think that still would have been lacking.
Senator Segal: As a general premise — and I'm just talking about the audit done with respect to the Senator Duffy — would it be your view — and often, in my experience with auditors, they not only do a careful job of analyzing, based on what the rules provide, but they then will provide — and it was not part of your mandate — recommendations as to how rules might be tightened to make the job of determining people's fidelity to the rules easier on a go-forward basis. That wasn't part of your mandate, so I'm not being, in any way, critical. But, as a general principle, if you were doing this work for any other organization and you found this lack of clarity in rules, do you think the sort of thing that Deloitte might consider as a recommendation was that the rules, in fact, must be clearer and more precise on a go-forward basis? It would be helpful to everybody?
Mr. Stewart: Yes, it would.
Senator Segal: It would. Thank you
[Translation]
Senator Massicotte: I do not have much to say on the matter of primary residence. You already know my opinion on that. I do not accept your arguments that it was not clear. I know it is a matter of judgement and that that was your mandate. I know there may not be any criteria, but the definitions of residence, of primary residence, in the Larousse and Webster's dictionaries are pretty clear. I think that you did not do your job in this regard.
[English]
Maybe it would maybe be easier if I speak in English.
Michael Runia — you started your presentation saying how important your reputation is. It's a fundamental essence of any audit firm that independence is critical and that you manage conflict of interest. It's the expertise. It's your brand name. It's the value of your total brand. Maybe you can explain to me Michael Runia, I understand, is your senior partner of the Ontario offices, excluding Toronto. How could he even entertain such a discussion? I understand it was not one discussion. He had at least a couple of discussions with senators not involved in what you define as your client. How could he even have this lapse in judgment and even permit himself to make a call to you?
Mr. Stewart: To my knowledge, I've never met Mr. Runia, so I couldn't comment on what he did or did not do.
Senator Massicotte: Are you saying that, when he called you and Mr. Timm, you didn't know it was him? You must've known it was him on the phone.
Mr. Timm: I didn't say that, but I don't think we can comment on what Mr. Runia was thinking or doing.
Senator Massicotte: Why is he not here this morning?
Mr. Stewart: The committee —
The Chair: May I intervene? We did not invite Mr. Runia.
Senator Furey: On Senator Massicotte's point, Mr. Timm, when you were contacted by Mr. Runia, did you think it was important to notify your client about that contact?
Mr. Timm: Actually, what I did do was I advised both Alan and Peter and we had discussed that — ``discussed'' in terms of what I was — what Mr. Runia asked of me and what my response was. Given the nature of it, it didn't affect anything with respect to our attempting to determine the primary residence or residency, and that I had made sure there was no information disclosed at all. We felt that we can move forward and go forward on that.
Senator Furey: What would be the normal accounting standards and auditing standards in your firm for that sort of a situation? Would it not be that you report all sorts of contact to your client and let them determine if there is a problem? Is that not the practice?
Mr. Dent: The practice would be that we would exercise our own professional judgment around those types of communications. I am not familiar with an auditing standard around such a communication.
Again, as Mr. Timm has indicated, he disclosed the contact to both me and Mr. Stewart. It did not affect our objectivity. It did not affect the contact of our analysis. It had no bearing on the work we were doing. We didn't have any greater context to the call and, therefore, we did not see it as being that critical.
Senator Furey: So that was an internal decision that you made, and it's safe to say that you did not communicate any of that to your client?
Mr. Dent: Yes.
Mr. Timm: Yes.
Senator Massicotte: When we asked you questions earlier about communications with different committees, you clearly acknowledged that your employer was the two subcommittees. In all cases when you made reports, verbal and in writing, they were always with the full subcommittee present?
Mr. Stewart: I believe so. I think the very first meetings that I attended were on February 28, and the second meeting was with Senator Tkachuk's committee. I believe Senator Furey may have been a few moments late, but every meeting I was in was with the full subcommittees.
Senator Massicotte: There was no telephone discussion by any one of the committees asking you for an update of the audit or discussion of your audit process?
Mr. Stewart: I did not have any, no.
Senator Massicotte: The other people in your committee — an obvious question — they would answer the same? You mentioned five or six people involved in drafting the report. They also got no phone call, no requests for comment or discussion of where you were at?
Mr. Stewart: Correct.
Mr. Timm: Correct, yes.
Senator Massicotte: And the February 28 briefing of the committee was where you basically indicated that was your likely conclusion that you could not come to the conclusion of residency. That was a verbal update, not a written update?
Mr. Stewart: Correct.
Senator Massicotte: That was the first update you gave anybody as to your preliminary conclusions?
Mr. Timm: Yes, as best as we can recall.
Just to remind you, though, Jill Anne Joseph was the administrative person. So, as we were going through and getting information, we may have chatted or discussed something with her, but that would be the only other person.
Senator Massicotte: Relative to those initial verbal, written — all these preliminary meetings — was anything discussed at those meetings which maybe would have influenced the wording or your conclusions in your report?
Mr. Stewart: No.
Senator Massicotte: So you left the meeting with the exact same conclusions as you thought you had in entering the meetings with the subcommittees?
Mr. Stewart: Yes. I don't want to put too strong a — you know, the word ``conclusion.'' This was the preliminary way we were going. We had not reached a conclusion on February 28, but we indicated to both of our clients that that was likely the way we were going to end up.
Senator Massicotte: Did anybody in the subcommittee ask for amendments to your report?
Mr. Stewart: Ask for amendments to our report?
Senator Massicotte: Yes.
Mr. Stewart: No.
Senator Massicotte: Or to your preliminary report as you were so —
Mr. Stewart: I would like to be clear on the terminology. There was no preliminary report at that stage. It was a status update and we gave them a verbal indication.
Senator Massicotte: That you could not come to a conclusion of residency?
Mr. Stewart: Correct.
Senator Massicotte: Was there a significant discussion of that preliminary conclusion of where you were going?
Mr. Stewart: I don't recall significant discussion, no.
Mr. Timm: Well, there would have been some discussion and, as I think Senator Furey has pointed out, he would have definitely — I recall Senator Furey would always question. So I would think there probably was some discussion around that, but that was more challenging our conclusions than influencing in any way.
Senator Massicotte: When we read some of the emails, and as we witnessed ourselves — I participated in the Internal Committee with Senator Duffy — he clearly had it as his strategy to not cooperate. Did you experience the same when you questioned him on information requests, and so on?
Mr. Timm: Well, first of all, we didn't get to question Senator Duffy. We did make a number of requests to his legal counsel for information and to meet with him.
Senator Massicotte: Were they fully cooperative in providing the information you required?
Mr. Timm: As was also noted in our report, they didn't provide any information or meet with us.
Senator Massicotte: Was that reported in your February 28 or your March 1 report to the subcommittees?
Mr. Stewart: Well, it was February 28 and, yes, the status regarding Senator Duffy was part of the discussion with Senator Tkachuk's committee.
Senator Massicotte: In other words, you did advise the subcommittee that counsel for Senator Duffy were not cooperating and that was impeding your forensic audit?
Mr. Timm: We would have indicated that we had not got any information from them as of yet. That was February 28. In fact, when I look at notes on February 27, I had actually before the meeting followed up again with Senator Duffy's counsel to ask if they were going to provide information. So, yes, we would have reported that to the committee.
Mr. Stewart: I'd just like to be clear, senator. At that stage we were following up with Senator Duffy's counsel. There had not been an absolute refusal to cooperate or to provide information; we didn't have any at that stage. The response we received on the 27th from counsel was, ``I hope to be able to reply by the end of week.'' So kind of a holding —
Senator Massicotte: I'm sure you read the deposition, all the emails and all the correspondence. For a firm that, rightfully so, you sell your independence, your competence, your expertise, when you read all of this stuff, it's kind of amazing that, in early March, further to your initial meeting with the subcommittee whereby there seems to be a heck of a coincidence between reaching a non-conclusion of residency — basically, going where they wanted you to go politically, for obvious reasons. It kind of smells, really, a lot.
You must be concerned about it because most people off the street would say, ``Hmm, something's wrong here. It seems to be more than a coincidence.'' How do you respond to that? It must concern you. It doesn't look very good.
Mr. Stewart: All we can deal with is the investigative team. Again, we can assure you that no confidential information was provided out of the investigative team to anyone other than the two Senate subcommittees we were dealing with and the Senate administrative people that we were dealing with. Our objectivity was maintained at all times.
Senator Massicotte: In spite of the fact that your very senior boss was allowing himself to have several discussion — or, at least a couple of discussions with senators not involved in the subcommittees and basically giving you a call — at least one and you say one — and having seemingly two discussions with senators not on the file, trying to find out and to be a nice person to a very significant client who gives you hundreds of millions of dollars of audit money every year. It leads one to think there is a conflict and maybe you would have been flexible. Now you are saying not, but, irrespective, your senior boss in Ontario allowed himself to do so.
Mr. Stewart: I'd just like to clarify that Mr. Runia is not my boss. I report to Mr. Dent, who's the service line leader in forensic. And Mr. Runia is in Ontario, not Toronto, so I do not report to him. He's not my boss. I don't think I've ever met him.
Senator Massicotte: And Mr. Timm, is Mr. Runia more senior than you are?
Mr. Timm: Mr. Runia is more senior, but again, my reporting is to Mr. Dent and Ms. Mingie as well, so that is the reporting relationship that I have, actually.
Senator Massicotte: I thought Mr. Runia was the most senior audit person in Ontario, excluding Toronto.
Mr. Timm: But that's audit. We are in the forensic practice, so it's a different service line.
Senator Massicotte: So he would have no influence on you whatsoever?
Mr. Timm: No.
Mr. Stewart: No.
Senator Massicotte: Hard to believe. Thank you.
The Chair: Just before we go to Senator Marshall, I have one very specific question.
In fulfilling the contract with the Senate, what are Deloitte's legal obligations to us, as a general statement, such as independence and integrity? Did you fulfill that general contract with us?
Mr. Stewart: Yes, we did.
The Chair: Bluntly, you fulfilled that contract?
Mr. Stewart: Yes, we did.
Mr. Timm: Yes.
The Chair: Okay. Thank you.
Senator Marshall: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to bring up something that Senator Furey sort of alluded to and so did Senator Massicotte. They were asking Mr. Timm about any possible telephone conversations with members of subcommittees.
I just want to put it on the record, seeing that Senator Campbell and Senator Comeau are here, that for the subcommittee on Senator Brazeau and Senator Harb, my recollection is that there were two occasions that I had telephone conversations was Mr. Timm. At the request of Senator Campbell and Senator Comeau, they did ask me to make the telephone call. It was on very specific matters, and Jill Anne Joseph did sit in and take notes. After my conversation with Mr. Timm, I did report back to both Senator Campbell and Senator Comeau. I wanted to put that on the record.
I did want to follow up on a question I had earlier. In Sergeant Horton's ITO, there was reference throughout the document about stopping the Duffy audit. The Duffy audit could not be stopped unless your client wanted it stopped. Is that not correct?
Mr. Stewart: That's absolutely correct.
Senator Marshall: Thank you. That's all.
The Chair: Just so members are aware, we do have to be out of this room at 10 past 10 this morning, so I'm just passing that along as a point of information.
Senator Massicotte: Could I have a supplementary on Senator Marshall's comments?
The Chair: Please make it a brief supplementary because we have other people who haven't gotten to ask questions yet, so Senator Massicotte, very brief.
Senator Massicotte: We just found out about another direct phone call. Is that another one you forgot? Are there any others besides that?
Mr. Timm: No.
Senator Munson: Thank you. I am curious as to why Mr. Vadeboncoeur — he was an auditor — is not here today. Did he not take part in this audit?
Mr. Stewart: Again, the three partners you see before you were invited by the Senate subcommittee. We didn't control who was asked here today.
Senator Munson: Mr. Timm, you talked about the telephone conversation with Mr. Runia, but that was at the very beginning of this committee meeting.
What exactly were his words? What did he say? What was the tone of the conversation? You said it was a short conversation, but I would like to know exactly what he said to you.
Mr. Timm: As I indicated before, he wanted to know if Senator Duffy were to repay, how much would that amount be. And I said I couldn't tell him; I couldn't disclose any confidential information to him. That was the gist of the conversation.
As I said, I directed him to, basically, the external documents where he could find out what the entitlements of a senator are for travel and living allowances.
Senator Munson: And you didn't think you had to report it to this committee, that that interference was there? Because it seems the simple call to you was breaking that ethical wall. The simple call from the conversation with Senator Gerstein and Mr. Runia, then the call to you, that was breaking that ethical wall with Deloitte.
Mr. Dent: Breaching the ethical wall would entail us disclosing confidential information to any individuals outside of who was entitled to receive it. That did not happen.
Senator Munson: So this was reported to no one except the three of you. That's it?
Mr. Dent: We discussed it amongst ourselves, yes.
Senator Munson: Just to follow up again, I'm curious that if you can't remember, Mr. Timm, having a conversation with Senator Tkachuk who was Chair of Internal Economy — this is pretty important business that we are dealing with — is it possible there are others? You talked about not remembering the telephone conversation with Senator Marshall, is it possible there are others that you might have talked to that you have forgotten about?
Mr. Timm: No.
Senator Munson: Well, you did say that you would check your emails to see what those conversations were about because Senator Tkachuk updated the subcommittee, which is an important thing to do, and I think it would be important for us to know what that call was about.
Mr. Timm: I will follow up on that, but one thing I will point out, given that they were our clients, I guess it wasn't something that was unusual. And I don't recall any other calls at all, but I will follow up and let you know.
Senator Munson: Thank you.
Senator Cordy: Thank you very much for answering questions in a very timely way today.
Was there any discussion at all in the firm about the perceived — or the optics of a conflict between you investigating senators' expenses and being the auditors for the Conservative Fund, the Conservative Party? Was there any discussion about that at the firm?
Mr. Dent: Certainly, we go through standard independence checks on all new engagements, and that would have been one of our considerations as part of an independence check. We viewed it within the firm that there was no impairment of independence; we were independent with respect to this matter, and therefore, we approved the engagement. And that approval process — if you will bear with me, I can describe the approval process to you.
That approval process would involve four partners: Mr. Timm as the engagement partner of record, the one that signed the contract; Sue Mingie, who Gary Timm mentioned already, who is a partner within our group that is based out of the Kitchener-Waterloo office but is responsible for our group for the Ontario region, excluding Toronto; it would have come to myself to approve the engagement as the practice leader for this area of the firm in Canada; and then, ultimately, it would have gone to our risk partner in our group as well to review the overall independence checks that we were conducting. That's the approval process.
Senator Cordy: I wonder if the committee could have a copy of your conflict of interest policy, if you could send it to the chair.
I am also wondering whether or not — did you discuss this possible conflict with members of the subcommittee of Internal?
Mr. Timm: No, we didn't.
Senator Cordy: Going back to the conversations of Senator Gerstein with Mr. Runia, who is one of your partners, I'm just wondering, most accounting firms have contact sheets for phone calls. Did Mr. Runia fill out a contact sheet regarding his phone calls with Senator Gerstein? Do you know?
Mr. Dent: I don't know.
Mr. Timm: I don't know what he does. I don't know.
Senator Cordy: I'm wondering also if Mr. Runia spoke — and maybe you don't know this. He did phone you, Mr. Timm. Did he speak to anybody else within Deloitte?
Mr. Timm: Did he — sorry?
Senator Cordy: Did he speak to anybody else in the firm regarding the phone calls that he had received from Senator Gerstein?
Mr. Timm: I don't know.
The Chair: Thank you. Now we are into the final minutes of the meeting, and I do still have Senators Furey, Baker, Cools and Kinsella, so if we could all keep our questions extremely short at this point, so that we can get all of our members in, please.
Senator Furey: Thank you, chair. I won't be very long. The one thing I forgot to ask, Mr. Timm, what was the date of that phone call that you received from Mr. Runia?
Mr. Timm: My best recollection was in March sometime is when that would have been.
Senator Furey: So it was before you presented your report to our committee on April 16?
Mr. Timm: It would have been before April 16, yes.
Senator Furey: Okay. Thank you. A couple of last questions. Mr. Stewart, I've asked this of Mr. Timm, so I am going to ask it of you as well. Did you have any communications — written, oral, electronic, including phone — with anybody outside of the circle that we have discussed here that should have been contacted?
Mr. Stewart: No.
Senator Furey: Okay. And, Mr. Dent, I didn't see your name on the engagement letter but I accept that you are the guru on these particular forensic matters. I have read some of your work, actually.
But I will ask you, as well, as part of the firm: Did you have any communications with anybody in your firm, or outside of your firm, other than those that we said would be appropriate, with respect to Senator Duffy's — and when I say ``communication,'' I mean everything — electronic, phone, written, oral?
Mr. Dent: No, I did not.
Senator Baker: Chair, I will restrict my question to just one question. Let me see now. What is the most important one?
Well, here is the most important question, I think. I am just going to quote from the court of Quebec in Autorité des marchés financiers c. Matteo, 2012, Carswell, Quebec, 8974. This is with respect to the questions that have been asked of you regarding your conversation with Mr. Runia. Paragraphs 54 and 55 of that case — and these are findings of fact by the court last year. It says this:
Deloitte & Touche is a company with nearly 200,000 employees that operates in more than 150 countries. It audits financial statements and provides tax, valuation, business recovery and forensic accounting services.
The forensic accounting services and auditing services are insulated from one another, and have a culture of information appropriation and retention. All personnel are made aware of the importance of this compartmentalization. There are policies in that regard, and every employee is required to sign independence documents every year, so that employees within the same unit do not discuss their respective files with each other. If an employee —
And I presume Mr. Runia was an employee of the company.
— requires access to a file, such access is supervised and documented.
Did you document your conversations with Mr. Runia?
Mr. Timm: In this case, we had the discussions on it and there is — I don't believe there is a written document, given the nature of what we had discussed and the fact that I didn't provide anything to him.
Senator Baker: To your recollection — to your memory?
Mr. Timm: I know that I did not provide anything to Mr. Runia.
Senator Cools: I would like to welcome the three gentlemen here today, and invite them to come again.
I would like to direct my remarks to Mr. Timm. In answer to Senator Furey and the senator's question about informing your client about the call from Mr. Runia, I think you responded that you did not view it as an audit question. And so can I conclude from that, then, that you treated it as an internal ethical question and discussed it with higher-ups or whomever you would in the company?
If I misunderstood what you said earlier, I would be happy to be corrected. I'm just trying to get my question in before he brings down the hammer in a few minutes. That is the first question.
Mr. Timm: I want to make sure I understand.
Senator Cools: Do you have an internal process, somewhere you can go to if, say, another person came to you seeking information that you thought was unusual or irregular? Do you have a place to go to deal with that? Is there a process?
Mr. Timm: Well, okay, not in this case, but in general — we're talking about ``in general,'' not this case at the moment. In general, in our firm, we will go to our service leader as a starting. In this case, Peter Dent is our service leader for this. But in this case, when you said ``audit'' — and I wasn't too clear on the question — but when Mr. Runia called me, it seemed to be a bit of information kind of gathering, and that's what I disseminated to Mr. Dent and Mr. Stewart.
Senator Cools: Anyway, I just put it to you that even if it had not been an audit question, there's definitely an ethical question involved.
But I want to move on to the next question. Because my understanding of the process of forensics, whether it be audits or forensic psychology or psychiatry, a major characteristic that the practitioners must always bear in mind is suspicion; you know, they approach matters with suspicion.
My next question to you is that you have been very clear here today that you have erected and constructed this ethical wall and a fair amount of energy and organization attends the maintenance and sustenance of this ethical wall. I'm just wondering if, since you seem to be confident that your team and your people have not breached that ethical wall — that you have not breached confidentiality — can I conclude from that that you are saying that any breaches are internal to the Senate, to the Senate committee, to its members, to its staff — or am I making an erroneous conclusion?
Because very clearly —
The Chair: I would be cautious with —
Senator Cools: I understand, but you are protected here in this atmosphere. In this atmosphere here, in this particular — we are a court here.
But I just want to be clear that I am understanding what you are saying. You are saying that your people exercised due diligence and due care, and you are confident in that?
The Chair: Could you just wrap up the question?
Senator Cools: The question is then that the other conclusion has to be that any breaches or leaks or violations of confidentiality originate within the Senate.
The Chair: Gentlemen, are you prepared to confirm that any breaches were from within the Senate? And I would be very careful with your response.
Senator Cools: I didn't say to ``confirm.'' I'm asking if I understood them to say that.
Mr. Dent: You did not hear us say that.
The Chair: Okay, good.
Mr. Dent: We can only confirm with respect to the actions and activities of the Deloitte forensic examination team.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Senator Kinsella: I have three observations that I'm going to put all together, mindful of the time.
The first is that all honourable senators have been working very assiduously in dealing with a very difficult set of files. As the Speaker of the Senate, I'm very proud of the work of all honourable senators on the work that is being done, not only by colleagues that sit in the chamber, but by the Senate staff who you have indicated were very collaborative as you conducted your audit.
I would like to ask the question: Is auditing a political entity more or less difficult than auditing a non-political entity?
And my final question is: As students of logic, we were taught about the fallacies of thinking. There's one fallacy — and I will use the technical description of it — called the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. In other words, if two things are happening, people say there's a causal relationship. And, indeed, of course, there's no causal relationship until you establish a causal relationship.
Is that a principle in the world of auditors that, just because there were two separate events, you really have to find the causal connection, and it's a fallacy of thinking to immediately put two things together because two things occur at the same time?
Mr. Dent: You had two questions, I believe. I will answer the first one.
I have never, in all of my years of experience, been involved with an entity where we're conducting work of this nature that it is not political, whether it is privately owned or a public institution.
With respect to your second question, I would agree with your assessment that the nature of our work is evidence- based or fact-based. We follow the evidence and where it takes us. There are some very cruel lessons in the marketplace of people who go outside of the facts and make assumptions.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Colleagues, this will be my last committee meeting. I wish you well in future.
By the way, yes, the witnesses are excused. We will be wrapping up in a couple of minutes, if you wish to leave now or stay on for just a couple of minutes.
I did want to thank the members of the committee for your friendship and cooperation over the years. We have not always agreed, but we have always been agreeable, in my view. I have made great friendships here and I do value that.
Thank you all for your commitment to your nation, to your country. I hope in the future that you keep it up and make this place the place that it should be and the place that has been historically one of the finer institutions in Canada. I encourage you to continue. I will be watching. If I sense that you are not heading in that direction I will let you know.
Senator Furey: Before I heap praise on our outgoing chair, I think there is one item I would like to bring up. I believe in light of what we have heard this morning that this committee should hear from Mr. Runia.
The Chair: I'm not going to entertain that motion. If an investigation wishes to be done, it will be done by the chamber.
This committee deals with financial and administrative matters, and does not deal with investigations. In fact, at this point we have an investigation being done by the RCMP and I don't think this group, which doesn't have the mandate, can entertain such a motion at this point.
Senator Furey: I beg to differ. This committee has expended in excess of $500,000 —
The Chair: Are you challenging the chair's ruling?
Senator Furey: No, I'm arguing with the chair.
The Chair: Continue the argument then.
Senator Furey: I believe that it is essential what we heard this morning: There was a member of this firm that made at least one phone call, and I want to know if there were more.
I want to know from Mr. Runia what his role in this was because this was a work commissioned by this committee and we now understand that from Mr. Timm, our lead auditor. And he has his own views on how important that was or wasn't, but now that it is before this committee, I think it is incumbent upon us to speak to Mr. Runia.
The Chair: I thank you for your comments but this committee does not have the mandate to deal with such an investigation and that is my ruling. If you wish to challenge my ruling, by all means do it.
Senator Furey: Consider this a challenge of your ruling, chair.
The Chair: Okay.
Senator Furey: We do have the mandate. We ordered this work. We ordered this work on behalf of the Senate and the taxpayers of Canada and that is well within our mandate.
The Chair: Shall the ruling be sustained? Yes or no. Show of hands. Opposed?
Senator Furey: Can we have a call of votes here?
The Chair: Yes, by all means. All those in favour of sustaining the chair's ruling.
Heather Lank, Clerk of the Committee: I will begin with the chair, Senator Comeau.
The Chair: I sustain my ruling, yes.
Ms. Lank: The Honourable Senator Campbell?
Senator Campbell: No.
Ms. Lank: The Honourable Senator Cordy?
Senator Cordy: No.
Ms. Lank: The Honourable Senator Doyle?
Senator Doyle: Yes.
Ms. Lank: The Honourable Senator Furey?
Senator Furey: No.
Ms. Lank: The Honourable Senator Lang?
Senator Lang: Yes.
Ms. Lank: The Honourable Senator Kinsella?
Senator Kinsella: Abstention.
Ms. Lank: The Honourable Senator LeBreton, P.C.?
The Honourable Senator Lang?
Senator Lang: Yes.
The Chair: He voted twice.
Ms. Lank: Sorry. The Honourable Senator Marshall?
Senator Marshall: Yes.
Ms. Lank: The Honourable Senator Charette-Poulin?
Senator Charette-Poulin: No.
Ms. Lank: The Honourable Senator Munson?
Senator Munson: No.
Ms. Lank: The Honourable Senator Smith?
Senator L. Smith: Yes.
Ms. Lank: The Honourable Senator Tkachuk?
Senator Tkachuk: Yes.
Ms. Lank: The Honourable Senator White?
Senator White: Yes.
The Chair: I have the numbers here: Eight yeas, five nays and one abstention so the ruling is sustained.
I believe, Senator Furey, you have one final comment?
Senator Furey: Despite that last motion, chair, I can't leave without making a few further comments with respect to Senator Comeau.
It has been an absolute pleasure working with you, Gerald. You have always been upfront. You obviously argue your side fiercely, as I said yesterday in the chamber, but it is never with any vitriol or nastiness or meanness. It is always with respect to other people's positions. I want to thank you for having had the time to work with you. You are a gentleman.
Hon. Senators: Hear, hear!
Senator Furey: While it is with a heavy heart we see the chair go, it gives me great pleasure to nominate a good friend and a senator I have known for a long time and for whom I have a tremendous amount of respect for, the Honourable Senator Noël Kinsella.
The Chair: Is it agreed? I see it is unanimous.
Senator Cools: Yes, it is unanimous.
The Chair: Effective December 1. Thank you very much, Senator Kinsella, for accepting the nomination and congratulations. Meeting adjourned.
(The committee adjourned.)