EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Wednesday, November 1, 1995

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[English]

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): I would like to call to order this session of the Special Joint Committee on a Code of Conduct. I would like to extend a very warm welcome to three presenters for this afternoon's session, from Guelph University, McMaster University and York University.

I understand all three presenters have a paper. The papers have been given to the clerks of the committee, and once translated, they will be circulated to all members of the committee.

I understand you've already decided who is going to go first, second and third. You can make your presentations, and after all three have presented, we will open the floor for general questions.

Mr. Epp (Elk Island): Mr. Chairman, just before we start, I would like to make a request. Inasmuch as I believe that all of the members of this committee do in fact communicate in English quite reasonably well, when these minutes are made available could they be distributed in advance, pending translation and distribution later for those who want them in the other language?

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): In the case of today's, they have just arrived, or they would have been given in advance.

Mr. Epp: Thank you.

Senator Gauthier (Ontario): The decision was made some time ago that any paper would not be handed out until it is translated.

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): That's parliamentary practice.

Senator Gauthier: Yes.

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): But if the witness wants to circulate it, it's up to the witness to do it. The clerk cannot do it.

Mr. Epp: Could I move that we suspend that ruling for this committee, just for sake of practicality?

The motion is that we suspend the necessity of having the translation prior to distribution. It could be distributed in the language in which it's presented and then later on brought in when it is translated.

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): I hear the motion, but we don't have enough members to meet the quorum for a motion like that now. Perhaps when more people come, you could consider placing your motion then, but it will likely meet with a lot of resistance.

Mr. McWhinney (Vancouver Quadra): I also believe, in conformity with the Constitution Act, it wouldn't be a competent motion. I don't believe we could, by a ruling of this committee, dispense with general requirements.

Mr. Boudria (Glengarry - Prescott - Russell): Anyway, we don't have a quorum.

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): Without further ado, welcome to our committee. We'd be pleased if you'd make your presentation.

Professor Michael Atkinson (Department of Political Studies; Associate Vice-President, Academic, McMaster University): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. My name is Michael Atkinson. I introduce my colleagues, Ian Greene and Professor Mancuso.

Ian will begin by talking a little bit about codes of conduct, their development and their relationship to democratic politics. Maureen will speak to the question of codes of conduct and her research on the United Kingdom. I will end with a short presentation on some of the survey research we've done recently.

Professor Ian Greene (Department of Political Science, York University): Thanks very much, Michael.

I'd like to begin by saying something about the study of political ethics. Ethics, as a subject of inquiry, provides tools to help us think more clearly about the difference between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. It doesn't provide a rigid set of commandments but rather a framework for thinking about principled behaviour.

A set of ethical standards can take two forms. It can consist of a short list of general principles that can be applied to particular situations - we might call this a code of ethics - or it can consist of a detailed set of guidelines that indicate appropriate behaviour in a variety of situations, which we might call a code of conduct. Most ethical rules are a mixture of both.

I tend to favour putting more effort into getting the general principles right first and then adding only enough detailed rules as are necessary to make the ethics regime work effectively. I like the way the new 1994 Code of Conduct is set out with all the general principles at the front on one big page. It makes a lot of sense to begin with that general statement of principles.

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In a democracy such as our own, the concepts of justice, human rights and political ethics, and democracy itself, all focus on a single reference point that is an unwavering respect for social equality and human dignity. In other words, a country cannot be truly democratic without respecting justice, human rights and political ethics.

When a liberal democracy changes and evolves, the pursuit of justice usually comes first, then the expansion of democracy, and then the deliberation on human rights. The Fathers of Confederation in Canada were more concerned with justice than democracy. Democracy meaning a universal franchise only came about in the early years of this century. Human rights didn't become an important factor until after the second war, culminating in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

We are now at a time in our history when political ethics have come to the fore. Your deliberations might constitute a historic step in this process if you can truly come to terms with what it means to show real respect to others, and I must admit, after going to the House of Commons this afternoon and seeing Question Period, I had real concerns about whether that could happen.

The fundamental principles of any code of ethics in a liberal democracy are social equality and respect for human dignity. The rule of law, which means that all government rules must be approved by democratically elected legislatures and that the law is to be applied equally to all, is derived from these principles.

In order to make the rule of law work effectively, the law must be applied impartially, so judges must be independent and impartial, as must all public officials, including cabinet ministers, when they're applying the law. This is why conflicts of interest are unacceptable, and this is why we have a code of conduct for cabinet ministers, parliamentary secretaries and public servants.

Throughout Canada's history, codes of conduct got developed or beefed up almost always as a result of a scandal. This is true both federally and provincially. Because cabinet ministers are more likely to get into trouble than ordinary MPs, the codes of conduct came first for cabinet ministers. However, in every major jurisdiction where the Westminster model is followed, except for Canada, there are codes of conduct for MPs as well as cabinet ministers that, at a minimum, provide for disclosure of assets.

It is a tremendous opportunity for members of Parliament and senators to be able to develop a code of conduct, as you are, before being forced to by a scandal, because a great deal more careful and deliberate planning can go into it than otherwise.

All three of us worked with the Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing on the idea of encouraging political parties to develop their own codes of ethics. Afterwards, Janet Hiebert, who teaches political science at Queen's University, wrote a very useful article in the research studies for the royal commission, urging political parties in Canada to develop their own codes of conduct.

The advantages for political parties to develop codes of ethics also apply to MPs and senators. First of all, the code of ethics or conduct is a consistent reminder of the basic principles of the political system, which I believe are equality and respect.

Secondly, a code can help promote a greater sense of collegiality among MPs and senators, because of the shared values.

Thirdly, a code would help MPs and senators work through ethical dilemmas. Having being active in politics for awhile myself, I know these dilemmas present themselves on a daily basis. A code is particularly important as a guide during the emotional pressure-cooker of an election or a referendum campaign.

Fourthly, a code of ethics would result in an atmosphere more welcoming to groups traditionally not represented among the ranks of legislators, such as women, visible minorities, and minority language groups.

Fifthly, the process of developing a code would focus attention on current practices and would raise the question of whether these practices continue to be acceptable in the late twentieth century.

Finally, the existence of the code would reduce the likelihood of ethical scandals and result in a more positive image for politicians. As you'll be hearing from Maureen in a few minutes, we really need a more positive image for politicians in this country. In addition, it would increase the desire of people with high ethical standards to become MPs and senators.

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What should be in a code of conduct for MPs and senators? First, there should be a statement of basic principles. I think these should refer to equality and respect for human dignity and the rule of law.

Next there should be procedures designed to prevent conflicts of interest. A conflict of interest should be clearly defined, very broadly, as a situation where an MP's or senator's decision-making capacity may be influenced by the possibility of personal financial gain, or the temptation to provide special favours, for example, to family members or even party supporters. A straightforward procedure should be set out to minimize the risks of conflicts of interest through disclosure of non-personal assets and withdrawing from situations that if pursued would result in a conflict of interest.

A code should also address the basic principles for dealing with lobbyists, and the issues of honesty and fair treatment for all.

The code could be either legislated or non-legislated. There are advantages to both, but how do you enforce post-employment rules without legislation?

A code of ethics, whether it's legislated or not, is most likely to be successful if it's implemented along with the establishment of the office of an independent ethics counsellor - I think that's the key - to whom MPs and senators can turn for confidential advice.

As you already know from your past hearings, there are independent ethics counsellors for MLAs as well as cabinet ministers in Ontario - that was the first - in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Newfoundland, the Northwest Territories, and now the Yukon. I hear that yesterday in the United Kingdom they approved the establishment of an independent ethics counsellor. So federally we're a bit behind. This innovation of an independent ethics counsellor has been successful, according to my research, in reducing the incidence of ethics scandals in these jurisdictions.

The annual reports of the Ontario conflict of interest commissioner provide very useful examples of how to resolve in a principled way the kinds of ethical questions faced by elected officials. I was looking through the latest report of Greg Evans, the conflict of interest commissioner in Ontario, and there were 30 or so examples of the kinds of issues faced by MLAs and the principled way of resolving these kinds of issues. It certainly convinced me that it's not just cabinet ministers who face these issues; MLAs, MPs and senators face them every day. It's useful to have an independent commissioner to go to for advice, and then a record of the advice. If you haven't read these reports, I think you'd find them very interesting.

When you get into the nitty-gritty work of drafting the contents of the code of ethics, this process should raise many difficult but important questions. For example, is patronage ever acceptable? Can party financing issues be considered conflict of interest issues? Is negative advertising ever acceptable? To what extent should MPs and senators be covered by a general code of ethics, and to what extent should the political parties be encouraged to develop their own codes of ethics? Do the rules of debate encourage interpersonal respect?

If members of this committee find those questions difficult, if a number of traditional practices in politics come into question, you're doing your job.

Let me end by saying that during my career I've come to know hundreds of MPs, MLAs and senators. It's my opinion that most have high ethical standards, much higher than is considered the case by many members of the public. In my classes I'm constantly defending the integrity of elected officials.

MPs, MLAs and senators get into questionable ethical situations for two basic reasons. First, many elements of the political culture in their legislature become inculcated into them, regardless of party affiliation. I think that is the reason for the despicable display during Question Period in the House of Commons today. That sort of behaviour is totally unacceptable to Canadians, and you have to wake up and change. If you don't change, somebody is going to do it for you.

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The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): For purposes of the record and for people reading this transcript, do you want to say what you saw?

Prof. Greene: Yes, I do, very much so.

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): Please say what you saw that was despicable so that those reading it will know what you're referring to.

Prof. Greene: I saw insults being hurled across the House, name-calling, and distortion of truth. This doesn't do anyone any good.

Senator Angus (Alma): This was today?

Prof. Greene: This was today in Question Period.

Senator Angus: November 1, 1995.

Prof. Greene: That's right.

A voice: Oh, oh.

Prof. Greene: This is serious.

Senator Angus: At least it couldn't have been Tories.

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): No, there's only one of those there; one of the two.

Mrs. Catterall (Ottawa West): How well do you know Elsie Wayne?

Some hon. members: Oh, oh.

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): Please continue.

Prof. Greene: If that's the attitude you have toward ethical issues, is there any sense continuing?

The second reason I think people get into trouble is that when people have the power to use influence, sometimes it goes to their heads, particularly for newly elected officials.

My first introduction into the world of politics occurred when I was 10 years old. My father was a dentist in a small town in Alberta. He had just come from a small private meeting that our local MLA had called with a few local businessmen. He related to me how the MLA had offered to provide tips on investing in small oil stocks, based on information he'd received from his contacts in government, in exchange for a donation to his campaign fund.

I was shocked. My father was also angered, but he took a more philosophical approach. He explained that in his experience, this sort of thing happened regardless of who was in power. This is why he hoped I would never be a politician.

More recently I had to deal with a member of Parliament who tried to use his influence to help a friend who had been charged with a plagiarism case in a university course. The MP was representing his friend in a meeting about the plagiarism case. When the university refused to drop the charges, the MP angrily flashed his House of Commons card and said that maybe other solutions were possible.

The student eventually admitted to plagiarizing the paper, and even admitted using the MP's access to the parliamentary library. The MP, however, maintained that he had done nothing wrong. I think he overstepped the appropriate limits and he misused his influence.

These kinds of disputes are more likely to get resolved and they are less likely to occur in the first place if there is an independent ethics counsellor in place who can provide MPs and senators with impartial advice.

The history of democracy is a history of experimenting with ways of encouraging greater and greater respect for individual dignity and social equality. Professor Mancuso will be talking about how these experiments have progressed in the United Kingdom. If the fundamental goals of promoting interpersonal respect and social equality are kept in line, your recommendations are bound to be useful ones. From my perspective, there is an urgent need to take action in order to enhance the integrity of the political process.

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): Thank you very much.

Professor Maureen Mancuso (Department of Political Studies, Guelph University): Professor Greene has concentrated on rules, laws and codes as abstract mechanisms. I'd like to offer some insights into how these mechanisms operate in practice.

Not surprisingly, well-intentioned rules do not automatically guarantee their intended results. My research on the British House of Commons focused particularly on the interaction between formal and informal requirements and the ethical attitudes of MPs themselves. As the primary model for the Canadian Parliament, Westminister is an especially appropriate point of comparison. Unlike comparisons with the United States, which operates under a completely different paradigm of representation, the similarities between the British and the Canadian Houses are strong in both theory and practice.

One clear difference, however, is that the British system has entrenched the principle of declaration of members' interests. Indeed, Canada stands out as one of the only jurisdictions that does not require legislators to identify potential sources of conflict of interest.

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In Britain, declaration is the cornerstone of ethics regulation and is virtually the only formal requirement imposed on members. It is assumed both implicitly and explicitly that all members have the ability and inclination to intuitively recognize the ethically correct choice in any situation. In this theory, declaration serves as a means of bringing all facts into the open in an environment of universal ethical consensus, where all members agree on what constitutes acceptable and unacceptable behaviour.

My research shows, however, that declaration is simply not enough. This ethical consensus upon which the British system depends is a fiction. There exist distinct sub-populations of MPs who evaluate the same ethical dilemma in completely different, sometimes opposite, ways.

Moreover, many members are hungry for further advice and direction on how to resolve ethical quandaries. For the moment there is no one to turn to nor is there any consistent source of guidance for members facing choices that would seem to compromise the responsibility to the public interest. As in any group, the less experienced occasionally refer to the old hands, but the advice of senior legislators is varied and highly subjective.

In my study, MPs were asked to indicate how strongly they approved or disapproved of a number of hypothetical scenarios in which conflict of interest and constituency service activities were depicted. Based on their answers, MPs were classified as having a high tolerance for the activity, which means they generally approved of it as compared with the average MP, or a low tolerance, which means they generally condemned it as corrupt. This high-low dichotomy on these two dimensions yields four distinct types of MPs.

I termed the 28 members who had low tolerance for both conflict of interest and constituency service ``the puritans''. The 16 who had low tolerance for conflict of interest but a high tolerance for constituency service formed ``the servant group''. I designated as ``the muddlers'' the 21 MPs with high tolerance for conflict of interest and low tolerance for constituency service. Finally, the 35 MPs who displayed both high tolerance for conflict of interest and constituency service I called ``the entrepreneurs''. A closer examination of the four types reveals a number of characteristics that distinguish the types from one another.

The puritans were the one group that had a strong partisan trend. Puritans were more likely to be members of the Labour Party; Conservative puritans were relatively rare. Puritans in general tend to identify themselves on the left of the liberal side of the ideological spectrum. They are MPs who for the most part do not engage in employment outside the House, and if they do, they avoid the retainers offered to service parliamentary consultants.

Puritans share a pessimistic ethical outlook. Many doubt the ethics of some of their fellow MPs and feel the negative public image of politicians is often justified. Most doubt that the existing regulatory framework is sufficient to check the growth of inappropriate behaviour. They suspect publicized scandals are only really the tip of the iceberg.

The servants are the type that resembles most closely the traditional image of MPs as public-spirited amateurs, which the existing ethical framework implicitly assumes to be true. They are also the rarest type of MP; fewer than one in six MPs is a servant.

The servants take this traditional image to heart. Unlike the puritans, they are relatively conservative, with a small ``c'', and tend to be optimistic and generous in assessing their colleagues. They are least likely to believe that corruption is a problem. They are confident that all MPs take seriously the special responsibilities of their public powers and that scandals are at worst the work of a few rotten parliamentary apples in the barrel.

Most maintain employment outside the House, but primarily in the low-risk professions of medicine, journalism, farming and especially the law. Like the puritans, they avoid consultancies, and as a group, they're opposed to further regulation, which they would construe as an affront to the good name of Parliament and parliamentarians.

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The muddlers display an upside-down ethical view. They condemn as corrupt some activities that would benefit their constituents, but accept the same acts if to their own personal benefit. They appear unclear and uncertain about ethical requirements, and therefore they tend to justify their actions and judgments with phrases like ``many others are doing it so it must be acceptable''. Almost all have outside employment, many in high-risk positions such as parliamentary consultancies. The muddlers tend to avoid thinking about ethical matters, and as a group they remain unsure why ethics are a concern.

The entrepreneurs are the most common type at Westminster, over a third of all MPs. They are primarily Conservative Party members who tend to be associated with the dry Thatcherite wing of the party. They are ethical minimalists, who defend the belief that any behaviour not expressly prohibited is therefore allowed. They accept parliamentary consultancies readily, and many hold multiple consultancies. As a group they are opposed to further regulation because they believe that Parliament is overregulated and that corruption is simply not a problem. They are most likely to explain away the negative public image of politicians by insisting that the public does not understand what politics is all about.

The existence of these four distinct types presents a serious challenge to the current system. Parliament presumes that all MPs can be counted on to apply uniform principles of honour and good judgment to the situations they face, and thus it grants considerable discretion to individuals in the resolution of ethical dilemmas. The result is that the House is dependent for the maintenance of probity on the congruence of multiple individual attitudes with a single indistinct ideal.

The four types and the wide ethical ``discensus'' they illustrate belie this presumption that elected parliamentarians all draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour in the same location. Rather, the line is all over the ethical map.

Although many MPs - servants and entrepreneurs especially - praised the flexibility of the current system and insisted that additional formal requirements would only complicate matters, others, with varying degrees of openness, indicated that more complete and coherent ethical guidance was necessary. The muddlers in particular mentioned the absence of guidelines to assist their ethical decision-making.

There are indications that the House has finally realized that its ethics framework is becoming increasingly difficult to defend. In response to the revelation of the cash-for-questions scandal in 1994, the Prime Minister established the Committee on Standards in Public Life, the Nolan committee, to examine current concerns about standards of conduct of all holders of public office. The committee was constituted as a standing body, with its members appointed for three years.

The committee released its first report in May 1995 and made a number of recommendations pertaining to members of Parliament and ministers. Generally the recommendations, if adopted, would make the provisions that govern registration of financial interests much clearer and less open to interpretation. This measure would address a common concern of the MPs interviewed: that registration and declaration needed to be given real teeth.

The committee defended the right of parliamentarians to continue to pursue outside employment, although they did indicate that MPs should not be permitted to secure employment with large lobbyist or public relations firms that service a large number of clients. As for serving as parliamentary consultants in other capacities, the committee recommended further study. It did note with concern that some 70% of all MPs are currently engaged in some form of outside employment that directly relates to their parliamentary position.

The committee also provided a draft code of conduct for members of Parliament based on seven aspirational norms for public officials: selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership. Like the existing regulatory scheme, however, this code also focused primarily on identifying and disclosing financial interests.

The most significant recommendation, and the one I believe to be of greatest importance to this committee, is the establishment of an independent parliamentary commissioner for standards, who would have a specific tenure in office and who would be comparable to the comptroller general and the auditor general.

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This appointee would not be a career member of the House of Commons staff. He or she would take over responsibility for maintaining the register of members' interests. They would advise on the code of conduct and questions of propriety. They would have the responsibility for preparing guidance and providing induction sessions for new members on matters of conduct, propriety and ethics. They would have the responsibility for receiving complaints about, and investigating the conduct of, members in this area.

This commissioner would have the same ability to make findings and conclusions public, as is enjoyed by the comptroller and the auditor general. Once a complaint is received, the commissioner would have independent discretion to decide whether or not a complaint merits investigation.

Following an investigation, which is to be done in private, the commissioner would: dismiss the complaint; find it proved and arrange a settlement with the member involved; or refer the complaint to a special subcommittee of the committee on privileges for further consideration. After so resolving a case, the commissioner would be required to publish the reasons for his or her findings.

The Nolan committee's report addresses several of the concerns revealed in my original study, in particular, the establishment of an independent and permanent office with the power not only to assist and guide members but also to enforce regulations and punish transgressions. This would significantly improve the likelihood of compliance with parliamentary standards of behaviour.

With a standards commissioner in office, no MP could complain, as one did to me, that right now in this place there are not high hopes for ethical standards. No one tells you what is expected of you. There is no guidance. You are pretty much left on your own.

Unfortunately, that MP spoke almost ten years ago. It took a series of scandals, a deeply embarrassed government and a severely eroded level of public confidence in Parliament for the legislature to act. It would be a shame for Canada to undergo the same process, although some have already suggested that we are well on the way.

Professor Atkinson will present some results of research here in Canada that speaks to this problem.

Prof. Atkinson: Thank you very much, Maureen.

The three of us are part of a larger group of academics. There are two others, who are in the process of putting together a national survey on political ethics. It's our plan to do not only a national survey but also to use the same survey instrument to elicit the views of members of Parliament, members of the journalism community, and others, in short, whose attitudes we can compare with those of the general public.

In anticipation of this work, we have spent a number of years putting together a questionnaire we could use. In the spring of 1993 we tested that questionnaire in the small city of Guelph, Ontario. Guelph may be known to some of you as a test site for laundry detergents and things like this. Evidently Guelph has somehow a peculiar set of qualities that makes it very attractive to people putting new products on the market.

We tested our new product. Really, the test is to enable us to perfect the research instrument so that when we do a national survey we're in a position where we're not learning on the job.

It struck me, and both Ian and Maureen agreed, that you might like to see some of the results of that work. In spite of the fact that we can't offer you the results of a national survey, we can offer you some indication of the attitudes of the public, once they're asked, or probed on, certain questions of political ethics.

If you all have a copy of ``Attitudes Toward Political Ethics'', I'll walk you through some of the results as we see them. It won't take very long.

The first six figures are all the result of direct questions asked of all 400 members of the public. In figure 1, we ask if political corruption is a widespread problem in this country. People will be using very different definitions of the term ``corruption'' in response to this question, but the term corruption, as you know, is a very uncompromising term. Yet almost 60% of respondents are willing to agree with this statement.

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Of those who disagree, some will think it is not widespread and some others will think that shady activities go on, but they're not prepared to called it corruption. So while 49% disagree with this statement, it would be a mistake to conclude that even these people think everything is fine.

Figure 2 shows responses to a comparative question: Is corruption more widespread in business than in politics? Once again, the answers aren't particularly encouraging. Over 60% think it is not. Some of these respondents will judge corruption in business and politics as roughly equal; others will believe politics is worse.

Figure 3 shows results that are slightly more reassuring. About 60% of people think good people go into politics, but the job makes it impossible for them to be honest all of the time. The good news is politicians are honest at the outset; the bad news is the job is corrupting.

It's hard to know how to interpret those who disagree. Some may doubt that good people go into politics, and others may think the job shouldn't make it impossible to be honest all the time.

Figure 4 is also a cause for concern. While a slight majority disagree that people who run for office are usually out for themselves, a large portion of our sample thinks political office doesn't involve sacrifice, but politicians are really looking out for themselves. The idea that politicians are servants of the people is almost entirely lost on half of these respondents.

Figure 5 indicates our respondents were willing to concede that some of the reason for the distrust of public officials arises from a lack of understanding of what politics is all about. It's hard to know whether we are seeing here a negative assessment of citizens and their knowledge or a positive assessment of politicians. The good news is many people feel there's room for education, and if people knew more about politics they might be more forgiving.

Figure 6 shows more than half of the sample were not interested in a double standard: one for politicians, one for everyone else. However, a rather large proportion of the people in this sample were quite willing to say politicians should be held to higher standards. It seems some people detect a certain hypocrisy in expecting more of politicians than they expect of themselves, but there is still a strong block that expects politicians to set standards for themselves that are above the norm for society as a whole.

We asked people not just for their responses to these particular questions. Once again, using the kind of technique Professor Mancuso used in the U.K., we gave them a series of scenarios and asked them to evaluate those scenarios on a scale of minus 5 to plus 5, where minus 5 is completely unacceptable and plus 5 is completely acceptable.

All of those scenarios we have reproduced for you in table 2, so at your leisure you'll have to read them over and perhaps ask yourselves how you might have responded to them on that completely unacceptable/completely acceptable continuum.

We can tell you, in the meantime, how people in the city of Guelph responded. The scores on all of these items were generally at the negative end of the scale, indicating that very few of these respondents found any of these activities entirely acceptable.

In examining the responses, it became clear to us that certain scenarios clustered together to form distinct types. Table 1 indicates these types and the labels we've given them. They're arranged in the order of the least acceptable to the most acceptable. So kickbacks is the least, private lying is the most.

Notice that the first two types, kickbacks and public lying, are considerably more problematic than the remaining four, so I direct your attention to the mean scores of those two. In our judgment, they're really quite in a class by themselves.

The first, kickbacks - and you'll have to read the scenarios to see how we set this up - involve an obvious quid pro quo: you do something for me, I'll do something for you. Our respondents in Guelph didn't like these at all.

Public lying involves conscious manipulation in a good cause. We offered the idea that, yes, indeed, public officials were misleading the public, but it was for a good end. Once again, our respondents in Guelph didn't like this. It was hard to find anyone who would rate either of these as better than minus one on that scale of minus five to plus five.

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The next three items - patronage, gifts and conflicts of interest - have all been the subject of previous efforts at reform and I'm sure they're on your agenda. Notice that all three of these items are judged negatively, but there is a large difference of opinion. We made small changes to our scenarios, like the size of the gifts. We were talking, I think, about a bottle of wine at Christmas. If you made it a crate you might get a different response. Small changes in the scenarios, in the importance of the appointments, could easily affect judgments one way or the other.

Details matter to people, but overall there's very little support for the notion that these kinds of activities, even activities that are perfectly legal, are entirely acceptable.

Finally, I'd like to address your attention to the question of how to change things. We asked our respondents whether they thought there was anything that might be done to reduce problems of political ethics in Canada. Naturally we asked about legislation and codes of conduct, but we also wanted to know how they felt about a number of other more controversial proposals, including setting up a permanent investigation unit and requiring all politicians to take a course in public ethics.

People liked the idea of a permanent investigation unit. If you take a look at figure 7 you'll see what their responses were. They liked the idea of a permanent investigation unit. Maybe they were influenced by special prosecutors in the United States; it's hard to tell. In addition, this option, the way we put it to them, provided for public input. Many of our respondents may have found that particular aspect attractive. Fewer than 20% of our respondents thought it would make no difference if you introduced a permanent investigation unit.

Other options garnered about the same level of support, except for item 6. Over half of our respondents don't think that screening officials for flaws in their morals would make much difference.

There's one final point I'd like to make. While people are certainly in favour of legislation and disclosure, in each case it is only a minority who think it will make a significant difference. Moreover, our respondents are equally predisposed toward other techniques. So if legislation and disclosure are to be the principal instruments you reach for - and indeed I hope they will be - you should use them with the knowledge that part of the population will probably think they're not enough.

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): I thank the three of you very much. You've given us an awful lot of food for thought.

I have three people on my list: Senator Gauthier, Senator Angus and Madam Catterall. Before I turn to Senator Gauthier, Professor Greene, you talked about disclosure of non-personal assets. Could you tell us what personal and non-personal assets are? That's my first question.

Second, you said we should have some principles for dealing with lobbyists. What are the principles that you think should be at the base, the principles you'd like to see for that?

Prof. Greene: First of all, in most regimes where public officials are required to disclose their assets as a way of trying to prevent conflicts of interest, they aren't required to disclose their personal assets: their home, quite often their cottage, their car, their bank accounts and their pension plans. Those are considered personal assets.

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): Stocks and bonds?

Prof. Greene: Those are non-personal assets, unless they are part of a particular kind of pension plan.

So everything else would be disclosed. Whether it was publicly disclosed or not would really depend on the regime we are talking about. In Ontario, for example, and I think with federal public servants, what happens is that the independent ethics counsellor would decide whether the non-personal assets should be disclosed publicly, whether they are significant enough.

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): And number two?

Prof. Greene: The other one was what to do about lobbyists. I think there are two ways of preventing problems with lobbyists. One is through controlling the lobbyists themselves, and the other approach is through a code of conduct for members of Parliament and senators. Or you could use a combination of both.

With regard to a code of conduct, if the code of conduct made clear that when dealing with lobbyists, the ultimate purpose of a public official's duties is to make decisions in the public interest, and that decisions should not be made so that the member or the senator will benefit personally or the party will benefit, then I think that would control relations with lobbyists. The important thing is to be able to make a decision impartially and not be affected by personal interests or the party's financial fortunes.

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Senator Angus: What about outlawing lobbyists altogether?

Prof. Greene: Well, some people think they serve a useful function.

Senator Gauthier: I've found this conversation interesting up to now.

Madam Mancuso, I've read your book. I thought it fascinating. I'm really interested in what you've found in England, but I doubt very much it applies here in Canada. Some of the things you have in this book....

I've been personally involved here for 23 years and I don't know of any whip being called by anybody to be asked to give the name of a member of Parliament who could act as a lobbyist for that company. Maybe it has happened, but it doesn't happen in Canada. Maybe it happens in Britain, but not here. Vive la différence, you know.

If you were to use in Canada the questionnaires or the process you used in the U.K. - I'm going to ask you very bluntly - do you think you'd come to the same conclusions?

Prof. Mancuso: The criteria on which you would construct the types might not be the same, but I think certainly you would uncover dissent. I do not think that in the Canadian Parliament there would emerge a homogeneous consensus as to where the dividing line is between appropriate and inappropriate behaviour.

You're right that to a large extent one of the defining characteristics in the British House is this practice of accepting parliamentary consultancies, which we do not have in the Canadian House, but on the Senate side, a comparison could be drawn with senators who accept appointments to boards of directors. Those are similar sorts of arrangements. Again, I don't know whether people are being paid to accept those posts, but there certainly is room, on the Senate side at least, for points of comparison.

I do believe that certainly you would uncover some sort of dissent. In fact Michael and I did previous research in 1985. We came and talked to 89 members of Parliament, and again, there was no consensus as to what constitutes appropriate and inappropriate behaviour. So we already know from a modest sample size that there is this lack of a clear consensus.

Senator Gauthier: I'm going to ask the three of you a question I've asked of many witnesses. Do you see a difference between political morality and political ethics? If you do, please give me a short definition of what you see as the difference.

Prof. Atkinson: I'd like to go last.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh.

Prof. Mancuso: So you can just say, ``I agree''.

Prof. Atkinson: Maybe.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh.

A voice: He sounds like a politician.

Senator Gauthier: I'm dealing with values, ethics, morality and law. Give me a definition, because you seem to know what you're talking about. I want to see what you can give to me.

Prof. Greene: That's a very good question. I'll take a stab at it.

For me, political ethics deals with expected norms of behaviour derived from the basic principles I was talking about - interpersonal respect and social equality - which lead to the rule of law and most of the basic principles of our political system. That's a question of political ethics. It's a question of fairness, the appropriate treatment of other people, impartial decision-making and so on.

Political morality I would think of more in terms of perhaps a person's personal standards. What do they think about the abortion issue? What do they think about premarital sex and that sort of thing? Those are things that the public uses to judge politicians, but they don't necessarily impinge on the fairness of the process.

Senator Gauthier: You're missing the point. Political morality has to do with right and wrong, not with whether you believe homosexuality is a sin or whether it's correct politically or socially.

Do you think there is a difference between political ethics and political morality? I think there are deep ones. You've touched on the ethics and I understand your point, but on the morality question, I'm not too sure you understand what my point is. I'm not talking about whether I'm a Catholic and you're a Protestant and you believe in the birth of Jesus Christ, or whatever concepts you have in terms of your morals and what's right and wrong. I'm asking you, is there such a thing as political morality, some concept that unites all politicians under a moral umbrella? Do you think that exists?

.1730

Because that's the point you're dealing with in your comments to me today. You didn't like the behaviour in the House. You object strongly to the behaviour in the House. That may be, watching the House on T.V., how the people behave there, but is there a morality or an ethics question at hand here?

Prof. Greene: I think I understand your question better now. From that perspective, perhaps there isn't, in my mind, a big difference between political ethics and political morality. It seems to me there are basic principles that ought to unite all politicians -

Senator Gauthier: There are standards.

Prof. Greene: Yes. Once again, I think they deal with respect and equality. If those principles are thought about carefully, then there ought to be a code of behaviour that is similar for all politicians. But reasonable people will disagree about that.

On the other hand, I think the exercise of thinking about how those principles apply goes a long way toward at least making you feel you're principled in your approach; you've thought through the problem.

Senator Gauthier: Can I ask the others to give me a comment?

I am sure you have something to say.

Prof. Mancuso: Again, as Ian began, when you hear the word ``morality'' you do think in personal terms. This is something that comes from inside, an ethical voice, if you like, that comes from inside each of us and tells us how to behave in a given situation. I think it's very tightly linked to questions of character and virtue and integrity, and how you perceive yourself as a person.

In a political context, I think that helps people to make decisions, because if you don't have a common political morality, the only thing you have to fall back on is your personal morality. So if there is no clear sense of what constitutes the political morality, what you have to fall back on is how you would decide things yourself, on a case-by-case basis.

When I hear ``morality'', I think of it in a personal way. At the same time, I think you're right that institutions such as Parliament can adopt a morality, or create or shape a morality, based on the procedures and the norms and the conventions that govern the operation of the institution. So I think there can emerge a sense of an institution's political morality. The House could have a morality.

Senator Gauthier: The House could have a morality.

Prof. Mancuso: What it is, I'm not sure.

Well, I do think most people would recognize that elected officials should not exploit their elected office for private gain.

Senator Gauthier: I agree with that.

Prof. Mancuso: I think most people around the table would agree that this is something you wouldn't do.

Senator Gauthier: And most of us don't.

Prof. Mancuso: That's correct.

Senator Gauthier: There may be bad apples once in awhile, but don't draw the line that everybody's bad.

Prof. Mancuso: No, and I never do. I wouldn't - not even in Guelph.

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): Professor Atkinson, do you want to give your view of the definition?

Prof. Atkinson: Not particularly, Mr. Chairman, but I will say that you'll find, of course, the terms ``morality'' and ``ethics'' used interchangeably.

When pressed to distinguish between the two, Senator, I think most will reach for the distinction that says morality is somehow personal and ethics may be professional. Ethics may better be associated with a corporate entity or a body so that.... I hate to disagree with my colleague Dr. Mancuso, but it would seem to me that the term and the concept of ethics would be better applied to a corporate entity, a body like this one.

In its struggles to try to devise some kind of ethical framework, I hardly ever hear used the term ``moral framework'', for instance. I agree with you that morality is about right and wrong, and in the end, I think right and wrong are very much pieces of personal reflection.

That is probably a small-``l'' liberal perception. There may be others who have the idea that there exists a single morality we should all subscribe to and should inform everything we do.

Frankly, I would prefer not to use the term ``political morality'', in favour of the term ``political ethics'', because I think it does have a slightly more neutral cast to it, and frankly, it invites discussion. It is a little more difficult to talk about one's personal political morality and expect other people to share it, or to be shaped by it, but if you can couch the language and the discussion in terms of ethics, then I think the table is clear for discussion and differences of opinion.

Is that helpful?

Senator Gauthier: Somewhat.

Prof. Atkinson: Is that a ``C''?

Senator Gauthier: It won't resolve my basic premise, which is that partisanship in the House of Commons is part of the game, whether you like it or not.

.1735

Partisan people have a way of having their glasses put on and looking at issues with their morals - or their political morals, the definition you want to use - and the other group, looking at the same object, the same problem, may have a different approach to it.

But the challenge of this committee is to develop a code of conduct, en anglais, or a code of good conduct, I take it, as it's understood here. In French, we call it a code of ethics. Do you see? Two different languages, two different concepts: one says it's a code of conduct you guys have to address, and the other one says

[Translation]

``code of ethics. In French the expression is ``code d'éthique''. So there is a difference there.

[English]

What would be the first things you would put in a code of conduct? In brief, what would be the major elements you would advise the committee to put in that code of conduct?

Prof. Atkinson: First of all, I would say that Professors Greene and Mancuso have both urged you to consider the distinction between a code of ethics and a code of conduct, and the need for ethical principles, initial statements -

Senator Gauthier: We have both.

Prof. Atkinson: All I'm suggesting is, I don't think we're necessarily in a particularly good position to tell you what that ethical code ought to be or what those ethical principles ought to be, except to urge you to consider, yes, indeed, to lead with a set of principles and follow it up with a set of, ``do this, don't do that; disclose this, don't bother disclosing that; disclose to this level'', etc., or in other words, a much more detailed....

When I use the term ``code of conduct'', I'm thinking much more in that regulatory, detailed, technical sense. When I use the term ``code of ethics'', I'm thinking in a more aspirational sense. I would urge you to consider putting both of them in your code.

Prof. Mancuso: I think there is a distinction to be made between ethics and conduct.

Ethics, as Michael has said, is much more aspirational in its cast, and I think you should also consider that it should be set in a positive way. Many times when people have dialogues about questions of ethics and conduct, they automatically take on a negative sort of tone or cast to them. I think there's a way to write a code of political ethics that is much more positive, encouraging, and enthusiastic, and does not have to be, ``You can't do this, you can't do that''. The sort of proscriptive elements should be left for the code of conduct.

You're right; you may be able to incorporate them into one code, having the aspirational elements serve as the preamble to the code and then having the prescriptive or more proscriptive elements follow as the precise code of conduct. So I do think there are ways you could incorporate elements of both into a single document.

Senator Gauthier: I'd like to come back in a second round because of some key words - kickbacks, public lying, patronage, gifts, conflict, private lying. I want to get back to that. I think you guys did a job on us here.

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): I have on my list of other interveners Senator Angus, Mrs. Catterall, Mr. Malhi, Ms Beaumier and Mr. Epp.

Senator Angus.

Senator Angus: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Let me first begin by thanking all of you professors. It was a most enlightening presentation. All three of you were slightly different, and yet I think very much to the point.

Before Senator Gauthier addressed Professor Mancuso's book, I was going to simply say that you portray a very depressing state of affairs in the U.K. Parliament. I have seen your book, as well.

But it's apples and oranges. I think, as you say and as Professor Greene suggested, we don't want to wait any longer; we've had enough scandals. But they had the big scandals that provoked the Nolan inquiry and the report, and so forth, and now they're wrestling with some kind of implementation.

But I want to be sure we have it on the record. You are in no way suggesting, are you, Professor Mancuso, that the situation here is as bad as it is in the U.K.? Or are you?

Prof. Mancuso: No, you're right. There are differences, as I explained, with respect to the outside employment question.

Senator Angus: These consultancies are the really bad thing, and getting paid to ask certain questions.

.1740

Maybe I'm wrong, but the thing that struck me is that the portrayal of the U.K. at Westminster comes out of the mouths of the very MPs there. You've hung them by their own testimony, and you've broken them down very charmingly into these categories.

I was trying to figure out which one Senator Gauthier would fit into. I'm not telling you which one.... After 23 years, you know, you get....

So it's quite revealing, frankly. You did indicate, though, in answer to his question, that you did do a sampling here as to awareness. I'm not at all surprised at your findings, and I think there is a dreadful...especially in a new Parliament. The current one is relatively new. There aren't sufficient courses and whatever for new MPs. Not all of them come from professions where there are codes of ethics and standards of behaviour. Would that be a fair...? I think that's why we're all here in this joint committee of the House.

In any event, you're not saying you have evidence that it's as bad here in Canada as it is in the U.K., based on your actual investigation.

Prof. Mancuso: It's different. I mean, to a large -

Senator Angus: But you haven't studied it yet here.

Prof. Mancuso: No, that's right.

A lot has to do with the difference between the nature of a parliamentary career. In Britain it's still treated very much as a part-time endeavour by a large number of the elected officials. So for them and Parliament, and even in the Nolan report, they have voted or they have discussed and decided that they want to encourage the practice of maintaining outside employment, that this enhances parliamentary debate, that the members bring a more informed point of view to the floor in terms of debates. But the problem is that they're no longer combining that career with traditional types of careers. They're no longer performing or serving as barristers and solicitors, or miners, or farmers. They are finding that it's way easier to combine this career with these consultancy types of offers.

You're right; I don't know that this is going on in the Canadian House. But as I alluded to, I think there have been problems, or there is room for problems, on the Senate side.

Senator Angus: Let me ask one more general question and then a couple of specific ones. The general one would also follow from your dialogue with Senator Gauthier. That is, would you feel that there would be an analogy in, say, the legal profession? There are codes of ethics that deal with things like trust funds and clients' money, and the things that would engender words like ``corruption'' and all these things, which really are Criminal Code matters.

On the one hand, those are ethical matters, and the lawyers have to abide by those. There's a disciplinary body. Then there's another level of behaviour, called ``professional conduct''. As an officer of the court, one is expected to adhere to and not engage, in a courtroom, for example, in outbursts like the ones Professor Greene witnessed today. I didn't witness that one; I wasn't in that particular House.

Would there be an analogy there? In other words, you are suggesting that we should include in whatever we come up with after our deliberations not only ethical rules that would enable us to either have some commissioner or independent person we could go to and disclose our assets and outline the things that might give rise to an conflict of interest...and those would get dealt with and the principles would not be violated. These are the legal behaviour issues.

Then you're saying, I think, that there should also be some kind of behaviour...which isn't breaking any laws anywhere, but since we have the public trust, we're here, and we're getting paid out of the public weal, we therefore have to behave in a different way than Joe Blow. That's what you're saying, I think.

Prof. Greene: One of the principles that guides our research, actually, is that the ethical standards of members of Parliament and senators depend in part on their backgrounds. Because lawyers have dealt with their own codes of ethics for many years, they have a particular approach. Lawyers and business persons are the two biggest categories in terms of MPs and senators. Many businesses have their own codes of ethics now. Here's one from Imperial Oil. It's quite good.

Senator Angus: It's a big new trend now. Banks have them....

.1745

Prof. Greene: That's right. No doubt that's going to influence how those members act when they come to Parliament.

One of the difficulties with the lawyers' code of ethics...look how thick it is. I've interviewed lawyers about ethical issues and many consider that as long as they follow the letter of the code, they're fine. I don't think they do enough thinking in general about the basic principles that led to the code in the first place. This is why I think it would be really useful for this committee to concentrate more on the basic principles. If you get those right, everything else follows.

Senator Angus: Let me ask a specific question on the levels of conduct depending on your position. We've had witnesses come here and delineate differences between kinds of office holders who are, say, cabinet ministers; they're actual members of the executive branch, they're in the government, they know all the secrets, they've taken special oaths that privy councillors and others.... Then there's the elected member of Parliament, and then there's the appointed senator.

Whether it's right or wrong - and I think Professor Atkinson was raising the issue of whether...no, I think it was Dr. Mancuso - but what I was taught about how our Parliament is supposed to work is that it enriches Parliament to have a body of individuals here who still carry on business or whatever in their daily lives. They aren't just professional members of Parliament. I'm talking about the Senate. They bring a kind of appreciation of the day-to-day world so that when the legislation comes up to them they can say, well, that makes a lot of sense in a vacuum, in an ideal world, but in the real world it's impractical and it won't work. Therefore, with sober second thought, maybe if you changed it this way it would work better. A lot of the witnesses have encouraged us that it is good to have outside employment and to continue it so that you have good, healthy common sense.

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): Mitchell Sharp and Mr. Wilson both said that.

Senator Angus: Do you agree with this?

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): Did you want to comment and then I'll go on to some of the other witnesses?

Senator Angus: I'd like you maybe all to comment, but in your answers if you could add.... Senator Gauthier and I were particularly interested in one witness who said that he felt there should be a different set of rules for senators than for MPs and cabinet ministers - much, much stricter rules. No, no, much more different.

Prof. Greene: I think practical experience in some ways can help members and senators to be more deliberative and in a sense more impartial about what they're deciding than if they are completely impartial and know nothing about the subject. So this can help.

The media in Saskatchewan phoned me about six months ago very concerned that many members of the Saskatchewan legislature were voting about changes to legislation on the Wheat Pool and most of them were members of the Wheat Pool. In that situation I didn't think there was a conflict of interest because they knew what it was all about. It wasn't clear whether there would be any benefits from the change, but at least they knew what it was all about. So there's a lot in what you're saying.

Senator Angus: And it was transparent. Everyone knew they were members of the Wheat Pool, so even if there was a technical conflict, in reality there wasn't.

Prof. Greene: Exactly, and if they didn't vote, there would be very few members left to vote.

But when business interests possibly coincide with public duties there is always a danger of conflict of interest. This is where the advice that Greg Evans gives to the members in Ontario is so interesting. Those kinds of things come up all the time and the answers are difficult, so it's nice to have someone experienced like Evans to talk with to help resolve these issues.

Particularly in the case of the Senate, I think these kinds of conflicts of interest can possibly arise. A potential conflict of interest arises when you're in a situation where you might personally benefit from the decision. Then you have to decide how you can prevent a real conflict. Should you divest yourself of your assets, or is the best thing just not to participate in this particular matter? That's usually the best way of doing it.

With regard to the Senate, Colin Campbell wrote a wonderful book about the Senate about 15 years ago. He claims that the Senate has a lobby from within; it represents specific business interests, particularly in the Senate Standing Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce. He gave many examples of conflicts of interest in his book. I must admit, in introductory political science courses it's standard fare that we tell our students the Senate is a lobby from within, there are no rules governing the senators, and there's a big problem here. So I think there really does need to be careful consideration about the Senate.

.1750

This doesn't mean it's wrong to have people in the Senate who have practical experience, but they're likely to get into potential conflict situations, and they have to know how to get out of it. That's why an independent ethics counsellor for the Senate, in particular, would be really useful.

If you haven't heard from Colin Campbell, I think he'd be terrific to hear from. He teaches at Georgetown University now.

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): Dr. Mancuso, do you want to respond?

Prof. Mancuso: I would agree with a lot of what Ian has said. I think with the current Senate, it really is that no provisions are there for them to declare the interests, to make the interests known. If they are working outside and they are sitting on a board, or they are getting remuneration for something else, it then makes it very difficult for observers to figure out, when they do speak on the floor or in the committee, if they really are speaking because they believe in this interest or because they are being employed by a particular interest.

One way around that is to at least have these interests made public, on a public record, and as well, as Ian has raised...that there are ways to get you out of the conflict situation, either through recusal provisions, which are adopted in the U.S. Congress, where you could still participate in the debate but you wouldn't necessarily cast a vote, or you could excuse yourself entirely.

So I do think there are rules that could be introduced to help senators out, but I'm not necessarily advocating a separate set of rules for all of these different levels of people. I think the one thing they all have in common is that they're all parliamentarians. Surely some common rules could be introduced that would pertain to all of the levels or categories of office holders that you identified at the outset.

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): Thank you.

Mrs. Catterall, please.

Mrs. Catterall: Let me explore the survey you've just done on a pilot basis and are about to go nationwide with very soon.

One of the statements I hear frequently from constituents, and which constantly astounds me, is about members of Parliament as a generality, that they're all there to line their pockets and look after their own interests. ``Why aren't they working for the people?'' is inevitably followed by, ``Now, I don't mean you, Marlene; I know you work really hard. I know you have our best interests at heart. I know you're absolutely honest.''

I think that's true of a lot of people. The MP, the politician they know, is one they know to be very hard-working, honest and straightforward, with the public interest at heart: it's all those ones they don't know.

It seems to me that if your survey is doing nothing to distinguish between what they think of politicians they know and what they think of politicians in general, it's avoiding a very important issue.

Have you considered that? Did you consider that in any of your testing? Did you test any questions? Is there anything in your survey that determines on what people are basing their response to your survey?

Prof. Atkinson: First of all, that is an astute observation - both observations.

Mrs. Catterall: It's just that I have such astute constituents.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh.

Prof. Atkinson: I didn't actually mean the constituents, I actually meant yours.

In the U.S. the same kind of phenomenon is found. Richard Fenno, a famous political scientist, some 30 years ago wrote an article entitled ``Why do Americans Hate their Congress but Love their Congressmen?''. It's the same kind of phenomenon.

You are quite correct that, yes, indeed, we should have - and we have not, incidentally - in the in the pilot study survey adequately distinguished our respondents on the basis of how they feel about the persons they know or their own local MP. We do intend to introduce questions about levels of political knowledge in the anticipation that, frankly and simply put, the more you know, the more tolerant you are. That typically is the finding.

But frankly, I think you've given us a good idea. It might be that we can go beyond simply asking people their levels of knowledge and we can ask how they would feel about their own member of Parliament versus other people.

So the short answer to your question is, we haven't done it in the pilot, and I'd like to have an opportunity to think about ways of building it into the national study. In short, it's a very good idea.

.1755

Mrs. Catterall: If you're going to test their knowledge, it shouldn't be their knowledge of politicians; it should be on their personal contact with politicians.

Prof. Atkinson: Yes, you're quite right. I understand what you're saying.

Mrs. Catterall: Okay.

I really love this:

the team assembled a group of experts on political ethics - academics, lawyers, journalists, bureaucrats and politicians

- everything but ordinary Canadians, whoever they may be.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh.

Prof. Atkinson: That's right.

Mrs. Catterall: I was interested that there was no inclusion of, say, religious, spiritual or community leadership in developing your survey. I wonder if you feel there was a reason for the selection you made.

Prof. Atkinson: I should perhaps turn to the principal investigator and ask her to justify her selection.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh.

Prof. Atkinson: I don't think it ever arose, and perhaps it didn't because of a mistaken presumption that we were dealing in the realm of political ethics, to return to Senator Gauthier's comments, and not so much in the realm of personal morality.

You may be interested to know we did ask people how they felt about and how much confidence they had in churches and in judges, as distinct from bureaucrats and politicians and so on. I don't believe it ever occurred to us to draw upon the expertise of spiritual leaders. We had philosophers, who may be kind of secular spiritual leaders, but no representation from religious groups as such, for instance.

Mrs. Catterall: One of you raised in your answer an interesting question, which I want to come to.

We tend to have two kinds of codes of conduct: one says thou shalt not commit adultery; the other one says thou shalt love one another. I'm sure there are all kinds of variations on that, but you essentially can have a prohibitive or a prescriptive kind of code of conduct, whether it's your own or something you want to adopt as an organization. Do you have any thoughts on which is most likely to be helpful?

I don't think we're looking for ways of finding and punishing people who act unethically; I think we're looking for ways of encouraging ethical behaviour. What are your thoughts on prohibitive versus prescriptive?

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): That's a good question.

Prof. Mancuso: I don't want to fudge, but as I said earlier, I think there's room for elements of both. To do one without the other sort of sends the wrong message.

I do believe you can have an ongoing dialogue about questions of ethics and write a document in the end that is positive in the way you pitch the sentiment. It doesn't have to be ``We want to prevent things from happening that shouldn't be happening, we want to do this and we want to do that''. I think you can write what is in essence a preamble, as I see it, that is sort of encouraging.

Right now I'm teaching a course on ethics and corruption. Most of my students believe that for the most part parliamentarians are good people - that they want to do the right thing and for the most part they do the right thing - but at times there are situations in which they need help, as in any job. Questions arise, and you want to turn to someone for advice and guidance.

Currently there's just not room for that, other than your colleagues or friends in the legislature who you've been familiar with for a number of years, or else members of your party. It's not formalized in any way.

Mrs. Catterall: Let me press you a bit on this, and let me expand on this question a bit after I ask it.

Do members of Parliament want some guidance in what to do, or do they want to be told what not to do? That is the essence of what I'm asking you.

I go back to raising children. Very early in life you tell your kids they cannot do something. You don't bother telling them why; you just tell them they cannot do it. But over a period of time you have to give them principles on which to make their own judgments, or you're not developing their decision-making capacity, their sense of responsibility or their ability to make responsible, ethical decisions. As members of Parliament, should we be told what not to do, or be given guidance as to what to do?

.1800

Prof. Mancuso: The guidance as to what to do is what I would consider the aspirational element of a code; what not to do is the prescriptive element. But I still think you could write the ``not to do'' things in a reinforcing, encouraging way. I don't think they necessarily have to be written in a way that makes it sound as though you must not do this or this is going to happen, or you must never do this or that.

You could lay them out as a general sort of...as they do in Britain. If you haven't looked at their registration form, I urge you to do so. It has been revamped just in the last year in response to comments from the MPs, who said they didn't necessarily find all these headings very helpful. They just list all these headings - shares, property - and people found that not very helpful at all.

So they did revamp it and now they ask a question: have you in the past year received a gift on an overseas visit that is more than £125 in value? If so, put it over here in this category. That is a bit more positive in that they're asking a question and looking for an answer. That seems to have gone over very well with the members, who were looking for more guidance, not just staring at a heading on a form.

Mrs. Catterall: I know you refer to this in your book - I'm a very quick skimmer - and you say you can't develop it, but you did find substantial party differences, and I guess you were interested in looking at gender differences but didn't. I'm surprised, because 7% of the people who did the actual interview were women, although they're only 4% of the House of Commons. Was it just the small number that made you feel you didn't have an adequate representation?

Prof. Mancuso: Yes. Previous studies had indicated that I'd need a bigger.... If all the women had agreed to participate, I could have said something substantial about gender, which is what I wanted to do. But they just couldn't participate given previous commitments.

It was also more difficult as an outsider to get these interviews. I was told point blank by a number of members that I wasn't a British citizen and I wasn't a British student; I was here trying to get these interviews. So a number of people had different reasons why they couldn't meet with me.

But you're right. I didn't feel confident enough making any conclusions based on such a small number.

Mrs. Catterall: I have one final comment on Question Period today. When I meet with students I still tell them that my first experience with Question Period in the House of Commons was 35 years ago, when I brought grade 9 students here and told them afterwards that if they ever behaved like that in my classroom, they'd be gone and wouldn't come back. It was worse then, so there has been some improvement.

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): Madam Beaumier.

Ms Beaumier (Brampton): I actually wanted to discuss the survey as well, but Marlene more than adequately covered some of my points. I would like to ask one question, though, on patronage.

Patronage has become such a dirty word. I'm not sure why. Let's take the provincial matters. If I were a provincial member of Parliament and I were appointing members to the Parole Board, why would I appoint someone whose political philosophy was geared towards boot camps and capital punishment and heavy corporal punishment if I, who had been elected on my political philosophies, was the person responsible for appointing them? Why would I not appoint someone in the community who would reflect my philosophies towards this area to be administered by government?

.1805

Prof. Greene: It seems to me there are two different kinds of Order in Council appointments. There are those where the appointees are actually making policy that should be in conformity with the government's policy, and then there are those who are appointed to make more or less objective decisions.

For example, federal crown prosecutors are appointed to prosecute under the law. There's no reason in the world for patronage appointments to these positions, but we still have them. It discredits the political system.

In other areas there is room for the party to try to put its policy into effect. It seems to me the best way of doing this is to advertise for qualified people to apply and then choose the people who conform with your particular policy position.

Many of those might be party members or party supporters. People should not be excluded because they work for a party. Working for a political party is tremendously beneficial in terms of understanding the public.

But I don't think these appointments should be rewards for working for the party. People should work for the party because they are public-spirited.

Ms Beaumier: I think it's a very cynical view that a political appointment is necessarily a reward for working for a political party. If I were in a position to appoint someone to a board that wanted to reflect the community, I'm not sure why I would appoint someone unqualified or someone who was going to make me look like a fool if they were a bad appointment.

The phrase ``patronage is bad'' has been tossed around too much. Certainly if someone is going to appoint a hack or an unqualified individual purely on the basis of their political affinities, that's going to reflect on the politician who appoints them. But to eliminate this and not have your political philosophies reflected in your appointments also does not serve the purpose.

If a member is elected for their positions then their appointments should reflect those positions.

Prof. Greene: Exactly.

Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about. Under the previous government there was a refugee determination division created to handle the backlog of refugee cases. There were some qualified people appointed. Many people were not qualified. They were simply political rewards. It embarrassed the previous government and there were many bad decisions made that caused human beings to suffer.

The current government has improved that process. The improvement actually started when Kim Campbell was Prime Minister for a short period. She began to advertise for people to apply for those positions.

The quality of the people appointed to that board has improved enormously, but many of those people still reflect the government's position. There has been an improvement; people are not appointed any more simply to reward the party faithful. They were three years ago, with disastrous consequences.

Prof. Atkinson: Could I just add something on the term ``patronage'', since you mentioned it? And Senator Gauthier mentioned the term ``kickbacks''.

You should know those are our terms. It's just a shorthand that we - and by ``we'' I mean this research team - are using to distinguish activities one from the other. We could choose other words.

When we asked questions, we never used terms. We simply said, ``The Minister of Justice appoints a loyal party supporter to a federal judgeship. Acceptable or not acceptable?'' That's all. The term ``patronage'' was never used. The term ``kickback'' was never used. Nothing like that. That's just our inflammatory language.

Senator Gauthier: It worked.

Prof. Atkinson: I understand it got a reaction. But this will never find its way into the work we're doing.

I want you to understand it's not our intention to in any sense discredit the political profession. On the contrary. I think Ian spoke for all of us when he said we have the greatest admiration for politicians. We are here to help you. We're not here to discredit. Our research is intended, indirectly at least, to be of assistance to you.

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We hope to be able to bring you, once we get the research more entirely under way, a more complete package of information as to what the public feels and what other people feel people ought to do when confronted with these ethical dilemmas.

But terms like ``patronage'' and ``kickbacks'' - I know those are inflammatory. We would never consider using them in the context or in the course of research. It would distort everything. When we use these terms around here, I think you know what we mean.

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): Mr. Epp, and then Senator Gauthier.

Senator Gauthier: No, I've been answered.

I just wanted to take you guys to task about ``kickbacks'' and all those things.

Mr. Epp: I would like to just make a comment with respect to kickbacks, as a new MP from a party that didn't exist a few years ago. I have really had my eyes opened to some of the things that happen in the political world that I did not know of and that, frankly, do surprise me. One quick example, if I may.

We had a phone call from Statistics Canada. It came to the MP's office. They asked us to tell them our nominee - and I forget the exact title of the position - for the head person in the constituency for conducting the census.

I very innocently asked who did it last year. I assumed it would be good to have a qualified person with some experience. They wouldn't tell me. They said it was my job as an MP to find someone I would recommend.

I asked them, ``Please, just help me: Who did it last year? That's where I'll start''. They in fact wouldn't tell me. I found out who did it. When one of our staffers phoned this lady, she was very surprised to receive the call. She said she wasn't expecting the call because they didn't win the election. That's when I found out that a local MP had that kind of - what do you call it? - opportunity for patronage. I hadn't been aware of the fact.

I declined it. I said, ``You've done the job before; do you know how to do it?'' Of course she did, so I asked her if she'd consider doing it again. Actually, I didn't say it; my staff did.

I believe there's a consensus. I don't know what the final thing of it is now, but here's a person who would have been passed over, despite experience and qualifications, because of a built-in patronage system, as I call it. It has to be rooted out and changed. But that's a comment on what you said.

I would like to have a couple of questions answered. First of all, two of you were here in 1992, according to the witness list, and maybe you've been here on other occasions. You are aware of the fact that we've attempted codes before and they've died on the Order Paper. They didn't get anywhere. Do you have any hope at all that we'll get one this time?

Prof. Atkinson: I told Professor Mancuso this was the last time I was going to come, so I won't appear again in your records, Mr. Epp.

Do I have hope? Yes. Look at it like this. If nothing else grabs you, consider the fact that this Parliament is right now about the only one that has no provision on the ethical side - no provision for disclosure, no kind of code, no guidance - of any of the Westminster-model legislatures.

The British Parliament was often ridiculed for its lackadaisical attitude toward these things. In the last 10 years it has gotten its act together. I think Professor Mancuso's work is responsible for a lot of that - or maybe not; whatever. But they've had their problems, and they got their act together.

I really think you have a chance now. Maybe it will be your last chance. If you don't seize it now and find at least the lowest common denominator, find at least a disclosure mechanism that, as I've already indicated, I suspect a lot of people will find inadequate, but certainly better than nothing.... I think people have an expectation that you'll do something. There's still quite a bit of time left in this Parliament to put something together.

Long ago, in the early 1970s, when the green paper was originally put out, I remember it covered senators and members of Parliament. I think members of the Senate were the ones, at that point in time - and we obviously have more enlightened senators now - who dug in their heels and made it difficult to make much progress.

I get the sense that you may find the same kind of problem confronting you now. If you go for...and I agree with Professor Mancuso that it would be far better to have a code that applied to members of the Senate and members of the House of Commons, but I would urge you to not let the inability to find common ground between the two houses necessarily stand in the way of the Senate or the House of Commons finding its own ethical feet. Because right now it will become more and more noticeable...the fact that this parliament does not stance outside of the other Westminster parliaments.

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Whenever a scandal breaks, the telephones ring in our offices, and journalists, who don't know very much about these things, ask us what we think. It's becoming more and more difficult to explain to them and to justify the fact that the House of Commons, in spite of decades now of people bringing this question to bear and bringing it forward -

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): That's why we're here, though.

Prof. Atkinson: That's right. I perfectly understand. I'm just responding to Mr. Epp about whether or not this is going to happen.

I personally have faith that eventually things will get done, but you should know that it's becoming difficult to defend the House of Commons and the Senate when these things break and newspaper people phone us up and ask us what we think of this and what we think of that.

Your inactivity, inaction, I believe, if you're unfortunate enough to be unable to come to some understanding, will not pass unnoticed. If nothing else, it will certainly come full front into the media the next time we have a difficulty.

Mr. Epp: Professor Mancuso indicated that there is no ethical consensus. The words she in fact used were, ``ethical consensus is a fiction''. I presumed you based that on your study in the U.K., your work on this questionnaire in the Guelph region, and probably on your studies and work in this field for many years.

How do you recommend to us, as a committee, that we come up with a code that will have a large enough consensus so that it will pass both houses?

Prof. Mancuso: It's a good question. To have a committee of both houses is a step in the right direction.

A lot of work has been done out of something called the Hastings ethics centre, which has advocated that any group of people who get together to try to make up a code of ethics or a code of conduct really should cast their net as wide as possible in terms of the people they hear from.

I don't know what your witness list looks like, but I would urge you to hear what a group of ordinary Canadians think should go into this kind of code. I don't know how you would necessarily go about drawing such a group.

We can offer you a sample of what Canadians in Guelph have to say about ethical questions. As Professor Atkinson has told you today, the message is not very encouraging. There are lots of things that trouble people out there. We have separate questions that we haven't talked about or showed you the data on today, but the confidence level that people have for Parliament and for members is not very high. They rank lower than a number of other professions in terms of the degree of trust people have in Parliament, and in MPs in particular.

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): Do you think the introduction of a code would change that?

Prof. Mancuso: I think it would help at least on a symbolic level to extend the message that, okay, you get the point, you're going to do something about it, you're going to try. To do nothing sends the message that there's nothing to worry about, that you can just go about your business and continue to ignore these complaints from the public.

One way to look at it is that in some respect it's a public relations effort to restore some of the confidence that Parliament has lost.

Mr. Epp: I'm more interested in actually accomplishing the result than in producing the phantom.

I would like to ask whether you have any advice for us with respect to, say, questionnaires that we could include in our householders or something, such as a sample, that would actually help us to build the code.

I think, at least from what you shared with us today, you have an attitude survey, which is very subjective and helps to identify what the problem is.

Is there anything that can help in finding the solution in terms of what members of the public would expect to see in a code, what they would expect to see in terms of enforcement?

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Of course, I'm right on in terms of an independent ethics counsellor. If you know anything about me at all, you know that I pounded that when we were doing the Bill C-43 work, so I won't get into that at all today.

What I'm wondering about is how we can enlist the help of ordinary Canadians in a practical way to help this committee develop a code.

Prof. Atkinson: You're absolutely right, Mr. Epp. This is an attitude survey and its principal objectives are academic. That is to say, we are really interested in the degree to which public attitudes and the attitudes of members of Parliament converge, where they converge, and where they diverge. We have lots of reasons for asking those questions.

Those questions on their own may alert you to areas of difficulty, but they will not help you write your code. If I could suggest something off the top of my head, I would say do not use an attitude survey to do this. Consider the possibility instead of using focus groups, smaller groups, and either putting to them the task of drafting a code or else putting a code to them and seeing what kind of responses you get within a smaller group of people. Don't just do it once or twice. Do a number of these. It is far more constructive, you have more control over it, and I think you'll get a better product, a more defensible product, in the end.

Let me just say that I like the attitude of testing out what you're trying to do with the public in general. I think that is the best way to go, and in order to do it in a disciplined way, I would suggest focus groups rather than a survey.

Mr. Epp: I just want to follow up on that a little more. You did an actual survey of members of Parliament in the U.K. Was your questionnaire actually filled in by MPs?

Prof. Mancuso: I interviewed them personally, face to face.

Mr. Epp: You interviewed them personally? Okay.

How do I say this without spending money? Have you done one in this Parliament here? Would you? If so, what would it cost? How soon could it be done?

Lastly, what is the advisability of getting us to fill in forms ourselves on what we think we should be doing? Is there any value in this?

Prof. Atkinson: Mr. Epp, you couldn't have asked a better question, from our point of view. We have a research grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council to do a national survey. Our timing doesn't fit with yours, but we will do that national survey probably in January or February. It depends. Simultaneously, we would like to draw a sample of members of Parliament and ask them the same kind of questions we'll be asking others. We would like to be able to match up those answers and so on.

That's our academic interest and we would like cooperation as much as anything. We're prepared to share with you our intention and the research and our research instrument in advance if you can help us, through your chairs and so on, to secure some cooperation from members of Parliament. I think you'll find it is a non-threatening kind of exercise but a very useful one.

For our purposes, we are on the cusp of doing the kind of research that would go beyond simply asking questions of one group and then asking questions of another. We would like to ask questions of a number of groups and compare responses.

We stand ready to accept any money you have to hand us, but more to the point, we stand ready to accept your cooperation, if we can secure it, in assisting us to approach members of Parliament and see whether or not we can get them to cooperate. I know members of Parliament are busy; nobody likes to talk, nobody likes to answer questions or do interviews unless they can see what the final product will be.

I think we will offer a very fine piece of research at the end, but we will need cooperation as much as we need money. Right now we have money. We have enough money to do this work. We'll take any additional money you'd like to give us, but I think what we need more than anything is cooperation.

Mr. Epp: I would like to assure you, and I'm sure I can speak on behalf of my party, that you would have 100% cooperation. What I would like to see is that your sample size of MPs be 100%. There are only 295 of us. Statistically that is just about the right number, and I would suggest that you do all of the senators and the past senators.

You didn't pick up on that.

Prof. Atkinson: No.

Mr. Epp: That's okay.

Prof. Atkinson: There are some past senators, are there not, Mr. Epp?

Mr. Epp: Well, there are a few who haven't passed on yet.

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Professor Greene, you have me so curious because you mentioned several times that you were appalled at the behaviour in the House today. When I came here, in fact when I first started thinking of running in the election, I said, wow, this is the opportunity of a lifetime. I've always loved debates, and I've always felt that for a good debate there has to be freedom of speech and there has to be ability for what they call the thrust and parry of debate.

In the House of Commons one of the things I find very frustrating is that we have in our book eight pages of words we cannot use. Even today one of our members got cut off, not because he said anything pejorative but simply because he referred to one of the members by name. Really, it's embarrassing. We should have caught that; we've been here long enough to know that's one of the things you can't do in the House. But we got cut off, and I feel that's a violation of our freedom of expression in the House.

My curious question is this: what precisely did you find so very offensive today? Was it the questions and the tone in which they were asked, the answers and the tone in which they were given, or the heckling on which side of the House? What was it you found most offensive?

Prof. Greene: I found all those things offensive.

If you were to do research into why the public has such a low opinion of politicians, I think this would be very useful. Ask them with regard to the -

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): That research has been done.

Prof. Greene: Well, I think many would say it's the way they behave in Question Period.

I was involved in politics at one time in my life. The thing is that you get used to it after awhile. Then it becomes a game and you begin to enjoy it, and you forget about how offended members of the public are. This is why the sort of research you're mentioning would be really useful, where you have focus groups, as Michael suggested, and ask people why they have such a low opinion of public officials.

I found the name-calling offensive, for example, the attempt to distort what really happened, the heckling, which makes it difficult to understand what someone else is trying to say.

Just as we would like to see a positive code of ethics, I would like to see a much more positive approach in the House of Commons. If that happened, I think the public's opinion of politicians would skyrocket.

Mr. Epp: I share your view. We've been here just over two years now and frankly, even in our own party we've gone in the wrong direction, in my view. Maybe I shouldn't be saying this on the public record, but our people have now come to the point where we're yelling. Yet it's very difficult with the political gamesmanship that goes on when people on the other side distort what we believe, what we stand for.

For example, today...I'll just give you a little insight here. I happen to be in charge of QP for our party now. When we were preparing for it, we said we wanted to really try to put a finger on what the problems are. Of course if you just ask the question clinically, the press ignores you. So then you have to think of some sort of language that will help you get the clip on the news so that you're not marginalized and thought...that you're not even there. That enters into it, unfortunately.

The fact of the matter is, as we prepare these things and ask the questions, we don't get answers. That annoys us. When you ask a question of the Prime Minister, and instead of answering the question he talks about a historical event 30 years ago, when the father of our leader was the Premier of Alberta, and it's so far away from the question that was asked - which was who was responsible for this - it's very, very difficult.

I think we did so well when we first came here. We just sat there in silence, like the lambs, and accepted this. Then several of our guys started objecting to that and others chimed in, and now it's almost past the point of control. How do you respond to that?

Prof. Greene: It's very difficult to handle a situation like this. When I look back on my past, exactly the same thing happened to me. It's only seeing the House of Commons 15 years later that I'm shocked at how I accepted something then that I don't now.

I think the only way - I shouldn't say the only way, but the best way - to handle it is for a ``multi-partisan'' group like this to say, look, we have a problem here; what is the best way to tackle this? Then do some brainstorming and be creative.

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Sure, it's frustrating not to get answers. Maybe there's an ethical responsibility on the part of ministers, when they're questioned, to try to give the best answer possible instead of scoring debating points.

Mr. Epp: When you don't score debating points around here, the next election you're out. You can't fix the problems of the country if you're not in it.

Prof. Greene: It calls for creative solutions and experimentation, and I think it calls for the kinds of focus groups that came about in your conversation with Michael Atkinson. I'm sure some of your constituents would have some very good ideas about how this problem could be tackled.

Something has to change. The rules you mentioned for debating are outdated. They don't reflect the needs in 1995. The eight pages of words you can't use should probably change. Here's an opportunity for you to really make a contribution. It's difficult.

Mr. Epp: Thanks.

The Joint Chairman (Mr. Milliken): I wonder if it's been contemplated that the survey that was done in Guelph be repeated to see if attitudes have changed in the time since the survey was done.

Prof. Atkinson: Well, as they say, if you have the money, we have the time. We could certainly do it, Mr. Milliken. It has been a couple of years, and the survey results you're seeing are the result of a random sample, so there's nothing to stop us from doing another random sample in Guelph. I guess it's a question of energy. I perfectly understand the time dimension you're pushing at.

We're equally interested in the question of whether those results stand up nationally and what it would be like to see the attitudes of certain groups. Take journalists, for example. How would journalists respond to some of these questions versus ordinary citizens or versus members of Parliament? I guess we put the premium there rather than on the time dimension, to see whether or not attitudes change over time. But there's nothing to stop us from doing that.

What would be the results? Our survey research colleagues tell us that any kind of event that excites public interest and has them focused on questions like this for any length of time - take for instance the situation that developed with Mr. Dupuy - really does make interpretation of responses very difficult. That's why we need to go into the field, as they say, and ask members of the public questions at roughly the same time that we ask journalists and members of Parliament, for fear that any kind of distortion in the meantime might make the results much more difficult to interpret.

You do put your finger on it by asking about that. Cast your mind back to the spring of 1993. What was happening at that time? Was there perhaps a situation developing that might have influenced those attitudes? We have our fingers crossed that between now and when we do this research there won't be such a situation, so that we'll be able to have a kind of neutral, even playing field where we can ask our questions without fear that people are responding to something else other than the questions we're putting to them.

The Joint Chairman (Mr. Milliken): Thank you. That's my only question.

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): Thank you very much, professors. You can tell by the variety of the questions that you've really stimulated everyone here. I'm sure the committee is going to go away and give a lot of thought to what you've so kindly put forward for us today. Thank you very much for coming. We will consider carefully what you've said.

Prof. Atkinson: Thank you.

Prof. Greene: Thank you.

Prof. Mancuso: Thank you.

The Joint Chairman (Senator Oliver): This meeting is adjourned.