CONFLICT-OF-INTEREST GUIDELINES
CHAIRMAN OF MANAGEMENT BOARD OF CABINET
CONTENTS
Thursday 21 February 1991
Conflict-of-interest Guidelines
Monte Kwinter
John Sweeney
Chairman of Management Board of Cabinet
Treasurer of Ontario
Minister of Natural Resources
Adjournment
STANDING COMMITTEE ON ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
Chair: White, Drummond (Durham Centre NDP)
Vice-Chair: Morrow, Mark (Wentworth East NDP)
Carr, Gary (Oakville South PC)
Chiarelli, Robert (Ottawa West L)
Fletcher, Derek (Guelph NDP)
Harnick, Charles (Willowdale PC)
Mathyssen, Irene (Middlesex NDP)
Mills, Gordon (Durham East NDP)
Poirier, Jean (Prescott and Russell L)
Sorbara, Gregory S. (York Centre L)
Wilson, Fred (Frontenac-Addington NDP)
Winninger, David (London South NDP)
Substitutions:
Coppen, Shirley (Niagara South NDP) for Mr F. Wilson
Huget, Bob (Sarnia NDP) for Mr F. Wilson
Johnson, Paul R. (Prince Edward-Lennox-South Hastings NDP) for Mr Winninger
Scott, lan G. (St George-St. David L) for Mr Chiarelli
Clerk: Freedman, Lisa
Staff: Swift, Susan, Research Officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1008 in committee room 2.
CONFLICT-OF-INTEREST GUIDELINES
The Chair: I would like to call our hearings this morning to order. I would like to welcome all members to the resumption of our discussion in regard to conflict of interest and production of a report upon the request of the Premier and the House leaders.
MONTE KWINTER
The Chair: First this morning, Monte Kwinter, whom we have heard from before in this committee. Mr Kwinter.
Mr Kwinter: Before I start, I would like to preface my remarks, that what I am going to say is generally applicable and not specifically applicable and that every time you talk about the subject, you can always bring out a specific incident that may contradict it. But I would like to talk about it in general terms, and the basic premise is -- first of all we are dealing with members of the executive council, with parliamentary assistants, and I think we have to take a look, very quickly, at how the system works.
There is a difference between the parliamentary system and the US system. In the US system, for example, the President decides if he needs absolutely the best person that he can get for a specific job, and he goes out and tries to recruit that person. I will give you an example, George Shultz, a very able person in his own professional field, a world leader in the business community, was recruited and was told that he would come into the govemment of the United States under various conditions, and he had to make that decision. He had to decide: "Yes I will do it, I will put my affairs in order so that when I go to the Senate hearings, I will pass their scrutiny, and I will, in fact, with the advice and consent of the Senate, become a member of the cabinet." So there is that decision where he can say yes, he can say no, he can make a determination whether or not he is prepared to do whatever is required of him.
Then we have had situations where a President of the United States has gone out and recruited the president of the Ford Motor Company, for again the same reason, because this person had particular skills, particular attributes that served the country well.
We have a situation in the parliamentary system that is totally contrary to that. We have a situation where in many cases the Premier -- the expression is, "He's got to play with the cards he's dealt." He goes into an election. He comes out with people, many of whom are total strangers to him. He may have only met them at some all-candidates meeting where he went there and supported them or whatever it is, but really does not know who they are, and then finds that he must structure a cabinet. That cabinet is structured not necessarily on merit but on gender, geographic location, political consideration, whatever it is, and suddenly you have people who are invited to become cabinet members. There is nothing that says that just because they won an election, they have any ability to serve in that position, that they are going to do a good job or a bad job, it is just the luck of how it works. The Premier has the ability to appoint and to disappoint and there again, if you want to be very crass about it, it is not necessarily a matter of merit, it is a matter of all sorts of political considerations. The importance of understanding that is that it affects who is going to run for office.
In my case -- and I have to put it in a personal context -- I was recruited. I had no interest in running for public office, it was something that I would never ever have considered doing. The Premier -- who was to become the Premier -- said he would like me to run and I ran on the basis that in my opinion we would not form the government. I often said that if I knew we were going --
Mr Scott: That happened to be true.
Mr Kwinter: -- if I knew that we were going to form the govemment, I would not have run because there was no reason for me to run. I was at a stage in my life where I had all of the creature comforts that I wanted. My children were grown up, I was looking to enjoy my life, to do the things that I wanted to do. I was assured that if I ran there would be no diminution of my ability to do that. I would be a member of the opposition; I may be able to make a contribution and that would be it. And then, lo and behold, things happened. The then Premier, who at the time that I got nominated was at 55% in the polls and it was felt that there was no way that he was going to lose, resigned. A new leader came in, there was a minority government, we formed the govemment and, as they say, the rest is history.
But what it means is that by the system where you require divestiture, you are really encouraging people to run who have nothing to lose and everything to gain, as opposed to getting someone who has everything to lose and nothing to gain. What you are really doing is setting up a formula for mediocrity. As Gregory Evans said, the only candidates you are going to get are those who are in Midland or Penetang or somewhere like that, because you have a problem.
Now, generally speaking, public service is supposedly the highest of callings. Usually, people who do it -- and that is why I wanted to make sure that you understood I was not talking specifically -- are people who are prepared to make that sacrifice, who are prepared to say, "Yes, I will do it and I will live by these things." But what you are really doing is restricting the calibre of people who would consider coming into government.
To my mind, the thrust should be on disclosure as opposed to divestiture, because when you get into the divestiture, it creates so many problems and so many ways of getting around it that it is really meaningless. The key thing, to my mind, is that there has to be a provision whereby you disclose everything, so that if something comes up where you are found to be in a breach or potential breach, it is there. It is there for someone to see.
Now, can we just talk about the whole issue of the proposed conflict-of-interest guidelines set out by the Premier? The basic premise, to me, is a sham. The reason I say that -- and I am not trying to in any way impute any kind of motive to it -- under our system, the Premier has the sole prerogative to decide who is in the cabinet and who is not in the cabinet. There is no recourse; there is no tribunal; you cannot suddenly say, "I have been unfairly dealt with, I have been removed from cabinet and I want my day in court." That is what gives the Premier his clout.
You people have not been around long enough, most or hardly any of you other than our guys, to know that in caucuses and in cabinet there can be some very, very sharp divisions and the Premier is really the 51% shareholder. It does not really matter if everybody is allied against him. If he says, "This is what's going to happen", that happens. It is as simple as that.
Most premiers, being leaders, try to make sure that they are not too far ahead of their troops and that they have got everybody on side, but if it comes to the crunch, the Premier has the ability to say, "This is what we are going to do and that's it." There is no one who is going to challenge him if they want to stay in the cabinet, because he has that sole discretion. So what happens is that when you have the Premier in that position, to have this, what I consider to be window dressing, of putting forward a bill that is supposed to outline what the conflict-of-interest guidelines are, is meaningless.
Let me give you an example; I have to use specific cases and, as I say, I do not want to make this political. Just before the House adjourned we had this situation in Hamilton. Now the Premier makes a decision, it is his to make, and he says, "In my opinion, that is not serious enough to warrant expulsion from the cabinet of those two members." Another premier could have thought it was. Let me give you an example of what happened to us. I have to apologize because I have not been monitoring what has been going on here.
We had a situation with Ken Keyes. Ken Keyes is the Solicitor General. He is out on an OPP boat. He has got the head of Scotland Yard with him and they are offered drinks on the boat by the police officers. They are enjoying a pleasant afternoon cruising the St Lawrence River and that is it. It happens every single day. I used to be the chairman of the harbour commission and I can tell you it is honoured more in the breach than in the execution that every boater on Lake Ontario that has any kind of a boat serves his guests something to drink. It is illegal, but he thinks nothing of it.
Now, in Ken Keyes's position, he is the Solicitor General. Someone brings it to the attention of the -- I do not know, I cannot remember if it was the media or whatever it was, but it became public knowledge. The Premier decided the Solicitor General had to resign because of that particular situation. Now, another Premier could have said: "Well, I don't think that that's really -- I mean it's, yes, sure it was a breach. I don't think it was that serious and I don't think he should resign." So you then have it being very subjective and it is subjective at any time anyway, because the Premier has the right to name his cabinet.
So when you put these particular constraints in, what you are really doing is setting up some sort of a smokescreen to say: "Look at how righteous we are. Look at how we've got all of these controls." But in effect there are lots of ways of getting around it and if you take a look at some of the provisions -- section 15 is so open that it is meaningless. It says you should not do this or that, unless you satisfy the Premier that this is this and you go through the whole line of things so that in effect it really devolves to the Premier anyway. He is the final arbiter, he is the one that decides anyway.
So to my mind, it really sets up an expectation that somehow or other there are conflict-of-interest guidelines that are meaningful when, in fact, all they are are exactly that, they are really guidelines. And those guidelines are there for the Premier to enforce anyway, because if someone -- and sometimes you may not even know about it -- if someone does something that is potentially an embarrassment to the government, and the Premier decides he does not want this to come out, he does not want to have to deal with it and he comes up with some reason why that person is removed, whether it is ill health, whether it is -- whatever reason, that person is gone.
So to go through this whole system, to my mind, as l say, is window dressing.
1020
Now, let me just talk very briefly about some very specific things. You get someone who, again, almost by accident -- there are lots of people who run in elections hoping they will not win; that happens. They run because the party needs a candidate. They put their name forward. Suddenly they find not only do they win but they are in the cabinet. And that really compounds their life, because what happens is that certain things may be forced upon them.
I will give you an example of someone who is, let's say, a real estate broker. To become a real estate broker now -- and the qualifications are becoming more and more stringent every day -- you have to take all sorts of university courses, you have to serve as a salesman for a couple of years, you have to go through this whole thing, and then you become a broker. Under the conflict-of-interest guidelines, you would have to divest yourself of that licence.
You could be a minister for one day or five years. Again, you are at the whim of politics, and politics is a blood sport. Every time you are there, there is someone there trying to find a way to get rid of you. If they make enough noise, and if they get enough public support they will get rid of you if there is cause; or even if there is not cause, if there is perceived cause. If they can make the case, you are gone.
So what happens is that you may have surrendered that licence and if you have been around -- I mean if you surrender it, you can always get it back if it is a matter of two years, but if you are in cabinet for longer than two years, when you leave cabinet you then are considered as if you had never had that licence at all. You have to start all over again, which to my mind makes no sense, because the mere fact that you were licensed by a crown agency should not be a conflict as long as you are not in conflict.
That is the major problem. There are lots of things that you find yourself offside on, just by the fact that you have become a member of cabinet. That, to my mind, does not mean you should have to totally restructure your life. What you have to do is you have to put your affairs in such a condition that you will not be in conflict. Not that you will have the potential of being in conflict, because you have the potential of being in conflict at any time, whether you are licensed by some group -- and of course, as I say, there are situations that are obvious; you cannot have your mother working for you; you cannot be giving contracts to your relatives. I mean, those are obvious conflicts.
But in other areas where there are perceived potential conflicts, I think that you have a problem in that you are going to restrict the calibre of people who will run for public office. You are going to create problems where people are -- and being a member of the executive council is by its very nature a very short-term job. I do not know what the figures are, but I would imagine they are very, very short. For someone to have to totally restructure their economic affairs and their lives to conform to that is going to mean that you are not going to get the calibre of people that you need. On that point, I would like to answer some questions.
The Chair: I would like to welcome Mr Sweeney who has joined us, and to mention that we will be about 10 minutes late, so if you wish to resume old friendships and reappear later, feel free to. I also would like to welcome to the committee Mr Huget and Mr Johnson.
Mr Sorbara: I just have two questions, Mr Chairman. The first is this. Monte, you have obviously read and, I guess, re-read section 15 a number of times in preparation for your testimony. Having read those sections, can you tell the committee who stands in judgement of the Premier in respect of what assets the Premier has to divest himself of or not divest himself of? Who makes the decision as to whether it would be undue hardship for the Premier to sell a particular asset or a particular business interest?
Mr Kwinter: From my reading of it, it is the Premier. He decides. There is no provision for anyone to do that. And that, of course, also provides this whole problem with the subjectivity of it. If someone who has got very, very large assets is asked to divest even part of it, it might be a greater hardship than someone who is asked to give up something else. So it is very subjective, and the minute that it becomes subjective, that goes back to the point that I was making earlier. It really becomes the Premier who makes the decision, and the minute he is given that leeway, which he has anyway, it is meaningless.
That is why, to my mind, section 15 really does not do anything. It sets out some things but then it immediately gives all of the various conditions whereby they can be waived, and they can be waived at the discretion of the Premier.
Mr Scott: Supposing Bob Rae owns the assets?
Mr Sorbara: Well, that is it. Just one other question. My colleague Mr Scott says, "Supposing Bob Rae owes the assets?" The problems with these guidelines is that the Premier stands in judgement of everyone else but there is no one who stands in judgement of him. And look what is going on in British Columbia right now with Premier Vander Zalm.
Mr Kwinter: Indeed.
Mr Sorbara: Now, my other question, before we get to Mr Scott, is this: I am given to understand that you had some extensive experience in the business world prior to your coming to Parliament. The Premier, when he announced these guidelines, said that his standard would be the sale of assets or business interests or private interests within 60 days. Can you compare that with your own experience of how long it might take to sell a business interest in the real marketplace of the Ontario economy? In other words, is it your experience that, having been told that you have to sell your business interests, you are likely to be able to find a purchaser and be able to dispose completely of that interest with no residual interest in the asset within 60 days or 90 days?
Mr Kwinter: The chances are very slim, but not only that, there is a whole other range, and again I have to talk from personal experience. My family have a property that, long before I got into government, I arranged my estate so that I am not involved, but there is a no-sell provision in their agreement. This property is owned by members of the family and they do not want any strangers in there. They do not want any of the partners selling to someone else. This is something that was left to them with a very specific intent and the feeling was that it should not be diluted. It should not be sold off where suddenly there are people in there other than the family who may influence what happens. How does someone deal with that?
Another provision, 25, says that you should not acquire property. It does not say anything about whether you already own the property. That is a whole other issue. Does that mean you have two classes of citizens? The guy who has the property before he comes into the cabinet is fine, but the member of the cabinet or a parliamentary assistant cannot acquire property other than recreational property or a principal residence.
The other whole aspect, the point that Mr Sorbara is making, is that you have to be under a distress sale. If someone knows that you have 60 days to get rid of something, you are not going to get the same kind of price. You have got to make it for cash, because if you have a residual interest in a mortgage or whatever, you have not really disposed of it. You still have a residual interest in that asset.
So that is a very serious problem. It is bad enough for the guy who has to do it, but every time this happens, it is one more reason why someone who could bring something of value to politics says, "Why would I ever, ever get involved in that kind of a situation where I have to subject myself to that kind of arbitrary action?"
Mr Scott: May I just ask you to comment on two matters? One is sort of personal to you and one is personal to me.
Your wife is a public school teacher and has been, I gather, for most of her career when she was not raising children.
Mr Kwinter: She is a high school teacher.
Mr Scott: High school teacher and a teacher of considerable distinction. She has, as I happen to know, for many, many years been correcting examination papers or some such, under an appointment that is made, I gather, on an annual basis, without competition, by the Ministry of Education. Hundreds and hundreds of teachers do that in Ontario. The Ministry of Education wants to get the best people to do it and it goes out and finds them, but it is not a competition. Under these guidelines Wilma would not be allowed to do that, as I understand them, because it is not a competition appointment.
1030
I would like you to comment on that, because one of the things that, it seems to me, is very unfair about the guidelines is the inequity it does to spouses. I can understand the case imposing obligations on members and imposing disclosure on spouses, but it seems to me when you basically say, as these guidelines do, to Mrs Kwinter: "You can't do this work any more because your husband has been appointed to the cabinet," you are imposing a very heavy burden on a stranger who, and I happen to know her, might not have wanted you to come in here in the first place but was overridden by your own independence. That is point 1.
Point 2: To deal with divestment, I am just a little shattered to hear that you were solicited to run by the former Premier. I was not, by the way, and indeed over five years he had grave doubts about whether I should have. You and I, I think, had one characteristic which distinguished us from most of the new class of 1985 and that is, we were older. You were a lot older than me, but we were both older. You have given the reasons why you entered politics; I entered politics because I thought the time had come when I could make a useful contribution. I expected, like you, that it would be in opposition.
An older person, particularly a person who runs a business -- I was in a small law firm that has no pension plan -- is obliged to accumulate assets or when he becomes 60 he is going to starve. That is the reality. Every prudent person puts away assets. They may be in RRSPs but they may not; RRSPs are not always an economic way of maintaining your assets. What concerns me about these guidelines is, because you cannot predict how the Premier is going to react, after you are elected, to your being appointed and divestment, it seems to me one of the problems is that a person like that is going to say: "Look, I'm not going to run because if I run I can't predict whether the Premier will require me to divest or not. If he requires me to divest I won't be able to without running the risk that when I am 65 my assets turned into cash simply aren't going to produce sufficient income to keep me and my family until I'm 85."
I would like you to comment on those two things, because I think they represent real difficulties -- and it is not political -- about what is here proposed.
The Chair: I am sure that your response will be equally as brief as the question.
Mr Scott: That was three minutes.
Mr Kwinter: Yes, okay. Let's talk about the first one. What had happened was quite interesting. My wife is a high school teacher. She is the assistant head of English at a school in Scarborough, has been teaching for many years, and is also a correspondence sort of teacher and marks papers. Again, I have to say with some pride that she was singled out with about three others being one of the top teachers of this particular program in Ontario and was given an award at the time. She has been doing this for 15 years without any problem. When I became a minister I had to disclose all of the things that I did and I put this in, not even thinking that it was a problem. The next thing I knew I had a visit from one of the lawyers retained by the Premier's office, saying, "We think you're in conflict," and I said, "What is this conflict that I have?" "When your wife works for the school board that is not a problem; she is working for the school board. But the marking of these papers actually puts her in a situation where she is working for the Ministry of Education, and as a result she may have to give that up."
I can tell you, it never got to that because after some to-ing and fro-ing the decision was made that, "I guess maybe not," because the key, which was quite interesting, is that there is not a contract. There is no obligation on the Ministry of Education to send her papers and there is no obligation on her part to mark them. If they send them to her and if she marks them, that is fine. If she does not mark them they will not send her any more papers, but there is no obligation on her part. So the decision was that, because there really was not a contract and because it was kind of this loose arrangement, she was not in conflict. But I will tell you that if it had been determined that she was, I probably would have had to say, "I'm sorry, I cannot serve on the executive council," because I may have been in the executive council here but I would not have been in the executive council at my house. I would have had a very, very serious problem. It would have been that serious, that something that I was doing was impinging on her ability to do the things that she was doing and had been doing for many, many years.
That is the kind of thing. If you want to take that extension, anything you do -- if you get a driver's licence, if you really want to say, "Listen, you've got a driver's licence," as a minister they are going to give it to you, whereas they might not give it to you if you are not. So you cannot have a driver's licence or anything else where there is some kind of linkage to some provincial agency.
To get back to the second part, I agree that there are benefits and there are negatives to entering politics late in life. Again, you have to make a determination about what happens to you afterwards. You do have to be able to provide for yourself, because it can happen to you that if you do not serve the required five years -- and it happens from time to time -- there are no pension benefits for you and you may be giving up the best earning years of your life. That is a determination that you make. I am not trying to say that that should not happen; all I am saying is that the end result is, what is the purpose of this thing? The purpose is to try to encourage the best people possible to run for public office and to protect the public interest on someone using his position to his own gain. I think it is important that those two things really be kept in tandem, because one may defeat the other. I think we have to come up with a compromise.
If I could just say one last thing before I get to another question: One of the other problems that we have is that when you are sitting in cabinet, somebody who has the best information and the greatest experience in a particular subject usually has to exclude himself when that subject comes up. If you are a farmer and a discussion is taking place on something that is going to impact on farmers, you have a potential conflict of interest, even though you may not have a specific conflict of interest. It is a general description dealing with all farmers, so you have to leave.
We had a situation in our case. We had a minister who was an owner of a sawmill, knew the lumber business, knew the mining industry. He was a very, very substantial player in that field in northern Ontario, yet any time anything came up dealing with that area, where his expertise, his experience, would have been invaluable, he immediately had to leave, because we were talking in general terms about something where he could indirectly or directly derive a benefit. So that is another problem.
The Chair: We have a light agenda this morning, and with the indulgence of the committee and our next witness I would like to continue, perhaps with more time for the other caucuses as well as the official opposition.
Mr Harnick: Your party elected, I gather, in 1987, 95 members. And I gather, of that 95 members there was a broad representation of many, many different groups, many different interests. If divestiture rules had applied to your cabinet, could it have represented all of those various interests? Could you have had a cabinet, realistically appointed from a party as diverse as your party, that would represent all of those interests? Would it have been possible to do that?
Mr Kwinter: The cabinet would not have particularly represented all of the interests. There is no problem in structuring a cabinet. You have X number of bodies. You have to pick 27, 30 depending on how many the Premier decides he wants, and you pick the ones that you pick. Some people are immediately excluded because of situations that are either in their control or beyond their control. But there is no problem in structuring a cabinet. The problem is, is that the best cabinet that you could have gotten? That is the big problem. There is no trouble in getting a cabinet.
1040
Mr Harnick: You can always find bodies.
Mr Kwinter: You can always find bodies.
Mr Harnick: I am talking about, could you find the best people out of those 95, who could have represented the broad spectrum of Ontario, with these kind of divestiture rules, if you have a party that in fact represents a broad base? You may have a party that only represents one particular interest. They get elected and that is easy.
Mr Kwinter: But the problem that you have, Charles -- and that is the point I was making -- is that you have got to step back one step. With these kind of rules, you would not attract the kind of people as candidates. That is the problem. One of the most common comments I got after I decided to run was: "Why would you do it? Why would you possibly subject yourself to that kind of situation?" And I said, "Well, you know, it's something I want to do." But for every Monte Kwinter who is prepared to do it, there is probably 50 people who are saying: "There is no way. Why would I possibly subject myself to that?" That is why I am saying that what you get is a pool of candidates who have nothing to lose and everything to gain as opposed to someone who has got everything to lose and nothing to gain. I think the whole system suffers because of that.
Mrs Mathyssen: Mr Kwinter, you have indicated a preference for disclosure without divestment. Now, without this divestment, one thing that concerns me is that you still have the perception of conflict. Up to this point, a great deal of what has happened in terms of the resignations of ministers and people in cabinet has been the result of public pressure because of media scandals. Do you not think it would be better to have a set of concrete rules for the Premier to measure whether or not a resignation is appropriate rather than to leave it to this arena where it becomes a matter of resignation because of the perception of conflict?
Mr Kwinter: Again, let me relate it to a personal sense. My family are in the meat-packing business. Every time a budget comes in that imposes a tax, they are impacted by it. But other than things that happen to everybody and all businesses, there is nothing special in a general sense as to what happens to them.
If I have to divest a business because it is perceived that I could in some way or other gain a benefit as a minister when that business is not doing anything other than any other business is doing, to me that makes no sense. Now, if I have a business that is doing business with the government, then absolutely. That is where the disclosure comes in. You cannot, as the rules of the game, do business with the government where you have the ability to influence who gets that business.
But what possible benefit there is for some guy who is running a general store up in Kapuskasing to get rid of his business because he is going into the cabinet makes no sense to me. What benefit is he going to get other than what is going to happen to anybody who is in business? If suddenly it is decided that this little store is going to be the chief supplier to every reform institution in Ontario because this particular minister wants it, that is a conflict, without question. By having the disclosure and by reporting on a regular basis, you deal with that. To my mind, what you need is guidelines.
Another thing that I would suggest is that you need penalties that are far more stringent than there are now. Under the present penalties either you will be reprimanded or you could lose your seat. It would seem to me that it is just like insider trading. If you put some punitive financial penalties, where if someone trades on information that he has then he pays the consequences; but to require that everybody must divest or put it in a blind trust when there is no reason for it other than the fact that it is a commercial enterprise, to me makes no sense.
Mrs Mathyssen: How would you develop this punitive financial price to pay? Would it be a formula? Because obviously if my net worth is $5,000 -- and I regret to say it probably is -- and someone else's net worth is $100 million, obviously a fine of $1,000 is going to hurt me and not hurt that person with the larger income. Would you have a formula or --
Mr Kwinter: No, I do not think it has anything to do with the value. I think it has to do with the offence. I think that if somebody uses his special position to further his own economic interests, there should be some penalties. To give you an example, someone may decide that -- and I am just fantasizing -- because of his ability to direct a contract he could make $40 million because of whatever it is, and so what? He will lose his seat. That is just great. He will lose his seat and go on his way and live happily ever after. What I am saying is that you set up a system whereby if you contravene -- when I say reasonable, I do not mean reasonable in the sense of moderate -- guidelines or conflict-of-interest legislation that provides penalties for people using their special position to their own economic gain, there will be some severe penalties. That would be the deterrent. But to put it in the way that it is now, where the Premier is the arbiter, and if undue hardship -- and that means maybe undue hardship for one and not for another -- or if you tell me and if you convince me that it is okay, you have lots of problems. To me, it makes no sense.
Mrs Mathyssen: So using your example, this person should lose his or her $40 million windfall and perhaps have a fine? Lose the fruits of his or her illegal activity?
Mr Kwinter: I am sure that whoever would draft the legislation could make sure that it is done so that the penalty is not so nominal that it is meaningless. But I think that that is the way to deal with it.
The Chair: Mrs Mathyssen, is that it?
Mrs Mathyssen: I had other questions but I am willing to allow others on this side to have a chance.
Mr Johnson: I regret that I have not been here earlier this week and that I am a substitute, but nevertheless I have listened to what Mr Kwinter has had to say this morning. I am disturbed by some of the things that he said because, not being a wealthy person and not ever having any desire to be a wealthy person, of course it puts me in a position where I have a different perspective on things, most certainly. My philosophy, I guess, would be somewhat different than yours. You suggested that those of us who are less wealthy or are, we might even say, poor, would have everything to gain and nothing to lose. I would interpret that to mean that this was a monetary exercise, and I guess that is what we are dealing with here, by and large. But there are other reasons why people want to get elected, and it is not for the reason of losing any kind of wealth or gaining any kind of wealth, I would think.
Certainly that is not the reason that I became involved in the Ontario political spectrum. My story is not unlike your own. I was kind of chosen by my peers to be the candidate and I had no expectation of being successful and so I merrily went along my way with no expectation of ever being successful, and here I find myself in a position that I had not expected. My wife, quite frankly, was very upset by this. She said, "Now look what you've done," and so far she is still with me. So here I find myself in Toronto at Queen's Park, and I made some sacrifices -- some personal sacrifices, not monetary sacrifices -- although I might add that at this point in time I am more in debt now than I was prior to taking this position. I do not understand. I guess I could deal with a little bit of money quite well, but I cannot deal with more. Maybe that is a weakness within myself; I am not sure.
1050
The Chair: These are great stories. Reminds me of Mr Scott. Is there something coming out of this?
Mr Johnson: You inferred that we are missing some of the best people with these new conflict-of-interest guidelines, but then we are missing some of the --
Mr Sorbara: I do not think he said that. I think he said, "Some people will not run."
Mr Johnson: Sure, and again I just bring up the idea that there are some sacrifices that are to be made by people who want to be involved in the political field, to want to be involved in the political government of Ontario. For example, in 1987 when I ran I was working for the Ministry of Community and Social Services and Mr Sweeney had to sign a document that allowed me to run in 1987, and I thank him for that, except that I lost my salary for that time. So I made that sacrifice and, not being a wealthy person, that was a considerable sacrifice for me to make at that time. On the economy of scale, I would suggest that for me that was probably as big a sacrifice as someone who has millions of dollars and has to divest of that, except that they would still have that and I did not have my salary.
Mr Scott: But why do we not encourage to run rather than asking them to make sacrifices?
The Chair: Do not let him detract from his detraction.
Mr Johnson: So, anyway, it is --
Mr Sorbara: The rules of the Ontario public service provide for a leave of absence.
Mr Johnson: Would you not agree, Mr Kwinter, that people do have to make sacrifices and some sacrifices -- again, it is a perception -- would be minimal and some would be more than minimal, but it is based on a perspective and it is based on maybe a philosophy and maybe your particular wealth?
Mr Kwinter: Can I respond? You have disagreed with what I have had to say and I have disagreed with what you have to say in that there seems to be a perception from some members that there is virtue in being poor and not having anything, and that is a great virtue. I am not saying it is not a virtue, but we are not dealing with someone taking monastic vows of poverty saying, "The only way that I can really come to terms with the grand scale of dealing things is that I've got to surrender all my worldly wealth, I've got to take a vow of poverty and I've got to go into a monastery and do that. That is where the only virtue is, and anyone who does not subscribe to that is not virtuous and has no validity." I am not trying to say one is any better than the other.
What I am saying is that we are dealing with conflict-of-interest guidelines, and to my mind a person who has no wealth and a person who has a lot of wealth can both be in exactly the same problem of having a conflict of interest. The only difference is that under these guidelines the person who has the wealth has to divest of it. There is nothing to say that just because you have nothing you cannot -- and again, I do not mean this personally -- be the greatest scoundrel in the whole place and that you may have the greater motivation to try to feather your own nest. So I am not trying to put virtue in saying that rich people are virtuous and poor people are not, or vice versa.
All I am saying is that there are a lot of people who can make a valuable contribution to the political process, and all of the wisdom does not rest on one side. It does not rest just with the social democrats and it does not rest with the Conservatives and does not rest with the Liberals. One of the things that literally drives me up the wall is suddenly 6 September comes along and all of these people sitting in the New Democratic side think that something magical happened to them, and that suddenly all of the --
Mr Johnson: Something magical did happen.
Mr Kwinter: It happened in that way, but that all of the intelligence, all of these right answers have suddenly fallen on them and that "Now we have the answers." As we have seen, it is not quite that easy. Suddenly all of the answers that you thought you had have to be tempered with the real world.
All I am saying is that there are people out there who could be making a contribution that this province could benefit from. I am not saying that there is a virtue in being wealthy, there is a virtue in being poor, but you cannot make them exclusive. Without question, when you impose these kinds of restrictions and these kinds of guidelines you immediately discourage all of those people who have had the good fortune and the ability to accumulate assets and wealth from saying, "You know, I wouldn't mind providing some of my energies and some of my time to public service." That is a sacrifice.
I can tell you, you have had to sacrifice but everybody that comes into public life makes a sacrifice, and it does not matter what their financial status is. They are making a sacrifice; believe me. What is happening, though, is that you are really discouraging a significant sector -- I am not talking in size but in the ability to bring something to the process -- from doing it. I think that that is something that should be considered.
The Chair: I would like to recognize Mr Huget and Mr Morrow but, unfortunately, we do not have much time. It might be possible if you have very brief questions. I see that the longer the question the longer the response. We could attempt to have brief questions or perhaps move on to Mr Sweeney. I would --
Mr Mills: Maybe Mr Sweeney has a timetable. We can ask him.
The Chair: We have indeed inquired and Mr Sweeney has, of course, come down from --
Mr Sorbara: He has retired. He is in heaven.
The Chair: He certainly does look reasonably content right now; however, Mr Sweeney has, in fact, come down from Waterloo.
I would like to thank Mr Kwinter for appearing and if we can move on to our next presentation from Mr Sweeney, please.
Mr Huget: Mr Chair, I have a very brief question. A specific part of the proposals --
The Chair: Very brief?
Mr Huget: Yes, they are.
The Chair: Mr Kwinter, would you mind very brief questions and, if possible, very brief responses?
Mr Kwinter: Sure, okay.
Mr Huget: Section 14 says, "Where a minister makes a declaration of conflict of interest at a cabinet meeting, the secretary of the cabinet shall, after that decision has been made," make that conflict of interest public. What are your feelings on that in terms of how you feel that would work? How could it work?
Mr Kwinter: To my mind it is an unnecessary provision. What happens is that when you are at cabinet, something comes up and sometimes it is known in advance, someone sees the agenda and says, "Well, in this particular instance I will not be there. I will not participate because there is a conflict," or in some case something will come up that no one expects and the member may say, "I'm not even sure whether I have a conflict, but there is a potential conflict and I'm going to exclude myself." That is it. It is a very simple thing. He just gets up and walks out of the cabinet room and then when the matter is finished, someone goes out and says, "Come on back in; we've finished that."
To get to the point where every time that happens --
Mr Scott: For example, if cabinet was discussing teachers' salaries, you would say, "I can't participate in this discussion; my wife is a teacher."
Mr Kwinter: Yes. To suddenly have a public announcement that Monte Kwinter did not participate in the discussion on that, I do not know what the purpose of it is. I would say if there was a serious breach of the conflict-of-interest guidelines, or if there was a potential one and it was a matter of public interest, then I would say that there should probably be an announcement of it because that is part of the disclosure. I think that is the key. I think the whole thing is based on disclosure, as long as everything is disclosed so that everybody knows where there are problems. But to have it happen every time something comes up, to my mind is just not feasible.
Mr Huget: Would you not agree that there would be any merit in terms of the public opinion of the political process, that when we do that and exercise integrity that the public is aware of that?
The Chair: Mr Huget, you had asked for one brief question and I think we have tried the next witness's patience enough.
1100
JOHN SWEENEY
Mr Sweeney: It is interesting to be back and see that not many things have really changed, especially that last question that the questioner managed to get in even though he knew he should not. That was a tactic that a lot of people engaged in.
Let me make a couple of disclaimers right at the very beginning. I was asked to come here. I did not initially offer myself because, being out of the system, quite frankly I was not sure I had anything to offer. The second point that I would make is that anything that I say would have had no impact on me personally at all. The only assets that my wife and I have is our family home, period. I just want that to be clear, that I do not see there would have been any benefit for myself.
I do have some concerns, however, and those concerns are based upon having sat in the Legislature for 15 years: 10 years in opposition, five years in government, having been a cabinet minister for five years, having worked with six parliamentary assistants over those five years, and I think having an opportunity both to observe and to participate in discussions and in decisions that gave me some insights as to what was going on.
I want to say right at the very beginning that during those 15 years I have no personal knowledge of any members of the Legislature from any political party acting in a way deliberately that would have benefited them personally. So please understand, that is where I am coming from. That just was not within my range of personal knowledge. But that is not to suggest that some things were not happening that I did not know about. I am not pretending that I knew everything that was going on.
So therefore I start from the assumption, based upon those 15 years of experience, that people come here not to benefit themselves personally but rather to provide a service, to do a job, to make a contribution, whatever way they want to put it. That has been my experience. And I have to draw from that experience in the kinds of comments that I make. Because of that, I think we need to be somewhat careful in impinging upon, involving ourselves too deeply in the personal lives of the members of this Legislature. I think somewhere along the line there has got to be a limit where you simply say that the members of this Legislature have a right to their personal lives. Because they are publicly elected does not mean that everything about them then becomes public. I simply cannot accept that premise. I realize I may not be in the majority when I say that, but that is a point that I clearly want to make.
Second, I think we need to be careful of structuring our responses to some incidents -- and a number of them I gather have been discussed, and I am not going to go into them personally -- on the basis of, "Because they happened or because they could happen we're going to set up a structure in such a way that we affect everybody." I am stretching my language, but the way that it appears to me is, we are going to assume that people are going to do these improper things, and therefore we are going to set up a structure that is going to make it more difficult for them to do it. I do not believe that. I do not believe that people are going to do these things. I believe that it is possible for people to do it. I think I know, given my life experience, as much about human nature as most people around this committee room do. I know that there are people who cut corners. I am not saying it cannot happen. But I start from the assumption that it is not likely to, and the evidence and the experience is that it does not very often.
Even if you go back and look at some of the incidents of the Legislature during the 15 years in which I was a member, affecting all three political parties, even when there was "an incident," more often than not it was a mistake, it was foolishness, however you want to describe it. It was not, in my experience, malicious intent. I think we should have as our starting principle that underlying sense, not that we want to presume that people are going to do improper things and they have to be prevented from doing it, but rather that it could happen and how do we deal with it if it does happen.
I want to say, from my experience of having worked with six parliamentary assistants, that I think it is a mistake to include them in the way in which they are under these guidelines. It has not been my experience that parliamentary assistants have access to the same kinds of information, the same kinds of decisions that ministers have. They just do not. And that is not whistling in the dark, that is having worked with these people. I know what they were exposed to; I know what they were told; I know when information was available to them; I know what meetings they went to. They are not the same. They are not the same as a minister. You might want to put some variations in but I think it is a mistake, particularly in the way in which the former government allocated parliamentary assistants when they are only in there for a year at a time. If the present government has a different process or a different structure in place, they may want to handle the thing differently.
But I think it is a mistake to simply say parliamentary assistants are the same as ministers with respect to conflict of interest. It is just not so.
Third, I want to say I have really serious reservations, and I always have, about the impact of the guidelines or the potential impact of the guidelines on members, on the family members of the member, whether it is his or her children or his or her spouse. Again, it never affected me personally, but I always had the sense that somehow or another we were saying that your spouse or your children were subservient to you, that their lives depended upon yours. Well, heavens, if there is anything we have tried to do in the last decade or so it is to make exactly the opposite case -- that spouses, be they men or women, have the right to their own independent lives, and your children have the right to an essence of their own independent lives and should not be dependent upon who you are and what you do.
Again, I recognize the reality that that can never be a black-and-white situation. Your spouse is affected by who you are and what you do. But for God's sake let's not write legislation or guidelines which are going to impose even more onerous burdens on them. I am not suggesting that there may not be some connections there, but I am saying please be careful how you do it. I just do not think it is fair to put them in that particular situation.
I am opposed to the divestment procedure as contained in the guidelines. I think it is wrong; I think it is unnecessary. Again, let me play the broken record: it would not have affected me personally. But I know a lot of my colleagues from all political parties whom it would have affected, and probably will now. Let me make the observation that there are many people who come into this Legislature at a time in their lives where they have spent the majority of their adult life building up a business, let's say. They have put their heart and their soul into it. They have put their time and their energy into it. And they come in here and they are told: "If you want to be a parliamentary assistant or if you want to be" -- now, I may be wrong there, but -- "if you want to be a minister, you have got to get rid of it." I think it is wrong, especially since I have a strong sense that members are not going to be here for the long periods of time that they used to be.
I would be very surprised, quite frankly, if in the coming decades you see people running for more than two terms, not whether they were elected or not, but actually running. I think that is going to be the procedure of choice. It is a tough job. You are on the firing line all the time. Your phone is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Even when you are trying to do the best thing you can, you are still criticized. I mean, there is only so long that most human beings can take that. To say to a person that has spent the bulk of their life building up a business and they may be in here for one or two terms -- as my previous colleague said, they may be in the cabinet from anywhere from a day to two or three years -- that you have got to divest that business, I really think that is wrong.
1110
Disclosure, yes. I have no problem with disclosure. If anything, the disclosure principles could be strengthened but divestment, I think, is fundamentally wrong.
I stand to be corrected, Mr Chair, but I do not know of another jurisdiction that does this. There may be some, but I do not know of any. That does not necessarily mean because this jurisdiction is considering it that it is automatically wrong. I am not suggesting that. But it certainly does suggest you take a good, long, hard look at it.
Just on a minor issue, I noticed that the guidelines suggest that gifts to ministers be limited to $100 instead of $200. I think that is foolish. I really do. I know that as a minister, when people would call up my staff and ask me to participate in something, they would say, you know, "Does the minister expect to be paid?" and the answer was automatically "no." To the best of my knowledge, no minister gets paid for doing those kinds of things. They said, "Well, we would like to give him something," and they were simply told that there is a limitation of $200. I cannot think of anything I ever got that was anywhere close to that. Having been the Minister of Community and Social Services for four years, and given the fact that most of the people, as Paul would well know, most of the agencies I spoke to did not have much money anyway -- and as Minister of Housing it was the same situation. The Ministry of Municipal Affairs, they never said they had anything, anyway. So I think that is petty. I really do. I think it is totally unnecessary, I think it is petty, do with it as you will.
I do not see this clearly identified in the guidelines, but can I take the opportunity to put a caution on the table? Because I felt this myself as a minister. Please do not put ministers and parliamentary assistants in a position, with respect to their constituents, that is less than any other member. And there are times when I clearly got the indication that prior to my joining the cabinet, there were things I could do for my constituents that I was not able to do afterwards. I could appear before certain boards, for example. I, on a regular basis, appeared before the Workers' Compensation Appeals Tribunal, personally, on behalf of my constituents. It was sort of suggested to me that afterwards I should not do that. That is just one example.
I do not want to go into a lot of details. All I am saying is, for heaven's sakes do not put a minister in a situation where his or her constituents receive less service than constituents in any other constituency. I do not think that is fair. And I realize the delicate balance. I appreciate that. But I think it is fundamentally unfair to put him or her in that position; more so, to put his or her constituents in that particular position.
I think, Mr Chair, I will just leave my comments there. I have a few other things I want to say but I suspect there may be some questions dealing with it.
Mr Poirier: It is nice to see you again, John. Listen, the guidelines state that if the Premier can decide for a particular reason or reasons that he may or may not have, that because a certain divestment would be a question of hardship and therefore to make an exception to that, I would assume that he has the power to allow a member, minister or parliamentary assistant to keep his or her belongings or wealth or whatever. Would you believe that that would resolve the image, that so-called fear of perception, that the Premier has pertaining to ownership of a potential minister or parliamentary assistant?
Mr Sweeney: Let me make two observations. The first one is, the intent of the previous conflict legislation was to have an independent third party, independent of the members of the House, of the political process, of all of those kinds of elements, make those kinds of decisions. I always felt uneasy that the Premier was put in the position of having to make those decisions, personally. I think it should be of a more general application than that.
Second, I think I have made it fairly clear that I just do not agree with the divestment process at all. So I do not think it should be left to the Premier to do it.
Let's face it, any Premier is a man or a woman like you and I. They have prejudices, they have biases, they have whatever you want to call it. On what basis are they going to make that decision? I do not know. I really do not, and I do not think it is proper for them to be put in that position. I appreciate the fact that the Premier is the chairman of the council and therefore has the automatic right to make certain kinds of decisions. If someone has got to do it other than an independent third party like Judge Evans, then I guess it has got to be the Premier. I do not think you should put him in that position. I cannot imagine why he would want to be put in that position, personally.
Mr Poirier: So it would not appear that it would resolve the problem of perception on the outside.
Mr Sweeney: Well, if it were a case of that or just automatic divestment for everybody, I would take it as the lesser of the two. But I do not agree with it at all.
Mr Scott: John, just to deal with your last point, it seems to me that one of the things we tried to do when we drafted the conflict-of-interest act was precisely that, to take the issue of conflict, whether there was one, and what the penalties should be, out of the Legislature. And we wanted to do that for two reasons. Because if it remained in the Legislature, it continued to be a subject of debate which could not be resolved. Opposition parties and the government members were part of it, would not let up no matter what the facts were because they thought they had a minister on the run; and in the present process we would presumably be doing exactly the same thing. There was a little touch of that at the end of the last session.
The idea of the bill was to put the debate in the hands of an independent official, not only from the point of view of allowing the government to have it resolved there, but from the point of view of the individual minister, so he or she could say, "Well, I will go to the commissioner and ask him if I have done the right thing."
Even if you have the divestment, it seems to me one of the problems is that the Premier is going to excuse it in some cases and 31 March he is going to issue a list, "These people have to sell their construction businesses and these people don't." Is that not going to provoke the blood-sport debate that has always occurred, except it is going to focus exclusively on the Premier rather than on the minister involved? Is that going to get us out of the problem that the government members obviously want to get out of if they can?
Mr Sweeney: I would want to piggyback on one of your comments and that is the very nature, the competitive, aggressive nature of the Legislature is what it is. You are not going to change that. It is the nature of our parliamentary system; it is the nature of our party system. People are not being realistic when they say somehow or another we can resolve these kinds of things within that political arena. You cannot. The experience has been that you cannot. Therefore, I think it is worthwhile to get it into an independent third party, if necessary, strengthen that person's hand, whoever he or she happens to be, but I do not think it is wise to leave it within the political arena. By its very nature, the very nature of that arena, you are not going to resolve it. I feel there are times when I resented the way in which the opposition would go after some of my political colleagues, but I understood it. By God, I sat in the opposition for 10 years. I know what the opposition mentality is.
Mr Scott: The problem, John, though, is -- and I do not want to get personal -- but if you take for example Elinor Caplan, it is a blood sport. We would have done the same thing, no doubt, if Elinor had been an NDP minister. But at the end of the day, after a year and a half, Elinor was sort of totally vindicated. There was nothing that she did wrong from beginning to end. It had been a great political excitement; and the same with Chaviva Ho_ek. Now, is there not a virtue to having an independent person who can make that judgement quickly, fairly, hearing both sides and with finality; and independently?
Mr Sweeney: I believe so.
The Chair: That is the brief answer.
Mr Sweeney: Yes.
Mr Sorbara: He does give brief answers as well.
Mr Scott: Only when the questions are very properly put.
Mr Sorbara: I, unfortunately, have a longish question, two questions. The first one is very short. I think it will take --
Mr Sweeney: As the Chair said, you know that the length of the answer is proportionate to the length of the question.
1120
Mr Sorbara: In your 15 years' experience, John, in the Legislature, have you ever had a constituent or a member of the public or someone who you just happened to run into or deal with, come up to you and suggest to you that you compromise your position as a parliamentarian or as a minister?
Mr Sweeney: No.
Mr Sorbara: I have, to put that on the record, and it is an awful feeling when that does happen.
Mr Sweeney: I have been told second hand or third hand that somebody would like to, but they were told by someone else, "Don't waste your time." So it never got to me personally.
Mr Sorbara: Well, you have seen during five and a half years how the formal processes work: the disclosure process to an independent commissioner, the declaration process in cabinet. I want to tell you a little story and ask you whether you would or would not agree with me that informally this is really how the conflicts process works.
Monte Kwinter was just here as a witness. Monte Kwinter testified that he owned a piece of land, or his family had an interest in a piece of land; I tell the committee that his family has an interest in a piece of land at Keele and Steeles. This is kitty-corner or adjacent to York University. I represent the area just north of York University and, since my time as Minister of Colleges and Universities, thought that the next priority for building a subway in Metropolitan Toronto was to send a line up to York University. I have advocated that strenuously, publicly and privately and I have tried to put together lobby groups --
Mr Sweeney: Why does that sound familiar?
Mr Sorbara: Yes, because you have heard it in cabinet a million times and my little speech is on how important that is. And I have asked other MPPs like Claudio Polsinelli and local politicians to try and build on this. When I approached Monte Kwinter privately about that: "Monte, I am trying to do this. What do you think about it?" he said to me, "Please Greg, do not talk to me about it because my family has an interest in land which is adjacent to that." And since that time, we have never had a discussion about it and he has not been part of the process of trying to focus the province's attention on this subway development. Is that not really how it works, that when you find that personally that conflicts with what you have privately, you just extricate yourself from it?
Mr Sweeney: That has been my own experience, Mr Sorbara. As I say, I think I tried to reflect that in my opening comments, that I just do not have any personal experience of someone cutting corners for their personal benefit. If anything, and I guess because I heard the former Premier say it so many times, "If you even think you have a conflict, you do." Do not even try to think about it twice. If in your own mind you see a sense of it, you do; do not do it. That got pounded and pounded and pounded so often that I guess it was almost second nature to the people that I worked with.
Mr Sorbara: Is it not the case, given your experience in Parliament, that even if you have sold everything, given the people that you meet and the places that you go, that you are always susceptible to someone coming up to you and saying, "Look, I think you should do this and this is something that politically or as a public figure is going to make you famous and great;" are you not always subject to those kind of pressures even if you do not own anything but a big bank account or a small bank account?
Mr Sweeney: Any constituent who feels that you can help him or her with a personal issue is going to ask you, sure they are. I got asked lots of times. Coming back to your other question, I never got asked to do something which I thought was improper or illegal, but I sure got asked lots of times, "Will you help me with this?" As a matter of fact, just before this meeting I was over seeing another minister about a local land exchange problem between a government agency and a private company. It happens to be one that everybody agrees with, including the staff of the minister. It is just a case of timing. I am still doing that today and that is legitimate.
Mr Sorbara: Just to be sure, Mr Chairman, I have listened to John Sweeney's testimony in all respects and none of us ever agreed 100% in cabinet on anything. We had some wonderful fights. It is almost like old times. If the two of you would leave, Sweeney and Scott and Kwinter and I could probably conduct some business, as a matter of fact. But we do not agree on everything, and I want to tell the witness that I am not in agreement with him in respect of what he says about, once being appointed to the executive council, being able to do things for his/her constituents. I think once you assume the responsibilities of a minister, you have to, unfortunately, say to your constituents, "I'm sorry. I can no longer appear for you in front of city council or in front of the Worker's Compensation Appeals Tribunal or in front of the OMB," or those sorts of matters. I think it is a defect in our system, but I believe -- and I want to tell my fellow committee members that it does not trouble me -- that we put constraints on MPPs who are serving for the time being as ministers in their role in that regard. But I know that that is going to be a subject of interesting debate, and I appreciate John Sweeney's comments on it because I think that represents certainly one worthy position on that matter; and I think it is important to have that testimony.
The Chair: On that point, are you requiring a response?
Mr Sorbara: I just wanted to put that on the record and take up the rest of our time.
Mr Scott: We do not always end with a question mark.
The Chair: I have noticed. Particularly when they have already been answered.
Mr Harnick: If the divestiture guidelines are carried out, what should be done in terms of the deputy ministers so that all this is consistent? How far will you go?
Mr Sweeney: That was something that we often asked ourselves, and I must admit, Mr Harnick, we did not resolve it because of the second part of your question. If you impose that on a deputy, why not on an assistant deputy, why not on the director of a branch? As a matter of fact, both as Minister of Community and Social Services and as Minister of Housing, my staff in the field made a heck of a lot more decisions than I ever did -- Paul would be well aware of this -- and probably decisions which affected the lives of --
Mr Scott: But you were always right, weren't you? They were not always right.
Mr Sweeney: Let's say there were lots of times when I was thinking of making a decision, that one of my staff in the field suggested that maybe it was not a very wise decision, and they were right. I often made the correct decision but I do not take credit for it.
Mr Johnson: His comments are very enlightening.
Mr Sweeney: I can remember, Paul, very clearly, one of our area managers calling up and saying: "I heard the minister is planning to...Would you remind him of such and such?" I will not go into the details; you probably can fabricate it yourself. I said, "My God, I never even thought of that." Well, that decision just was not made.
In those two ministries, particularly in Community and Social Services, you just have to rely -- but the point I am trying to make very clearly, Mr Harnick, is: Where do you draw the line? I would suggest that more often than not my area managers would make more fundamental decisions than even the deputy or I would make on a fairly regular basis, and the potential for conflict was there. I am not aware of it ever happening but certainly the potential was there. I do not know how you do it. I really do not. I would not want to get into it.
Mr Harnick: Then does it follow from what you are saying that if the minister and the parliamentary assistant have to divest, then it should go right down the line?
Mr Sweeney: I think you would have to open it up; and once opening it up, I do not know how you would ever close it.
Mr Carr: I just want to make one comment. I had heard since I came what a great reputation you have on all sides of the House, and having listened to you, I understand why now; so I just wanted to thank you very much for taking the time to come down here and speaking with us.
Mr Sweeney: Thank you.
Mr Mills: Mr Sweeney, I have listened and made a lot of notes about what you have had to say, and I must agree that they are very interesting, to say the least. You spoke about divestment as being absolutely wrong, and you spoke also of disclosure being good, but you also spoke of strengthening the disclosure, and I just wonder if you have got any ideas how we could strengthen disclosure to make it work without divestment. Have you got any magic solutions or not?
1130
Mr Sweeney: No. I do not have any magic solutions, and I suspect that if I did someone else would have thought about them long ago, which suggests that there are no easy solutions to this issue. It is part of the human dynamics, part of the human dilemma that we simply have to live with on a day-by-day basis.
It strikes me that you could have an independent third party who could review the assets or the investments or whatever you want to put under that umbrella of individual members and make some kind of a declaration that in his or her opinion the potential for conflict was greater here than it was there. I do not know what else you can do.
I think what we are saying -- and my colleague Mr Kwinter just before me gave you a couple of examples -- is that everybody is in exactly the same boat. Well, they are not. If I can reflect on this example of a member who owns a small grocery store in Kirkland Lake or Capreol or someplace being in the same situation as a member with a major investment in a large company in downtown Toronto, I think they are different. It seems to me that maybe we need somebody whose judgement we can respect, even though we might not always agree with it -- much like a judge gives court decisions -- that in his judgement this potentially is more of a conflict than this is, and this one we have got to watch more carefully; something of that nature.
That could be disclosed, but beyond that, no, I am sorry. I wish I did have a magic answer. I do not think there is one. I think it is something that you are going to have to continue to struggle with, and I wish you much luck in doing it. If I could just make one simple observation --
Interjection.
The Chair: Is that in response to Mr Sweeney or is that part of our discussion on our recommendations, sir?
Mr Sorbara: No. It is part of the discussion, but I do not want to interrupt the flow between my friend Mills and my former colleague Sweeney.
The Chair: I appreciate your not wishing to interrupt here.
Mr Sweeney: I presume, Mr Mills, that most of you realize that there is "no final answer to this issue." Some opposition members over the last five years were suggesting that all you have got to do is have a law and that solves the problem. There were guidelines before, and then we had "a law," and now we have additional guidelines. The comment that was made previously was that guidelines were worthless; you had to have a law. Well, we had a law. Someone could say the law was not a good law or it was not strong enough or something.
I presume you all recognize that no guideline, no law, no regulation solves this problem. It is part of the human dimension you are going to have to grapple with, and if any Premier or any cabinet or any government or any Legislature thinks that they can put something down on paper that is going to save them henceforth from ever having to deal with this issue again, that is not practical either. You keep refining it. You keep coming closer and closer. You build upon your experience. You can say: "We've got this piece of legislation or this guideline or this regulation, and for these two or three reasons it does not seem to be working. We'll refine it and make it better."
That is reasonable. There is nothing wrong whatsoever with what you are going through; this is a very healthy process. But I submit to you that a year from now, two years from now, three years from now, you will be back here again, no matter what you come up with; and expect it.
Mrs Mathyssen: Mine is not a question per se, but I would like to point out for the record that twice today there has been a misconception put forward that spouses would be bound by the same conflict-of-interest rules governing cabinet ministers and PAs. The Premier made it very clear that, in response to the realities of 1991, spouses are not to be unreasonably bound. In other words, spouses may enter into contracts with the government as long as those are open to competition. If we look at guideline 9(a) that is made very clear, and I wanted that to be on the record since twice it has come up.
Mr Harnick: Yes. The Premier also referred to a letter that he wrote and in that letter he indicated quite clearly that a marriage was like a partnership.
Mrs Mathyssen: Yes, but Mr Harnick, had you been listening carefully, you would have known that he said very clearly that those were his views then and he had reconsidered in light of the realities of 1991 and the differences in spousal relationships in terms of business dealings.
Mr Harnick: I think you had better read that letter.
Mrs Mathyssen: I did, Mr Harnick, and I think perhaps you should acquaint yourself with what the Premier said.
Interjections.
Mr Morrow: I do believe the government has the floor at this point. Irene Mathyssen had the floor.
The Chair: She did have the floor. Are you finished, Mrs Mathyssen?
Mrs Mathyssen: Yes.
Mr Huget: I listened with interest to Mr Sorbara's comments in terms of a conversation he had with Mr Kwinter. That conversation and the resulting action of both parties showed to me that there is a certain amount of honesty and integrity among elected officials. My question is that one of the proposed guidelines calls for, where there is conflict of interest and where a member of cabinet has stated he is in conflict of interest, the statement that he is in conflict of interest to be made public, and that would be done by the secretary of cabinet. Given the fact that, although many of the actions and discussions and decision-making processes that are undertaken in this place are done in an honourable fashion and aside from that the public still has the perception that they are not, would something such as that guideline 14, which calls for public disclosure when a person is in conflict of interest, help the perception of the general public of the political process, and would it reinforce that many of the things we do are in fact done in a realm of integrity and honesty? I would like your comments on that.
Mr Sweeney: I think part of the problem is that we are our own worst enemies. I guess it is partially reflecting all the things I tried to say earlier. We -- excuse me; it is "you" now. It used to be "we" -- members of the Legislature build the thing up to more than what it really is and I think every time you add to that, if anything, you simply make the public more suspicious. I am not talking about hiding things, but why as members of the Legislature do you and why did we so often go overboard as we did? You are just saying to people: "We're a bunch who can't be trusted. You've got to put shackles on us. That's the only way you can trust us." I do not think we should do that kind of thing. I think we should stand up as often as we possibly can and simply say, "We are honourable people."
One of the standing rules in the House which was entertained by the Speaker over and over again is that it is presumed that you are honourable members. That is the presumption; not that you are dishonourable. Therefore it is only when you do something which is dishonourable that the case proves otherwise. So therefore I guess I would be opposed to anything that adds to that dimension of untrustworthiness, because I just do not believe it is the fact. Obviously if a person feels he has a conflict, states that to someone, whether it is the conflict commissioner or the Premier, and it is demonstrated that he or she has -- certainly I agree with you, if that is what you are asking. But if you are saying just the fact that there might be a conflict, does that become public? I would think not and I am not even sure whether that is what you are asking or not.
Mr Huget: No. I was referring specifically to when there is an identified conflict and that that be made public. My thought was that perhaps the public would feel much more comfortable having the knowledge that someone has declared himself in conflict of interest, and I see that as a positive part of the process. My question was really: Do you think that is derogatory where there is an identified conflict?
Mr Sweeney: No, that would be part of what I would cover under the heading of strengthening the disclosure part of the process, and I think it was Mr Mills, if I am not mistaken, who raised that question before. I would certainly be in favour of doing that kind of thing, but when it is there, not when it might be there or it could be there or, well, let's think about it. I think all that stuff should not be. I must say that on a couple of occasions, mainly because of my family members -- I have six married children who are involved in various business of one kind or another -- I had to go to Justice Evans and say: "Look, I understand this is the situation with one of my kids. Does that create a conflict for me? I haven't a clue whether it does or not. I just do not know. Would you please tell me?" In every single case it happened to be not. Quite frankly, if not just for my sake, on behalf of my children's sake -- in this case, my adult children -- I would not want that to be public. Three of my children hold responsible positions and I do not think that should be in the public domain, personally. I wanted to be sure that there was not any so I could tell them. Now, if there had been, fine; disclosure, no problem with that at all.
1140
But I sense from some comments earlier that people feel that even if there is a suggestion of it it should be public. I think one of the earlier questions was, every time that a minister makes a declaration in cabinet that there could be a conflict, and he leaves, does the clerk of the cabinet then come out and tell the scrum, "Oh, I have to tell you that minister so-and-so had to step outside because" -- no, I do not think you should. I think it should be part of the cabinet record, which it was, and if it ever becomes an issue later on, the clerk can say, "Look, the cabinet record for such and such a Wednesday morning says that minister so-and-so stepped out during this discussion." Period. That is on the record. But I cannot see going out and making it a public issue when there is not an issue.
The Chair: Mr Huget, are you finished?
Mr Huget: Yes.
The Chair: We can continue to extend, but I would appreciate if we could wrap up well before --
Mr Sorbara: We have seven more minutes of questions.
The Chair: Seven or 10 questions, you say?
Mr Sorbara: Seven or eight minutes of questions.
Mr Scott: See if we cannot focus on one other thing. It is perfectly natural for people to think of conflict of interest in terms of assets, and divestment as a solution or perceived as a solution. I do not think it is going to be, but it is perceived as a solution to the asset conflict. The asset conflict is only a minor part of the problem and the rest of the problem has not been addressed and probably cannot be, but look at this situation. Let's assume a nurse is elected to the Legislature and the Premier wants to make that nurse the Minister of Health. In the present climate when nurses' salaries are obviously going to be a very important issue for the government of the day, the conflict that is inherent in that appointment is to me obvious and any opposition party -- if the nurses' salaries go up too much and the deficit increases on account of it -- is going to raise royal hell, and there will be a conflict. Do not think there will not because assets are not the only basis for a conflict.
Now, the nurse cannot get rid of his status as a nurse, but surely what you want is a forum in which the Premier can say: "I propose to make this nurse the Minister of Health. Mr Commissioner, is there any conflict?" And he will say, "Yes, only in these circumstances," and the minister will have to deal with all these things but cannot deal with this particular kind of issue concerning this hospital where he used to be a nurse. That puts the thing beyond doubt, beyond argument, but to think that it is only assets is, it seems to me, a complete misunderstanding. What if a social worker wants to become the Minister of Community and Social Services?
Mr Johnson: Good idea.
Mr Scott: No, but he should not be excluded. He should not be excluded as he will be on a conflict basis, and the Premier should have the opportunity to say to a commissioner: "I am going to make this appointment. Anything wrong with it?" It might even happen that someone who knew something about mining, like a miner, might be a good candidate to be Minister of Mines.
Mr Sorbara: Oh, heavens, no.
Mr Scott: What is wrong with that? But you need a commissioner who is going to give the Premier what he needs, which is the certificate that says, "That's okay." Is that not why the commissioner is there in part?
Mr Sweeney: Yes, it is, but I think also, if I can go back and comment on the role of the Premier, I think that it is certainly incumbent upon the Premier to be very careful of the kind of appointments he makes. If I can use a personal example, prior to coming into the Legislature I was the director of education for a separate school board. You might remember that in 1985 one of the biggest issues in this province was whether or not there should be funding for separate schools or extended funding for separate schools. None of you will be surprised that premiers tend to speak to some of their members and say: "You know, I'm thinking of putting you in the cabinet. Do you have any preferences?" Well, again, you probably would not be surprised if I said, "Yes, I would be interested in being the Minister of Education." Well, the Premier made it very, very clear that, given my background, given the current issues of the day, that would not be an appropriate appointment and I agreed with him. I did not like it, but I agreed with him.
I remember when Bette Stephenson was the Minister of Education under the Conservative regime and I do not think there was anyone in the Legislature who knew more about health care than Bette Stephenson. She was the former president of the Canadian Medical Association and the Ontario Medical Association. She was a practising physician, etc, and I remember, because I was her critic for a couple of years, saying to her, "How come, Bette, someone like you would not be named Minister of Health?" It seemed logical to me. She said there was no way that Premier Davis would do this. He felt that it was inappropriate.
Mr Scott: But why do we create a system --
Mr Sweeney: No, all I am saying is that there is that element, not only do you need a sounding board when there could or could not be a conflict, but sometimes you just need the political smarts of the Premier not to make certain kinds of appointments.
Mr Scott: But are we being smart over the -- I am sorry?
The Chair: Mr Scott, could you allow your colleague to ask the question?
Mr Sorbara: No, I want my colleague Scott to finish, I just have a small thing.
Mr Scott: Are we being smart in trying to erect a conflict system which in effect says that any person who has expertise or talent or status of knowledge is precluded from doing the very job where those things can be most useful?
Mr Sweeney: Oh, no.
Mr Scott: Now, the Attorney General is a lawyer. I think the statute says he or she has to be, but why should Bette Stephenson not have been the Minister of Health? I understand the political problem, but that is what the commissioner is for, to let the Premier out of the political problem if he wants to make the choice.
Mr Sweeney: But I think Bette's observation to me, Ms Stephenson's observation to me, was that because of her very high-profile position within the medical association, it would not be deemed to be a proper appointment, much like the nurses' one that you indicated again. If I can go one step further, before I decided not to run in the last election, the Premier and I discussed once again my being the Minister of Education. He said: "I don't have a problem any more. That issue is over now." So the Premier has to have some discretion.
Mr Scott: All these discussions with our Premier, we never had these discussions.
Mr Sorbara: You were a second-class minister. Permit me, Mr Chairman, as we are wrapping up, I just want to take John Sweeney back to his testimony earlier on when he said he did not have any magic answers in respect of expanding disclosure. I am not sure if I have a magic answer either, but it is one that I want to put before this committee and I want to put before the witness while he is here, to get his view of it.
The Chair: Do you want your views on Hansard?
Mr Sorbara: I am sorry?
The Chair: Your lack of a magic answer?
Mr Sorbara: Well, I do not know. There are no magic answers in this business, Mr Chairman, but we heard Mr Kwinter speaking earlier today of the Senate hearings committee down in the US for members of cabinet. We have in this province, I think, a pretty good system of disclosure. We have to go through just about -- we have to go through our kid's bank account and find out what amount is in it on such-and-such a day and get all that information into a document and get it before a commissioner, and that commissioner reviews it, along with very competent staff, and then that becomes part of the public record.
It may well be that to enhance even further the disclosure process and to give it more public profile, it may well be, Mr Chairman, that a committee like this committee, or the standing committee on public accounts has an opportunity for an hour or two to have a minister who has made that disclosure statement, sit before the committee and answer questions in respect of that disclosure statement.
I know that I, while I was serving on the executive council, would not have been offended by any questions about any matter that was in my disclosure statement. I ask Mr Sweeney, Mr Chairman, whether he thinks that having a minister come before a committee of the Legislature and testify and answer questions publicly about what his or her assets are would be a way of enhancing disclosure and making it a document that is more --
Mr Poirier: Transparent.
Mr Sorbara: -- more transparent, I thank my friend the member for Prescott and Russell, to the general public.
Mr Sweeney: The member for Prescott and Russell was always effective in both languages. I would have a problem with it personally, I guess maybe because it strikes me as being more attuned to the congressional system in the United States, which I have never really agreed with. I am sufficiently a nationalist to think that our system is better, personally.
Mr Sorbara: I am not suggesting --
Mr Sweeney: As I recall, the information we were asked to disclose to Justice Evans, it was at his discretion what would then be disclosed further to the public and we clearly understood that we put down everything. We dotted every i and crossed every t because we respected the judgement call of Justice Evans, or whoever would occupy his chair that, unless there was some obvious potential problem, it would not be part of the public domain.
No, I would not. I understand where you are coming from, but personally it is not something that I would find supportable. I think we are getting too much into this congressional-committee, open-hearings kind of system and I am not -- let me stop there.
Mr Sorbara: Just to clarify, Mr Chairman --
The Chair: You have been very generous in coming down and giving us your experience.
Mr Sorbara: [Inaudible]
The Chair: So do we all, Mr Sorbara, so do we all. Thank you again, sir.
Mr Sweeney: You are welcome, thanks, everybody.
The Chair: Recess until 1:30.
The committee recessed at 1151.
AFTERNOON SITTING
The committee resumed at 1334 in committee room 2.
The Chair: Order. We are resuming hearings in regard to the conflict-of-interest guidelines.
CHAIRMAN OF MANAGEMENT BOARD OF CABINET
The Chair: We have before us Frances Lankin. Frances, we have approximately half an hour. I think we might stretch on a minute or two longer than that, and obviously the members probably have some questions for you. If you have a statement, please feel free to start with that.
Hon Ms Lankin: I only have a few brief opening comments to make. In general I am pleased to be here and to present before the committee with respect to the conflict-of-interest guidelines. I am sure we are all committed equally to ensuring that the activities of government are conducted efficiently, ethically and with integrity. When I come to looking at these guidelines and the work that is before this committee with respect to your recommendations about whether those get incorporated into the legislation, how that should happen, I come to it with a view of an outsider in a sense because I have not been in the Legislature before.
One of the things that I experienced as a member of the public, and that I know I heard from people and I feel is a general concern out there, is that there has been a lack of confidence that the public has in elected politicians and in politics itself. I think that we all have a collective job to try to restore integrity to the process and to the professions of public service that we enter as politicians. So I see what we do around conflict-of-interest guidelines for cabinet ministers and parliamentary assistants as an important part of that. How that affects other members in the Legislature is the challenge that you as a committee have in terms of looking at the integration of these issues.
There are some concerns that I have heard that have been raised with respect to the guidelines that are important for you to consider, and I think it is important for you to consider how the public will be looking at this. A number of people have raised concerns about whether these guidelines are too stringent and whether or not they will dissuade people from running. One of the things that maybe slants the way in which we look at it is that the previous government, when it was elected in 1985, did not really have an expectation of being elected to form a government. When we were elected we did not have that expectation. So I think that probably most of the people who ran did not have in their mind what sorts of obligations might be on them if they were to find themselves in cabinet.
So, had these kinds of guidelines come into place immediately following the 1985 election or as they are now, there may be some people who find that difficult because it is unexpected; but I think that if these guidelines are clear and if they are in the legislation, it is clearly set out, the people know in advance, they have that understanding about what it means to run for public office and about what it means to take on the responsibilities in government in a cabinet position.
The view of the public on this is incredibly important for us to keep in mind and for us to address with some changes that are seen. People have talked about the perception of impartiality and the perception of integrity being as important as the concept itself, and I think that the public need something from us as legislators at this point in time that says we are going to do things differently, collectively. It is not a partisan issue in that sense.
From my portfolio areas, the interest that I have in the deliberations of this committee is with respect to the comments that the Premier has made about deputy ministers and how they should be covered with respect to conflict of interest. There are certainly conflict-of-interest rules for public officials, both elected and unelected, now, and they are currently dealt with in several ways. No doubt we all have a general obligation under the criminal law, and that can come into play.
But with respect to the public service, the Public Service Act has an oath of office in secrecy and an oath of allegiance and it addresses issues such as political activities of crown employees and other areas. Regulation 881 in section 20 of the Public Service Act deals with outside work or business undertakings that may be deemed to be a conflict of interest and requires employees to disclose to a deputy minister such conflicts. There is also the Manual of Administration and it sets out conditions of employment relating to conflicts of interest.
The Management Board of Cabinet directives address how to handle agreements with services of former officials, as well as spelling out how information obtained as a result of an individual's government appointment may or may not be used for personal benefit. Then, of course, there is the Members' Conflict of Interest Act, and that relates to members, but it also prohibits certain actions by all Ontario public service employees in awarding or approving such things as contracts and benefits to former ministers. There are now the Premier's guidelines on conflict of interest for ministers and their parliamentary assistants. These guidelines are certainly recognized as going quite a bit further than the existing Members' Conflict of Interest Act.
As I understand it, one of your tasks is to examine the Premier's guidelines and to determine whether part or all of them should be incorporated into the conflict-of-interest rules and how that will also deal with non-elected officials. As you know, the Premier told the House on 12 December that his guidelines would not apply to deputy ministers or government appointees, and he said that conflict of interest for these people could be dealt with in another way, for example the upcoming amendments to the Public Service Act. Many of you will know that this has been an item under discussion for several years in the government; this is not a new issue; and I think that there are some questions that get raised for your committee to answer.
1340
For example, should deputy ministers be subjected to the same requirements to disclose, and what about the requirements to divest? How far do we go with respect to deputies? Should it be the same as those that are faced by ministers and PAs? There are some issues for us to address. Is there a difference between an elected position and an employment contract, an employment position? Should there be an obligation to disclose, but should that disclosure be made public? I think we have to work through that and understand it and I would be interested in the comments that you have on that.
I would be interested as to whether or not your committee believes that any requirements that would cover deputy ministers should be contained within conflict-of-interest legislation or, as has been thought about, within something like a code of conduct under the Public Service Act. I think there is also an issue of: Where is the cutoff? Whatever requirements we require of deputies, whether they be the same or different than we require of ministers and PAs, should that extend further down into the public service and how far? Where is the cutoff point? Are assistant deputy ministers covered?
I do not have the answers to these things and I am starting to review the work that has been done already with respect to the concept of a code of conduct and, of course, it has been talked about by the Ontario Law Reform Commission. The former Attorney General was very interested in this and there has been some discussion work that has gone on, but it has not come together in terms of any specific direction. There are a lot of issues up for grabs. This is one area now, as a result of the Premier's guidelines, that I think we need to look at and I would appreciate your own comments on that.
In what exists already, the regulation does require an employee who perceives a conflict of interest to advise his or her deputy and abide by the advice given. Of course, that is, again, not public, but that is a requirement right through the civil service at all levels. Reliance is placed on the employee to identify a conflict of interest, but the circumstances that may give rise to a conflict are not clearly expressed. From a corporate employer point of view, I think we should be moving to the best we can to make sure that our expectations are clear for our employees so it is not ambiguous and that it does not rest with them to figure out.
The Study of Management and Accountability in the Government of Ontario, which was issued in 1985, recommended the establishment of a code of values. The Report on Political Activity, Public Comment and Disclosure by Crown Employees, issued by the Ontario Law Reform Commission in 1986, recommended that a code of conduct be enacted by statute. Codes of conduct and ethics are commonplace in many major industries, provinces and major municipalities and there are three guiding principles that must be taken into account in conflict-of-interest policy formulations.
First of all, I think it is very clear we would all agree that crown employees should derive no private gain from their position of public trust, either during or, in most circumstances, after their tenure. So that also brings up the issue of post-employment considerations. Crown employees should confer no benefit on their close personal associates by virtue of their public employment. Even the appearance of potential conflict of interest could affect public confidence in the government service, so what steps need people take in that situation?
So it is a changing environment and there are new trends that are faced by government and I think it adds some urgency, along with the discussions before you, to the need for a code of conduct. Perhaps that code should include clearly conflict of interest, although again there are other pieces of legislation that we could rely on with respect to very senior officials like deputy ministers.
The Ontario public service is larger and more diverse and more dispersed than it was 25 years ago when the legislation that governs these things was created. I think that it is important for us to develop and communicate a set of values to guide work-related conduct, and I am currently, within the Human Resources Secretariat in Management Board of Cabinet, working towards being able to bring something forward before cabinet and before the Legislature on these issues. Certainly government activity has greatly expanded, especially in areas such as regulation, transfer payments, direct delivery of services, joint ventures with the private sector and incentives to stimulate economic activity. Public servants are more directly involved in roles that require adjudication, evaluation and allocation decisions, so we need to consider how best to deal with conflict-of-interest rules.
One way would be to eliminate the current section of regulations that relate to conflict of interest and integrate them into the code of public service, as I indicated, which will also include rules on other things. It could be on political activity, on workplace behaviour, and on other ethical issues. Included in such a code could also be references to the obligation to act within the law, post-employment provisions, secondary employment while in the public service, prohibition of preferential treatment, conflicts between duties and personal interests, use of disclosure of confidential information, dealings with family and close personal relationships, receipts of gifts, etc.
I guess there is the question of what the benefits would be if we go that route. Clearly there would be a better understanding for crown employees of what constitutes a conflict of interest, so I think that is important. I think it has got to be set out clearly for people so that it should not be a guessing game.
The question of how far we go down into the organization with very stringent conflict-of-interest guidelines is a question up for grabs and also how we relate deputies to elected officials. Whether there is a difference between an employment contract and an elected contract, I think, is up for grabs for us to determine and for you to determine.
The other question then is: If deputies and/or other senior officials are to be treated the same as members or cabinet ministers or parliamentary assistants, should it be contained within the one legislation or should it be contained within this route of the Public Service Act? Of course, there are ancillary issues that we will be dealing with in general with respect to a code of conduct, or whether it should be under regulations, under the existing act, an amendment to the existing act, or whether it is simply a directive pursuant to the Management Board of Cabinet Act.
So there are a number of things that we will be examining and looking at and I am completely open on a number of these issues. I have not got to a point of understanding myself, in this new portfolio, to have definite opinions about the direction to go with this and I look to your comments and ask you particularly to keep in mind my question of: Should there be a difference with respect to employees of the government versus elected politicians?
The Chair: I would like to, because we have three ministers this afternoon, start the rotation at different points, so first with the official opposition this time and then next would be the Conservative Party and then finally with the New Democratic caucus. So if we could start with Mr Sorbara and then Mr Poirier.
Mr Sorbara: I do not know why you want to do that, Mr Chairman, but I guess you are the Chair and we will do whatever --
I want to begin by thanking the minister for agreeing to accept our invitation to appear before the committee. Actually, we had invited all of your colleagues to come and there was a point when we thought all of your colleagues were going to come, but the realities of 6 September are that we get outvoted on this committee and we were voted down in that regard. But I am glad that you have agreed to come before us.
I do want to say that, although I have listened attentively to your comments, most of which were directed to the issue of conflict of interest of members of the civil service from the deputy on down, I am going to be entreating this committee not to get into that investigation. I think we have a very complete agenda, thank you very much, with the guidelines that the Premier has presented to us for consideration, although I think we could say that that expands our mandate and allows us to look at the civil service. I think probably the appropriate course would be to allow you and your ministry officials to bring proposals before cabinet, for cabinet to consider those and then bring them to the Legislature to be considered separately. I, for one, do not agree, in other words, that they should be incorporated into the existing act, that is, the Members' Conflict of Interest Act, or that when you read the guidelines that the Premier presented a few months ago there is very much room in those guidelines for considering those other issues, which are very significant, no doubt, but which would get us into a course of analysis and require witnesses that we have not even provided for at this point.
Hon Ms Lankin: I think that is a valid comment, Mr Sorbara. I would just say that if you have a general opinion like you just expressed that it belongs outside the Members' Conflict of Interest Act. That is useful in and of itself. I think that is what the Premier has suggested, but I know your committee asked the question of him with respect to deputies and I raise that in terms of the area of interest for me with respect to my portfolio. If the committee has general comments, terrific, but if not, that is fine.
1350
Mr Sorbara: You have obviously read the guidelines that the Premier has presented in the Legislature and referred to us, and you have no doubt read the Members' Conflict of Interest Act and complied with that act through a disclosure statement to the commissioner.
Hon Ms Lankin: Yes.
Mr Sorbara: I take it that has all been completed. I want to refer you to the sections of the guidelines which require divestment of assets. I think that you did not have any assets to divest of, is that right, under the guidelines?
Hon Ms Lankin: I think it would depend on what you would call assets. In terms of personal interest, what I did divest myself of was a quasi-employment relationship and a --
Mr Sorbara: Of course, you have to do that.
Hon Ms Lankin: Well, I had a leave of absence and I think that it is possible, I am not sure, to maintain yourself on a leave of absence. I chose to sever employment relationship. What I also did was choose to withdraw my portions of an employer-sponsored pension plan, and we removed that and put that into an RRSP.
Mr Sorbara: Do you think that you, personally, if you had assets -- say you owned, I do not know, a small business or a butcher shop or an investment brokerage house, do you think if you had had to disclose that but not sell it, that is, not divest yourself of it, you personally would have been tempted to prefer your private interest over your public responsibility?
Hon Ms Lankin: I think not, given how I acted in the actual case. It is very difficult to respond to hypotheticals, but we have the facts in front of us.
Mr Sorbara: The law says you are not allowed to do that. The current act says, I just want to quote it for you, it prohibits a conflict of interest that is participating in a decision when you know that in making that decision there is an opportunity to further your private interest. Would you do that?
Hon Ms Lankin: Participate in a decision?
Mr Sorbara: Yes. Would you --
Hon Ms Lankin: Or would I divest myself --
Mr Sorbara: -- use your office to further your private interests?
Hon Ms Lankin: Can we just go back. I think you asked me whether or not I would have been tempted to divest myself?
Mr Sorbara: No, no, I asked --
Mr Harnick: Assuming you did not divest.
Mr Sorbara: Assuming you did not divest, would you be tempted to prefer your private interest to your public responsibility?
Hon Ms Lankin: I believe that I would not, but I believe that the public might have trouble believing that, and that is one of the problems we are dealing with. I think that it is important that the guidelines and the laws be very clear and the public have confidence --
Mr Sorbara: Okay. Minister, I just want to know about your own -- what is your view of your cabinet colleagues? Do you think any particular one of them or any of them would be likely, if they were allowed to maintain assets in some sort of management trust responsibility, be tempted to make decisions that would line their own pockets rather than discharge their public responsibility?
Hon Ms Lankin: I am not going to speak ill of my colleagues or of your government's former cabinet or other cabinets in general. I think that again you are giving me a hypothetical situation. What I believe strongly -- now this is from coming from outside the Legislature --
Mr Sorbara: Okay.
Hon Ms Lankin: I am new to this, I was not a member before this election. So, what I do believe is that the public sees that separation as one that is very difficult to make and that the public, at this point in time, does not have confidence in us making that separation.
Mr Sorbara: I appreciate, yes, but politicians have lived with that since we created public office. You are the minister --
The Chair: Excuse me, Mr Sorbara, Mr Poirier also had a question.
Mr Sorbara: Yes, I realize that. I only have one final question. You are Minister of Government Services as well, is that right?
Hon Ms Lankin: Yes I am.
Mr Sorbara: So, you are responsible in the cabinet for all government office buildings?
Hon Ms Lankin: Yes.
Mr Sorbara: If the cabinet directed you as Minister of Government Services to sell a building that you owned in downtown Toronto within 60 days, what would be the impact of that on that sale?
Hon Ms Lankin: That the Ministry of Government Services owns?
Mr Sorbara: If you as Minister of Government Services were ordered to sell a building within 60 days, that is, completely liquidate that asset within 60 days, what would be the probable impact of that directive on the sale of that building?
Hon Ms Lankin: I understand what you are getting at. You are wondering whether individuals will suffer financially as a result of being forced to liquidate assets.
Mr Sorbara: What would happen?
Hon Ms Lankin: I think that, depending on how it is handled, there could be a devaluing of the asset and I think that is an issue that needs to be looked at.
Mr Sorbara: But is it not the fact that it would be a distress sale and you would be open to the most ridiculous of prices. In other words, there would be a significant drop in value of that asset if it became known that you had to sell it in 60 days?
Hon Ms Lankin: I am not sure that I have enough information to answer you, but what you are saying does sound logical.
Mr Sorbara: I defer to Mr Poirier.
Mr Poirier: I think I can understand where the Premier is coming from about divestiture. This is my fourth mandate, seventh year. I know for a fact that no matter what you do or do not do, somebody out there will have or form an opinion as to their perception of what we are or are not. In my first year I had a lot of purple blood about that, but after a while either you accept it or you go crazy, and I have chosen to, I think --
Mr Sorbara: Do the latter.
Mr Poirier: Well, I had a good head start in that department, because I chose to --
Mr Sorbara: Now we are all following your example, my friend.
Mr Poirier: That is right. I thought I was following your example, but that is another story.
Obviously one can bend to public perception without any limit, if one wants to really go that far, and from the testimonies we hear from members who have been here -- who are not here any more -- for 15 years, like this morning, Mr Sweeney, and whoever, I think we know that first of all we are all honourable members. Second of all, people get elected on the platform of what they want to do, and also what they are, as this person or whatever. People, when they elect members, understand that they have a certain amount of wealth, non-wealth, stature or whatever they have at the time they get elected. Then they expect them to serve, maybe in government, maybe in cabinet, maybe as parliamentary assistants or a simple backbencher, it does not matter; we all serve.
Are you not afraid, because of the cost to the individual where you are going to see in the future, careers that are not going to be lifelong, 30-year political careers -- you are not going to see that any more, the members who may be in the cabinet one term or two terms, and PAs also; the horrible impact, economic cost, because of what they have for divestiture, in the very same context that my colleague has just made? Do you think people will appreciate the economic loss that members have, just to divest, when they are presumed to be honourable members to start off with?
Hon Ms Lankin: It is debatable about whether the public presumes that, to start off with.
Mr Poirier: Fair enough, but we do not doubt it.
Hon Ms Lankin: But I think that there is a real issue about whether or not this restrains a whole range of people from running. There are personal choices that are to be made when you choose to run for public office. For example, I have not heard and I do not know which side it falls on with respect to my cabinet colleagues, whether this is an onerous task that people are facing; I have not heard that.
I know that I made a decision which, with respect to my own economic conditions, was a major economic decision for me, but I felt comfortable doing that because I felt that was important in terms of mitigating any perception of a conflict of interest. I do not know that I agree that this would be a barrier to a lot of people to run.
When people make a decision about public service, they make a decision about the length of hours they are going to put in, how much time they are going to be away from their family, for example. A number of onerous parts go along with the job of being an elected politician, and I think that there is a more onerous task or level to be met as you take on positions like a cabinet minister in a government. If it is clearly spelled out, if people understand that, people will make those decisions and I do not see that it will necessarily be a barrier. I do not know that it would prevent a lot of people from running.
Mr Poirier: But if you do not --
The Chair: Mr Carr?
Mr Carr: Charles, I think, was first.
Mr Harnick: You indicated that you read the guidelines and no doubt you have discussed them at some length with the Premier.
Hon Ms Lankin: Within cabinet we had some discussions.
Mr Harnick: I would think they were thorough discussions; is that correct?
Hon Ms Lankin: If you are asking me if I can quote these as a result of discussions, no, but I am --
Mr Harnick: Obviously discussions so that everybody understood what those guidelines entailed?
Hon Ms Lankin: Yes. We certainly had, once they were issued, in attempting to understand ourselves how they would affect us, and we have had discussions previous to these guidelines around the act itself with the commissioner and since. If any of us needed advice we have been able to seek that from the Premier.
Mr Harnick: Have you in your discussions discussed whether historically it is necessary to implement guidelines that force people to divest their interest in various assets?
Hon Ms Lankin: I personally have not been a party to a discussion of that nature.
Mr Harnick: To the best of your knowledge, has there ever been anything that has taken place in this Legislature that indicates people have to divest in order to do their job properly?
1400
Hon Ms Lankin: I do not know the answer to that. As I indicated, I am new to the Legislature.
Mr Harnick: Tell me this, why is disclosure not enough?
Hon Ms Lankin: I think people have a sense that even if you put something into blind trust there is still an active interest there. I guess what has happened in the past is there are some members who have perhaps acted in what they thought was an appropriate way by disclosing and/or putting something into a trust, and then you find out that in fact there is some connected active interest. I think it really poses a question for all of us as legislators and for the public, about having clear guidelines that people know and understand, and the rules are clear up front. Disclosure, I think, is not enough to make it clear what your ongoing relationship is to those outside interests.
Mr Harnick: I would agree with you if you could tell me specifically where disclosure has failed, and you cannot do that.
Hon Ms Lankin: No, I cannot, and I think that is an interesting thing, because even though I cannot -- as I said, I am new to the Legislature; I have not experienced that. As a member of the public, prior to 6 September, I surely had the perception that this sort of thing was necessary.
Mr Harnick: All right, then let's talk about some of the other aspects of public perception. Let's take your own situation, for instance. You were involved, as I understand it, with the Ontario Public Service Employees Union.
Hon Ms Lankin: Yes, that is correct.
Mr Harnick: And you are now, as a cabinet minister, involved as really the person who is the management person in authority.
Hon Ms Lankin: Right.
Mr Harnick: I perceive that, as a member of the public, as a conflict of interest.
Hon Ms Lankin: What I bring is a knowledge and understanding beyond which any of my cabinet colleagues have at this point in time with respect to those issues.
Mr Sorbara: You said we have to satisfy the public.
Mr Harnick: We have not satisfied the public's perception.
Hon Ms Lankin: Could I continue to answer the question?
Mr Harnick: No, you have answered the question.
Hon Ms Lankin: No, I have not. I would like to continue at this point in time. I believe I bring a certain set of perceptions that are valuable to that job. I also believe that I took steps with respect to divestment in terms of having a contractual right for a leave of absence. I severed employment, having interest in a pension plan which could have been left there. I took my money out and in fact, therefore, lost the employer's portion of pension contributions. So I divested myself of those interests so that in fact it would not be perceived that I had an ongoing pecuniary interest with that organization.
Mr Harnick: Let me just stop you there, because I think it is more than just a pecuniary interest. We have had members of this Legislature who have been doctors --
The Chair: Have you finished your response?
Hon Ms Lankin: Yes.
Mr Harnick: We have had members of this Legislature who have been prominent doctors and prominent in medical associations. They have come here and stopped practising medicine, they have withdrawn from those associations, yet they were never desirous of being in a position to be the Minister of Health, because of past history and because of public perception. You cannot ever deny that you were not involved with the union. You can sever all your ties with them, but history says that the same people that you stood shoulder to shoulder with -- you are now in a different position but with those same people. How does that affect the public's perception?
Hon Ms Lankin: I think the public expects me, as a New Democrat and a New Democrat before I was an employee of OPSEU, to come to this job with a perception that workers' rights are important and that workers' rights should be considered in a fair management approach. I think that is what I bring to the job. The rest will be judged as I perform my duties.
Mr Harnick: So in other words, what you have just told me, as ludicrous as I think it sounds, is that as long as you are a New Democrat, you have the virtue to stride over, to leap the bounds of conflict of interest in terms of public perception.
Hon Ms Lankin: No, I think you misunderstood what I said.
Mr Harnick: No, I have not misunderstood a thing. Front and centre is the fact that you are a New Democrat and therefore you have a licence on virtue and therefore the public will not perceive your prior life and your life now as being in conflict.
Hon Ms Lankin: Mr Harnick, that is a complete misunderstanding of the point that I made.
Mr Harnick: Well, those are your answers.
The Chair: Mr Harnick, I will remind you that there is an obligation to respect witnesses, whether they are politicians or not, sir.
Mr Harnick: I only build on what the witness has said. In many ways, Mr Chairman, this is a game of words, and those are her words.
Hon Ms Lankin: Well, Mr Harnick, I would suggest that you have --
Mr Harnick: I only repeat her words.
Hon Ms Lankin: -- misunderstood and misconstrued exactly what I said.
The Chair: You may well repeat her words, sir, but I would suggest you show some respect. Mr Morrow.
Mr Morrow: Thank you very much, Mr Chair. First of all I would like to --
The Chair: Excuse me, I am sorry, I thought you were deferring entirely to Mr Harnick, Mr Carr. If you could, perhaps one or two brief questions.
Mr Carr: He is wanting my time, but in the interest of calming him down, maybe I should go ahead.
I heard this morning from a Mr Sweeney along the same line. He said that he was not allowed in the cabinet because he was director of education, and I am wondering what is going to happen if, in fact, the new wage settlement gets very high with the Ontario public service. Is it not going to look bad, regardless of what you do, to the public, when the settlement comes down? I am wondering how you are going to reconcile it when it comes down. If you give too high a wage, they are going to say you caved in, and I am just wondering if you thought how you are going to handle that.
Hon Ms Lankin: I am not sure if this is clearly on the topic of your views of the conflict-of-interest guidelines. However, I will answer.
Mr Carr: It is about integrity. We talked with the Premier about integrity, which is a purpose.
Hon Ms Lankin: I will answer that. In fact, if they come in too low --
The Chair: Unless it is appropriate, why open this?
Hon Ms Lankin: I think that it is equally understandable that if wage settlements come in too low or reasonable, it will be said by some people that I was too hard on the employees because of my past relationship and wanting to distance myself from that relationship. As Mr Poirier said, often, for many politicians, you cannot win anyway on any issue and you have to put forward what you think is the reasonable and right approach and I think that is, in fact, what will happen. You can examine the record because the wage settlements are already in. In fact there has not been a flurry of comment about it.
Mr Carr: Because when we talked with the Premier --
The Chair: Is this one final question, Mr Carr?
Mr Carr: We take one step forward in terms of integrity and then sometimes, when we talked about the Red Hill Creek and the Drainville situation, then we take two steps backwards and that is when my perception is the public is going to say, if the wage settlements come in too high, "Well there she goes, she worked for them." That is the difficulty we have with that, and I was just wondering what you are going to say to the public if the wage settlements come in too high. How are you going to say to the public, "No, it had nothing to do with my background"? How are you going to handle that?
Hon Ms Lankin: Well, first of all, your assumption is that the wage settlements may come in too high in that sort of scenario.
Mr Carr: I hope not.
Mr Sorbara: Or too low.
Hon Ms Lankin: I think that what is important for any Chair of Management Board and any member of government is to be able to defend their actions based on relevant criteria. With respect to wage settlements in the Ontario public sector where negotiations are under dispute resolution, binding arbitration, the legislation, the Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act, sets out criteria by which an arbitrator will judge what a relevant or appropriate amount is and it looks at things like the economic conditions; it looks at things like settlement trends in the free collective bargaining sector. It is designed to replicate --
Mr Carr: But the public does not know that. They do not know all the details. They are going to say it was too high and it was your fault.
The Chair: Mr Carr.
Hon Ms Lankin: You asked me, Mr Carr, how I would respond and I think those are the things that I will respond.
The Chair: Mr Morrow. We have run out of time.
Mr Sorbara: A point of order, Mr Chairman.
The Chair: A point of order, Mr Sorbara.
Mr Sorbara: My point of order is that the Treasurer of the province of Ontario has just entered the room. We had scheduled to hear from him at 2 o'clock. He is a very busy person and I would suggest, under my point of order, that if the members of the New Democratic Party on this committee have questions for the Minister of Government Services, etc, that perhaps she could arrange to come back. I am very anxious to honour our obligation to the Treasurer.
The Chair: It is not a point of order, Mr Sorbara.
Mr Sorbara: Well, it is a good point.
The Chair: I appreciate the concern which you have for the workings of our government, Mr Sorbara. However, I think the government caucus has the option of asking a few questions with the forbearance of the ministers present.
Mr Sorbara: I just want to say to my point of order --
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Sorbara, we have discussed the issue, sir.
Mr Sorbara: We have not discussed the issue.
The Chair: Mr Morrow.
Mr Morrow: I would just like to take a brief moment to thank you for being here. I know that you have a very busy and hectic schedule, so thank you very much.
I only have one question. Do these guidelines that the Premier set down prevent you from serving your constituents as an MPP?
1410
Hon Ms Lankin: No. I think it is very important that they make the distinction that as a constituent politician you can still undertake activities to represent your constituency, but it is important that you divorce that from your position as minister. For example, I am attempting to learn how to do that in my own constituency. What I try to do if there is an issue in which a letter is to be sent that is requesting something, for example, representing someone before the Workers' Compensation Board, my constituency assistant often will sign those letters. If it is something that I am signing that is being sent out and it is a constituent matter, then I ensure that it is on letterhead. A couple of times I have had to make sure as I read something -- because sometimes letters come in to Queen's Park as opposed to the constituency and I look at it and I think, "No, that is not a ministerial matter and it is inappropriate for it to be responded to from this office on this letterhead." And so I will redirect the correspondence to the constituency office.
I still can represent the members in my constituency, the residents, and that is important to me, and it just means that one has to be careful that one is not in a position of abusing the ministerial position.
The Chair: Mr Fletcher.
Mr Fletcher: Thank you, Mr Chair. I will defer my question so that we can make up some time.
Mr Mills: Minister, I would like just to raise one issue. This morning we had Mr Kwinter here. Mr Kwinter made a representation that would indicate -- or tried to influence us that these guidelines and the rules that we are debating would somehow prohibit people of a high calibre from running for office. Now, I like --
Mr Sorbara: Point of order, Mr Chairman. I do not think Mr Kwinter should be misquoted like that, I really do not. I do not think he said people of a high calibre at all.
Mr Mills: I have it written down here, Greg.
Mr Sorbara: Well, okay. I would like to check Hansard, but I would be very careful when you are quoting someone.
Mr Mills: That is what he said, a high calibre.
The Chair: Your concerns are on the record, Mr Sorbara. However, it is not a point of order. Mr Mills.
Mr Mills: Mr Kwinter thought -- I will rephrase the question. Mr Kwinter was of the opinion that the high demand of divestiture would prohibit people more qualified from running for office. I can think of a number of people that are very wealthy that have run for office, so I do not think it is a matter of content. Do you think this is going to prohibit certain segments of society from seeking political office?
Hon Ms Lankin: Oh, I do not think certain segments of society would be prohibited or discouraged at all. I think that --
Mr Harnick: Not prohibited; discouraged.
Hon Ms Lankin: -- or discouraged. People will have to make individual choices. I was saying this earlier. There are a lot of decisions that you have to make when you decide to run for public office whether or not you expect to end up in government and in a cabinet position, and this is one of the things. It is important for people to know this up front, to have the rules clear so that they understand as they undertake those decisions to run for political office. There are many people who run, out of a sense of public duty, out of a sense of wanting to change things in society, of making a better society, of contributing in that way, and those people will make those choices irrespective of rules of divestiture.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mrs Lankin.
Hon Ms Lankin: Thank you.
TREASURER OF ONTARIO
The Chair: I would like to call upon Floyd Laughren. As Mr Laughren is sitting down, I would remind committee members that this time around we will be starting with the Conservative caucus and proceeding clockwise. Is Mr Sorbara's objection noted? It is noted? Thank you.
Mr Laughren, we have approximately half an hour, perhaps a few minutes more, and we are eager to hear your statement first.
Hon Mr Laughren: I will not take up the full 30 minutes with my opening comments, but I am pleased to be here. I was surprised to get the invitation, but I guess when people saw my statement to the conflict commissioner, they could not believe it and wanted to know how I could spend 20 years in public life and not have any assets. But anyway, I am happy to explain that if you feel -- Mr Sorbara might want to know how I have done that. I would be quite happy to explain that to Mr Sorbara.
First of all, I welcome the guidelines. As someone who has been in political life, public life, for almost 20 years, I guess I have had my share of comments made to me in snide ways and offhand ways about politicians and about perception of politicians. It does take its toll on one, and quite frankly, on one's family, I think, because we all are sensitive about how we feel about ourselves and our family feels about us.
I have always felt that there must be a way to correct the impression that a lot of people have about politicians, and I have known a lot of politicians go through this place in 20 years. I think the average length of stay at Queen's Park is between five and six years. So if you add up the number that has gone through here in the 20 years I have been here, it is an enormous number and I have difficulty thinking of ones who were dishonourable. I am not talking party politics here. If you think about it that way, the number of people in political life and the very few who cause a problem and affect the perception that the public has of us, I think it is remarkable indeed. There are other sectors out there of which I suspect that cannot be said, but certainly political life, I feel very strongly about the integrity of politicians in general and I do not think that one selects the odd bad apple and condemns the barrel.
So I feel very strongly about that, which is why I welcome guidelines that just make sure that the perception out there is strengthened, that politicians are honourable people and intend to continue, want to be. So that is why I was quite happy with the Premier's decision to proceed with these guidelines, and I do not think that the guidelines are such that they will either discourage good people from running for office or discourage people from remaining in office. I cannot imagine that they would.
I would point out, too, to committee members that there was a day, even when I got involved in politics, when a lot of people had two jobs. They tried to run a business and be a politician, they tried to run a law office and be a politician. I could not give you the statistical analysis of it, but I suspect that has diminished considerably and that now most people understand that being a provincial member is a full-time job in order to do it properly. I also have not met very many lazy politicians over the years either. It really is a full-time job, and that is reflected by the increased amount of support that members of the Legislature have now compared to a few years ago, with support staff at the constituency level and at Queen's Park. So I think that people who determine that they are going to run for office do so knowing -- and I think it is important they understand this -- that it is a full-time job.
It is not a very well-paid job compared to a lot of jobs that are out there. I certainly even see that in trying to hire people. If someone leaves, for example, in Treasury and you are trying to replace a senior person, the amount you pay is not what we are being paid, I will tell you that. I am talking about ordinary members of the Legislature. I am not complaining as a member of cabinet. But I know that people do not run for political office for the money. I think that is largely misunderstood out there as well, the remuneration of members of the assembly. I do not think it is rich at all.
1420
We all should understand and send the message out there to Ontario that we are bringing in guidelines that all members can have a say in. Members of this committee can have a significant influence on the final shape of the guidelines because, as you know, there is an existing act and these are simply guidelines, and also that you could not change the conflict of interest commissioner's rules simply by imposing guidelines. That would be inappropriate. If you want to change the act, that is fine. Also, the guidelines apply to members of cabinet and parliamentary assistants because, once again, it would require a change of the act.
I look forward to the deliberations of this committee and the kind of recommendations they will make because I do not see it, at least I did not at the beginning and I do not think I do now, as a partisan issue along party lines. Not about the questioning, that is fine; I have spent my life on committees of the Legislature, I know the culture on committees and I enjoy them, quite frankly. But at the same time I do not think that the end result will be a partisan one. Why would it be? I trust that the deliberations of the committee will be serious and will be helpful because there is nothing to gain, one party over another, on this issue in my view; that it is simply: How do we put in place the guidelines that are most appropriate, that are not punitive but at the same time make sure that the perception of members of the Legislature is such that it enhances us all, it does not diminish us all? I look forward to an exchange with any of the members and look forward to your comments. Thank you, Mr Chairman.
The Chair: Mr Carr? Mr Harnick?
Mr Harnick: My impression, having been here for a very short time, is that no one really knows the conflict area better than the former Chief Justice and now conflict commissioner. Would that be something that you would agree with?
Hon Mr Laughren: I do not know how many experts are rolling around out there.
Mr Harnick: Certainly --
Hon Mr Laughren: He knows more than I.
Mr Harnick: Certainly, I would think he knows more than most of the people around here --
Hon Mr Laughren: I do not know, I have said I do not know how many people have made themselves experts on it --
Mr Harnick: No, okay, but I appreciate the --
Hon Mr Laughren: Mr Carr has spent the last six months burrowing himself into conflict of interest --
Mr Harnick: I appreciate the one thing you said, that he knows better than you do; he certainly knows a lot better than I do. What he told us in terms of the proposed guidelines, he said they are draconian. He said they will promote less people to come forward to seek public office and that accordingly they are not productive. Whereas the disclosure provisions that are now there are working. In terms of his opinion, and the fact that he does point out that you are going to limit the number of people who will come forward to seek public office, does that not concern you?
Hon Mr Laughren: First of all, there is an assumption built into your question that I do not know is correct, that it is going to limit the number of people who --
Mr Harnick: Well, that is his opinion, and I am asking you --
Hon Mr Laughren: Oh, I am sorry, I thought you said that was your --
Mr Harnick: Oh no, that is not my opinion, that is his opinion.
Hon Mr Laughren: He said that, okay. Well, that is an assumption he makes, not that I make. So you had better ask him about that.
Mr Harnick: All right, because that opinion was also the opinion of Mr Kwinter and Mr Sweeney as well as the commissioner. Their fear is that we may end up, I suppose, having the Legislature -- and I do not say this disrespectfully -- of 130 people like yourself as opposed to 65 people like yourself and 65 people like Mr Sorbara.
Mr Sorbara: I do not know what would be worse, Floyd. I think you and I had better resign.
Hon Mr Laughren: Do you always use extreme examples when you are making a point?
Mr Harnick: I only point that out because the conflict commissioner says that the provisions we now have are doing the job, but we do not have to do or take the next step and he was quite candid when he said they are draconian and not necessary.
Hon Mr Laughren: Okay, but I have a funny feeling you should be questioning Mr Evans, not me.
Mr Harnick: We questioned him, yes. Certainly your admission that he knows more than you, I suppose you would tend to defer to him.
Hon Mr Laughren: I defer to his opinion. He can express whatever opinion he wants on the conflict-of-interest guidelines. That does not bother me. I am glad he expressed his views.
Mr Harnick: Do you have some evidence that in fact the disclosure rules are not working?
Hon Mr Laughren: I do not think that is the point. The point is, what we have done is bring in guidelines we think will make them even better than what they are now. It does not mean that what is there is totally inadequate or anything like that. It means that we think that new guidelines will strengthen them. I do not --
Mr Harnick: Why do they need strengthening if the old system works?
Hon Mr Laughren: Well, I guess you are getting into a matter of degrees.
Mr Harnick: I am just asking you, and I have asked your colleague, what evidence is there that the disclosure rules are not appropriate and are not doing the job? Something has got to be motivating you to want to have divestiture. There has got to be some facts that say that what we have is not working, we have to go further. You do not go further for the sake of going further. Are you trying to eliminate the various kinds of people who want to serve in this place? Is that what is motivating you? Or are there skeletons that you are worried are going to pop out of the closet?
Hon Mr Laughren: I guess I would go back to what I said right at the beginning, that I care very much about the perception of politicians being honourable and being above any sense, in the public's mind out there, that there is anything to gain at all in a pecuniary sense from being a member of the Legislature beyond what your take-home pay is. I think it is terribly important to do what we can to strengthen that perception, and if that means that it makes some people uncomfortable because they must divest, then I think the price that they pay is worth it out there in the public mind. And I think that the public supports the idea that this is a full-time job and that people should not be running, have major enterprises or whatever, namely, that divestiture should take place if you are going to be a member of the Legislature. There is no question in my mind that that can be a sacrifice, and I say, so it is a sacrifice. I think that public life is in a sense -- and I do not mean this, trying to be a martyr or anything like that, but public life is tough. If part of being tough is divestiture, so be it. I have no problem with that at all.
Mr Harnick: With respect, though, I cannot see how you are being logical. You come and you say -- and I respect the fact that you have been here virtually longer than anyone -- you have not seen anybody who has been dishonest in terms of the people you have met here, that there is a very high degree of honesty.
Hon Mr Laughren: But that is --
Mr Harnick: Now, what I am saying to you is, when you go to fix a system that is not broken, are you not perpetuating the perception the public has that politicians are not honest?
Hon Mr Laughren: Au contraire, I think that something does not have to be broken for us to want to strengthen it. I think you are making an assumption that because we want to strengthen it it must be broken. That is not the case. I think that we can strengthen it without implying that it is broken. I think that is all we want to do and I would say to you that the improved perception of people about politicians is very, very important, and that if that means that some people do not like the guidelines, then that is life. But I think it is terribly important that we strengthen those guidelines.
Interjections.
Hon Mr Laughren: Do not say "time" to me; I am not the Chair --
Interjections.
The Chair: Mr Fletcher, Mr Sorbara is continually reminding me of the time, but none the less, if you could limit it to one further question.
1430
Mr Carr: One of the things when we talked with the Premier on Monday is that he said he felt that he should be the final person to decide; that as Premier the buck stopped with him. One of the ways to take it out of the political field, because the Premier of the province regardless of political stripes will always be political, is that a suggestion has been made to make the commissioner sort of the final authority on it. That, to me, in some regards would make it non-political. You would have somebody whom we all admire and respect, like Mr Evans, as the final authority on things like basically everything as it relates to conflict -- and we got into the different things such as on Dennis Drainville and on the Red Hill Creek Expressway -- and I was just wondering if you agree with that. Or do you believe the final decision rests with the Premier of the day?
Hon Mr Laughren: That is a good question. I do not know if I can give you an answer. I can see where there is a need for legislation that ties down the rules, but it seems to me that if the Premier wants to appoint his cabinet -- and I am not playing some kind of boosterism game here -- which is an arbitrary act in itself, we all know that, and the parliamentary assistants, then I think that that part of it means he is the final arbiter. But I like the idea of the legislation that lays down the broad rules. I am not trying to be evasive; that is how I feel about the arguments.
Mr Carr: Yes, but he does have the final say in this.
Hon Mr Laughren: Yes.
Mr Carr: The perception of the public is that, at this point in time and also during the last election, all politicians, no matter what stripe, are crooked. That is what the general perception of the public is. You can ask people and they say: "Well, you are all the same, you know. Do what you want." Given that sort of train of thought and that the object here is to remove that stigma from politicians, how do you feel if we go that one step further and we include all the MPPs under these guidelines, this divestiture problem, all of them? To my way of thinking, the parliamentary assistants are included, and Mr Swee-ney sat there this morning and said he went through six. I am just wondering --
Hon Mr Laughren: Six?
Mr Mills: -- six parliamentary assistants in four years. I am just wondering, in the interest of being thoroughly fair to everybody but to put everybody above reproach in the public's eye, would it not be fair, in your opinion, to have everybody under the same rules so that whatever happened to you -- and we are all part of the decision-making process, I think, in one way or another.
Hon Mr Laughren: I do not know. I will tell you why I am hesitating. Our system of government is such that -- and believe me, I do not say this because I happen to sit in cabinet -- that is where lots of the decisions are made, as many of you people on the committee have told me. That is where the decisions are made and where the greatest potential for conflict is. I do not think there is any question about that. There is potential for conflict with backbenchers and with opposition members too, because I can tell you that over the years there have been times I knew things before the public knew them, just because I was so close to the government party, you see. There is no question there is potential for conflict with all members, but the greatest potential clearly is with cabinet members. I am more concerned about that aspect of it than I am the other members. That is why I said I thought that the broad guidelines should apply to all members.
I thought Mr Carr's question was a good one about -- maybe you have been through it a dozen times, but this is my first time in the committee here, and I thought that was an appropriate question -- who is the final arbiter. Should it be the Premier? Should it be the Conflict of Interest Commissioner? I like the idea of depoliticizing it and making it the commissioner, but at the same time I look at the cabinet aspect of it and I come down for the Premier, but that is something I am somewhat open-minded about. I cannot give you --
Mr Mills: No decision.
Hon Mr Laughren: Yes.
Mr Fletcher: I am going to follow along the same lines as Mr Mills. During the election I was hearing a lot of people say: "You're all the same. Politicians are all the same." And I know that a lot of that stems from what has been going on in Ottawa with the federal Conservative Party and the fiascos it has been having, and also some of what did go on in the past Liberal govemment, provincially.
I am just wondering: Are these guidelines going to make the public perception any better? Are people going to say, "Now that you're really wide open, you're honest people"? I do not know if that will happen.
Hon Mr Laughren: Mr Fletcher, I cannot answer that question. I do not know whether or not this will have any bearing on the collective impression of politicians or not. By itself, I guess we will be judged more by our behaviour than by the rules that guide us. But, in the end, I think that it is important to send out that signal that there are guidelines that do give us direction. I would rather err on that side than on the other side. You are asking me if this will alter public opinion. I do not know by how much, but I can tell you that I sure would not want to go back to the old days when there were no guidelines. It seems to me that we need conflict-of-interest guidelines, we need the commissioner, and for cabinet I think we need these kinds of guidelines.
Mr Fletcher: Okay.
Hon Mr Laughren: Just before you go on, Mr Chair: I am not trying to be difficult but I thought I was going to be on at 2, and I have an appointment at 2:45. I thought 15 minutes was a leeway there so I would appreciate --
The Chair: I think you are quite right, sir. In deference to the Treasurer, if we could --
Hon Mr Laughren: It is in the buildings so I --
The Chair: Mr Laughren, could we perhaps have five minutes?
Hon Mr Laughren: Oh, yes. I can stay right till a quarter to because it is in the buildings.
Mr Sorbara: My first question really arises from a question that Mr Harnick would have asked, and the Treasurer is a very good person to answer this question because he has been here a long time.
Interjection: He looks it.
Mr Sorbara: But he looks good. It looks good on him.
Interjection: He was not grey when he came?
Hon Mr Laughren: I was not grey on 1 October.
Mr Sorbara: You were a lot taller too.
This is not meant to be facetious although there is politics in everything we do, just like that open letter you published during the campaign. It was brilliant -- remember? You said, "This is going to win us the election, Greg," and we had a wonderful chat and you were right. But that letter did not win it.
Is it not true, Treasurer, that what reduces people's confidence in politicians is not the personal gain that politicians are making in this work? You have been here 20 years, but I say to the Treasurer of the new government, making very specific promises during an election campaign and then getting elected and saying, "We're not doing it," is that not really what it is all about? Does that not reduce the integrity that we all carry? It does not matter what you say; when you are in power you will do whatever the hell is necessary to stay in power and run a good government. I agree with the changes in policy that you are making, but it does qualify the stature that we all have in the province.
Hon Mr Laughren: It does not help --
Mr Sorbara: It does not help.
Hon Mr Laughren: -- but it is like everything else, I guess. It is a mix of things that have caused the perception that is out there. For example -- and I am not trying once again --
Mr Sorbara: No. You have very little time.
Hon Mr Laughren: No. I am like you, Mr Sorbara. I do not want to be unduly political, but in the last three years -- I almost said four, but it was not a four-year term, was it? It was three years -- some things happened that also caused a problem about the perception -- and I am not trying to dredge them up -- of politicians and particularly government politicians, government members. That would be true regardless of which party was in power --
1440
Mr Sorbara: Regardless of whether or not the ministers had divested of their interests.
Hon Mr Laughren: That is divestiture. Absolutely.
Mr Sorbara: But with respect, we all agree on this committee, I think, that disclosure has been a very effective tool, and then if we can find ways of enhancing disclosure, that is good. But what the Premier has asked us to do is consider a new guideline that says, "If you're invited to sit in the cabinet, you will have 60 days or so to sell your private or your business interests."
What I want to ask the Treasurer is this: Why does a scoundrel who is willing to abuse his oath of office and his office become less of a scoundrel because he has sold his or her business interest and converted that into cash? Does that make an individual who is a scoundrel, and who would violate a public oath and a public trust, into someone who is not a scoundrel? I fail to see it. I fail to see how we are adding any value to what we are doing here. If the Treasurer could explain that, then I would be happier.
Hon Mr Laughren: I will do what I can to make you happier.
Mr Sorbara: Okay, and then I have just one more little question.
Interjection.
Mr Sorbara: I am sorry, then Jean has one more question.
Hon Mr Laughren: First of all, as you imply, a scoundrel is a scoundrel whether he or she has assets or not. But I think that there would be less opportunity for conflict without the assets. That is what I believe.
Mr Sorbara: Or more, maybe.
Hon Mr Laughren: I do not think so.
I think that in that sense it is a positive move. I stress a lot about perception, but I think it would be wrong to say that we are only dealing with perceptions here. We are not just dealing with perceptions. For example, divesting of something is not a perception.
Mr Sorbara: No, it is very real, very expensive.
Hon Mr Laughren: It is very real. It is very costly. That is correct. That is why built into the guidelines is that proviso on undue hardship that is there as well.
Mr Sorbara: And who makes that decision in respect of the Premier and what he has to divest?
Hon Mr Laughren: The Premier.
Mr Sorbara: He is his own judge.
Mr Poirier: Very quickly, Mr Treasurer. I appreciate what you said as an introduction. I know you have been here a long time and we have had many private chats and interesting chats and I know that what you are saying about politicians generally is quite true and I have seen it here myself. Do you not think that what you are doing with these guidelines is a bit, pardon the expression, caving in? You and I think that the perception that most of the public has out there of politicians is erroneous? It is not correct. It is not what you have seen and what I have seen. Maybe the correction to this is for us to even tell the truth about what we really are and are not to the public, as opposed to seemingly caving in; and even giving back to the Premier, where people may see the Premier in a very difficult light, in a very tough light also -- and if that person then now makes decisions as to what is or what is not a conflict, that may add to the problem also. Do you not see that?
Hon Mr Laughren: No, I really do not. I am not trying to be obtuse. It seems to me nothing could be crisper -- I was going to say "cleaner" and I did not mean it in a pejorative sense -- or cleaner than divesting so that you come to the cabinet table with no conceivable conflict, either perceived or otherwise.
Mr Sorbara made the point, I think he was hinting that cash gives you a certain amount of --
Mr Sorbara: Clout. Freedom.
Hon Mr Laughren: -- comfort or freedom or potential for conflict as well, and I appreciate that.
Mr Sorbara: Wrap yourself in a white gown and say, "Listen, I'm absolutely clean."
Hon Mr Laughren: Yes. I understand that, but I think --
Hon Mr Wildman: I think absolute poverty has the same effect.
Hon Mr Laughren: Yes, vows of poverty would be -- I know. Anyway, I think that as a package of guidelines the component that makes these guidelines different and strong, in a very real sense, and also in the minds of the public as they get to know this -- I do not think a lot of people know about these guidelines at this point -- I think that is the aspect of divestiture. I think that is the one aspect of these guidelines that is the strongest and sends the signal that this is a different set of guidelines.
Mr Sorbara: No doubt about that. We agree on that.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Laughren.
Hon Mr Laughren: Thank you very much.
MINISTER OF NATURAL RESOURCES
The Chair: Mr Wildman, please. I understand that you are no stranger to these proceedings and I need not give you plentiful instructions. I do apologize for the delay in the proceedings, but I am sure you know these things happen.
Hon Mr Wildman: I do have another appointment at 3, but I can stay until 3:15. That will make me late so I cannot stay beyond that.
I thank the committee for the opportunity to appear here today to deal with a very serious and complex issue. I have heard a little of the discussion because I came in thinking I was going to be on time at 2:30 and I heard the discussion of the previous witness, the Treasurer. I guess, in a way, I will be saying some of the things that you have heard at least from him if not from others.
I want to say a couple of things, first about politicians and the role that we play, the responsibilities we have, and what my experience in 15 going on 16 years around this place has taught me, if I have learned anything. I have learned that most politicians, almost all politicians that I have known, no matter what political party, are honest, hard-working people who are here to do the best they can for their constituents and to help shape the programs and policies of government for the best interests of the people of the province.
Obviously we have all had disagreements as to what the best ways are to achieve the benefits that we all want for the people of Ontario. But in most cases, and almost all cases that I am aware of in my experience in this Legislature, those have been honest disagreements.
I have felt it a privilege to serve as a member of the assembly and to serve the people of Algoma in this place over the years, and I certainly in no way denigrate the responsibility of the ordinary member, whether that member be a member of the party that supports the government or a member of one of the opposition parties. I respect very much the role of the opposition. After all, I served there for 15 years.
I think that most people feel the same way about their own members. It is a rather strange situation we seem to have when talking about perception. In my experience at least, most people think that the persons they have running in elections in their own constituencies are good people. But somehow, when they look at the group of politicians in general, they think, "Well, they're not a very trustworthy bunch," which is kind of a contradiction. I do not know exactly the reason for it, but it is there. I suppose it is the same as the mechanic who you trust will look after servicing your automobile, but in general you think most mechanics perhaps are not as deserving of trust as the one whom you go to to have your car dealt with. I do not know the reason for that, but in my experience most politicians are genuinely hard-working and honest people.
I heard some discussion earlier as I was listening to the debate about whether or not the guidelines or any guidelines will change scoundrels. I have already said that, in general and in most cases, I do not think scoundrels get elected, because I do not think the electorate is stupid. In an election in a democracy, we have to trust the wisdom of the voter. Sometimes when you are serving in opposition, as I did for so long, you wonder how they could be wise and not vote for your party, but in fact you --
Mr Poirier: They are not stupid; they are just unwise.
1450
Hon Mr Wildman: On the other hand, I do think genuinely people can see through falsity and prevarication.
One would have to be a very good actor, or bad actor I suppose, in order to be able to fool the voters, for any extended period of time at least. I have always lived by the motto myself that if you tell the truth you do not have to have a good memory, and since I do not have a particularly good memory I have always tried to be honest with the people that I serve here and with the people that I serve with from all sides of the House.
The perception is something that we have to deal with, and I think all premiers, in the experience I have had here, have tried to deal with it one way or another. We have had the guidelines under Bill Davis when I was first elected, which were rather strict guidelines. Then we had the guidelines as set out by Premier Peterson when he was the Premier of the province, which changed the guidelines that had governed members of the House and members of the cabinet somewhat, particularly in terms of members of the cabinet. There were some problems, I recognize, with both sets of guidelines: those set out by Mr Davis, which were rather strict, and the ones that I might suggest were not as strict under Mr Peterson.
I am not going to refer to any cases that occurred in the last mandate at all, other than to say -- and my friend Mr Poirier will remember this -- that when there was a problem, I expressed in the House my concern for the minister involved, and it was genuine concern for what he was going through.
So the Premier-elect, after 6 September, had to deal with how he would respond to this perception and what kinds of rules he would set. I think that Bob Rae went through a lot of consultation with his own colleagues and with people in academia and elsewhere to ask them for advice. I think he is also looking for advice from the committee as to how we can best deal with perception, to ensure that not only are politicians honest but they are seen to be honest and they demonstrate that they do not have conflicts when making decisions. He came down on the side, for cabinet ministers, of saying that cabinet ministers should divest of assets so that there could be no question of conflict in terms of one's personal investments or assets.
That is very strict. There is no question. I must say that in my own personal economic situation I have not had a lot of trouble with it because I did not have a lot of assets, but I can certainly understand where perhaps it would be more strict for others. But we all make choices when we choose what we do in life. All of us here, particularly those who like myself are out-of-town members, have made choices with regard to our family lives, to our careers. When I was first elected, I, as many others I am sure, was making more money outside of this place than I was when I came here, and I made a choice. I saw this as a tremendous opportunity to serve the people of Algoma and to serve the people of Ontario, and so for me at that point the economics of it was not the most important issue. I admit it was not a major drop in income, but it was a slight one.
But I think the major choice that I had to make in regard to coming here and serving here was what it has done to my family life. Having served here for almost 16 years, I will say quite bluntly that my two eldest sons largely grew up without me, and that my wife has really, even though she is not a single parent, had to serve almost as if she were. That is a very difficult choice, and in my view a more difficult choice than choosing to divest oneself of assets. I made it, and I will admit on occasion I have regretted it, but in most cases I have not. I have found the experience here tremendously rewarding. I have been able to do a lot, I think, for the people of Algoma and for the people of this province in opposition. I hope to be able to do more in government. I have developed a lot of friendships throughout the province and within this assembly, with members both sitting here now and who have served in the past, that I would never have had the opportunity to have developed if I had not made those choices.
But I am just saying we all make choices. I think the Premier has given members of the cabinet particularly a difficult choice to make. They are not forced to make it. If they choose to serve if offered the opportunity then it is a choice they have to weigh, and if they believe that the opportunity is as important a one as I do, they will accept the guidelines and live with them.
I am open to questions.
Mr Poirier: Bud, we have had a number of our colleagues, past and present, Liberals, NDP, come forward and we have all agreed on what you have seen -- Floyd for 20 years, you for 16, Sweeney for 15, Monte for five, myself for seven -- members actually be, compared to the perception. There is a huge Grand Canyon of difference, right?
Hon Mr Wildman: Yes, except that, Jean, I would say in response that unfortunately -- and I would say parenthetically that it is more in Ottawa, I suspect, than here -- there are a few examples that have --
Mr Poirier: Coloured the rest of us.
Hon Mr Wildman: Coloured the rest, and have, in the public's mind, proved in their view that if given the chance or the opportunity, most politicians will take advantage of their position. While I agree with you that in the vast majority of cases that is not accurate, there are enough examples that the perception is there, and I suppose in order to deal with that, you have to ensure that not only are people honest, as I said earlier, but that they are seen not to have the opportunity to be dishonest.
Mr Poirier: But is that not just the case where, when you look at it, Bud, if you tighten the knot -- I could put myself in the shoes of Mr and Mrs Ontario on the outside looking: "What are you guys doing? You're tightening the knot. You're making it more difficult. Why? Are you confirming what I had suspected all along, that there were loopholes and that you guys were benefiting and profiting from the loose laws or the former loose guidelines?" It is almost like telling them that there was a problem with the integrity of the members, no matter who they were and which party they belonged to, and that you guys are tightening up, and it is almost admitting that there was a major problem with us at Queen's Park.
I do not want to be compared to Ottawa or anywhere else, because the laws of what you want to do, or not do or what we did or did not do, applied only to Queen's Park, whereas maybe the solution was to go out there and tell the people what we really are and are not as opposed to making it tighter. Like you, I do not have a damn wealth. I do not have anything. I would roll on the floor laughing if I was asked, "Would you have to divest?" I would say, "What the hell for?" My cat has already been neutered. There is nothing. So I have nothing personally to lose about that.
Hon Mr Wildman: I understand the point you are making, Jean, but I think in a sense, if we are confirming anything, we may be confirming and reacting to the perception.
Mr Poirier: Exactly.
Hon Mr Wildman: I do not think that that necessarily says that we believe that the majority of politicians have been the type in the past that would take advantage of a situation. But it is admitting that there have been cases in the past, not necessarily at Queen's Park but generally politically, people who have taken advantage or attempted to take advantage, or have in some cases not taken advantage but have put themselves in a situation where they might have been able to, and people have raised questions about what they are doing and why they are doing it. So if we are dealing with perception we may be reacting to that perception and saying to the people who voted on 6 September -- you may disagree with me, but I think the vote on 6 September did not just have to do with Ontario politics. I think it had to do with politics in this country.
1500
Mr Poirier: Quite true.
Hon Mr Wildman: There was a certain angst out there among voters and voters were fed up for a lot of reasons, one of which may have been their perception of politicians in general. But there were other reasons as well, they were looking for change and that was one of the things the Premier, I think, had to take into account in coming up with a new set of guidelines and rules where he said, "People are looking for change and how do we respond to that?" We respond to it by showing that indeed we want to change; we want to reform the system; we want to ensure that no one who takes a position of responsibility such as a cabinet post can be in a situation where he or she may have the opportunity to take advantage for personal gain. He made that choice, and I support him in the choice he made because I think that by passing the guidelines, accepting these guidelines and rules, we will be saying to the public, "Whatever your perception, we as a group of people who have been elected to serve the people of this province are prepared to live by these onerous and strict guidelines and to accept the rules as they are laid out." Maybe in doing that we will help to change the perception.
Mr Poirier: Do you think so?
Hon Mr Wildman: I hope. I cannot predict; I hope.
Mr Poirier: I bet you anything -- one last 30-second statement -- I bet you it does not change a darn bit, unfortunately.
Hon Mr Wildman: I learned a long time ago, Jean, never to bet with you. I remember.
Mr Carr: We had three cabinet ministers come before us, all of whom this legislation probably will not affect because they all said they did not have too many assets and not too much to get rid of. The question I have got --
Hon Mr Wildman: That is not for trying.
Mr Carr: Yes, that is --
Hon Mr Wildman: It is just what happens to you after you serve around here for 16 years.
Mr Carr: Yes, you work so hard in politics. The question I have is if there is anybody in cabinet you are aware of who is going to be hurt by it, because what I guess I am getting at is that we are putting something in place, looking at maybe this particular cabinet and saying we are going to do this because of public perception, but we are not looking necessarily for some of those who might be hurt. In other words, we are putting legislation in, and I just wonder what your perception is, whether anybody else is going to be affected by this at all.
Hon Mr Wildman: I am not privy to the reports that cabinet ministers have made to the Conflict of Interest Commissioner and to the Premier so I cannot speculate on who might or might not have to divest significant assets. I suspect that there are people, but I do not know, because I am not privy to that information. The Premier is and I understand from reports in the press that there have been a couple of members, not cabinet ministers --
Mr Carr: Parliamentary assistants.
Hon Mr Wildman: Parliamentary assistants who --
Mr Carr: They have got all the money.
Hon Mr Wildman: -- who the Premier has indicated must move to divest, but I do not know anything more than what I have seen in the press.
Mr Carr: Going on those lines, the question I asked the Treasurer before, too, is: On the one hand we want to make things very tough, but on the other hand we say the final judgement rests on somebody who is very political, and I think you were here probably when I asked the question.
Hon Mr Wildman: Yes, I was.
Mr Carr: I wonder what your thoughts are towards that, if we are really going to say, "Let's take the politics out of it." I can understand where the Premier says, "The buck stops here and I'm the final authority," and we have all heard great testimony towards our present commissioner's past career as a justice and if we are really going to say, "Let's take the politics out of it," then do you not feel that it would be best to throw it into his court and say, "Okay, here is a man who is going to make judgements based not on political considerations, but like he did when he was a lawyer, on the law"? Can we not increase the perception if we do that? Would that not really take us a step further? I wonder what your thoughts are on that.
Hon Mr Wildman: I have a tremendous amount of respect for the Conflict of Interest Commissioner. I have dealt with him since he was first appointed, as other members have, and he has always seemed to me to be very fair and willing to work with the members, to assist the members to ensure that they are complying with the regulations and the guidelines. I understand the motive of your question, but I must say that in my experience around this place I do not think we ever can take the politics out of anything, and I do not think that we ever should. I do not make any apologies for being a politician and practising politics, and I do not think any of us here do, and I do not think we should apologize to the public for that.
In the previous mandate during the Liberal government, the argument was made a number of times by the government at that time that these decisions should indeed not be resting with the Premier, but that they should be with an independent arbiter who is not a politician and not involved in politics. I understand that argument and I certainly would not be averse to suggesting that a person such as Judge Evans should perhaps give advice, but the ultimate decision on who should or should not serve in the cabinet, in the executive council, must rest with the Premier, not just on the basis of conflict of interest or conflict-of-interest guidelines, but on the basis of a host of other considerations.
The ultimate decision on whether or not a person is fit to serve as a member of the executive council is a political decision and it must rest with the Premier. I understand that the Premier, as I said earlier, has asked for the advice of this committee and I would be interested in what the committee determines in this regard, but personally I think that while the advice of a commissioner like Judge Evans is probably very helpful -- I would certainly, if I were in the position, value it -- the ultimate decision I think has to rest with the political person in charge.
Mr Harnick: Just very briefly, I remember you said you are not going to fool the voters, and I agree with you, a politician is not going to fool the voters.
Hon Mr Wildman: Might for a short time.
Mr Harnick: Beyond that, but for any length of time, I agree with you. If we keep that in mind, you have a situation where on the one hand you are doing something to create a perception or change a perception that the public has that you yourself have said is not a true perception and we also know that the voters are not going to be fooled for any length of time anyway. On the other hand, you have got the privacy commissioner saying that the conflict-of-interest guidelines are draconian, and I think the major reason he said that is because it will limit the number of diverse individuals who will come forward to serve in public office.
The Chair: Mr Harnick, I believe you mean the conflict of interest --
Mr Harnick: The conflict of interest -- I am sorry, yes. If we try to strike a balance between public perception which you yourself say is wrong and with the fact that -- and I agree with you -- you say that you are not going to fool the voters for any length of time, to strike a balance and have guidelines that are going to limit the number of individuals who will come forward, there does not seem to be any logical balance in those two positions.
Hon Mr Wildman: Okay, if I could respond. First, you will recall that I said that I believe you could not fool the voters about a person's real motives for any significant length of time. At the same time there is a contradiction out there that I do not understand, where people tend to view the people who run in their own constituencies and get elected and serve them as good hardworking people on the one hand, but do not view the group to which they belong in the same manner, and I do not understand that. There is no logic in that so perhaps there is no logic in politics. I will say that it is my perception that politicians are honest and hardworking. I hope it is not a wrong one. But politics, as Davis used to say, is perception. It is one of the few things I agreed with Bill Davis about, and he used to say it often, that in terms of the end results in politics it is less important what is actual than what is perceived to be, and that is why I think we have to respond to the perception.
Now you said about the comments of the commissioner that he believed the rules were draconian. Well, as an historian, I remember where the word "draconian" came from. It came from Drakon, a great Greek lawgiver who had very strict rules and perhaps the time is for strict rules.
Mr Harnick: The only thing is, the one thing you have not addressed --
The Chair: Just one further question.
Mr Harnick: Yes. The only thing that you have not addressed is this idea -- and you have been here 15 years. I respect your experience over that period of time. Can you, in looking back at people who have served on the executive council, say that, "Gee, a few of those good people may not have served if they had to divest of everything"?
Hon Mr Wildman: I do not know that because, as I said, each person has to make his or her own decision. I do know that there were individuals who served as members of the executive council in Liberal and Conservative governments who I understand, I do not know for certain, had some significant assets. They would, under these rules, have had to make a choice, just as we all make choices, about whether they were prepared to make a sacrifice in order to serve or not. I think we all make sacrifices of one sort or another and I do not know how they would have decided. They would have had to decide.
Mr Harnick: In your experience, did the fact that they did not divest themselves --
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Wildman.
Hon Mr Wildman: You want to get rid of me, do you?
The Chair: No, I do not, sir, but we have a couple of points that --
Mr Harnick: Would you mind answering one more question?
Hon Mr Wildman: No. I will answer one question, if it is all right, Mr Chair.
Mr Harnick: In your experience over the period of 15 years that you were in the opposition and had an opportunity to watch cabinet ministers of various governments, did you ever get the impression that they were not doing their jobs properly because they had not divested of their assets? Did that affect their performance or were the disclosure rules adequate in terms of their performance?
Hon Mr Wildman: I want to be very careful about how I answer this, because this is a very important question. I will say this: I know of cabinet ministers who have served in both Conservative and Liberal governments who are good friends of mine, personal friends, who I believe to be very honest people, whose performance on occasion during their careers was harmed because of a perception of either conflict or the possibility of conflict. I do not believe that would have happened if these rules had been in effect.
Mr Harnick: But they never were able to --
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Wildman. The clerk has an announcement. I would also like to point out to the committee the agenda for next week as it has been circulated and also the final summary of recommendations that our research has prepared. Clerk.
Clerk of the Committee: Okay, I just wanted to mention that I hope to have delivered to everybody's office tomorrow or Monday morning at the latest, the final group of amendments for Bill 17. There are still some government amendments that I do not have and I do not have any opposition amendments, so as soon as I have those I will then distribute them to people's offices, hopefully before clause-by-clause commences.
The Chair: I believe Mrs Cunningham had some amendments. Do you know if they will be ready?
Mr Harnick: Yes, Dianne is meeting as we speak now and I will try to catch up with her and get our amendments.
The Chair: Thank you. I guess at the moment we are adjourned until -- no further business? We are adjourned until 1 o'clock on Monday. Thank you.
The committee adjourned at 1515.