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EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Monday, November 20, 1995

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[English]

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): I would like to bring the Special Joint Committee on a Code of Conduct to order. This evening I would like to extend a very warm and cordial welcome to Mr. Don McGillivray from Southam News and Mr. Hugh Winsor of The Globe and Mail.

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Gentlemen, I understand you have a brief presentation you would like to make. Following that, hon. members would like to ask some questions flowing from your commentary.

Mr. McGillivray, would you like to go first? Following that, we'll ask to hear from Hugh Winsor.

Mr. Don McGillivray (Southam News): Thank you very much for the invitation to appear before the committee and for your courtesy. I have no prepared statement, but I have a few thoughts I gathered before coming to this committee.

If I could, I would try to persuade you to abandon your enterprise of finding a code of ethics for parliamentarians. I'd prefer to leave parliamentarians to themselves, to their consciences, and to their relationships with their own voters.

I'm afraid that if we try to impose a code of conduct on them, the code of conduct may become more important than their duties to their electorate. I'm also doubtful that a code of conduct could be detailed enough and yet general enough to meet all needs.

I think if you do write a code of conduct you'll find you will have to revise it and revise it in the light of particular circumstances.

That's about all I have to say at the opening.

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): Okay. Hugh.

Mr. Hugh Winsor (Toronto Globe and Mail): Good evening, and thank you for your invitation. It is not one I sought, but somebody persuaded me that maybe the length of time I've been here in two different stints qualified me to say something.

I should begin by saying, however, that journalists should be modest when they move from one side of the table - or from the other table over there - to this side of the table, when saying what is happening or what has happened, to saying what should happen. I think we should be even more modest when it comes to the topic at hand: a code of conduct. Certainly, if and when we start to be proscriptive about politicians, we have to be able to expose ourselves to and withstand a similar kind of scrutiny ourselves.

Some of you are probably aware of the recent incident involving the program 60 Minutes. I think it's one of the most-watched programs in the United States on CBS. The program was about the health risks of smoking. It was killed because the chief executive of CBS has financial interests in a tobacco company and the insurance industry.

On more personal matters, I do remember that the former Prime Minister who was going through a rather controversial, messy separation turned the tables on his questioner, who happened to be a former colleague, Peter Desbarats. When asked about his marriage break-up, Mr. Trudeau very skilfully turned it around and said, ``And this is your third marriage now, Peter?'' So as I say, we have to be careful.

I will just make a couple of comments about the mandate of the committee as I understand it, which I think makes it difficult to come up with some comprehensive observations. You are primarily focused, I believe, on developing a code of conduct for MPs and senators who are not part of the executive.

The problem is that while people who inhabit Parliament Hill may be cognizant of the differences in responsibilities between Privy Councillors and non-Privy Councillors, the public as a whole is not. When members of the public think about codes of conduct they think of politicians in the generic sense, therefore I don't think you can separate the roles very far, especially since MPs and senators move in and out of cabinet.

My second general observation is that in recent times, driven by certain hysteria in some groups and exacerbated I would say by some parts of the media, there have been a lot of phoney linkages created. I really don't believe whether or not there is a barber shop in the Parliament Buildings, or what price the barber shop charges, has the slightest thing to do with the code of conduct for MPs and senators; or the fact that a cabinet minister becomes a target of ridicule because he or she uses a government plane to carry out bona fide government business. I believe it's nonsense that this should become an issue in a modern industrial society like Canada, a country that in fact developed and builds one of the top-quality executive jets.

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It seems to me you shouldn't be wasting your time trying to decide whether a politician is comprised by a filet mignon dinner but not by a tuna sandwich, or developing elaborate standards about gifts and hospitality. If there are excesses, they are likely to become apparent and they are likely to be reported, if only in Frank magazine, and some correction will come into play.

I also see in the mandate some linkage to lobbying. I suppose some people here can remember Sherman Adams and the vicuna coat; but quite frankly, not many of my readers would know that reference. I think lobbying is a stand-alone subject and should be dealt with on its own merits.

When it comes to an overall code of conduct, I believe the Parker royal commission into the activities of the former Minister of Industry Sinclair Stevens was a watershed. I hope not only Judge Parker's report but all the transcripts and exhibits, including the proposed Jesus coins, are in the archives or somewhere where students of politics and others concerned with this matter can access them, because that whole process provided a glimpse into a system that is no longer sustainable.

I don't think anything short of full disclosure of financial interests and outside business activities of MPs and senators will any longer be acceptable. Although it may not be politically correct - I plead guilty here - I believe it extends to spouses and significant others.

I can also see something like an insider trading registry, which the financial industry has, as possibly some kind of a model that could be adapted and applied. There may be some certain embarrassment in the implementation stages of broad disclosure, but after a while it will become normal, not very salacious, and it won't get very much media attention; but it will contribute to the notion of transparency.

I don't know how many of you follow the Swedish situation. The Swedes have a very open system of disclosure. Indeed, a woman by the name of Mona Salhin, who was in line to become prime minister because the current prime minister has announced he wishes to step down...her political career for the moment has been cut very short because it became apparent she was using her government credit card for personal expenditures, including diapers for her child, or children. That is a reductio ad absurdum example of full disclosure, but it's the exception. The Swedes have a very open system. By and large it doesn't prevent good people from entering politics and it doesn't seem to have caused a great number of problems.

In the United States, senators must actually reveal their filed income tax forms. I don't think we need to go that far, but it certainly has to be to the extent that you can't look as if you're trying to hide something.

As for lobbying, I know there has been a bill that has moved somewhat towards more disclosure. We'll see how that works. Probably it hasn't gone far enough. I don't believe individual fees should also have to be disclosed there, but I do believe there should certainly be a wide range of contacts and interests being pursued, and probably some kind of gross expenditure declaration on the part of the procurement industry.

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I would be tempted to extend this discussion of code of conduct to the pensions issue, but I think that is too much for one panellist, so I will leave it there and welcome your questions.

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): Thank you both very much. I appreciate your introductory comments.

Mr. Boudria.

Mr. Boudria (Glengarry - Prescott - Russell): I want to welcome our witnesses this evening. Needless to say, the opinions of the two witnesses are not at all similar. However, I wanted to ask questions on the business of disclosure.

I had the opportunity of working on virtually every committee that has existed in recent years on this subject, and it is one that interests me a lot. In the matter of disclosure, in the report of the select committee on the subject matter of Bill C-43 - a nice short name we had for that committee - we had recommended something that worked like this. And Senator Oliver could correct me if I err here, because he and I were both members of that particular committee.

We had adopted a position whereby we would have full disclosure of assets to the commissioner, or the person responsible. We used the name ``jurisconsult'' at the time; it doesn't matter, the person. You would have disclosure of varieties of assets plus a quantitative disclosure. The commissioner would then make a public report based on that, where he would basically eliminate two things. He would eliminate inconsequential items. If you had one share of Bell Canada, he probably wouldn't put that in the report - it is the case of the paper blizzard; if you put in too much information, it is worse than not putting any - and he or she would also eliminate quantities of assets for everything that is reported.

There were security reasons and so on to do that. Essentially it is the Ontario model that works something like that. You would say that member X has shares in Bell Canada. So Bell Canada is an area where he or she has an interest.

In the case of the spouse, one thing we looked at, and this is something I've espoused - funny choice of words - is that one good way of doing it is to have the spousal issue dealt with after the next election, whenever you put the legislation in place.

There is a very practical reason for doing that, I think, and it is the following. If I - or anybody else as a legislator - decide to run again, we make that as a family decision. Can we live with the disclosure rule that applies to the spouse? If it applies to you yourself, because you get to vote on this legislation you either vote for it or against it, but when it comes to involving another person it is a little bit more complicated, and this is one compromise I thought was logical. You put it in there, and it kicks in the day after the next election for the spouse.

If you can't live with that, then you and your spouse make a decision that you're not going to run again and you don't. Or, if you can live with the rule, then the day after the next election you live with them, and so on.

Can I get some reflections on that kind of a scenario in terms of establishing rules of disclosure, and what you would think of a system that would look like that, in a general sense? Perhaps both witnesses could respond.

Mr. Winsor: First of all, I don't have a problem with your timing on the spousal situation, because if you start in the middle of a term, obviously that may influence people who ran under one system and are caught.

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I don't think that just the general category of Bell Canada shares is adequate. I don't think you have to know the specific number, but I think that just as we do with salaries of deputy ministers and others, and chairmen of the Atomic Energy Commission or AECL, or whatever it is, we have ranges. I think probably there should be some indication of range. I haven't thought about how you'd do this in detail, but I think there is a big difference between 10 shares that you somehow acquired in some odd way and being a major shareholder in something.

So I think you have to deal with some kind of a quantitative measure. I like the idea of the insider trading notion, that if you change that, you would have to indicate that.

First of all, I don't think blind trusts work.

Mr. Boudria: I didn't even ask about them.

Mr. Winsor: No. The Parker commission finished blind trust, so that now there is updating and all that and, I think, some sense of scale.

We have an example here of full disclosure on the part of the finance minister. He's been finance minister for two years and there haven't been any problems.

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): If your chairperson had 1 share, 10 shares, 100 shares or even 10,000 shares of BCE, the corporation's so big that it's not going to make any difference. So what do you gain by disclosing that someone has 10 and someone else has 1,000? What's the difference? They're not going to affect the company one way or another with that holding.

Mr. Winsor: No, but it gives some indication of whether...let's assume there's some policy that's going to change the regulatory nature of BCE, which parts of BCE are going to be regulated and which aren't, and that a person is in an insider position, or in a privileged position, to know that this is the direction.... If you happen to have 10 shares as a result of some mutual fund somewhere, or pension fund in your company, or former employer or whatever, it doesn't make much difference, but if you have 10,000 shares and you go to the market and either get rid of those or increase your holding, then that's significant.

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): I don't think it is, but.... Don.

Mr. Boudria: I hate to relate back always to something we did a long time ago, but when we looked at this before we looked at such things as nominal shares. You give the discretion to the commissioner. He looks at that and says: this is one hundred bucks, so we eliminate that; it's insignificant. It's not in my report. This is worth much more, so yes, I, as the registrar, the commissioner, the jurisconsult - whatever you want to call the person - am saying this is a declarable asset of Don Boudria that is of public interest, so it's included in my report. However, I'm not saying, as the commissioner, whether he owns $10,000 or $1 million worth.

That's basically the Ontario system at the present time. Something that's nominal is just extracted. It's not good. It just clouds up the real figures, so you remove it as a commissioner. If it's worth reporting, then you say that it is, but you don't reveal the quantity. That's the system they have there.

You're saying we should go one step further. You don't want to reveal precise amounts, but maybe have a couple of categories - if I understand you correctly; I'm not trying to put words in your mouth - whereby, say, someone who had less than $10,000 worth would have an A investment and more than would be a B, or something like that, where you could say there are lots, but not precisely the amount. Am I reading you correctly?

Mr. Winsor: Yes. I haven't given a lot of thought to where those cut-offs would be or how detailed they'd be.

Just to return to Senator Oliver's point, we're not talking about people who have influence in the companies themselves, in publicly traded companies, we're talking about them taking advantage of their position or not. So it is significant. Nobody is suggesting that very many people who are elected, get elected or are appointed are going to be in a controlling position of Canada's largest publicly traded corporation, so I don't think that's what we're aiming at. We're aiming at whether or not office holders are able to take advantage of their special position.

Mr. Boudria: Can I get Mr. McGillivray's thoughts on that?

Mr. McGillivray: Yes. I would be uncomfortable with a complicated system of disclosure. I think members of Parliament especially should operate as though they were subject to disclosure, but not necessarily be subject to disclosure. They should ask themselves how comfortable they would feel if it were published in The Globe and Mail tomorrow morning that they own a share of Bell Canada stock or that they own 10,000 shares. Is it going to blast me in the view of my constituents because I've done this? This is what I mean by consulting the conscience of the individual member rather than any mechanical rule of how many shares constitute influence.

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The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): Senator Kolber.

Senator Kolber (Victoria): On the question of size, you might say the Criminal Code should treat people who rob banks differently from those who rob 7-11s. Isn't the question of size related to the guy's net worth? For some people 100 shares is a lot, but for some it's absolutely nothing. I don't see that the question of size means anything. I could understand if there were a principle involved, if we're talking principle.

On the question of principle, I've been a senator for almost twelve years, and it gets drummed into our heads about ten times a session that we are legislative eunuchs, that we really can't legislate, that we don't have anybody's vote. So I don't know why we're lumping senators and members of Parliament in the same breath as we talk about a code of ethics.

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): Have you finished your questions? I have on my list Senator Gauthier, Mr. McWhinney and Mr. Richardson.

Mr. Winsor: I just want to comment on the point about whether we include senators or not. First of all, I think if you asked the transport minister today whether the senators have any power, he would probably say they do. Second, you're too close to the system. We're talking about generally the attitude towards the political system on the part of the public. They don't see senators that much differentiated; some of them who understand the Senate may see a little difference, but by and large you're all in this big grey stone building up here.

I think the classic example used to be the chairmanship of the Senate banking committee and directorships, albeit directorships in publicly traded companies are revealed. It's one of those things people really raised questions about. So I do believe senators have legislative power and certainly political influence. Therefore, they should be subject to a similar kind of scrutiny.

Senator Kolber: Could you tell me how the fellows on the transport committee are going to turn that into making some money?

Mr. Winsor: How are they going to make money? It's not just whether they're personally going to make money, it's whether they have influence and whether they have interests. They have influence and they may have interests.

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): Senator Gauthier.

Senator Gauthier (Ontario): This is an interesting conversation, but I must remind you people that there are laws in this country. The Parliament of Canada Act and the Standing Orders of the House of Commons and of the Senate forbid members.... I'll read it to you. Article 21 of the House of Commons Standing Orders says:

No Member is entitled to vote upon any question in which he or she has a direct pecuniary interest, and the vote of any Member so interested will be disallowed.

You must declare. It's in the law. We don't have to rewrite it. If anybody has an interest, he or she has to make it public. I think part of the problem is that not enough people know about this and the media is not making it easy for us to transmit that information. I doubt very much if any member of Parliament, knowing and operating in the present system, knowing the law - at least he should, he can't plead ignorance. The Parliament of Canada Act has been with us since 1985 and it's been quite a prominent piece of legislation in the last ten years. It's quite evident to me that anybody who can read will understand that if you have an interest, you have to declare it.

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What we're talking about is a code of conduct. There's a perception out there, partly our responsibility, I take it - and it may be cynical - about politics and politicians, that politicians are indeed abusing the system, profiting from it and making money out of it.

Mr. McGillivray: I've been around. I first came to this Hill in 1962. The vast majority of politicians are honest, hard-working people who have no intention of taking and have never taken personal advantage of the system.

The place where you have the most rules is jail. There you have to walk on the yellow line, you have to get in and have the door closed on you and so on. I don't think parliamentarians need that kind of system, a system of jailhouse rules. That's my view.

Senator Gauthier: Mr. Winsor, do you have any opinions on that?

Mr. Winsor: Well, in the past, if at any time I thought a politician was taking advantage of his or her position and I could prove it, I would have written it, and I probably did, over time.

I can give one example of what I would have said was a conflict of interest that had some uniqueness and maybe not a great amount of money at stake. I remember some time ago there was a bill to preserve heritage railway stations, and a former senator, now retired, Ian Sinclair, who happened to have been chairman and chief executive officer when CPR knocked down the West Toronto railway station, made quite an effort to impede the legislative progress of this bill.

We all have our libraries and we all know who Senator Sinclair was and all the rest, and indeed I think we wrote about it, but it was important that it was known and remarked upon. Any kind of censure or whatever that flows from that should occur.

Senator Gauthier: In the last election the Liberal Party made some promises about this subject matter.

We've heard witnesses here support the idea of the adoption of a code of conduct. I'd rather see a code of deontology, but nevertheless they call it a code of conduct. I guess it's good conduct we're talking about. It might help improve public perceptions regarding politicians.

I know Mr. McGillivray's point of view; he's told us tonight he doesn't think it's worth the effort. But in your view, Mr. Winsor, do you think it would help to improve public perceptions to have a code of conduct?

Mr. Winsor: I share Mr. McGillivray's view that it's almost an impossible task to come up with a fireproof code that's fair and enforceable and that would have popular appeal. I don't have a magic solution and I couldn't sit down and write one necessarily.

I do believe that the system, as I have been covering it in one way or another since I came back from Africa in 1969, is in peril and is widely misunderstood. Probably a code of conduct would have some kind of value as one small part of a broad range of things that have to change.

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Senator Gauthier: What if accompanying that were a watchdog type of commissioner or counsellor or, as Mr. Boudria mentioned, a jurisconsult - somebody who would have the respect and confidence of the people of Canada and would probably be named by both Houses? Do you think having that commissioner or counsellor present for advice parliamentarians could rely on could improve the image of politicians?

Would it be a good thing for us to have that kind of person, first of all? Every province has them. They have them for ministers. There's a person in charge of receiving ministerial or what we call....

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): A retired judge of the Supreme Court of Canada, for instance.

Senator Gauthier: Would it help in improving the image politicians project to have somebody with some credible background, such as a senior judge, to whom they could go and present their case, and say, ``Okay, I own 100 shares of BCE and 10 shares of Consolidated Bathurst, I have a house, a cottage and a wife; those are my assets''? Would it help in any way if that were made public?

Mr. McGillivray: Parliamentarians are responsible to their electorates. In the parliamentary system, they're not generally responsible to a commissioner. I'm not sure it would help. I'm dubious about that.

Senator Gauthier: Both of you were around when Mr. Inkster, the RCMP commissioner, put out this great statement that there were fourteen members of Parliament under investigation. Do you remember that?

Mr. McGillivray: Yes, I remember that.

Senator Gauthier: Some of us were very upset. I was one of those who were very upset with that, because it kind of painted us into the corner and gave the general brush to everybody. We took Mr. Inkster to task, because if you're going to accuse fourteen members, name them. Don't play that kind of game.

If some allegations were made about somebody in the House of Commons or in the Senate, do you think it would help to have an independent commissioner, a recognized citizen of this country, say, ``I've looked into this thing and I don't think there's anything to whip anybody with here. I absolve this member of any responsibility, after looking at the facts and figures''?

Mr. Winsor: We already have a commissioner. I can't remember the details now, but there was some reference recently to whether or not the Prime Minister had consulted him before something or other -

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): That's just for ministers, though.

Senator Gauthier: It's for ministers only.

Mr. Winsor: Okay, but that didn't do a thing. It only added to the fog and the mud, in a sense, because it was all a matter of whether or not the Prime Minister or one of his agents had consulted. We don't know the nature of the consultations and we don't know the nature of the advice, so it doesn't do a damn thing.

Senator Gauthier: So you're negative on that one.

Mr. Winsor: I'm negative on that one.

As the Auditor General gives for departmental activities a note of good housekeeping in some cases and of not-so-good housekeeping in others, it may well be that somebody who has looked at the facts can say whether or not they are acceptable in his or her view, and the credibility of that person would have some impact on it, but it doesn't replace public disclosure.

Senator Gauthier: Mr. McGillivray, do you have any points?

Mr. McGillivray: I don't think it will work. It might work to some extent, but essentially, if we have a crisis of confidence in politicians - which I don't think we have; I don't think we're at that point at all - the public is not going to be assuaged by somebody appointed by politicians judging politicians semi-secretly.

Senator Gauthier: For the record, I'd like to terminate my questioning here with one statement. I want to read something to you. It's from a book written by Maureen Mancuso - I don't know if you know who she is - entitled The Ethical World of British MPs. That's a pretty contemporary issue.

On page 10 it says: ``There is a moral threshold crossed by those who undertake to represent in a public role the will and interest of others''. Do you believe that there is a moral threshold crossed by those whose purpose is to represent the will and the opinions of others? If so, and I continue: ``They'' - being the elected politicians - ``may be held to standards that, if enforced against ordinary citizens, would violate their privacy''.

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In other words, there are standards that are different for politicians than for the ordinary citizen, and we must live up to that standard, which has not been set by anybody as far as I know - except, as you say, full disclosure, honesty, transparency. I don't know of any situation in my 23 years in the House of Commons where that wasn't made public by you people.

Mr. Winsor: She is probably reflecting a fairly widely held notion that politicians, who are in a position to proscribe situations for others, in order to accept those responsibilities must accept probably a higher level of moral responsibility.

Senator Gauthier: Do you agree with that, Mr. McGillivray?

Mr. McGillivray: No, I don't.

Senator Gauthier: That's what I thought.

Mr. McGillivray: I think the rules for ordinary people and the rules for parliamentarians or people who have accepted public office are at the root the same. They're well-known rules: not to lie, cheat, or steal. There's a danger in setting up a different standard, higher than the one the ordinary citizen has to come up to.

I keep remembering a quotation from Richard Nixon. He was being interviewed by David Frost, I think, and he said, ``Well, if the President does it, that means it's not illegal''. So I think you can set yourself a standard that is actually lower than the standard that ordinary people have to measure up to.

Senator Gauthier: Both of you have a variety of views on different things. I would like to ask a very good question. Do you have a code of conduct in the world of the media, in the journalistic sense? Do you have a code of conduct, Mr. Winsor or Mr. McGillivray, that's codified that you follow?

Mr. McGillivray: I'm a member and executive of the Canadian Association of Journalists. There have been attempts to start codes of conduct, but I've always opposed them.

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): It is the same thing as you are espousing for parliamentarians tonight.

Mr. McGillivray: That's right.

Mr. Winsor: The Globe and Mail is a member of the Ontario Press Council. By virtue of that membership, we undertake certain responsibilities, and those have to do with somebody who feels a story has been unfair being able to seek redress, and indeed we accept those rules about what is fairness and what isn't.

We just recently, indeed, were found in contravention of those and we published a mea culpa kind of story that explained. This story had to do with some investigation of child sexual abuse in London, Ontario. Our story was found to have gone beyond fair comment, etc.

Senator Gauthier: That's journalistic content. For your information, I was a member of the Ontario Press Council for some time. What I'm talking about is this. Do you, as an individual, follow a code of conduct in your work; for example, that you wouldn't write on a subject matter that might be beneficial to you, your interests, or protecting your own rear-end on certain things, by doing or writing certain things? You wouldn't do that, of course, but is there a code that says that journalists should always abide by honesty?

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Mr. Winsor: There is a code. I don't know if it's all written down in any one place, but it's pretty clear to everybody who works at The Globe and Mail what is acceptable and what isn't.

The fact is that in some cases we perhaps take this to ridiculous proportions. For example, no Globe and Mail reporter is allowed to travel on a DND plane unless we pay the equivalent of the commercial air fare.

For example, when I went into Rwanda earlier this year, there were no commercial flights into Rwanda. You were lucky to be able to land without getting shot at. But I think sometimes we go too far. There are places we don't go because we might be subject....

Some years ago some defence minister took some members of the Parliamentary Press Gallery and their wives to Cyprus when it was cold in Canada and warm in Cyprus. As a result we have that rule.

Broadly, you do not write either damaging stories or favourable stories motivated by your own personal interests.

Senator Gauthier: We used to have the attendance of the Bloc Québécois at this committee. They haven't come since the Sun published that famous cartoon showing Mr. Bouchard in a rather sad.... I think it was a very unwarranted type of cartoon. The Sun publisher here in Ottawa was asked how he could ethically do that. The French translation for code of conduct is code d'éthique. It is not a bad name for the committee, but it just happens that way.

Would your paper be tied to a code of ethics that would prevent it from using that kind of demeaning and cynical approach?

Mr. Winsor: No cartoon is in the paper without some senior editor in authority having made a judgment on it as to good taste, but it's a judgment call. You can't tell a cartoonist to draw figures in such a way and not in others. It is a judgment call.

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): I would like to go to Mr. McWhinney, Mr. Richardson and then Senator Kolber.

Mr. McWhinney.

Mr. McWhinney (Vancouver Quadra): This distinction has been made between a code of conduct and a code of ethics. It seems to me that a good deal of the evidence that we have heard, not necessarily from you gentlemen - but there is some crossover nevertheless - has been directed toward public perception rather than toward the necessarily intrinsically ethical elements. Is it a correct identification of your position to say that you are concerned with public perception rather than with the intrinsic ethics of the operation?

For example, Mr. McGillivray, I think you perhaps made the distinction more clearly in the evidence you gave, but I don't want to put words into your mouth.

Mr. McGillivray: No, but I don't think there is any point in drawing fine lines between ethics and conduct or morality. I think it is all a question of morals. My definition of it is if your conduct can't stand the light of day. If the conduct can't stand the light of day, if it can't stand to be exposed, then you shouldn't be doing it.

Mr. McWhinney: The British House of Commons committee report on this issue recommending disclosure has basically addressed the justification to public perception. For example, the comment is made that members are paid as much as are assistant chefs in the House of Commons and need to supplement their income and need to have private interests. Surely the practice in the United States, which goes well beyond the law, the practice of presidential candidates and senators, is that the disclosure is directed towards public consumption, isn't it, rather than towards controlling members' behaviour? Is that not a fair comment on the American situation?

Mr. McGillivray: I don't know as clearly as I should about the American situation except for one or two cases like the Packwood case.

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Mr. McWhinney: I was not referring to the sexual practice. I was referring to financial practice, the complete cradle-to-grave financial disclosure that an American candidate makes now as a result of practice. Am I not right in saying that Senator Kennedy was the first to make a full disclosure?

Mr. McGillivray: Yes. I think that's right.

Mr. McWhinney: Similarly here, I wonder whether.... Certainly in the evidence before us, it seems to me most witnesses have focused on the perception rather than on necessarily suggesting that the rules would or should control ethics of members. It's the perception.

Mr. McGillivray: I think there's a slippery slope there in that if it's not known to the public it isn't perceived by the public and therefore it's all right.

Mr. McWhinney: Let me get into another distinction some witnesses made. One of the interesting things is that the witnesses most experienced in the political processes made the distinction in terms of government itself, between decision-makers, people who effectively participated in power, and those who didn't.

The distinction here is between cabinet ministers and embryonic cabinet ministers, which I suppose are secretaries of state and parliamentary secretaries and members. If you study constitutional law in action, I think one of the interesting conclusions is that members not in that other category don't really influence legislation. Perhaps they do other more interesting things.

One of the suggestions made very strongly to us was that a stricter code of conduct or code of financial disclosure for cabinet ministers and those about to become cabinet ministers, secretaries of state and parliamentary secretaries should be preserved, but should be left alone in terms of members of Parliament and presumably senators since they're not cabinet ministers. Do you think that's a valid proposition?

Mr. McGillivray: I prefer to have the highest standards of conduct apply to both classes of people. Cabinet ministers have more power and therefore the temptations of power may be more on their backs, but I don't think the essential rules are different. I go back to ways of bringing about disclosure and the sort of basic morality of the situation. I don't think that differs.

Mr. McWhinney: Would you agree the disclosure rules for cabinet ministers now are reasonably rudimentary by comparative constitutional standards with other countries?

Mr. McGillivray: I don't know the situation well enough to tell you that.

Mr. McWhinney: Mr. Winsor, did you have anything to say?

Mr. Winsor: You have a lot of assumptions in there. First, if so-called ordinary MPs and senators don't have influence and don't have any power, our system is in trouble. If indeed we have only an executive form of government, there is something even more wrong with this place than I believe.

I start from the presumption that cabinet ministers have more executive authority, but it's only a gradation. We are talking of the broad general political system. Therefore the notion of transparency should be across that system.

Mr. McWhinney: Transparency relates more to the perception than to the actuality, doesn't it?

Mr. Winsor: On transparency, it's true. But you are not only concerned about how it looks. If you're only concerned about how this place looks, then hire an advertising agency. You're also concerned about the intrinsic merit of actions taken and roles played here.

Mr. McWhinney: By the way, in fairness to the witnesses I quoted in summation, they were referring to power in the sense of participation in the shaping of legislation. I think the distinction is valid in that sense. It's not to suggest that MPs and senators not be ministers without any useful role, but it's simply that they don't effectively shape legislation, contrary to the 18th century view or the 19th century view.

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Mr. Winsor: I would disagree with that.

Mr. McWhinney: You would disagree?

Mr. Winsor: I would definitely disagree with that. Indeed, I think I could point to a number of ministers whose legislation would look quite different if it had only been what their bureaucrats could have drafted and what they could get through cabinet. I think there's a lot of evidence in this current session of Parliament.

Mr. McWhinney: Fair enough. Thank you very much.

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): Mr. Richardson, please, then Senator Kolber.

Mr. Richardson (Perth - Wellington - Waterloo): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I'm going to try to make a comparison, because I think we're talking about perceptions here. In the past three years, the major statistics of crime in Canada have fallen to give a steady state. But in society, particularly in the House of Commons, you'd think there was a murderer, rapist, child abuser, etc., around every corner.

I think the same perception, even though the public doesn't want to believe that or the purveyors of that doom and gloom are better at carrying the message, applies when you mention the word ``politician''. I think there is a lot of fog around it. It may be ``green'' fog. I find that unless they know you well, there's a perception that politicians are all bad. It's something that's jokes are made of. Whether it's one name, a perception, or not, I think it's there.

I think, from my experience in the short time I've been here, that I have met people in all parties who have made a strong commitment to serve here. My perception of them is probably tainted because I'm now one. I'm in, and I see it from a different perspective.

It seems to me that reconstruction out of a scandal builds something that will try to stop that kind of scandal again. Although I haven't found anything scandalous in the two years I've been here, a bona fide code of ethics - it's not because I don't think what Mr. McGillivray says is right, as he has the basic principals there of what we should be doing - should be well understood.

But most people are concrete thinkers, so they can't deal with something as abstract as what is mentioned. I think a code of conduct would provide concrete evidence that there is a standard of behaviour to which MPs and senators are to be measured. I think if that was the case, there would be some assurance among people that there is a code, it's going to be monitored, and the actions to be taken will be spelled out in some measure.

So I personally don't see anything wrong with it. We're always passing laws that people say restrict the freedom of the people. I think in this case, because of my initial concerns that the public has a perception that is not positive about politicians - that means everything from township councillors to mayors to provincial legislators to those in the Parliament of Canada - I would be supportive of that if it would in fact help to create a different kind of image of the politician.

I'm just asking. I know you're supportive of it. Mr. McGillivray takes the stand that there are certain fundamental methods of behaviour that are intrinsic in our society, and therefore we don't have to write them. I think he's right on that, but I still believe they had to chisel out the Ten Commandments in stone somewhere, and I don't think we would hurt ourselves by chiselling out the code of ethics, or code of conduct, of the Parliament of Canada.

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Do you think I'm wrong in my statement, Mr. Winsor? You seem to feel this may...in some way. Am I falsely measuring the public perception of us, and do you feel by our making something concrete the perception may be slightly adjusted?

Mr. Winsor: First of all, I don't think the actual adoption of the code of conduct will have much impact overnight on the public's perception or attitude toward politicians. The first time it's going to get notice is when somebody is fired because they've been found in contravention of it and there is some hard and fast standard against which he or she is measured.

It's like nuclear deterrence. We've never had to fire one because the fact that we might fire one has prevented nuclear war. It may well be that the adoption of a code of conduct will mean everybody will behave better and therefore it will never be used. But I think the first time somebody is forced out of a caucus or something as the result of a contravention, people will say, hey, maybe this does have some teeth after all.

I think back to a earlier parliament, when eventually it became apparent there was a minister who, it turned out, had large personal debts to a company or person who had real estate interests and benefited from something on federal land. That became apparent because of some journalistic digging.

I know I keep coming back to cabinet examples.

I think eventually that minister was forced to resign because he had not declared that indebtedness. But at the time the code required only a private declaration to....

However, it was only really by chance - I happen to know a little about how the journalist got on to that story - that the situation came to light and some kind of adjustment took place. It was just by accident; and maybe what you could say is that over time enough journalists digging around with enough contacts are going to stumble on enough things that it'll keep the overall system honest.

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): Mr. McGillivray, did you wish to comment?

Mr. McGillivray: No, thank you.

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): Senator Kolber, please.

Senator Kolber: Mr. Winsor, I would like you to help me out on this one. You gave the example of Ian Sinclair. Ian and I were appointed senator the same day by the same Prime Minister; we shared offices, sat next to each other, even shared a secretary. In my opinion he was a terrific senator. He became chairman of the Senate finance committee and contributed a great deal to the public weal, I think you'll agree.

The example you gave was some of these old stations. I had chatted with him about it and he said some they were able to preserve, some they weren't. But the point you make is that he had a conflict of interest. I thought conflicts of interests were when you benefited from something. He had no conflict of interest. He brought a great deal of knowledge to the situation. He wasn't going to make one red penny on it. He knew more about the subject than probably anybody else in Canada. You may not agree with his conclusion, but I don't see what the conflict of interest was, because taken to its illogical conclusion, what you're saying is that only non-entities should come into this system.

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Mr. Winsor: First of all, I don't say the only measurement system is whether or not somebody makes money. Indeed, I think there are a lot of people in politics for a lot of other reasons than making money.

What I am saying is it was important to evaluate Senator Sinclair's intervention on this. It was important to know where he'd been, who he represented and all this. I'm not suggesting he made a penny out of it. I actually -

Senator Kolber: It's hard to hide the fact that he was CEO of the CPR. It's one of the best-known facts in the business world.

Mr. Winsor: In this case I think the senators discounted his position for that reason.

Senator Kolber: That may be.

Mr. Winsor: I would never suggest for one moment that Ian Sinclair was out trying to line his pockets. But I am suggesting that political conflict of interest is a lot broader than just whether or not you're going to make a dollar out of it.

In this case, I think wise public policy was probably implemented in a sense because he made his pitch, and your senate colleagues evaluated what he said and discounted it by voting against him. I think that's fair. But I am just saying the position he took was influenced by the fact he was part of all he had met - to quote a better writer than me - and therefore it's important to know what he had met before he came to make that position.

Senator Kolber: Wouldn't that be true of every human being who comes to Parliament? He's influenced by what he has read, his education, his background and his parents. Everybody's influenced.

What you have to explain to me - if you don't want to, of course, you won't - is what you mean by conflict of interest. Should somebody come to this Parliament with an empty head and not have any thoughts? I'm being ridiculous. It's sort of reductio ad nothing, but what do you mean?

Mr. Winsor: I think I would be in favour of a broader system of disclosure because I believe everybody in the process - whether it's bureaucrats who are responding as they have to respond, journalists, political parties or whatever - would be able to better evaluate various players' inputs if they knew what their interests were.

I'm not suggesting there was any secret about Ian Sinclair's interests in this case. He was defending his reputation as the CEO who ordered them to tear down the station. There's not a dollar in there. I purposely chose an example that did not involve great dollars. It was one of those areas where Parliament acted that is really beyond the normal kinds of things that show in budgets, tax bills and stuff.

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): Mitchell Sharp and Mr. Wilson, who appeared before this committee, both said they hoped we would have people coming to Parliament who had experiences in things. They hoped they would continue to have experiences while they were here, that is, experiences of the outside world of business, farming, pharmacy and these other things, so they could bring their collective wisdom and experience to bear on the legislation.

Surely you wouldn't want to say a person couldn't sit on a board of directors or shouldn't bring some of his or her knowledge from a previous business to the deliberations on a piece of legislation.

Mr. Winsor: I'm saying just the opposite, senator. You've misunderstood me. I'm saying I believe they can concurrently have.... I think the cabinet would have difficulty, but I think other people could sit on boards of directors as long as it's very clear and they temper their remarks with the experience they've gained or whatever. I'm saying that's part of the process.

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I don't think that we should only say that people who can't get another job should be politicians, by any means. I'm just saying that it is important, in evaluating the inputs, that we know what those inputs are.

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): Mr. McGillivray, did you want to speak to that?

Mr. McGillivray: I generally agree with what Mr. Winsor has said, and also others who have underlined the point that you bring your experience to bear on the questions at hand, and that's a valuable thing.

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): Senator Kolber, did you want to sum up that part of that discussion?

Senator Kolber: No, I'm quite happy with the response.

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): Senator Bosa.

Senator Bosa (York - Caboto): I don't think that Mr. Winsor needs me to come to his defence on the affirmation he made before. I understood him to say that a member of Parliament, even though he is not a member of the executive, can have influence in the decision-making. Prior to your making that comment, somebody - I think it was Senator Kolber - said that we are political eunuchs. But I think, if I understood you correctly, that you wanted to point out that it is possible for a member, without being a member of the executive, to influence the course of action.

Am I right?

Mr. Winsor: Yes, I think that we -

Senator Kolber: I said ``legislative eunuchs'', not ``political eunuchs''.

Mr. Winsor: I would even say on legislation. Not everything that happens that influences legislation happens on the floor of the Senate or the House.

Senator Bosa: I wonder if you, Mr. Winsor, or Mr. McGillivray, recall that about 22 years ago, during a municipal election in Toronto, there was a great deal to do with having members disclose their assets. Behind that there was a feeling among some voters, or some people in Toronto, or perhaps the media, that some members of council were using their influence to do rezoning that might benefit their own properties.

I don't know what happened to that, whether or not that went through. I was on the council of York, and I recall The Globe and Mail specifically advocating this course of action. I wrote a letter to The Globe and Mail disclosing all my assets. When I gave it to the clerk of the council, he said, ``No, I have no mandate to accept this''. Anyway, I gave him a copy of the original that I had sent to The Globe and Mail. He wouldn't accept it. He said he didn't have anything to do with it.

I don't know what ensued in Toronto, but I guess behind that it was felt that if there was disclosure, then there would be transparency and the electorate would be reassured that members of council would not be acting in a way other than that in which they're supposed to act.

I'm putting a question to both of you now. I have nothing against disclosing what I possess. I'm not going to say what Senator Gauthier said, that he has a house, a cottage, and a wife. I don't think that the wife is an asset or a liability; I don't know that. I don't know why he lumped that into his holdings, but I wouldn't -

Mr. Winsor: I know his wife, and she's a great asset to him.

Senator Bosa: I know. But the question is: what is the downside for members of Parliament to make full disclosure, whether it's one Bell Canada share or 10,000, whatever property, whatever possessions a member has? What possible downside can there be? Could there be abuses on the part of somebody? I was wondering if you have any opinion on that.

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Mr. McGillivray: I guess the downside might be an assumption there somewhere that unless people are disclosing their assets, they are into wrongdoing of some kind. I think it is better to trust our elected and appointed representatives rather than make the kind of assumption that unless they are fully disclosed and fully transparent, there is a possibility of some hanky-panky going on.

Senator Bosa: Mr. Winsor doesn't seem to share that....

Mr. Winsor: I have some concerns on the personal security front, and I don't know quite how to deal with them.

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): What security did you say?

Mr. Winsor: Personal security. People might try to be...you know, the kinds of things that happen occasionally. People get kidnapped, or children get...whatever it is. I remember that one time one of John Bassett's children was held, kidnapped or whatever. So that is a broad concern about wealth. In a society where this kind of thing is happening more, I worry about it.

You asked me what the downsides are? That is a downside. Quite frankly, I don't think the kind of people.... You didn't have to have some kind of public register to know that in this particular case John Bassett was a person of considerable means. The person who tried to extort money didn't have to have a registry of public interests to find that out. So I am saying that is one area of concern.

The other thing is that you might try to somehow or other identify properties belonging to somebody who did something you didn't like, and therefore damage them or something like that. That is also a downside. Other societies, other modern western democracies, have got around that one with a lot more disclosure than we have. It doesn't seem over time.... There is a bit of initial....

The Canadian banks tried to prevent the disclosure of the salaries and benefits of bank presidents. They did it for their own personal egos or whatever, and they resisted for a long time. Eventually it was changed and it will become the norm. After a while it won't be big news, but in terms of the overall understanding of our financial structure it is deemed to be important to know what kind of incomes and benefits senior executives in positions of big public trust, in a sense, have.

The New York Stock Exchange has required disclosure on directors' remuneration for years. Major Canadian corporations that were dual-listed in Canada and the United States complied with the American disclosure regulations without question because they couldn't question it, but they fought the same thing in Canada. That didn't make sense.

Senator Bosa: Mr. Chairman, I just have a question on qualification of the disclosure.

Would the disclosure be like an open register available to anyone who wants to turn a page to find out, or would it be, in your opinion and in order to avoid the downside, restricted to, let's say, the media, to the commissioner or to some committee that will do the evaluation of the wealth or non-wealth of this one individual?

Mr. Winsor: You can make a special case for the media, certainly. I think you either have public disclosure or you don't, and it has to be in some accessible place. But I think the downside of it is exaggerated.

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Senator Bosa: You think it's exaggerated.

I have one other question, sir, and then I am finished with this topic. I was wondering if you would make a comment on the pensions, but you said you were not going to do that.

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): In the second round, we have Mr. Boudria and Senator Gauthier.

Mr. Boudria: Just to pick up on the last point that was raised, there's a significant difference between disclosing remuneration and disclosing assets. As far as I know, all of us in public office have always been subject to disclosing remuneration. That's a given; it has to be. By virtue of the facts that we are elected and that we set our own salaries, we certainly have to tell the people what those salaries are. It would be totally inappropriate to do otherwise. So I don't consider that to be the proper parallel.

The proper parallel would be a disclosure of assets. On that score, the other day we had two newspaper publishers appearing before this committee. I invite your reaction to this, although I suspect I know what it is. They said not only should we disclose publicly the assets of the member, both qualitatively and quantitatively, but the spouse and any offspring should, whether they lived in the same household or had moved away twenty years ago. Would you react to what you think of the practicality of imposing such a regime on your son who left twenty years ago and now lives in B.C. or someplace else, please.

Mr. Winsor: I don't think the sins of the father should be visited upon the son, and I don't want to be responsible for the sins of my sons. But there is a difference between spouses or partners who are in residence, I think.

Mr. McGillivray: But the list you give us shows the difficulty of drawing a line. You might hand over your questionable assets to a nephew or to a grand uncle, or to somebody who is not related at all but is a true friend.

Mr. Boudria: For the record, those were the publishers of The Ottawa Citizen and The Ottawa Sun.

Mr. Winsor: I read that testimony, although not in great detail. I thought it was only The Ottawa Sun publisher who said that.

Mr. Boudria: I think The Ottawa Sun went further, you're right. They both wanted disclosure of children's assets. One of them wanted to restrict it to while they were living in the same household, but the other one said it didn't make any difference even if they had left. I think you're correct.

Mr. Winsor: I think the mills are grinding too finely in a case like that.

Mr. Boudria: A question was raised by Dr. McWhinney, and possibly by John Richardson, on the differentiation of rules between what is known in our parlance as public office holders, meaning ministers and parliamentary secretaries, versus others, the legislators. Under what we had suggested before, and I believe under the rules as they presently exist, a cabinet minister could not own a business. For instance, a cabinet minister could not practise medicine on Saturday morning, or couldn't own and operate a hardware store in his or her village at the present time. Is it normal that we would have something quite that strict for, for instance, our colleagues around the table here? If one of us is a doctor who wants to practise on Saturday morning - and one of us actually is -

Mr. McWhinney: Or a lawyer.

Mr. Boudria: Or a lawyer.

Senator Gauthier: Or a farmer.

Mr. Boudria: Or a farmer.

Mr. McWhinney: Or a clergyman.

Mr. Boudria: Is it necessary, in your opinion, that if the same rules are to apply to both, we would subject members who are not in the ministry or who are not parliamentary secretaries - in other words, those who are not public office holders - to rules that would be that strict?

Mr. McGillivray: I suppose one factor is whether or not you're getting the full-time work out of your cabinet minister. If he's off delivering a calf or something at a time when there is some important decision to be made in cabinet, you're not getting the full-time service of your.... It has nothing to do with morality or ethics but simply with whether or not he is he available for work.

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My view, as I stated, is that the member of Parliament, whether he's a cabinet minister or not, is responsible to his conscience and to his electorate - and, in the case of a cabinet minister, to the wider electorate of the country. I don't think it has much to do with what outside employment he has.

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): Mr. Winsor, it's an excellent question that Mr. Boudria has asked. I'd love to have your view.

Mr. Winsor: I guess I wasn't aware of how narrowly defined the public office holder rule was that would prevent a veterinarian from delivering a calf if he or she happened to be in the riding. But we seem to have a standard there with regard to farmers and it seems to work quite well.

In fact, in practical terms, it used to be that you couldn't be the Minister of Agriculture if you weren't a farmer. Not only could they run their farms, but they could participate in public financing schemes as long as they were schemes that were available to everybody. So if they were a wheat farmer and there was a certain freight subsidy for wheat, as long as they got the same amount per tonne as every other farmer it was not deemed to be a problem.

I thought that was still the general operating principle.

Mr. Boudria: I'll acknowledge that it is true that rule for farmers was always perceived somewhat differently, but we have members of the present cabinet who were told that they could not continue with particular businesses they've had. It was the same in the last Parliament. People who practised law or medicine couldn't do so if they became parliamentary secretaries, members of the ministry, and so on.

The point I'm making is that in our committee in the past we had established, rightly or wrongly, that the test should be different for a minister. It is not because one has power and the other has no power. You could perhaps argue that there's a different level of power, or however you want to put it to be politically correct, but the role of one was different from that of the other. It justified not necessarily that the level of ethics had to be higher, but that a different test had to be applied in order to determine where the level was. That's the way in which I see it in my mind.

Mr. Winsor: There's a difference between ownership and operation.

Mr. Boudria: Of course.

Mr. Winsor: Let's assume that somebody owned a building supplies company. In fact, there was an example of this in New Brunswick. That person went into the cabinet. I don't think that person should have been forced to sell his building supplies company because he went into the cabinet, but on a day-to-day basis he'd have trouble running that business supply company and performing his duties as a cabinet minister.

Also, if the government of the day took some decision that materially affected the building supplies company, then it should have been pretty clear that he wasn't participating in that decision, or what his position was in the development of that policy. But I don't think he should be forced to sell it.

Mr. Boudria: I have the rule here. Under the present conflict of interest rules for cabinet ministers, it's rule 17. It says:

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Some of these things are obvious, but the point I'm making is that there are more stringent tests right now under the rules we have, to which some of our colleagues adhere, both those who are in cabinet or are parliamentary secretaries and those of us who are not. I've used some examples; it's page 13 of the book, rule 17.

Mr. Winsor: I think it really depends. I'm not in a position to get into a lot of detail on that, but it seems to me it's probably on a case-by-case basis. You can sort of figure it out. I think the Ontario College of Physicians should be the ones to wonder or worry about whether or not somebody who only practises medicine one Saturday morning every two weeks is going to stay up to speed on medicine and should be able to practise or whatever.

Again, I think we're getting too specific. I think that to be a paid consultant is obviously an issue. I think directorships probably present a problem and all that, but there's a difference again between being involved in active operation of a business and owning one.

Mr. Boudria: Even for a backbench MP?

Mr. Winsor: Well, no. I thought you were referring specifically to the cabinet.

Mr. Boudria: No. You see, I'm asking these questions based on the previous answers that were given - and here I forget if both witnesses said that or just one - that the rules that apply for cabinet ministers and those that apply for backbenchers should be substantially the same. Here I'm giving examples of things that are prohibited for ministers, perhaps correctly so in some cases.

The question I'm asking is this. Even if we accept that these things are not appropriate for a cabinet minister to do, is it necessarily wrong for John Smith, MP, to still operate the hardware store in the riding once he's a backbench MP? The answer you gave before would seem to suggest that yes, it is wrong, or that whether it's right or wrong, it's the same for both minister and backbencher.

Mr. Winsor: I think there is quite a difference between general disclosure and whether or not you operate the hardware store. Indeed, quite frankly, if you are operating the hardware store in Hawkesbury as well as driving back and forth, the disclosure is there. Everybody in Hawkesbury will know that Boudria runs the hardware store in his spare time. So I think the thing of disclosure has been met and I don't think there's a problem.

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): Mr. McGillivray.

Mr. McGillivray: Again, it's a question of what will stand the light of day. If the hardware store is involved in some nefarious activity, maybe it wouldn't stand the light of day. Otherwise I think it would and there'd be no problem.

Mr. Boudria: I don't know why I picked a hardware store. It was the first thing that came to mind.

We're dealing with professions here. Say, for instance, someone owned a general insurance company. They sell casualty insurance and insurance for your car and your home and they still own the company and they're an MP. Perhaps there are some of those; I don't know.

They may continue to run it. On Saturday they check and see if their salesmen have made sales this week or whatever it is that insurance brokers do, and they continue to own the business. Now if that person is offered a position in cabinet, he or she has to decide whether or not to get rid of this thing. If it's yes, then they have to do it in order to be a minister. They may say no, this business is important to me and I don't know if I'll be re-elected, so I'm hanging onto it.

Alternatively, under the rules right now, they can let someone totally independent administer it and not operate it themselves at all. That is permitted right now. They could still own it, but it has to be run completely outside in a way that's similar to the blind trust mechanism.

At the present time, a minister is subject to that, but not a backbencher. What I've been trying to find out is if these things are applicable to ministers that way, should they automatically be applicable to backbenchers? I thought initially some answers suggested that yes, it should be the same.

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The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): Mr. McGillivray actually said it should be the same for both.

Mr. Boudria: Mr. McGillivray. Okay.

Mr. McGillivray: The basic question of ethics is the same. I think this strengthens, if anything, the point I was trying to make, that the parliamentarian has to judge his or her own suitability and the suitability of the activities he or she is engaged in, rather than somebody else. This shows what happens.... This is a kind of rough justice. You say you can run a hardware store but you can't run a medical practice. You can figure out examples that equate the two or make them very close together. That is the problem with drawing lines of this kind.

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): We will give the final question to Senator Gauthier, please.

Senator Gauthier: I have just one question. It's about lobbying. You have both avoided the subject tonight. You mentioned it, Mr. Winsor, but you didn't specifically tell me.... The orders of reference of this committee specifically refer to lobbying. I want to ask both of you, do you think rules are required to regulate lobbying with regard to parliamentarians?

Mr. McGillivray: I think it should be obvious that parliamentarians shouldn't be lobbying.

Senator Gauthier: Should not be lobbying.

Mr. Winsor: Lobbying is a very broad subject, I think we really have to narrow it. Who are we talking about lobbying for? I think MPs do have a duty to lobby on behalf of the interests of their constituents or whatever. If somebody really believes we should lower the textile quotas in order to help Third World countries improve their exports and you take that as a value position as an MP, then you are interested in the CIDA budget, trade rather than aid, and all those things, and then you should lobby for it.

When we are talking about lobbying in general, we are thinking about third-party lobbying. Maybe I misunderstood your mandate here. I didn't think you were talking about MPs lobbying. I thought you were talking about MPs and senators being lobbied by third-party paid lobbyists.

Indeed, I think there should be the same kind of disclosure about those third-party paid lobbyists whether they are targeting you or the director general of toxic substances in the environment department or something like that. That is why I say it is a stand-alone subject.

But MPs.... It's part of your role.

Senator Gauthier: I see. So you see no difficulty with the sugar lobby, for example...those members who have a sugar beet industry or some kind of interest in sugar wanting to lobby the Canadian government to impose some restrictions on -

Mr. Winsor: No, as long as they are doing it in their capacity as MPs or senators and not as paid lobbyists.

Senator Gauthier: What about the tobacco lobby, for example? I know we have members of the House of Commons whose constituency depends on tobacco smoking.

Mr. Winsor: But I would probably expect them...and I think they would be subject.... I would hope the reporter from the Tillsonburg Express or whatever it is would be pursuing what they are doing. Secondly, I hope that reporter would be taking what happened to the CBS 60 Minutes story and putting it right to them: well, what do you think; this guy in the CBS program has said there is conclusive evidence the tobacco industry knew the toxic effects and has been hiding them; what do you think about that?

Senator Gauthier: As long as a member does not receive direct benefits from it but only votes, eventually, he does a good job: is that what you are saying to me?

Mr. Winsor: Yes.

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Mr. McGillivray: I should amend my previous answer to say I don't consider it lobbying for a member to represent his constituents in the House of Commons, or to the public service or the media.

The Joint Chairman (Mr. Milliken): What if it isn't his constituent? I think many members get lobbied by lobbyists on behalf of companies that don't operate in their constituencies. A lobbyist may ask for a member's help in trying to get a favour or whatever for a company by going to the minister and indicating his support. The member supports that by going to the minister and making a comment, sending a letter, or whatever the step may be. It may benefit his constituents indirectly, but there's no connection. Is that lobbying? Is that something you would proscribe?

Mr. McGillivray: It's difficult to say. This is the fine-tooth comb of parliamentary procedure, I guess.

Mr. Winsor: I think the disclosure...I'm not into many proscriptions, I'm more into letting it all hang out.

There is a marine chamber of commerce that has a lot of interest in what happens to the seaway, pilotage, aids to navigation and all of those things. None of those marine industries may actually have headquarters in Kingston, but Kingston's very much influenced by what happens to them.

I think you have every right to go to the Minister of Transport, or the director general of the coast guard in Prescott, or whatever it is, but I think it should be disclosed that some representative on behalf of the marine chamber of commerce has come to you seeking support.

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): To whom should he disclose it?

Mr. Winsor: I guess it should be disclosed to the lobbyist registry, to that system.

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): Gentlemen, you can tell by the hour - it's almost9:25 p.m. - that you have stimulated this committee and made us really begin to question many of the things we've heard. We deeply appreciate your taking time from your busy schedules to come here and help us in our deliberations. It has been much appreciated. Thank you very much.

This meeting is now adjourned.

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