RELEASE OF GOVERNMENT INFORMATION

CONTENTS

Tuesday 27 October 1992

Release of government information

STANDING COMMITTEE ON ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE

*Chair / Président: Cooper, Mike (Kitchener-Wilmot ND)

*Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: Morrow, Mark (Wentworth East/-Est ND)

*Akande, Zanana L. (St Andrew-St Patrick ND)

*Carter, Jenny (Peterborough ND)

*Chiarelli, Robert (Ottawa West/-Ouest L)

*Curling, Alvin (Scarborough North/-Nord L)

*Harnick, Charles (Willowdale PC)

Mahoney, Steven W. (Mississauga West/-Ouest L)

*Malkowski, Gary (York East/-Est ND)

*Runciman, Robert W. (Leeds-Grenville PC)

*Wessenger, Paul (Simcoe Centre ND)

*Winninger, David (London South/-Sud ND)

*In attendance / présents

Clerk / Greffière: Freedman, Lisa

Staff / Personnel: Swift, Susan, research officer, Legislative Research Service

The committee met at 1545 in committee room 1.

RELEASE OF GOVERNMENT INFORMATION

Consideration of the designated matter pursuant to standing order 125 relating to the decision by the Treasurer, Deputy Treasurer, Minister of the Environment, the Deputy Minister of the Environment and the executive council of Ontario, to ask the Ontario Provincial Police to investigate matters of Ontario's public service and members of provincial Parliament regarding the release of government information to those same members of provincial Parliament.

The Chair (Mr Mike Cooper): I'd like to call this meeting of the standing committee on administration of justice to order. I'd like to start off with the subcommittee report:

"Your subcommittee met on Monday 19 October 1992 and recommends the following witnesses for the purpose of the Liberal standing order 125 designation:

"Honourable Ruth Grier, Minister of the Environment; Gary Posen, former Deputy Minister of the Environment; Richard Dicerni, Deputy Minister of the Environment; Honourable Floyd Laughren, Treasurer of Ontario; Sharon Cohen, executive director, administration, Ministry of Treasury and Economics; Honourable Allan Pilkey, Solicitor General; Donald Obonsawin, Deputy Solicitor General; Thomas O'Grady, commissioner of the OPP; R.E. Piers, deputy commissioner; Detective Inspector M.S. Coughlin; Detective Sergeant C. Strachan; Barbara Sullivan, MPP; Murray Elston, MPP; Honourable David Cooke, Chair of Management Board."

The last one that's on your list is a mistake. It shouldn't have been on there, just for the committee's information. Questions or comments on the subcommittee's report?

Mr Robert Chiarelli (Ottawa West): I take it that what you're looking for is the committee to approve the subcommittee report.

The Chair: Right.

Mr Chiarelli: I would like to ask a question of the clerk before we proceed with this issue. On October 19, 1992, you as Chair wrote a letter to me in which you indicated, in paragraph 5, that the office of the government House leader was again contacted and the clerk was informed that an answer from the ministers would be forthcoming. Later, the clerk was informed that the ministers would not be attending. We're talking about the original subcommittee report that was adopted, which indicated that the committee wanted as witnesses three ministers; namely, Minister of the Environment Ruth Grier, Treasurer Floyd Laughren and Solicitor General Allan Pilkey. I'd like to ask the clerk whether she can confirm to me whether there is any confirmation from these ministers that they will be witnesses.

Clerk of the Committee (Ms Lisa Freedman): I've handed around letters that I've received back from each of the ministers. The Solicitor General has informed us that he will not be appearing before the committee. The other two ministers have informed me that they are unavailable on specific dates. I've written them back, offering alternative dates or having them suggest any date they're available, and have yet to hear back from them on that.

Mr Chiarelli: In view of the fact that we have no confirmation that the ministers will be attending, regretfully we'll be moving to withdraw the substance of the subcommittee's motion, which is to have this particular matter or issue determined under standing order 125, the new number. But before I move to withdraw that motion, I'm going to make a number of remarks. I understand that it requires the unanimous consent of the committee to withdraw that particular item.

I chaired the justice committee in the last Parliament, when we dealt with an issue under standing order 123, which is now 125. At that time, I think the justice committee and the section of the standing orders worked very well. Standing order 123 was established through negotiation of the three parties in the last Parliament in order to permit committees, and therefore members of the Legislature, to better deal with issues that can't properly be dealt with in the Legislature because of time. We all know that there are significant issues that we want to debate, that we want to research, that in fact we want to report back to the Legislature on. In the last Parliament the justice committee, in a very non-partisan way, dealt with a very significant report on alternative dispute resolution.

When I submitted this particular motion to deal with the OPP investigation of two members of Parliament, it was submitted on the basis that there was a significant problem that we had to address in this Legislature, in this precinct. We know that matters occur from day to day, and sometimes they fall between the cracks when they really should be subject to further debate and further discussion. In that context, I had submitted to the subcommittee, under standing order 125, the issue of dealing with the OPP investigation in the offices of two MPPs resulting from leaks that had come from the government.

Now, I want to put it in a bit of context. We know that -- if I can put my hands on it here -- in September 1991, a little over a year ago, the Chair of Management Board made a statement in the Legislature in fact confirming some statements that were made in the speech from the throne concerning the need to have proper legislation for whistle-blowing types of situations.

That has gone absolutely nowhere, and perhaps it could have been dealt with earlier so that a resolution of that issue would have been available at the time the OPP visited the offices of two MPPs. Unfortunately, the whistle-blowing initiative is still sitting on the shelf. Nothing, to my knowledge, has happened in the Legislature, in committee or anywhere with respect to that initiative.

I also want to refer to the Legislative Assembly Act, and in particular when you consider the bold-faced facts -- I mean, the New Democratic Party was in opposition for a very long time. It frequently received brown envelopes from bureaucrats, from people in government of one type or another. There are two opposition parties there now.

What happened, in point of fact, is that two, I guess, confidential documents, at different times, were brown-enveloped to two MPPs in the Liberal opposition. Some persons caused an OPP investigation to take place. Those OPP investigations resulted in these two MPPs being visited in their offices, one of them right here in this building, by an OPP officer investigating this particular leak. That is absolutely, totally, completely unacceptable. In fact, the Speaker issued a ruling which dealt with those circumstances again where he indicated that before any police officer should come into the precinct and speak to anybody, it should be with the Speaker's approval.

That deals with such a small, tiny portion of the issue that it's absolutely unacceptable. That's one reason I thought it would be appropriate to deal with it in this type of forum under standing order 125, because we have situations where deputy ministers, political assistants, in fact ministers, ought to know under what circumstances it's appropriate or not appropriate to cause events to unfold whereby -- I'm not saying there's culpability or there's a witchhunt, but somebody in the government caused events to unfold which resulted in OPP officers going into two MPPs' offices and interrogating them, in fact suggesting that there might be criminal activity involved.

I want to relate that activity to the Legislative Assembly Act. I'm reading from the book by Roderick Lewis, who's the Clerk Emeritus of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, who wrote a very scholarly book on privilege in the Legislature. He indicates here: "The act also provides that the assembly has all of the rights and privileges of a court of record for the purpose of summarily inquiring into and punishing as breaches of privilege or as contempts and without affecting the liability of the offenders to prosecution and punishment criminally to investigate the following items as a court...."

This is the Legislative Assembly itself. One of the items it lists is "obstructing, threatening or attempting to force or intimidate a member of the assembly."

I am not making a decision now, and I haven't prejudged whether or not the OPP officers going into these two MPPs' offices was in fact an intimidation -- I guess that's open to question -- but what I am saying is that there's a fundamental problem with this Legislature when it passes by unanimous agreement, after consultation, standing order 125, which says that you, the members in committee, can inquire into matters of concern, and when this committee determines that it's going to inquire into this issue, three government ministers say: "No, thank you. I ain't coming."

That is a slap in the face to this committee and it's a slap in the face to the parliamentary process. In fact, that act itself is an intimidation of the members of this Legislature, when in due process, implementing standing order 125, we in this room decide we're going to look into this issue, this committee decides we will look into this issue, and the three ministers say, "I'm sorry. I'm not coming."

What it does, as far as I'm concerned, is that it imputes motive. The ministers are basically saying, "You guys are out there on a political witchhunt and we ain't coming," to say nothing about the whistle-blowing policy paper that was issued by your then Chair of Management Board, Tony Silipo, to say nothing about the issue of --

Mr David Winninger (London South): On a point of order, Mr Chairman: Given that Mr Chiarelli has evinced his intention to withdraw the section 125 designation, is his speech not out of order?

The Chair: No, it's not out of order. He said he was going to make comments on it and he hasn't actually moved to withdraw. He's just stated his intention.

Mr Chiarelli: It will save a lot more time in the long run.

Mr Winninger: I stand to be corrected.

Mr Chiarelli: Based on my comments, particularly the matter that is referred to under the Legislative Assembly Act, that this is a matter which can be referred to the Legislative Assembly to be dealt with as a court, in view of the fact that the three ministers involved are, as far as I'm concerned, in contempt of this committee -- there hasn't been a Speaker's warrant issued, but the fact of the matter is that they've simply said they're not coming -- in view of all these factors, in view of the fact that we are expected to have our MPPs come as witnesses and indicate what's happened, in view of the fact that a number of other people have indicated that they would come as witnesses, I think it would be inappropriate to continue with this particular motion, this issue under standing order 125.

I have no alternative but to move withdrawal of this item from the standing committee on administration of justice, and in particular I certainly would not vote to approve the subcommittee report.

As the mover of the original motion, I ask your concurrence in the fact that it is not my intention to continue with the motion given that we cannot deal with it in a substantive, significant matter because the people who presumably initiated or have the final responsibility for the events which are the subject of this particular issue will not be here in attendance. I therefore formally move withdrawal of the motion that we're dealing with under standing order 125 concerning the OPP investigation.

The Chair: Just as a reminder, we'll need unanimous consent on that. Another thing is that you'll also lose your 1991 designation. If you introduce a new one, it will have to be for 1992.

Mr Chiarelli: I accept that fact. I don't anticipate that the 1991 issue will be dealt with any more openly or properly by this government than this issue. Therefore, I wouldn't waste my time submitting it.

The Chair: Comments on Mr Chiarelli's motion? Mr Harnick?

Mr Charles Harnick (Willowdale): No, you've answered my question.

Mr Winninger: We're all disappointed, I think, that we can't proceed with this section 125 designation, given the enormous amount of preparation all the members in the government caucus have done and given the fact that there were 11 witnesses lined up, at least four of whom were senior officials in the ministries of the Environment, Treasury and Economics, and Solicitor General. I think we're all a little disappointed, but we're gracious in government and we're certainly prepared to acquiesce in the withdrawal of the designation.

Mr Robert W. Runciman (Leeds-Grenville): Mr Chairman, I regret the decision of the Liberal caucus in respect to this matter as well, but you've indicated that unanimous consent is required and given the nature of this sort of initiative, I don't want to kill it if the sponsors don't want it to proceed.

Reluctantly, I will go along with the withdrawal, but I want to indicate that I understand Mr Chiarelli's position and the view of his colleagues in respect to their frustration with the failure of the government ministers to indicate their willingness to appear before us. My party certainly has significant concerns about the use of the OPP in this instance and in other situations as well, and certainly we could tie that into the way this government is treating policemen and policewomen right across the province.

Hopefully, at some point, whether it has to be done in the assembly, we will be able to get answers to these questions as to why someone somewhere within the higher reaches of this government made a decision that MPPs' offices should be in effect raided and a search for individuals -- in fact, the effort was not only made to acquire information. Apparently, I think the real implication here is an attempt to intimidate civil servants, despite all the protestations of government members and ministers in respect to their willingness to allow civil servants more freedom. The whistle-blowing legislation was referred to, which we have never had raised to our attention since the election.

Again, I'm very concerned about all of these issues and the way in which this government is dealing with policemen and policewomen, using police services. Hopefully, along with the official opposition, we can pursue these matters in the Legislature in the future.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr Runciman. Further comments? Seeing no further comments on Mr Chiarelli's motion to withdraw his designation, do we have unanimous consent? Agreed.

Any further business before the committee? Seeing no further business before this committee, this committee stands adjourned until the call of the Chair.

The committee adjourned at 1603.