INQUIRY RE MINISTRY OF
HEALTH INFORMATION
LARRY COREA
CONTENTS
Wednesday 19 February 1992
Inquiry re Ministry of Health information
Larry Corea
STANDING COMMITTEE ON THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY
Chair / Président(e): Offer, Steven (Mississauga North/-Nord L)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Président(e): Miclash, Frank (Kenora L)
Bisson, Gilles (Cochrane South/-Sud ND)
Christopherson, David (Hamilton Centre ND)
Conway, Sean G. (Renfrew North/-Nord L)
Eves, Ernie L. (Parry Sound PC)
Harnick, Charles (Willowdale PC)
Hope, Randy R. (Chatham-Kent ND)
Mills, Gordon (Durham East/-Est ND)
Murdock, Sharon (Sudbury ND)
Owens, Stephen (Scarborough Centre ND)
Scott, Ian G. (St George-St David L)
Substitution(s) / Membre(s) rempliçant(s):
Elston, Murray (Bruce L) for Mr Scott
Kormos, Peter (Welland-Thorold ND) for Ms S. Murdock
Wood, Len (Cochrane North/-Nord ND) for Mr Bisson
Also taking part / Autres participants et participantes:
Cavalluzzo, Paul, counsel, Cavalluzzo, Hayes and Shilton
Clerk / Greffier: Arnott,Douglas
Staff / Personnel: Jackson, Patricia, Committee Counsel
The committee met at 1008 in room 151.
INQUIRY RE MINISTRY OF HEALTH INFORMATION
LARRY COREA
The Chair: Good morning. We will call the Legislative Assembly committee to order for its morning session. As members will recall, yesterday afternoon committee counsel Trish Jackson was questioning Mr Corea over those pieces of information within the knowledge of Mr Corea. That questioning had not yet been completed, and I would remind Mr Corea of the oath previously administered and, second, the warning dealing with the divulging of confidential information. Again, in the event you are not able to provide a response to a question which cannot be given without divulging confidential information, you could advise the committee so that we could move into an in camera proceeding where we can then hear that type of information. I remind you of that warning. Having said those two matters, I will open it up to Ms Jackson to continue questioning. Ms Jackson.
Ms Jackson: Thank you, Mr Chairman. Mr Corea, I wanted to go back and just ask you one thing with respect to your evidence yesterday. You will recall that when we were talking about November 15, you indicated that in light of the fact that Ms Doherty apparently recalls having met with you that day, it was certainly possible that you did meet and discuss some of these matters relating to Dr Donahue on that day.
Mr Corea: Yes. It would have been a brief meeting if it occurred, but --
Ms Jackson: Can I ask you, sir, to look back at exhibit 50, which we marked yesterday. That is the edited version of the memorandum you received on that day from Susan Colley. Is it possible, Mr Corea, that you showed that memorandum to Ms Doherty or Mr Wood on the 15th?
Mr Corea: As I have said, I do not recall reading at the time that I read this that it was on my e-mail. I typically do not print off e-mails. They are on my system and I typically do not print them off. They are best dealt with as electronic messages and kept in that way, because there is such an abundance of paper that flows around that it is almost impossible to keep complete track of it. So I find that it is easier, when things are in electronic form, to keep them that way.
Ms Jackson: In the case where you get an e-mail in electronic form that contains information that you might want to pass on to somebody else, it would be fair to assume in those circumstances at least you would print out a hard copy?
Mr Corea: It would be fair to assume that, but many of the people I want to pass on that information to are already on the e-mail system, so I can attach the e-mail to that. I can create a message, attach the previous one and send it in that way.
Ms Jackson: Is that just within the ministry?
Mr Corea: That is within the ministry.
Ms Jackson: And Ms Doherty and Mr Wood were not within the ministry?
Mr Corea: They are not within the ministry, no.
Ms Jackson: So in the circumstance where you got information that you might want to pass on to people outside the e-mail system or use in some other fashion, I take it you would usually print up a hard copy.
Mr Corea: It is very hard for me to say that I would usually do it. I cannot recall an instance of doing that. Usually I write out the other material and send it by fax. Most of the time my information is either sent out by fax or dealt with in a phone call. I cannot recall printing out an e-mail and handing it to someone else. It is possible, but unlikely.
Ms Jackson: And I understand you are saying it is unlikely because it is unlikely you would have printed up the e-mail.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Ms Jackson: If you were going to pass on the information, you would more likely pass it on in some other form.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Ms Jackson: And that might include passing it on in conversation.
Mr Corea: It might include that.
Ms Jackson: Then let me return to where we left off yesterday, Mr Corea. We were at exhibit 55, which you had identified as a fax transmission you received from Ms Doherty on the 19th of November. I wanted to deal with your response to that, which I understand to be a one-page fax of November 21. Did you respond to that fax transmission in writing or conversationally, do you know?
Mr Corea: My response was in a written form and faxed back to Ms Doherty.
Ms Jackson: What was the date of that response?
Mr Corea: Mine is dated the 20th of November, so I received this at some point on the 19th or early 20th and responded on the 20th.
Ms Jackson: Excuse me just a minute, Mr Corea. I am going to ask the clerk to give you what I now have located, which is the fax transmission of November 20.
The Chair: That will be marked as exhibit 56.
Ms Jackson: In that fax, Mr Corea, you make mention of the fact that you have learned that Dr MacMillan is expected to meet with Dr Donahue to discuss his situation.
Mr Corea: Yes. In Ms Doherty's fax to me she asked me to let her know when the meeting with MOH, the Sudbury medical society and Tom Davies of the regional municipality of Sudbury is set up. So I am responding to point 1 in her memo.
Ms Jackson: In your reference to point 4 you say that, "Dr Bob MacMillan, executive director of the health insurance division, will be travelling to Sudbury to meet with area physicians and possibly with Dr Donahue on his particular situation."
Mr Corea: Yes.
Ms Jackson: And you take her up on her offer to communicate information that you are giving her to David Sword and to Sharon Murdock's office.
Mr Corea: Yes. This was particularly around the request for transcripts of media interviews. Those are typically quite lengthy and you could stand by the fax machine all day sending those out to several people. So her offer to pass that on made sense.
Ms Jackson: And following that sending of information on the 20th, the ongoing sort of pattern that had been developing of talk and faxes around this issue continued after the sending of this fax.
Mr Corea: It did continue in general terms, but if you will note on the end of that fax, I am really assuming that much of the resolution of this situation is going to occur now that the Ministry of Health is going to meet directly with area physicians and area representatives of municipal government and that, in my mind at least, there is a winding down of my involvement in this issue.
Ms Jackson: But you are still in the loop for sending and receiving information as to what is happening.
Mr Corea: Yes. I am in the loop, yes.
Ms Jackson: So, for example, if you were to look at exhibit 31 -- and I am going to just take you through a series and have you confirm that you received things that appear to come to you. Exhibit 31 is an e-mail of November 20 from Dr MacMillan to a series of people, and in fact you are shown as having received a copy of that. Can you confirm that you did?
Mr Corea: Yes.
Ms Jackson: Similarly -- I am sorry. Let me just ask you to turn back to exhibit 30, another e-mail of the same day. You sent that e-mail and copied all those people, so you are still providing information with respect to this issue.
Mr Corea: Yes, and this would have been where I had gathered the information to respond actually to that fax.
Ms Jackson: You say in the second paragraph of that e-mail, Mr Corea, that, "Dr Donahue has indicated to Shelley Martel that he is willing to open his books." May I take it that that is some information you received from Shelley Martel's office?
Mr Corea: Yes.
Ms Jackson: And did you learn in fact whether Dr Donahue ever did open his books?
Mr Corea: No, I did not. I have never learned whether he did in fact discuss his books openly with the Ministry of Health officials.
Ms Jackson: Or with Shelley Martel.
Mr Corea: No.
Ms Jackson: Then, turning over to exhibit 32, we have another fax at 4:28 on the 20th, and you are apparently copied on that. Did you receive a copy of it?
Mr Corea: Yes.
Ms Jackson: Then there is a fax that you have provided us with, Mr Corea, that you sent on November 21 to Nuala Doherty, and I will ask the clerk to put that in front of you.
The Chair: That will be marked as exhibit 57.
Ms Jackson: Can you confirm that is a fax you sent on that date, Mr Corea?
Mr Corea: Yes, I can.
Ms Jackson: You say just before the first paragraph, "Got your message." Do you recall what the message was?
Mr Corea: I think it was just a telephone message. I remember discussing this on the phone, but I cannot recall whether it was also supplemented by a fax at all. I cannot recall whether that was supplemented by a written message or whether there was a detailed telephone message left for me. I believe there was a brief telephone message.
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Ms Jackson: Do you remember what the message was?
Mr Corea: No, I do not. I cannot recall anything on number 1, Laurentian Hospital. What I am talking about in point 2 is that I have been asked by Ms Doherty to facilitate some kind of discussion between Dr DeBlacam and Mr Decter, the deputy minister. In that I am declining, thinking that there is conversation going on, there is contact going on. For me to continue to act as a go-between, particularly when Dr DeBlacam and Dr MacMillan are talking, does not make sense to me. There is some request for me to act as a go-between and to ask for Mr Decter to attend the meeting in Sudbury.
Ms Jackson: So Mr Laughren's office is trying to continue to have you involved in a situation where you do not think you are appropriately involved, is that correct?
Mr Corea: Yes. I thought my time was better spent elsewhere. As I said, in my mind much of the resolution of this issue would come when there is a face-to-face meeting of the parties, when there is the opportunity to talk about the problems and the issues they are facing, get a clearer understanding and see if there is any resolution other than exemption to the threshold.
Ms Jackson: You say that the "whole issue starts to feel as if it will be `resolved' because ministers are politically affected." Which ministers were you alluding to there?
Mr Corea: It would be Minister Martel and Minister Laughren.
Ms Jackson: Did you sense that you were being asked to stay involved because ministers were affected?
Mr Corea: No, I did not sense that. I wanted just to make that clear. It reinforces that the threshold decision had been made -- my understanding was that it was a government decision; not only a Ministry of Health decision but a government decision -- and that an exemption or a waiving of that was not possible within this fiscal year, that other solutions might be found based on variations on the problem but that the exemption to the threshold issue had been resolved.
Ms Jackson: Do I take it, from the fact that you refer there to ministers and you say that includes Minister Martel's office, that Minister Martel's office was also wanting you to continue to stay involved at a time when you did not think you should be?
Mr Corea: No. I think that would be a fair jump to make. This is a fax to Nuala Doherty on this issue. I do not recall having any additional requests from Mr Sword, who is my main contact in Ms Martel's office, to stay actively involved. Really this request was coming, as I understood it, directly from Nuala Doherty. My sense of it was that she was in contact with Dr DeBlacam in particular.
Ms Jackson: Then you have provided me, Mr Corea, with a fax from yourself of November 26 and another related e-mail from Sue Colley on the 27th. Could I ask the clerk to put those two in front of you and in front of members, and I will ask you about those.
The Chair: The fax transmission of November 26 will be marked as exhibit 58 and the interoffice memo of November 27 will be marked as exhibit 59.
Ms Jackson: Mr Corea, I misdescribed exhibit 58. I said it was a fax from you. It is, of course, a fax to you.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Ms Jackson: You received it on about the 26th. You were told in the fax of November 26 that Shelley Martel had met with Dr Donahue. Is that right? Do you recall being advised of that?
Mr Corea: It is certainly there in the fax. It did not register in my -- I did not recall.
Ms Jackson: Do you remember being told anything about that meeting?
Mr Corea: No. I did not even remember that there had been a meeting at this point. I do not recall being told anything about this.
Ms Jackson: In any event, at this time you were still in contact with David Sword and Nuala Doherty with respect to the ongoing status of the Dr Donahue issue?
Mr Corea: Yes.
Ms Jackson: Then on November 27 there is an e-mail from Susan Colley to yourself and others, exhibit 59, indicating that, "we understand that Eugene LeBlanc and Dr MacMillan are going to meet with the Sudbury medical society and Dr Donahue on December 5." Did that meeting occur, do you know?
Mr Cavalluzzo: Which meeting are you referring to, counsellor?
Ms Jackson: The meeting between Eugene LeBlanc, Dr MacMillan -- with Dr Donahue; sorry.
Mr Corea: Did that meeting occur on the --
Ms Jackson: Did you hear whether it did or did not?
Mr Corea: No. I did not hear whether that meeting did occur. I did not attend in Sudbury on the 5th and I did not hear whether that meeting had occurred.
Ms Jackson: What was the reason you were sent a copy of this e-mail, do you know? What were you meant to do with it?
Mr Corea: I do not think I was meant to do anything with it. It was really just a matter of keeping me informed in this. Ms Colley knew that I had been involved with it, and it was really just a matter of copying me on it.
Ms Jackson: Given the level of interest there had been in Dr Donahue and trying to get him to open his books and trying to meet with him, would it not be of some interest to you in your position to find out whether there had been such a meeting and what the result of it was?
Mr Corea: In my mind, Dr Donahue's issue was going to be dealt with directly by Dr MacMillan. It did not seem to me to be of further great interest. It was really the situation of specialists in general in Sudbury. That it seemed to be a larger issue than one particular doctor was really foremost in my mind. I just assumed that that meeting would happen. I assumed that the people who were now in direct contact were able to negotiate their own meeting times and make those arrangements happen. It was a clear understanding that those meetings were going to happen.
Ms Jackson: Then the next identifiable event, from the documents you have been able to locate, is a letter that arrived in the minister's office, and I take it that it was sent to you from the region. This is a letter dated November 28, 1991, enclosing a number of things, including a resolution demanding the attendance of three MPPs and the Minister of Health at a December 5 meeting.
The Chair: That is being distributed as exhibit 60.
Mr Corea: Yes. On the upper right-hand corner is my writing indicating that I have logged that with the corporate correspondence unit. I was really just keeping a copy of this in the file but it was going to be responded to by the normal ministry process of correspondence.
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Ms Jackson: But it was of significance to you to know that this political situation, in effect, was heating up again in Sudbury?
Mr Corea: I did not see that it was heating up. I saw this as just confirming that the meeting was going to occur and that there were requests that the minister attend.
Ms Jackson: It is more than a request, is it not, Mr Corea? It is a demand that our three MPPs, the Minister of Health and Deputy Minister of Health attend the Sudbury medical association on December 5. In your view that did not escalate the situation at all.
Mr Corea: At the time it did not seem to escalate.
Ms Jackson: It was already at that level in your mind?
Mr Corea: It was very clear that Dr Donahue was not the only physician who felt that he would be affected and that not only was the area physician specialist concerned about it, but it was also clear, I recall, that others in the community were quite concerned about it and that the medical society, Mr Davies and others within the community were quite -- it was at a level where I do not think this added anything to that. There were quite a number of people in the Sudbury area who were concerned about the possibility of loss of specialist service.
Ms Jackson: In fairness to you, there might have been some confusion in my question. When I say "the situation," I am referring to the situation of protest and reaction among the medical community in Sudbury. In your mind it was already at this level of interest before you received exhibit 60?
Mr Corea: Yes, it was.
Ms Jackson: And clearly one element of that situation continued to be Dr Donahue --
Mr Corea: Certainly.
Ms Jackson: -- who was in fact copied specifically on this letter.
Mr Corea: Where?
Ms Jackson: On the second page of the addressees.
Mr Corea: On the second page?
Mr Cavalluzzo: Can you point out where, counsel?
Ms Jackson: If you look at the list of addressees.
The Chair: It is on the second page, fourth name from the top.
Mr Corea: Yes. This seems to be a copy of a large --
Ms Jackson: Then could you turn to exhibit 33 please, Mr Corea. That is an e-mail that you sent to all the people who are shown there.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Ms Jackson: You say in the first paragraph, "Dear Bob" -- that would be Dr MacMillan -- "I have spoken with David Sword in Minister Martel's office and passed on the key points in your e-mail."
Are you able to identify what e-mail that is, Mr Corea?
Mr Corea: That would be the e-mail from Dr MacMillan.
Ms Jackson: There is one on that day, which is exhibit 31.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Ms Jackson: Sorry; it is not on that day. It is eight days earlier.
Mr Corea: There is exhibit 35, which is an interoffice memo from Dr MacMillan. Sudbury is the subject of that and it says, "Please be advised Eugene LeBlanc" -- and continues. That is actually where David Belyea's name appears within this sequence of participants.
Ms Jackson: So exhibit 33 is a response to exhibit 35?
Mr Corea: Yes, well, it incorporates those. Yes, it is a response to that and quite possibly to a phone call directly with Dr MacMillan where he has asked me to pass on some information.
At this time the decision for Dr MacMillan and Dr LeBlanc to go to Sudbury on the 30th, from my understanding, had been agreed to by the deputy minister but he had not had a chance at that point to pass it on to Dr MacMillan and Dr LeBlanc. There had been a request directly to Dr MacMillan from Mr Sword about when they were going up to Sudbury. I recall a conversation with Dr MacMillan where he was confused because in his mind it was December 5. So there were some back and forth, brief conversations to clarify, and then a decision that indeed Dr LeBlanc and Dr MacMillan would go up on the 30th to meet with Minister Martel, Mr Laughren and others, to really address some of the questions related to the cardiologists in the Sudbury area. My understanding of it was that meeting was in part arranged because Ms Martel was not available on December 5, the night that was proposed for the meeting.
Ms Jackson: Neither Ms Martel nor Mr Laughren were available on the 5th.
Mr Corea: Right.
Ms Jackson: The meeting was going to take place on the 30th, dealing with the cardiologists in part, but also to address the general area of the medical protest in that area, to talk to doctors about it. Is that fair?
Mr Corea: That is true.
Ms Jackson: That would include Dr Donahue?
Mr Corea: I am not clear that Dr Donahue was specifically the focus of that. Really I did not participate in that meeting, but my understanding of it was that it was going to be held with the cardiologists. Whether Dr Donahue was or was not going to be present, I did not ask at that time.
Ms Jackson: Certainly at this point in time the Dr Donahue issue and the closing of his office was still an issue in Sudbury.
Mr Corea: From my understanding of the situation, it was still an issue.
Ms Jackson: So it would be reasonable to assume that issue might come up in the course of the attendance of these three key political figures in Sudbury.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Ms Jackson: During the course of making these arrangements, you continued to be in touch with David Sword and Ms Martel's office about this issue and how it was being addressed?
Mr Corea: Yes. In some sense this kind of plummeted me back into this because of the confusion about whether a meeting would occur on the 30th or not. I thought the issue had been generally resolved, that a meeting on the 5th was scheduled, that the guest list, if you want to call it that, had not been finalized, but that parties were in direct contact about the meeting and that that would be the focus of the exchange.
Ms Jackson: I understand, but you did continue to stay in touch with Mr Sword?
Mr Corea: Yes.
Ms Jackson: Did you also continue to stay in touch with Ms Doherty about these arrangements and with respect to the Sudbury medical community issue when you got plummeted back into it?
Mr Corea: Yes.
Ms Jackson: So during this period again you would be in regular contact with those two people about the medical issue in Sudbury?
Mr Corea: Yes. Not regular in the sense that we had a phone call each and every day; it would be that they would phone me and I would try, after a series of time, to try to get back in touch with them. During this week one of the other people I work with was on holidays and it was an extremely busy time for me. Essentially, I was doing the work of two people at that point.
Ms Jackson: But this was one of the tasks you were attending to?
Mr Corea: Yes.
Ms Jackson: And it involved more than one conversation with both David Sword and Ms Doherty?
Mr Corea: Yes.
Ms Jackson: On the issue of the medical community in Sudbury and perhaps also with respect to Dr Donahue?
Mr Corea: Yes.
Ms Jackson: Could I ask you to look at a fax which you have given us a copy of dated November 29, 1991, at 6:03 pm from yourself to Susan Colley and a list of other individuals. Mr Chairman, could we mark that as the next exhibit?
The Chair: Yes. That is marked as exhibit 61.
Ms Jackson: Mr Corea, the copy of the e-mail you will be given has one sentence at the end of the second paragraph which has been removed. Apart from that deletion, can you indicate whether or not you sent a copy of this e-mail?
Mr Corea: Yes, I sent a copy of this.
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Ms Jackson: All right. Just coming back to exhibit 61, would you have passed on the information in this e-mail to David Sword and Ms Doherty?
Mr Corea: No. This was really directly to Susan Colley and other members of the minister's staff. I saw this as reporting on a phone call that was to the minister's office solely.
Ms Jackson: All right. Then on December 2 you received an e-mail from one Gail Lowe, which you have given us a copy of. Mr Chairman, could we mark that as the next exhibit and distribute that?
The Chair: Yes. It is being distributed as exhibit 62.
Ms Jackson: Who is Ms Lowe, Mr Corea? Do you know who Ms Lowe is?
Mr Corea: Yes. She is the executive assistant to Mr Dave McNaughton, who at this time was the assistant deputy minister in this area.
Ms Jackson: Was she asked to monitor the situation with Dr Donahue, do you know?
Mr Corea: I do not know if she was asked to monitor the situation. I received a copy of it. I am assuming that, in part, this is a response to the request for an update, a sense of keeping information flowing about what the situation in Sudbury was generally.
Ms Jackson: So to the extent that any further information came into people's possession about the situation in Sudbury and particularly Dr Donahue's situation, that information was circulated?
Mr Corea: Yes.
Ms Jackson: To a range of people within the ministry?
Mr Corea: Yes.
Ms Jackson: Including yourself?
Mr Corea: Including myself, yes.
Ms Jackson: Then on December 3 you received a fax transmission from Nuala Doherty, which you have been good enough to give us. Could I ask that it be marked, Mr Chairman, as the next exhibit?
The Chair: It is to be marked as exhibit 63 and is now being distributed.
Ms Jackson: There is an indication in that fax from Ms Doherty that the Ministry of Health was going to work on a joint statement to be made by the three MPPs. That would be Ms Murdock, Ms Martel and Mr Laughren?
Mr Corea: Yes.
Ms Jackson: Was that in fact agreed, that the ministry would be doing that?
Mr Corea: Not by me.
Ms Jackson: Oh.
Mr Corea: This is Ms Doherty's understanding of a conversation. I responded, indicating that we did not think it was appropriate to be creating a joint statement, that the Ministry of Health was involved with providing information about various aspects of the underserviced area program, the threshold agreement to clarify that situation, but we were not scripting a joint statement.
Ms Jackson: Did you understand that what she lists here is what she was hoping would be addressed in the joint statement that you did not, in fact, decide to make?
Mr Corea: Right. I understood that this was what she would want addressed.
Ms Jackson: The fifth point there in what she wants addressed is the question: "Are doctors' salaries public record? Can they be brought up for discussion by any member of the public?" Did you have any discussion with her as to what she meant by that item on this list?
Mr Corea: No. I can remember looking at that and thinking that she does not understand. In this situation, doctors are not paid under a salary. They are on a fee-for-service billing and in that respect they operate as individuals in business. The notion of a salary is either an imprecise use of words relating to income or else is not a clear understanding of how doctors receive income.
Ms Jackson: So she does not appear to understand the financial structure under which doctors are paid.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Ms Jackson: Would you say she also does not appear to understand whether that financial structure is something that can be made public or not?
Mr Corea: That would be what is clear from -- that would be an understanding of that point.
Mr Jackson: Did you talk to her to attempt to clarify whether they could or could not be made public?
Mr Corea: I do not recall specifically dealing with each item in this memo. It is quite clear to me that throughout this we have stated very clearly that information related to doctors' practices, including their salaries, unless they consent to the discussion of it, is not available. To my mind, it has been dealt with but --
Ms Jackson: But is it fair, Mr Corea, although it is now clear in your mind, that there is some indication that it was unclear certainly in the minds of people outside the ministry as to the extent to which that information could be made public?
Mr Corea: I do not know how much further outside of the ministry. From Ms Doherty's memo to me, it might be unclear to her.
Ms Jackson: With respect to others inside the ministry, apart from yourself, do you agree that there seems to still have been some confusion as to what extent information about doctors' financial information could be made public or not?
Mr Corea: I am sorry. Could I get you to repeat that?
Ms Jackson: Within the ministry, did there appear to you to be some confusion as to whether the information concerning doctors' practices could be circulated or not?
Mr Corea: I am not sure. From reading this memo, I would think that within the ministry there appeared to be confusion about that.
Ms Jackson: No, I am actually not at this point asking you the question with respect to the facts. Generally, as of this time, was it not reasonably clear to you that there was still some confusion within the ministry as to what information about a doctor's practice could be generally circulated and what could not?
Mr Corea: I do not recall forming any impression about what the ministry thought.
Ms Jackson: So you just did not consider whether that was a clear issue to anyone other than yourself.
Mr Corea: No, I did not.
Ms Jackson: You mentioned to me yesterday that during the week of December 2 you met with Alan Ernst of Ms Murdock's staff and, I think you indicated, with Mr Sword and Ms Doherty as well. Is that correct?
Mr Corea: Yes. My recollection of it was this. The fax of December 3 was really following along from a meeting in which Ms Doherty, Alan Ernst and David Sword -- and there could have been others who attended that meeting. I do not precisely recall who participated in it, but it was around discussion of preparation of some informational material for the December 5 meeting.
Ms Jackson: So the purpose was to share information with respect to that meeting.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Ms Jackson: At that time, Dr Donahue was still an issue in Sudbury?
Mr Corea: Yes.
Ms Jackson: Is it fair to assume that Dr Donahue was likely discussed in the context of that meeting?
Mr Corea: He certainly was not discussed by me. Dr Donahue's situation had, for me, quite receded in importance at this point. My involvement was to assist in the development of an information kit that would explain elements of how the Ministry of Health was ensuring that services would be delivered in the north.
Ms Jackson: It is possible that Dr Donahue was discussed, but because it was not a high priority in your mind you do not recall one way or another?
Mr Corea: That is true.
Ms Jackson: If it was discussed, is it possible that you provided them with information concerning Dr Donahue?
Mr Corea: I do not know what additional information I would have at this point to provide on Dr Donahue that they did not already know.
Ms Jackson: So you cannot recall one way or another?
Mr Corea: I cannot.
Ms Jackson: You, as I understand it, and I think you have said, did not attend the meeting in Sudbury on December 5.
Mr Corea: No, I did not.
Ms Jackson: Indeed, you departed on vacation shortly thereafter, December 8?
Mr Corea: Yes, on December 8.
Ms Jackson: And returned on December 29.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Ms Jackson: And were told, as I understand it, that some things had happened with respect to Dr Donahue and Ms Martel in your absence.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Ms Jackson: I think you indicated yesterday that you had a conversation with Ms Colley about that.
Mr Corea: Yes, I did.
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Ms Jackson: Can you tell the committee what you were told?
Mr Corea: I contacted Ms Colley, who was also out of the country. I phoned her in England at her request and was told that a delay had occurred in the planned schedule of the House, that Ms Martel had apparently made comments that had caused considerable debate and activity in the House, that much of the work of the House was delayed and finally dealt with in the last couple of days of sitting, but that they were able to adjourn before Christmas and that there had been an agreement to form a committee to examine the statements.
Ms Jackson: What, if anything, were you told about what Ms Martel had said and why?
Mr Corea: I do not recall the exact words, but I was told that Ms Martel had seen a file and that there could be charges laid.
Ms Jackson: You were told that she had seen a file and that there could be charges laid.
Mr Corea: Yes, that the reports in the press -- and I assume also in the Legislature -- were that she had seen a file concerning Dr Donahue and that there would be charges laid and that this had occurred in a discussion on December 5 in Thunder Bay.
Ms Jackson: Were you told anything about whether there was any substance to those statements as to whether she had seen any files and whether there were to be any charges?
Mr Corea: I recall asking quite clearly: "Is that true? Was there any consideration of charges being laid against Dr Donahue?" I was quite surprised that was even an issue for discussion. I did not understand why charges would be laid against him. For what? It was all quite stunning to me to sort of come back to some kind of comment that charges were even a subject of discussion.
Ms Jackson: Were you told whether Ms Martel had seen a file?
Mr Corea: No, I was not told that she had seen a file, but that there was a lot of confusion around it, that these were comments made but that no one could understand what was meant by all of this, and that the whole issue was very confusing.
Ms Jackson: What were you told, if anything, about whether any confidential information concerning Dr Donahue had been released from OHIP?
Mr Corea: I was told that at some point in the week of December 9, I believe, Paul Howard in the minister's office had been working late and had received a phone call from a reporter, I believe it was Anne Dawson, who told Mr Howard something about a memo that had been released from OHIP that was widely available.
Ms Jackson: Were you told anything more?
Mr Corea: I do not recall anything more about it; just that it had come out through this conversation directed to Mr Howard by Ms Dawson.
Ms Jackson: Thank you, Mr Corea. Those are my questions.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms Jackson. In dealing with the rotation, it is now going to be to the government members to ask questions. I would just like to remind members: On the issue of interruptions and interjections during the questioning, I expect that would not occur.
Second, in keeping with the amount of time Ms Jackson has spent with Mr Corea, I will be giving, on a rotation basis, one hour per caucus in terms of questioning Mr Corea. I feel that is a substantial period of time. I would ask all members of caucuses to keep their questions within that period of time. It is up to them how they wish to use it, but being sensitive to some of the discussions which emanated yesterday, I would think that all members of all caucuses could keep well within that period of time. Having said that, I will open up to --
Mr Christopherson: Could I ask a question? Point of order.
The Chair: Yes.
Mr Christopherson: I was just curious. I think with Mrs Dodds it was 30 minutes initially.
The Chair: Yes.
Mr Christopherson: I am just curious. I am not questioning. I am just curious for my own edification. What kind of criterion are you using when you are throwing out the initial time frames, a half hour for Mrs Dodds and an hour today?
The Chair: Basically the criterion is the same that was given in terms of the questioning to Dr MacMillan, opening session. The time that Ms Jackson took with Dr MacMillan was very much the same time taken with Mr Corea, and the time for questions per caucus was one hour. I have reviewed that extensively and it is on that basis that I have made that decision, and it is up to each member of the caucus as to how he wishes to use that. But I want to alert everyone that I want to stay well within that period of time.
Mr Conway: I would suggest an hour is quite generous. From our point of view I think 20 to 30 minutes will be quite satisfactory.
The Chair: Well, again, thank you very much, Mr Conway, but certainly each caucus would be able to utilize whichever portion of that time period is up to them. I will now open it up to Mr Mills.
Mr Mills: Thank you very much, Mr Chair, and I thank you for your advice about interjections. I am sure that my questions will be quite novel; they will be straightforward, to the point and they will not have any innuendo, double meanings; they will not excite you people. So to the question, Mr Corea.
Mr Elston: Now I'm excited.
Mr Kormos: You went and did it, Gord.
The Chair: I am glad that all members of the committee heeded my instructions with respect to interjections and interruptions. It lasted all of two minutes. I do truly and seriously caution members of the committee that in dealing with the respect that is required to be given to all witnesses, I believe that interjections and interruptions are clearly, clearly inappropriate. Mr Mills.
Mr Mills: Thank you very much, Mr Chairman. Mr Corea, I have three questions to ask you, and as I have said previously, they are going to be very straightforward. My first question is, did you, sir, ever disclose personal, confidential information about Dr Donahue to anyone outside the Ministry of Health?
Mr Corea: No, I did not.
Mr Mills: Thank you. My second question, sir, is, did you ever see or have access to Dr Donahue's file?
Mr Corea: I am not clear what is understood by the use of the word "file," but I did not have access to any other information about Dr Donahue other than what has been presented within the exhibits.
Mr Mills: That is really what I was looking for. Thank you.
Mr Corea: So, in my mind, nothing that I have seen would constitute a file.
Mr Mills: Okay, sir, and my last and final very succinct question is, did you know whether anyone was considering charges against Dr Donahue?
Mr Corea: No, I did not know that and I was, as I indicated, quite surprised that that was what was at issue or formed part of the issue while I was on vacation.
Mr Mills: Those are my questions. Thank you very much, Mr Chair.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you, Mr Mills. Mr Owens, please.
Mr Owens: Thank you, Mr Chair. Mr Corea, I want to bring you back to the day where you returned the memo to Dr MacMillan. Can you tell us, in terms of the atmosphere that you found in the room when you came to the office where Dr MacMillan was meeting with Dr LeBlanc, how you would describe the atmosphere in that room?
Mr Corea: Well, it seemed very much focused on, first of all, the telephone conversation that was going on and then subsequent discussions that we had and which I have indicated were very much more the focus. It did strike me at the time that in returning the documents to Dr MacMillan more was not made of it. It was just that they were accepted and put away in his briefcase, but they were not the focus of the discussion. It was really other issues and other aspects of the confusion that seemed to exist around the threshold issue, an attempt to understand what other people understood about threshold exemption, some way of clarifying that. So it was really a discussion that ensued that elements of the threshold issue could be explained more clearly to the community.
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Mr Owens: So in your mind, Dr MacMillan did not appear to be upset about the fact that perhaps some personal information about a physician in Sudbury had been in the memo that you were returning?
Mr Corea: To me he did not appear to be upset. He accepted it and put it away in his briefcase, but he was neither upset nor extremely relieved to get it back.
Mr Owens: You mentioned that Dr MacMillan was in the process of having a telephone conference call at that point. Do you know who was on the other end of the phone?
Mr Corea: I believe it was Mr Davies from the regional municipality of Sudbury.
Mr Owens: Okay. Was there anyone else in the room besides Dr MacMillan and Dr LeBlanc at that point?
Mr Corea: No, it was Dr MacMillan and Dr LeBlanc and myself.
Mr Owens: You mentioned yesterday that in terms of your work life around the ministry you did not want this particular issue to take over. Were you dealing with other issues at that time?
Mr Corea: There was a wide range of issues. In fact, one of the issues that I think at this time I was dealing with, Mr Owens, was around The Toronto Hospital. At this time, in the press were announcements that there would be layoffs at The Toronto Hospital, and that was of considerable concern within the minister's office.
There was ongoing work related to the regulated health professions acts, and at periods of time throughout the early part of November there were numerous requests for information about how the regulated health professions acts were proceeding through clause-by-clause.
I was also involved with the OHIP reallocation review, meeting with various community groups which were concerned about the level of addiction services in Ontario, particularly in light of the out-of-country decision of October 1. I was dealing with individual situations as well relating to a number of MPPs, including Mr Scott and Mr Runciman.
In addition there were ongoing and frequent requests for assistance around health cards or around physician payments. The Ontario health insurance division was still struggling with the health card issue and distribution of that, and that was having some effect on the physician payments, so that there were lots of requests for some brief assistance or clarification of where various pieces of payments were standing.
Mr Owens: So while the viewers out there in cable land may perceive that this was the only issue that you were working on, in fact you were juggling a heavy workload and working on numerous issues of importance at that time?
Mr Corea: Yes, certainly at this point in time it was one of a large number, and I can quite honestly say it was not the most important thing in my mind that I was dealing with, because there seemed, increasingly, to be other people dealing with it and something that I could safely step aside from.
Mr Owens: If you could take a look at yesterday's Hansard from the afternoon sitting, page 1545-3, Ms Jackson was asking you a question around, again, the issue of returning the memorandum. If you look down, it is the second-last question. It starts with Ms Jackson saying, "If you had already been told that you ought never to have received it, why did you...scan it?"
Your response is, "I was not told that the information was information that I could not read or view, was so confidential it was -- I was told -- I was asked to destroy it...there were concerns that the information was available, but I was not told that it was so sensitive that it was not for my eyes."
Ms Jackson comes back and says: "I think you agreed with me earlier, Mr Corea, that it was implicit in what you were told that you should never have received it. If that is true, why then did you read it again?"
I guess my question is on your authorization to receive memorandums and briefing notes. This was not something that was out of the norm in your day-to-day work at the ministry?
Mr Corea: No, not at all, and I have taken an oath of confidentiality so that this information, plus budgetary information, information about the Ontario drug benefit plan, a lot of sensitive information I am able to see. It is clearly incumbent on me not to pass that information on and not to act on it in any way that would produce conflict of interest.
Mr Owens: I noted in your CV you have held a number of positions that would imply that you have had a number of positions where you have had to deal with extremely confidential issues and that you have held the highest regard for that confidentiality.
Mr Corea: That is correct. As part of my work I have held a lot of income-related information on studies that I have done relating to subsidy for child care and the collection of that information, and ensuring that that information was safety secured as well as treated in an extremely confidential manner was part of that contract. Through many of the contracts that I have dealt with, including that one and others for private business as well as government, there is an undertaking that the information is extremely confidential, and a variety of measures are put in place or expected to be put in place by me to ensure that that information is not distributed.
Mr Owens: Now, you have been with the Ministry of Health since August of 1991. Is that correct?
Mr Corea: That is correct.
Mr Owens: Okay. In that time, to the best of your recollection, how many times have you met with Dr MacMillan?
Mr Corea: Once. Well, I met him once and that was on November 14 when I met him in Dr LeBlanc's office. I did, within recent weeks, since my return from vacation, board an elevator with Susan Colley at the same time as Dr MacMillan got on the elevator, and he spoke to Susan Colley but did not seem to recognize me. So I have met him once and talked to him several times on the telephone and certainly by e-mail, but not again in person.
Mr Owens: That certainly would confirm something that Dr MacMillan testified to. He basically said that if you had walked into the room he would not recognize you. So I guess an elevator is probably even closer proximity than what this room would hold. Thank you, Mr Chair.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Owens. Mr Wood?
Mr Wood: Thank you very much, Mr Chairman. Mr Corea, I only have three or four, maybe five very brief questions. From November 12 onwards, were you working on any other issues other than Dr Donahue?
Mr Corea: On November 12?
Mr Wood: From November 12 onwards, were there any other issues that you were working on other than Dr Donahue?
Mr Corea: Yes. Certainly, as was mentioned, the issue around The Toronto Hospital was an issue for me. I had several community groups. One of the issues that I was working on in particular was addiction services and the availability of addiction services in light of the out-of-country. To that end, there were many requests to meet with the minister on that and for community groups to explain their situation. The minister's availability was limited, and myself and other members of the minister's staff were undertaking to meet and talk with community groups so that we could understand what their issues were and whether the out-of-country decision was indeed linked to their situation.
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Mr Wood: There were a lot of other issues that were happening in Sudbury, but from the remarks that you have said now, you were not restricted just to the Sudbury problem?
Mr Corea: No, not at all. It was not as if I was devoted solely to the issue of Sudbury. In fact, there were a lot of simple but time-consuming information requests. At this time electrolysis also was being delisted, though the decision had been made some time before. So there were still requests for some basic information about that and the rationale for that decision.
Mr Wood: Thank you. We have heard some comments about the amount of e-mail that is going around from office to office and different persons. Could you tell me how many e-mails that you would get during a day?
Mr Corea: There could be quite a range on that. Some days I am lucky if I can get by with about 12 or 15. On other days they seem to stack up on the system -- 30 or more. It is a reflection of the activity within the ministry on a given day.
Mr Wood: Okay, and when would you read all these e-mails that are coming in?
Mr Corea: Hopefully, but not always, by the time I got the next lot of them. I would try and read them by the end of the day, but I must admit that I am not always successful at doing that. The end of the day can extend quite late into the evening.
Mr Wood: So you spend a lot of long hours. The minister's office and the deputy minister's office are on the same floor?
Mr Corea: Yes, they are on the same floor. They share the same receptionist on the 10th floor of Hepburn Block, and they are on the same floor. Both the deputy's office and the minister's office are connected to the boardroom.
Mr Wood: How many people, if you could tell me that, are employed in the minister's office on the political staff?
Mr Corea: In the minister's staff there are --
Mr Wood: I am talking about the political staff of the minister.
Mr Corea: Thirteen people. Now, some of those would be seconded from the ministry to the minister's staff. At the time there were two members of the public service who were working within the minister's office: a management intern who was in the minister's office for a period of three months and another former executive director within the ministry. Previously other members of the Ontario public service were working in the minister's office, but at this time I think that person had left.
Mr Wood: Okay, so you are talking --
Mr Corea: About 13.
Mr Wood: -- about 13 people, okay. You have already told me that the deputy minister's office, Michael Decter's office, is on the same floor.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Wood: Could you tell me how many civil servants work for Michael Decter, the Deputy Minister of Health?
Mr Corea: Directly in his office? I believe there are five working directly with Mr Decter. There is, of course, the balance of the ministry that work with him, but five work directly with him: an executive assistant, an administrative assistant, and I believe three office staff who are involved in scheduling his meetings.
Mr Wood: Thank you very much. Those are all my questions.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Wood. Mr Kormos.
Mr Kormos: You guys sure write an awful lot of memos.
Mr Corea: There certainly is a lot of paper that is generated.
Mr Kormos: Is all of it really necessary?
Mr Corea: I suppose it is a reasonable question. There certainly are a lot of meetings as well, and maybe it is not clear that --
Mr Kormos: Well, I come from Welland, down on the Niagara Peninsula, and they listen to stuff like this and they go: "Holy zonkers, what is going on up there? Do those people spend their entire working day sending memos to each other and organizing meetings to the point where precious little gets done?" I am telling you. You have heard that before, have you not?
Mr Corea: Well, there are a lot of requests for information that do come in to our office, and to get that information does involve linking and dealing with others. Yes, there is a lot of paper that is generated. It seems to me that each day we destroy a small part of the forests of Ontario.
Mr Kormos: But when you look at these, you see the list of CCs sort of expanding exponentially.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Kormos: What gives there? I really mean this. I do not get a chance to ask this kind of question too often. I do not get a chance to ask very many questions very often at all any more. I do not get a chance to ask these kinds of questions. What gives? How come this list of CCs grows and grows and grows? What is happening there?
Mr Corea: It is essentially a "for your information." The CC, as I understand it and use it, is really a "for your information." It is not necessary that you examine and read everything in detail, but just so that you have an idea. The activity of the ministry is certainly complex, and to maintain some level of awareness of what else is going on is, in part, what is involved with copying a variety of people. It is just really a "for your information" -- a shared understanding. Sometimes I do agree that the list of CCs is much longer than the actual message itself.
Mr Kormos: Is not some of it a little bit of "cover your butt" sometimes?
Mr Corea: Some of it is an attempt to ensure that other people are kept duly informed, but there are many, many reasons that you can use the CCs. They can be also used to add weight to a particular request. They can also be used to make sure that everybody along the chain of command is aware that a request is being made. But some of it is certainly just so that everybody knows. There is that element to it.
Mr Kormos: Was there anything ever secretive about the suggestion that Ms Martel, Shelley Martel, was perhaps, if only by virtue of being the MPP for -- what? -- Sudbury East, interested in the issue of threshold and exemptions for northern doctors?
Mr Corea: No. It is certainly within her area of interest as minister to be concerned about northern health issues, and in fact I thought that for her it was a wider issue. The issue of thresholds had more significance because she is Minister of Northern Development and Mines.
Mr Kormos: The Minister of Northern Development is somewhat directly involved in the whole UAP issue, is she not?
Mr Corea: Yes, she is. She is very much involved in that as a program to attract physicians to the north, which has been an ongoing struggle in Ontario.
Mr Kormos: That program at least in part falls within the scope of Northern Development?
Mr Corea: Yes, it certainly would fall within the scope. It is a Ministry of Health program, but it is a program that would be of considerable interest to her ministry.
Mr Kormos: And Dr Donahue, the dermatologist, was well known -- boy, am I ever going to be careful with this one -- to your ministry staff -- I speak of the Ministry of Health staff -- as an outspoken opponent of the threshold.
Mr Corea: I am not sure whether, prior to the second week in November, he was known, but clearly the events following, say, November 8 onward, with the number of interviews that were being done it was quite clear that he had some quite strong concerns about the threshold issue as well as other decisions by the government.
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Mr Kormos: And then with the dramatic flair that I envy, he shut down his clinic?
Mr Corea: Yes, he did shut down his clinic in that period of time.
Mr Kormos: And he had metamorphosed into an opponent of threshold while earlier being a person who was seeking the help of the MPPs from the north in getting an exemption from the threshold.
Mr Corea: I had not considered it in those kinds of terms, but it would seem like a dramatic exit.
Mr Kormos: You knew that Ms Martel was making inquiries and talking to as many people as she could on behalf of northern doctors about the issue of exemption.
Mr Corea: Yes. It was quite clear to me that Ms Martel was talking -- and I assumed that that was part of her role as minister -- directly with Ministry of Health officials and, I assumed, with others. In fact, I recall that Mr Decter indicated that she had talked with him directly. So she had talked with, clearly, Mr Decter, and a range of people within the ministry.
Mr Kormos: Because whether or not Ms Lankin ever saw fit to grant exemptions to those northern doctors, the end result was -- what? -- she did not.
Mr Corea: No, she did not.
Mr Kormos: But Ms Martel and Floyd Laughren were at least two of the people, MPPs -- as it is, ministers -- who were questioning the threshold as it applied to northern doctors and querying as to whether or not maybe some -- if not all of those doctors, but at least some -- should not be entitled to exemptions?
Mr Corea: I am not sure that they were questioning the threshold decision. I think that they were looking for ways to ensure that medical services in northern Ontario and Sudbury in particular, but in northern Ontario in general, did not deteriorate. If it was through the threshold or there were required other programs or adjustment of programs, there had to be some way of ensuring that residents of northern Ontario had access to medical services. That was not affected by the threshold decision.
Mr Kormos: Did you know that Dr Donahue had directly contacted Ms Martel, or at least her office, with a view to obtaining an exemption?
Mr Corea: No, I did not know that he had directly contacted her. I understood that he had contacted Mr Laughren's office, but it makes sense that he would also contact Ms Martel.
Mr Kormos: Was it you who wrote a memo to Ms -- maybe it has already been dealt with. I have been doing my best to keep track of the memos, even in the brief context to your participation in this hearing, but was it you who wrote the memo -- what, around November 15, 1991? -- to Ms Martel advising that Dr Donahue's billings are confidential?
Mr Corea: Yes, I said that the details of his practice are confidential, and it was to her office. I have not spoken directly with Mr Laughren or with Ms Martel on this. At no time have I spoken to Ms Martel or Mr Laughren directly. I have talked with their offices, but not directly with them.
Mr Kormos: I do not know if you had a chance to see the reaction of some of the people in this room when you talked about your meeting with Diane McArthur. Sure, a couple of people in here darned near suffered whiplash the way their heads jerked to attention. You met with Diane McArthur at --
Interjection.
Mr Kormos: Well, it was just an observation I made, Chair; I am not sure whether other people shared the observation or not.
The meeting with Diane McArthur where you talked about the sequence of events dealing with the e-mail and the censured e-mail and the return to MacMillan of the e-mail and all that: Once again, who asked you to talk to Diane McArthur?
Mr Corea: No one asked me to talk. She asked to talk to me and I took it as a courtesy that she was --
Mr Harnick: This is the woodshedding meeting. Ah.
Mr Kormos: You see, there we go again.
Mr Wood: Excuse me, at this point in time --
Mr Mills: There we go, Mr Chair.
Mr Wood: I am objecting --
The Chair: Order. Mr Harnick, if you could please --
Mr Harnick: You know I think --
The Chair: I reminded members earlier on of interruptions and interjections. Mr Kormos has the floor.
Mr Harnick: Point of order.
The Chair: Yes, Mr Harnick.
Mr Harnick: Just for the clarification of the members, there were several meetings that were referred to with this witness and McArthur. Mr Kormos could be a little more clear as to the dates that he is referring to. When he talks about a meeting with Miss McArthur, is he talking about a meeting that was going on at the same time as exhibit 44 was floating around or is he talking about a meeting in December after all this was over and the reconstruction was taking place?
Mr Christopherson: Come on.
The Chair: Excuse me. Mr Harnick, if there are some questions that you may have over this particular area, certainly when the time comes you might want to ask those questions. If Mr Corea has a difficulty in responding to the questions based on the particularity or the lack thereof of any one particular question, he can so respond accordingly. Mr Kormos.
Mr Kormos: I think you get the drift of what I was talking about when I talked about the whiplash that might have been suffered. You may well get questions put to you by people on this committee before you are finished here this morning that are going to try to suggest to you and try to get you one way or another, come hell or high water, to somehow concede that when you, Larry Corea, went into Ms McArthur's office, why, she sat you down and in no uncertain terms told you what you were going to tell this committee or anybody else, should they ever ask you what happened about that e-mail and subsequent events. What the heck; let's talk about it now.
Mr Harnick used the phrase "woodshed." "Woodshedding" is a phrase that lawyers toss about. I am not sure, but I think it means when you take a witness, usually your client or a witness who is going to -- other people here might know better than I do. People who are going to testify for your client, you take them aside and you whisper in their ear what it is that you, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, expect them to say, so as to give your client or your cause a break. I think that is what woodshedding means. As I say, there are other people here who would understand it far better than I do.
Mr Mills: That is what he means.
Mr Kormos: The conversation with Ms McArthur, me having told you what at least I think woodshedding is, was she woodshedding you?
Mr Corea: Certainly not. I took what Miss McArthur to be saying to me in the context was really just the courtesy of saying, "this is what, if I am called, I will be saying at the committee." She was understanding that she would be called. So it was really just a courtesy of saying this is her recollection of the events, and no indication that it was to change my recollection of the events at all.
Interjections.
Mr Cavalluzzo: Mr Chairman, I would ask when my witness is testifying that these gentlemen have the courtesy of not laughing. This witness is giving evidence under oath. I realize this is not a judicial forum, but I want some respect for this witness. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much, counsel. It is certainly something which I have reminded members of the committee time and again: that when a particular member has the floor posing questions there is a certain respect that must be given to a witness in attempting to answer the questions over this particular area.
Mr Eves: Point of order, Mr Chairman.
The Chair: I would once more remind all members to do that. Mr Eves?
Mr Eves: On a point of order: Perhaps the government caucus could conduct its organizational meetings outside of the committee room in the future, then. Would that be appropriate as well?
The Chair: Mr Eves, with respect to that point, I am sensitive to any interruption of any witness from whichever side it may occur. I would hope that all members of this committee would give to those who come before the committee the respect that they deserve. Mr Kormos?
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Mr Kormos: Thank you, Chair. The problem now is, Mr Corea, I am going to have to back up a couple of moments, because I particularly want to understand what is going on here when you are sitting with Ms McArthur. You mentioned earlier that you took an oath with respect to your current position with the Ministry of Health.
Mr Corea: That is correct.
Mr Kormos: This is not the first time you have taken that type of oath.
Mr Corea: No, not at all.
Mr Kormos: A whole lot of your work, if not all of it, over your whole professional career has involved working with confidential information.
Mr Corea: That is correct. There are varieties and levels of confidential information. Sometimes it related to individual families that I was working with and sometimes it related to large numbers of individuals from whom I was collecting information or in respect to whom I was collecting information. So there has been a range of confidential information that I have dealt with.
Mr Kormos: Among other things, you are a professional social worker.
Mr Corea: Yes, that was part of my training.
Mr Kormos: Your first bit of work in that profession, as a professional, was it family and children's services?
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Kormos: And that was dealing with either troubled families or troubled individuals.
Mr Corea: Yes, families and particularly adolescents.
Mr Kormos: A very fundamental principle in your profession, the social work profession, is the maintenance of confidentiality.
Mr Corea: Yes, particularly when you are working on issues that could appear before the court as social work that involves children and family services. Sometimes it does.
Mr Kormos: You learn very quickly, both in your academic training and then in your place of work, that confidentiality means exactly what it appears to mean. It is not even breached by virtue of coffee break chatter, is it?
Mr Corea: That is correct.
Mr Kormos: Your CV having been filed, a succession of jobs that you have performed, nobody has ever suggested that you have ever been anything less than entirely professional in your maintenance of confidential information?
Mr Corea: Certainly not to me. I have not had any suggestion to that effect at all. In fact, I would doubt, if that had been even the suggestion of others, that I would have been able to work in a consulting capacity and obtain a variety of work in that area.
Mr Kormos: Now, the point at where we are at here, the e-mail having been sent, you having returned it, do you have any question in your mind about having breached your oath of confidentiality at any point in your career and of course now certainly with the Ministry of Health?
Mr Corea: No, I have no question in my mind about that.
Mr Kormos: You met or you sat down, and Diane McArthur -- what is her position? I forget, I cannot remember.
Mr Corea: She is an assistant to Dr LeBlanc. I am not sure of her exact title, but she works closely with Dr LeBlanc.
Mr Kormos: You work for the minister --
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Kormos: -- for Ms Lankin, and she works, I guess, more for the deputy minister, ultimately?
Mr Corea: Ultimately, yes. She is a member of the public service. Her direct reporting relationship, as I understand it, is to Dr LeBlanc. Dr LeBlanc, I believe, reports directly to the deputy.
Mr Kormos: So you are not beholden to her in any way?
Mr Corea: No, not at all.
Mr Kormos: She is not your boss?
Mr Corea: No.
Mr Kormos: She has no authority over you?
Mr Corea: No.
Mr Kormos: You are beholden to, ultimately, the minister herself?
Mr Corea: Yes my responsibilities lie directly to the minister.
Mr Kormos: Mr Chair, will you let me know when we are five minutes, perhaps, away from the time allotted, please?
The Chair: I would be more than happy to. I would also like to indicate that there are other members of your caucus who have requested time. I would also like to remind all members of the committee as to the warning I gave prior to questions that I am going to hold very tightly to that one-hour time frame.
Mr Kormos: Bless him for wanting to share in this time.
I get confused with all this talk about who is working for the ministry and who is working for the minister. Notwithstanding, for instance, that Ms McArthur was working for the ministry and you, Larry Corea, were working for the minister, notwithstanding that you are beholden to different people, I trust there is still a lot of interchange. You work side by side.
Mr Corea: There certainly is. From my point of view, it is important to cultivate a reasonable and productive working relationship with ministry staff. There is a lot of information that you are very directly dependent on them for receiving, because that information is not kept or maintained or collected by the minister's office. But also it is the ministry staff who are essentially delivering the services of the ministry and ensuring that Ontario residents have access and available health services. The ministry staff are really the mainstay of the whole organization. The minister's office serves in an advisory capacity to the minister, but it is after all only 13 people. It is not a large number of people.
Mr Kormos: That means it is not at all unusual for you to receive information which has similarly been received by one of your colleagues in the ministry?
Mr Corea: No. Certainly the copying of the e-mail is just part of that; it just reflects that.
Mr Kormos: You work together.
Mr Corea: Yes, very clearly. Yes, we do work together on a whole variety of issues.
Mr Kormos: You do not run off in your direction and they do not run off -- if it did happen that way, the bureaucracy would be even less effective than it is now.
Mr Corea: I would sidestep the issue of the effectiveness of the bureaucracy, but I think it is important to work very closely with ministry staff in order to deliver the health care services and ensure that Ontario residents have health care services. Particularly at this time, there are a lot of changes that are required in the health care system in Ontario, and the efforts of the minister have been to cultivate a good relationship with ministry staff, members of the community, with her own staff, because there is a lot of work to be done.
Mr Kormos: Basically what Diane McArthur related to you was what her participation or involvement was in the sequence of events revolving around e-mail, Dr Donahue etc. Is that a fair synopsis?
Mr Corea: Yes, that is what she did. She recounted to me what she would be saying. Again, I understood it to be just as a courtesy, just to indicate that this was her recollection of events.
Mr Kormos: Then you met with Dr Eugene LeBlanc.
Mr Corea: Actually, I had met with Dr LeBlanc previously.
Mr Kormos: But you knew Dr LeBlanc.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Kormos: You had contact with him in the course of your work as a staff person of Minister Fran Lankin.
Mr Corea: Yes, that is correct.
Mr Kormos: You and he knew each other by sight and by name. We know that already.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Kormos: Again, because there are no two ways about it, there is going to be much ado made about the meeting with Dr LeBlanc. Maybe there is not. Talking about again the e-mail and the return of the e-mail, how did that come about?
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Mr Corea: Again, it was really Dr LeBlanc stating what his understanding of the events was, what he would be saying. I did not get the sense that I could influence him or that he could influence me. It was really just a courtesy. This is a very uncertain time in the ministry as people are asked to recall events that are distant in time and their memories. Really I just understood him as saying, "Look, this is the way I recall it and this is what I'm telling the committee if I'm requested to appear." That was it.
Mr Kormos: That is the way it is, like it or leave it.
Mr Corea: Yes, you know, that was --
Mr Kormos: Come hell or high water, whether you agree or not, this is what Dr LeBlanc's participation or involvement in the sequence of events looks like.
Mr Corea: Yes. I would not expect to question Dr LeBlanc's recollection or his integrity around this whole issue. He was just providing me with the courtesy of saying, "This is what I remember."
Mr Kormos: Trust me; you do not have to question his integrity. There are going to be lots of other people who may well, but they have their job to do and God bless them.
Mr Conway: That is outrageous.
Mr Kormos: Those conversations with --
The Chair: Order, order. Mr Kormos, I would just remind you that --
Mr Kormos: Am I at five minutes now?
The Chair: No, Mr Kormos, you are not yet at that. I would just like to caution you with respect to the casting of aspersions on any member of this committee in trying to fulfil his role and responsibility on this committee.
Mr Kormos: Far be it from me.
The Chair: I think that it is important that you recognize that.
Mr Kormos: I take your direction. Thank you very much for the assistance, Chair.
Did either of those conversations, the one with Diane McArthur -- have I got that right, Diane McArthur?
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Kormos: And the one with Dr Eugene LeBlanc. And once again, Dr LeBlanc, he works for the ministry.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Kormos: So you are not beholden to him either?
Mr Corea: No.
Mr Kormos: He does not make any decisions about whether or not you continue your employment with Minister Lankin?
Mr Corea: No, it is not within his sphere of responsibilities.
Mr Kormos: Having sat and spoken with each of them as you did, was either of them able to impact on your recollection of the sequence of events that flowed, again involving the e-mail and the return to Dr MacMillan and all the foofaraw?
Mr Corea: No. I struggled to recall the events around that time period. Again I would point out that I was away and this was not on my mind until the end of December, until the 29th, that I started to even think about this. When I left I had assumed that events would continue to occur in Sudbury whereby ministry officials and the community would talk and arrive at some kind of solution to maintaining medical services. I did not consider that the document I had received was of any significance, and it was really quite far from my memory in this whole sequence. So the specific events around that were very insignificant in my mind. It has been difficult to recall, but I have my own recollections of the sequences and they differ on several points.
Mr Kormos: But then some short time ago you had occasion to have a chat with Mr Dee, Garth Dee.
Mr Corea: Mm-hmm.
Mr Kormos: That is the gentleman over there in the expensive grey suit.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Kormos: He works for the House leader, for Dave Cooke. Is that right?
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Kormos: The conversation you had with him, what was that, back on January -- was it the 28th of January?
Mr Corea: I do not recall the exact day, but it would make sense that it would be in that period of time.
Mr Kormos: Either just before or about the time that -- well, I guess just before we were starting these sittings of this committee.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Kormos: What went on there?
Mr Corea: To call it a conversation is kind of stretching it in some ways. What it was was similar to a hearing situation of asking me to recount and then asking clarification throughout that, but it was really just asking me to recount my recollection of events and the sequence of those events. That was it. It was nothing beyond that. In some sense I was just reporting to him my recollection of events relating to the early part of November through to the time that I left on vacation.
Mr Kormos: Did you have to fight off any efforts on Garth Dee's part to try to persuade you that what you recalled was not the way he would have you recall it?
Mr Corea: No, there was no suggestion that I should recall it in any way at all. In fact, Mr Dee made pains to make sure that he did not have access to any confidential information. He clearly stated that to me and then would ask me if any of this was confidential information, that he did not want any of that, but there was no attempt to get me to organize my story or organize my recollection of events in any kind of way. It was really me just relating what I remembered.
Mr Kormos: You have been around for a while doing a pile of different jobs. I trust once again, harking back to your jobs in social work, that your experience would permit you to sort of tell whether somebody was trying to lean on you or not.
Mr Corea: Yes, certainly. Yes, I can quite understand when pressure is being applied. It is not something that I would be unfamiliar with, but also at no time did I feel that there was pressure being applied to me to recall in a particular way or to phrase things in a particular way.
Mr Kormos: You mentioned that Mr Dee appeared to be being careful about not even wanting to hear anything that might be considered confidential.
Mr Corea: That is correct.
Mr Kormos: Because everybody is a little gun-shy now?
Mr Corea: I suppose that there is a lot more concern about what is confidential and what is not.
Mr Kormos: You spoke with Mr Dee. Did you give him anything? Did you give him any documents, any papers, anything like that?
Mr Corea: No, I did not give him any documents. I allowed him to see two messages that I had that formed part of these exhibits, but that was it. I did not have a whole set of -- in fact, at that time there were only two pieces of information that I allowed him to see. One was the memo to Dr LeBlanc requesting some kind of information about Dr Donahue's situation and the possible closure of his practice and the implications on Sudbury and then, subsequently, my fax to Ms Doherty and Mr Sword indicating that this information was confidential. Those I thought were two critical pieces of it, but I did not leave those with him or provide additional ones.
Mr Kormos: I do not think I am going to have a whole lot more to talk to you about today after this question, but yesterday you talked about how, when you were taking the e-mail to return it to, I guess, MacMillan, who received it, Dr MacMillan sitting with Dr Eugene LeBlanc, you made some comment about actually saying, "I'm going to forget whatever little bit I gleaned from glancing at it." Is that what you said, that you glanced at it?
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Mr Corea: Yes, that I scanned it. It again did not seem to answer or respond to the questions that I had really asked, so in some senses I was dismissing it being relevant to me. But after leaving the discussion with Dr LeBlanc and Dr MacMillan, it was quite clear that this was not only a piece of information that did not seem to deal directly with my request or resolve that, but it also was something that was best forgotten.
Mr Kormos: You have enough things to worry about, never mind trying to remember or concerning yourself with things that are no longer relevant?
Mr Corea: Yes, that is correct.
Mr Kormos: And is that a reasonably fair -- maybe it is not -- but is it a reasonably fair understanding of why it would be that you would say, "Well, we'll just sort of chuck this one from the memory banks"?
Mr Corea: That is certainly the way that I recall treating this: that it is not relevant, that there are other things to be addressed, there are other issues to be dealt with. This is really something that I can consign to a mental waste-basket.
Mr Kormos: That is an exercise that once again I trust you have honed over quite a few years of dealing at times with some really heavy loads of statistical and documented kind of data?
Mr Corea: Yes, it does seem to be a way of preserving a modicum of sanity.
Mr Kormos: Yes. Otherwise you would be dreaming about these damn things at night.
Mr Corea: Yes, and it seems enough to struggle with them in the daytime, but at night --
Mr Kormos: Yes. Okay. I think other people here want to ask you questions. I have not got any more.
The Chair: Mr Hope.
Mr Hope: Thank you, Mr Chair. Mr Corea, you do not mind if I call you Larry?
Mr Corea: No, not at all.
Mr Hope: Larry, most people curl up with a good book at night. We have lately been curling up with Hansard to try to go through some of this information. I went through it last night and I tried to figure out, as a local member, how I get a briefing note as a local member, because I start thinking, "Oh, what can I use as a case?" And I said, "Well, let's look at my own constituency."
Chatham-Kent, which I represent, is, I guess, one of the finest ridings in this province and it will continue to be. As I try to figure out how I would put a severe case in front of you, I started thinking, "Well, what if the hospital" -- this is Wednesday morning or Wednesday afternoon. It is in the media that the hospital is closing its doors, services are no longer going to be rendered in Chatham. People are screaming in the media. The directors, or whatever their titles, are yelling at the media, blaming the NDP.
So come that evening I get a phone call. It happens to be from my mom who is, I guess, one of the biggest supporters that I have and will always be. She calls me up and says: "Randy, what they're saying about the NDP is criminal. It's all criminal. It can't be right. It's criminal." So as I am listening to my mom burn my ear a bit and telling me, "Listen, son, you've been brought up better than that to do something," I am sitting there taking her words of advice, quite seriously as a matter of fact, because she has a lot more power over me than a lot of people do.
So the next morning I get in my office here in Toronto and find out through the fax machines there are a whole bunch of newspaper articles covered from the London Free Press, the Chatham Daily News, Chatham This Week, all the local papers, the media scripts. The editorials are even out there blasting us. This is very important to me because it is my political career. I remember the conversation that night with my mom, saying: "This was criminal. We can't have this happen."
So what I do is I put together all this information, all the newspaper articles, and I put a covering letter on it stating some of the things about some of the comments, highlighting it for you, so you know what is going on in my riding. Then I even put the comment that, "This is criminal," and this is from a constituent, I am not going to tell you it is from my mom. You know, you would laugh at it and say: "Oh, yes. What, are you not old enough to control yourself?" So I even put the comment "It's criminal," and I give it to you and I pass it over the fax machine to you.
Where does it go from there in order for me to get a briefing note that I can go back on that Thursday night or that Friday and stand there as a local member to try to explain what is going on to the constituents who in the media have just ripped the NDP apart? It may be the end of my political career in the next election and I have to be able to respond to the concerns of my constituents. Once I send you that information through the fax machine, where does it go and how do I get information back and what information do I get back?
Mr Corea: Okay. What typically in that kind of a situation we would do would be, if there is information that you have provided, to pass that on through to the ministry staff that might be relevant on this issue. So if you have got some particular information, local news clippings or other material, we might pass that on in hard copy form directly to them.
If it is another request that is not accompanied by that, then it is usually just a simple e-mail. But in any case, usually an electronic message is scripted which tries to lay out the concerns and to state clearly that Mr Hope has requested a briefing around a particular hospital.
What I do is direct it to the executive assistant to the institutions branch, actually now the health systems management group, and then if I have identified which hospital it is, I can also determine which hospital area team would be involved. I would copy all of the people down the line, so I would copy the executive assistant to the assistant deputy minister, the director of the community hospitals branch, I would copy the coordinator of the area team and then the person on the area team who might have some direct knowledge about that hospital.
The purpose of that is really that I am asking at a senior level within the ministry for this information, but giving the people along the line who are actually going to assemble the information, who are most knowledgeable about that particular hospital, an opportunity to work on it. It is a kind of courtesy of saying: "This will be coming directly to you at some point, presumably. You've got a busy day. Here's some opportunity, hopefully, some advance notice that it will be coming." Then I expect the information will be passed back up through that chain of responsibility to be examined and looked at and then passed back to me.
I may well in there ask them to be in direct contact with you to explain some of the details of it. Particularly I think it is often helpful for members of the area teams to be talking directly with residents and representatives of communities.
The Chair: Mr Hope, I would just like to inform you that the time has expired and we are close to the adjournment for the afternoon. Having given that warning earlier on, I would like to call the meeting. The time period has elapsed. Thank you very much. We will adjourn until 2 pm, at which time questioning will commence from the official opposition.
The committee recessed at 1158.
AFTERNOON SITTING
The committee resumed at 1412.
The Chair: We will call the afternoon session to order. At the end of the morning session, the government members had completed their questioning and we were going to move into rotation. I would like, just for a brief moment, to move to Ms Jackson.
Ms Jackson: Thank you, Mr Chairman. Mr Chairman, Mr Kormos, you may recall, had earlier made reference to a document, in examining another witness, which was described as Mr Corea's job description and he had given a copy of that document to me. Unfortunately I could not get it back as quickly as it would have been ideal to do this morning, so he could not put it to the witness in the course of his questions, and since that is my fault, I would like to -- I have given the document to Mr Corea. He has identified it as his job description. I think it has been distributed to members, and if we could just mark it as the next exhibit, that would be the end of my interruption.
The Chair: That will be marked as exhibit 64. Having done that, I would now like to move first to Mr Conway. I would remind Mr Conway as to the time allocation of one hour.
Mr Conway: Thank you very much, Mr Chairman, and we begin at 2:10 this afternoon. Mr Corea, I would like to start by just asking you some very general questions about your background. I have in front of me your résumé, which is quite impressive, and I have read it carefully. From 1989 through to, I presume, August of 1991, you were a senior consultant at ARA Consulting?
Mr Corea: Yes, A-R-A.
Mr Conway: In let's say the six months prior to your being hired as the coordinator for customer services on the exempt staff, the political staff, of Ms Lankin, the Minister of Health, in the period, say, from January through August of 1991, what sorts of work were you involved in at ARA Consulting?
Mr Corea: From January through till --
Mr Conway: Roughly the six months leading up to your joining the minister's staff.
Mr Corea: I was working on a project for the federal Correctional Service Canada which involved a review of files of sex offenders in the federal penitentiaries to allow them to assemble data about the nature of the sex offender population so that they could better plan treatment programs and ensure that the treatment that was provided to sex offenders was appropriate and timely.
Mr Conway: And that was contract work?
Mr Corea: That was, yes.
Mr Conway: And it --
Mr Corea: It was one of my major responsibilities.
Mr Conway: But that was typical of the kind of work you were doing at ARA?
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Conway: In the summer, in August of 1991, you join the personal staff of the Minister of Health. Can you tell me how that came about? Did you see an ad for this job? Did you know the minister? Did you know some of the minister's other office staff?
Mr Corea: I did not know the minister. I knew the executive assistant to the minister, Ms Susan Colley.
Mr Conway: I gathered that. At a later point in the testimony yesterday, you indicated that in the phone call you had with Ms Colley on the night of November 14, she could have been calling -- my words, not yours -- that she might have been calling on business, but you left the impression that you knew one another socially.
Mr Corea: Yes, that is correct.
Mr Conway: And that is fair to say.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Conway: So you and Ms Colley knew one another and it was through that friendship that you were aware of the opportunity in the minister's office?
Mr Corea: Yes. It was essentially through Ms Colley's knowledge of me that she invited me to apply for that position within the minister's office.
Mr Conway: You applied and were successful and joined the minister's --
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Conway: But prior to joining the office of Ms Lankin, you did not know the now Minister of Health for the province of Ontario?
Mr Corea: Not personally, no.
Mr Conway: You had no personal knowledge of her. You did not know her as a friend or as a neighbour or --
Mr Corea: No.
Mr Conway: You had never worked with her in any previous capacity.
Mr Corea: No. I do not believe I had even met her prior to that.
Mr Conway: Thank you very much. Now, you join the minister's staff, and you join it at a time when the ministry has come through a fairly tough period of months, particularly on the subject that concerns much of this inquiry, the protection of confidential medical information. It is no secret, it is a matter of public record, that earlier in the year 1991, I believe it was in late April or in May, Ms Lankin's predecessor, Ms Gigantes, had inadvertently released a name in the Legislature that caused her to resign her position as Minister of Health.
I raise that simply because I am assuming that when you went to the minister's office, there would have been, since this was only three, four months later -- Ms Lankin was relatively new to the post -- at least in terms of general background, a heightened sensitivity around the question of confidential medical information, particularly as it relates to the minister's office. I say that simply because a few months before that, a very serious, distinguished member of the Legislature had lost her job as Minister of Health by inadvertently releasing this kind of information. Is that a fair characterization of the general environment into which you went in August of 1991?
Mr Corea: I would say that there was a heightened sensitivity to information. Medical information -- the types of information are different that you are talking about. One is medical information related to an individual patient and the types of services that they have received. I think there certainly was a heightened sensitivity around that. But there was generally a sensitivity around information flow to the minister's office and what was retained in that minister's office and how that was handled. It certainly was on my part.
Mr Conway: I would think that certainly with your friend Ms Colley, among others, you would have had some discussions about the importance of protecting the confidentiality of medical information as you talked about and planned to join the staff.
Mr Corea: Yes, and I believe I have indicated that in fact it was with Ms Colley, in her capacity as executive assistant, that we talked about that, about the importance of confidentiality in relation to personal information.
Mr Conway: But you did indicate yesterday in cross-examination by committee counsel that there had been no formal training as such about freedom of information.
Mr Corea: Right; there has been no formal training.
Mr Conway: The training you did receive, in addition -- and it was I thought effectively brought out this morning. Your résumé makes plain that you are from the professional social worker community, so that experience, among others, would have made you very aware of just how sensitive this kind of information is.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Conway: To the extent you got any additional training, it was in conversation with Ms Colley, presumably, among others?
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Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Conway: I want to, having established that, come to the office in which you worked. You indicated in yesterday's testimony that "it didn't surprise me at all," and that it is quite close quarters in which you work. The executive assistant and other special assistants, the deputy's office, it is fairly close together, so people are seeing one another routinely, they are bumping into one another at the fax machines and in a variety of other locales in what is clearly close quarters, a lot of people working closely together. You are seeing three special assistants, executive assistants, to both the minister and the deputy all the time.
Mr Corea: Yes, they are relatively close quarters. They are by no means palatial.
Mr Conway: Oh, no, I am not saying they are palatial. I know that to be untrue, but it is quite close quarters --
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Conway: -- and you are contacting people all the time. Now, having said that, I am interested to understand as well that in your office that you joined as of August of 1991 you did not know the minister but you knew the executive assistant, and had worked with her?
Mr Corea: Yes, I worked with her previously on a variety of other projects and had dealt with her as I was working on other projects, so that we knew each other professionally.
Mr Conway: How long had you known each other?
Mr Corea: I think I have known Miss Colley probably for about 10 years.
Mr Conway: So it was a good relationship over many years.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Conway: You had worked together. You would describe it as -- was she your best contact within the staff? You were not known to other special assistants?
Mr Corea: No, not when I joined the staff.
Mr Conway: Was Paul Howard's office anywhere near -- Paul Howard's desk anywhere near yours?
Mr Corea: Paul shares the adjacent office to mine.
Mr Conway: So how far would his desk be away from you? Would it be 10, 12 steps away?
Mr Corea: Maybe 20 steps. You would have to walk out my door, down the corridor and into his door.
Mr Conway: And Sue Colley's office in relation to yours, where is that?
Mr Corea: The shortest route is through a meeting room that sort of separates my office and hers, so it is probably about the same distance, 20 steps or so.
Mr Conway: In the course of a day -- Mr Howard's duties are?
Mr Corea: He is the communications --
Mr Conway: He is the press secretary to the minister.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Conway: You did not know him prior to joining the minister's staff?
Mr Corea: No, I did not.
Mr Conway: I also had the impression from testimony advanced by Dr LeBlanc that he was -- it seemed to me quite understandable, if I understood him; correct me if I am wrong -- in and out of the minister's office routinely.
Mr Corea: Dr LeBlanc?
Mr Conway: Dr LeBlanc.
Mr Corea: Yes, he was -- yes.
Mr Conway: It was in the nature of his business he was up --
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Conway: And you would have dealt --
Mr Corea: Not so much -- well, certainly he would not be an unusual visitor into the minister's offices, but most often meetings are held in the boardroom that separates the deputy's office and the minister's office.
Mr Conway: Before I get to the primary interest for me, which are the events surrounding November 10 to 17, I was really struck by something you said yesterday. I am going to repeat it from the Hansard of 1450-2, in response to Ms Jackson. You are talking here about the requests that are coming in from -- particularly in this case -- Mr Laughren's office. You said something that I thought was quite noteworthy. You indicate at the bottom of 1450-2 --
Mr Corea: 1450-2? Thank you.
Mr Conway: You just say there that by about November 10, November 12, "It betrays my ignorance of the political map. I did not look at it. It was on my wall." But you really did not know who any of the Sudbury area MPPs were.
Mr Corea: No, I did not know precisely. I knew that particularly, actually, Mr Laughren, his constituency was Sudbury, but I did not know the adjacent ridings.
Mr Conway: But if I were to say -- what I am interested in here obviously is finding out whether by about November -- because you are a special assistant in the minister's office responsible for customer services.
Mr Corea: Right.
Mr Conway: I recognize from your résumé you are not what I would gather to be a political activist. I mean, often political activists are recruited to the minister's exempt staff for obvious reasons.
Mr Corea: Right. Yes, I vote.
Mr Conway: That is right, but it does not appear to me, from what you have said and what your résumé indicates, that one of your primary claims to fame is as a fire-breathing partisan who, you know, puts up signs and does all kinds of work in support of the member from Beaches or the member from wherever.
Mr Corea: Yes, I think you could characterize it that way. I do not have an extensive political involvement.
Mr Conway: Have you had any involvement with the New Democratic Party?
Mr Corea: No, not a formal involvement. As I said, I vote, and that is basically my involvement.
Mr Conway: Now you are in the minister's office three or four months, and there is a very good regional issue brewing in the Sudbury basin, by all accounts, and you are the director, you are the minister's special assistant for customer services, and without any question, some of your most obvious customers are elected members of the Legislature.
Mr Corea: They are one of the -- yes.
Mr Conway: That is right; they are not the exclusive category, but they clearly represent, by your own testimony, people from whom you hear quite often.
Mr Corea: Yes, that is right.
Mr Conway: You are simply indicating, by your testimony yesterday, that by early November, if I had said to you Ms Sharon Murdock, would that name have meant anything to you?
Mr Corea: The name would have rung a bell as an MPP and I would have checked on my map as to where that was. If someone had mentioned the name of Mr Conway, I would have done the same thing.
Mr Conway: And you knew that Floyd Laughren was a cabinet minister?
Mr Corea: Yes, of course.
Mr Conway: You smile, and I take that to be a knowing smile.
Mr Corea: Yes. He is also the Deputy Premier, and I would be aware of that.
Mr Conway: That is right. Did you know who Ms Martel was?
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Conway: But Sharon Murdock was in a slightly different category. You would have to look at your map. You would know maybe she was a member, but you would not connect her with the Sudbury basin.
Mr Corea: That is true. That is correct.
Mr Conway: Now to the circumstances surrounding the memo, which is exhibit 44, the Teatero memo of 11:41, November 13, 1991. I have read carefully what you have said, and I am keeping in mind that you are a very well-travelled professional. You have won a place in a minister's office, one of the largest offices in terms of the exempt staff in the entire government. You know well the deputy minister, and it seems to me that you have got all kinds of credentials here that are quite impressive. But none the less, you have taken on the job of being a special political assistant, in the sense this is not a bureaucratic position; this is on the exempt staff in ways that we talked about yesterday.
You have been there three months, and I can imagine the kinds of pressures under which you have worked. I think you have probably understated some of those pressures. You make reference to an occasional annoyance and that is the pressure that you get paid to bear.
But by early November, one of the government's major policies, particularly a health policy, the framework agreement, is under very significant attack in at least the Sudbury basin, in ways we have all talked about and you have talked about as well. You are hearing from the Deputy Premier's office that he is getting a lot of pressure and that his pressure has generated a specific request for information -- and that is another exhibit, the number of which I have lost sight of -- but we are now getting into the week of November 10 to 15, and you talked yesterday about your involvement in all of that.
I just want to be clear that I understand what you have said and what you did. You are the point person, obviously, for a lot of this information. You are the director of customer service in the minister's office, and you are hearing from the office of the Deputy Premier and you are hearing from your friend Sue Colley, your executive assistant in the office -- your boss in that hierarchy -- that: "This thing is pressing and we've got to get some information. The Treasurer needs to know the ministry position and he's got to get a political response," whatever that means, and we all can imagine in our own way what that might mean.
This has got to be one of the most active files you have got now, by November 12 or 13, by any stretch of my imagination. Would I be right in believing that?
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Mr Corea: No. It is one of the active files that I am working on, but it is not the most. There are other issues that are as pressing. There have been demonstrations out front of the Hepburn Block relating to the Toronto Hospital situation. There have been delegations coming to the minister's office dealing with out-of-country policies and the impact on addiction services. There is an ongoing reallocation review which, though it is not a particular area of my responsibility, I am involved in that I have to participate in, and there are a lot of other requests. There are actually, quite frankly, Mr Conway, other requests that I thought were more problematic at that particular time, that dealt with individual cases that I thought had the potential to become quite problematic just because of their nature. Obviously, I read it wrong.
Mr Conway: No. But you read it as you read it.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Conway: I have got to accept what you say, but I am looking at this particular situation and I see the Deputy Premier's interest attached to this file.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Conway: This does not decelerate over the days of mid-November. It continues to heat up in the way all this documentary evidence suggests and you are getting calls at home about this and you are talking about a certain kind of annoyance because the pressure just keeps building. I am just assuming, but you tell me it is a wrong assumption, that this was not --
Mr Corea: I am trying to give you an accurate sort of -- that this is really one of so many events that are going on. The fall was extremely busy for the minister's office. We were attempting at that point to pull together the goals and priorities for the Ministry of Health, to have those available to deal with the other issues of hospital budgets and attempt to grapple with all of that within an attempt to move some of the galloping escalation that had been characteristic of health budgets for the last time, to bring that in line and allow some possibility for a reform of the health care system. It was an extremely busy fall all around, but --
Mr Conway: I can appreciate that.
Mr Corea: -- that time in --
Mr Conway: But you can pardon my interest if I am looking at this file, because it also attaches to probably the most significant public policy achievement of the new government in the entire calendar year 1991. The framework agreement between the government of Ontario and the Ontario Medical Association was I think rightly seen as a very major policy achievement by and for the new government. Now, just a few months later, we are in Sudbury and it is under attack in a significant way that we all know about by virtue of reading these documents.
At any rate I am now interested in understanding this memo, the famous Teatero memo of 11:41, November 13, that is sent, we are told, among other reasons, because of the Treasurer's urgent and in my view entirely understandable interest in getting some kind of response to this developing local-regional issue. It comes back. It would normally have been approved or looked at by Dr MacMillan, but he was away. In fact, he was in Toronto.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Conway: So it comes along, it goes to Dr LeBlanc's office and with certain adjustments goes some time late in the day of November 13 into your office and you get a chance to look at it on the morning of the 14th of November?
Mr Corea: No. I received it on the 14th of November.
Mr Conway: Sorry. You get it on the morning of the 14th of November?
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Conway: I want to just be clear I understand. You took some pains to tell us that it did not come in interoffice mail, because it would have been in one of those brown manila envelopes?
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Conway: We know that. Just help me again. I want your most detailed recollection of how you got that Teatero memorandum.
Mr Corea: I really cannot be absolutely clear, any clearer than I have been on it, but I will recount that. I recall it being delivered to my office. I cannot recall whether it was delivered and presented to me or left on my chair. I have pushed my memory on this subject but at this point, when called upon to reflect on this, it is six or eight weeks past the point that this event has occurred. I really cannot recall whether it was given to me or handed to me or whether it was left on my chair. I am often up and out of my office and moving around. I cannot recall that. That is how it came to me.
Mr Conway: If it were left on your chair -- and that is a real possibility; at least it seems to me a possibility from my experience around offices -- given the nature of the office you have described it would not be inconceivable that other people could come and look at it?
Mr Corea: It would not be inconceivable -- a bit difficult. By the way I have my desk positioned you would have to step around in my office and clearly be looking for it. I have my desk so positioned that I am facing the door.
Mr Conway: This is to the best of your recollection and it is some weeks later, but somebody either gave it to you -- that somebody would either have been Diane McArthur --
Mr Corea: Yes, it would have been Diane McArthur. Either she gave it to me directly or she contacted me subsequently by phone to say that she had left -- that is my recollection of it. I just cannot be any more specific on it.
Mr Conway: Either that happened or it was simply left on your chair?
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Conway: And it is not inconceivable that if it was left on your chair, someone in your office circle might have seen it?
Mr Corea: I think they would have had to be looking for something. There are so many other piles of paper in there, you would really have had to have gone in looking for a particular piece of paper to find it.
Mr Conway: You remember that it was a hard copy?
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Conway: That you remember. And you remember that you -- one look at it; we now have the document amended for reasons that we all know. It is quite clear that document concerns one of your active files?
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Conway: A file that has the interest of the executive assistant and the Treasurer, and I think the chronology also indicates that Mr Sword by this point had also called indicating an interest on behalf of Ms Martel?
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Conway: This is an active file and now this arrives. It is not a particularly long document. I am talking about the first of the two memoranda. I have timed myself. I thought it would take probably 90 seconds at most to give it a good read and maybe 45 seconds to give it a second scan. It would not take long. In fact, if you put your eyes to it at all you would unavoidably pick up some very interesting information about an active file.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Conway: Now, according to your testimony --
Mr Corea: I think, to have an understanding of it, though, you have to read it and examine it more closely, but I think you could pick up some phrases and words that might twig. From my point of view -- I may read differently than you -- it takes longer for me to absorb and integrate information. There is a lot of information that flows through there and I try to carefully absorb and figure out how it really fits in.
Mr Conway: You were a graduate student at my old school.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Conway: You have got some very, very impressive academic credentials.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Conway: From two very fine Ontario universities. It would be my view, and perhaps I am being too flattering, but I would think someone with a graduate degree --
Mr Corea: Can scan a document, yes.
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Mr Conway: I tell you, my experience with graduate students is that it is their business to learn how to absorb piles of information very, very quickly. I would just put this in the category of a very interesting abstract. If I were in your position and it came to my attention, a very quick scan would quickly, quickly present some very salient data. Now you get this; the mere act of picking this up, I would submit, would present an opportunity for some significant information. As I understand it, you do that and then you put it aside.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Conway: It is shortly thereafter -- do we know how much time is involved in this?
Mr Corea: By my recollection, the time is actually longer. I recollected that it was some time -- all I can do is to place it between midmorning and noon and then noon and midafternoon. I cannot be any more specific. I really do not have any specific idea about the length of time that it was in my possession.
Mr Conway: You said that yesterday and I was kind of struck by it. You said at 1535-1 that your recollection of the whole document was quite vague.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Conway: This may be an unfair conjunction, and correct me if I am wrong, but I took from something you said a little bit later, but very much in the same part of your testimony, that part of this difficulty is that you were on holidays for three weeks in Europe.
Mr Corea: Yes, not in Europe; in Central America.
Mr Conway: So you were out of the country in Central America for three weeks, from December 8 to December 28 or 29?
Mr Corea: The 29th, yes.
Mr Conway: Did you also tell me that Sue Colley was out of the country for part of December?
Mr Corea: Yes. I believe she left to visit a parent in England shortly after Christmas or right at Christmas.
Mr Conway: All right. But she did not leave in that period of time when you were away when the House was in session?
Mr Corea: No. She was here.
Mr Conway: But your recollection is vague because you had had these holidays and it was kind of hard to recall. That is the way I read this.
Mr Corea: I did not take any work with me when I went on my holidays.
Mr Conway: No, no. But we go to the 1535-3 and 1540-1 of the testimony yesterday and you say on 1535-3 that your memory is vague, that you can only recall a few phrases, "It was in my possession for a very short period of time and I did not study it."
Help me to understand. You are working for a senior minister who, by all accounts, is a very capable person and who has got an enormous array of pressures. One of the real pressures she has got at this point in time is that she has got senior colleagues pressing her on a file that you have some responsibility for. Now this most central of data, exhibit 44, arrives. We know lots of people are looking for it and we know that you know that. In fact, they are looking for it at times to your annoyance because --
Mr Corea: Mr Conway, I do not think this is central data. From my brief scan of it, it looks to me to not answer my questions, to not be relevant to the issue. I feel that actually this is not -- my impression, when I push my memory of this, is that these do not answer the questions. I had an impression that whatever I received -- and I could not recall it in the structure of an e-mail or, except for a few phrases in here, that this was an answer to the questions that I was posing.
It did not deal with the impact on Sudbury. It did not deal with the possibility that on the one hand the ministry would be paying money for a northern health travel grant to have residents get to services and on the other hand be acting on the threshold piece. So it did not answer a lot of the questions for me. Maybe another person would have -- maybe I would have come to a different conclusion if I had had a chance to study it, but for me on the first look, and it was a scanning look, it did not answer my questions. It was not the kind of information I was looking for.
Mr Conway: You are a master's in social work, with considerable experience as a family service worker. You are working in an office where the memory of the Gigantes affair is very recent. You know that a lot of people are interested in what is going on in Sudbury. You get this Teatero memorandum of 11:41 in a much less expurgated form than exhibit 44. You scan it and you do not see it as important information?
Mr Corea: I do not see it as important information for understanding the situation of Dr Donahue and the possibility of his practice closing. I do not see any answer in that memo that indicates that to me, and that is the kind of information -- I wanted some other information that talks about the possibility of Dr Donahue closing his practice. What is going to be done to deliver those services? Is there another physician who is able to assume those services, or is there another plan? Is there anything that can be done that deals with that? For my purposes, my focus is on ensuring that services in Sudbury are maintained.
Mr Conway: Some time passes then. You have received it and you look at it. At some point, you get a call from someone that a meeting is being -- is it Sue Colley who tells you that there is a meeting?
Mr Corea: Actually, my recollection was that I was out and I had picked up a fax that had come in and I bumped into Sue Colley. Unfortunately, the meetings that often occur are on the fly.
Mr Conway: I understand entirely.
Mr Corea: You are just walking by and a few comments are exchanged.
Mr Conway: So you meet Sue Colley on the fly and she says something about a meeting that might require your attendance down in Dr LeBlanc's office?
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Conway: So as you prepare to do that, you are getting an incoming fax from the Sudbury Chamber of Commerce.
Mr Corea: Yes. It was not directed to me, but it was coming in and I looked at it.
Mr Conway: It was incoming.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Conway: You get that, and one of the things I thought was interesting about that was that one you really do seem to know. You have got a very clear recall about that one.
Mr Corea: No, I do not have a lot of recall about the details of that. I cannot recall whether it specifically mentioned Dr Donahue. I can recall comments about it, what I thought was an interesting and astute observation by Dr LeBlanc about it.
Mr Conway: That it was not signed in the way that --
Mr Corea: Yes, exactly. I had not noticed that when I handed it to him.
Mr Conway: You recall that about that particular fax. You also indicate in your testimony that you did take time out to log that fax into the corporate correspondence.
Mr Corea: No, I did not at that point; subsequently that was logged in. When I had that in my possession, it was not logged in at that point.
Mr Conway: So you get down to Dr LeBlanc's office and you meet Dr MacMillan for the first time.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Conway: It is very clear from Dr MacMillan that he has seen exhibit 44 and he is concerned.
Mr Corea: That has been --
Mr Conway: -- communicated to you earlier.
Mr Corea: It has been communicated to me that he was concerned. I did not know about "very concerned" or anything else, just that he was concerned.
Mr Conway: Can you tell me again exactly what his discussion with you was around? You had the document in your hand?
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Conway: Diane McArthur had asked you to destroy it, but as you indicated yesterday, you thought to return it to source because you had some other reason to go down there.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Conway: You did not destroy it. You scanned it a second time on your way down to the meeting. You get to the meeting and you meet Dr MacMillan and he is, by his own testimony, quite concerned that this kind of information is floating around in places where, as I recall his testimony, it ought not to have been.
Mr Corea: I understand that to be his testimony.
Mr Conway: Now, he tells you what? What do you remember?
Mr Corea: When I walked into the room, I recall that they were engaged in a telephone conversation, and that continued for some period of time. That is really the item on the agenda right at that point. Both Dr LeBlanc and Dr MacMillan are dealing with that.
Mr Conway: On your way down to this meeting you have got two things: You have got the Teatero memorandum of 11:41 and you have got the fax. They clearly relate, broadly speaking, one to the other, because they are the same issue.
Mr Corea: They relate in my mind because they are indicating that various citizens and groups in Sudbury are quite concerned about this as an issue, and it is not isolated, it is not one physician or one individual making --
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Mr Conway: On your way down to Dr LeBlanc's office, you look at this. You look at this fax and you read it to at least get that kind of understanding, and you have given it to us both today and earlier; that is, the chamber of commerce fax. You have got that fax in your hand.
Mr Corea: I do not believe I have given it to you, but it --
Mr Conway: No, but we have talked about it. You told us what it is, that there is a fax from the chamber in Sudbury and it indicates there is a concern around the whole question of provision of medical services and what might happen as a result of the agreement, the thresholds, all of that business in some way or another. Now, you have got that at the same time as you have got exhibit 44.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Conway: You are going down to this meeting. You know on your way down to the meeting that Dr MacMillan is concerned, and you have been given orders to destroy exhibit 44. You do not do that, but you are aware of that level of concern.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Conway: Now, you scan this exhibit 44 again on your way down.
Mr Corea: Wondering, you know, what is exactly the concern here, because for my purposes, the first time I look at it, it really does not answer my questions. Maybe there are inaccuracies or something in here --
Mr Conway: But on your way down to Dr LeBlanc's office, you know something you did not know when you got it initially, as I understand it. You now know that there is concern at very high bureaucratic levels around the contents of exhibit 44 because Diane McArthur has told you so.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Conway: So you have not destroyed it. You have got it and you scan it, and still you are not impressed by any of the data that is contained within it?
Mr Corea: Not for the purposes that I was looking for information. I am also at that time looking for Dr LeBlanc's office. I have not been there before, but I am looking for his office. We are talking about one floor down. But I am left with the impression throughout this that this is not responsive to what I am interested in.
Mr Conway: Let me ask you this, then. Forgetting what your requirements are, when you go down those stairs or wherever, down the hall, to find Dr LeBlanc's office, thinking that you are being asked to go to a meeting with senior people, one of whom you have never met before, and you know that he has some concerns about this to the extent that he wants it destroyed -- forgetting what your requirements are -- when you scanned exhibit 44, did the thought cross your mind --
Mr Cavalluzzo: Objection here: Just if you could get the evidence correct. He did not know that Dr MacMillan was in the office.
Mr Conway: Fair ball. You knew that Dr LeBlanc was in the office?
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Conway: And you knew from Diane McArthur that somebody, either Dr LeBlanc or Dr MacMillan, had ordered this exhibit destroyed?
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Conway: Do you remember precisely which of those two doctors it was?
Mr Corea: I understood it to be Dr MacMillan who had asked that this be destroyed.
Mr Conway: And you knew who Dr MacMillan was?
Mr Corea: I knew who he was, yes.
Mr Conway: So you are going down to this meeting. Forgetting what your requirements are, when you scanned this document a second time, did you have any appreciation for why it was that Dr MacMillan might be concerned about the material contained in the Teatero memorandum of November 13, 1991, at 11:41, and why he might want it destroyed?
Mr Corea: It struck me as detailed and that was -- you know, that it was detailed and that it dealt with areas of practice that were more specific than I had seen. So I assumed, you know, that either it is the specificity or it is -- and it had not been ruled out of my mind that there was actually inaccuracy in there, that somehow information in there was not indeed accurate. It is not beyond the pale that information you receive is exchanged because it is inaccurate, a phrase is wrong or figures are wrong or something like that. That frequently happens in the minister's office.
Mr Conway: On your way to the meeting now, you have scanned it, and you have testified that it might have been your impression -- it was your impression -- that this was detailed and more specific than it might have needed to be. Is that a fair representation?
Mr Corea: Yes, that is a fair representation.
Mr Conway: Just a few other questions, Mr Chairman.
You testified yesterday, Mr Corea, something that I had not heard previously and I just want to be very, very clear. I am looking now at 1600-1. This, to me, is very important testimony, so I want to be very clear. You say it on 1600-1 and it is repeated on a number of later occasions. Let me quote directly:
"Mr Corea: Yes. I am sure Dr LeBlanc indicated that he would be talking with Mr Laughren, that he had already received a request for a briefing from Mr Laughren and would be talking directly with Mr Laughren the following day."
Mr Corea: Yes. That, to the best of my recollection, is what Dr LeBlanc said.
Mr Conway: You go on later to say, "I understand that there was to be direct contact between between Dr LeBlanc and Mr Laughren," apparently for the specific purpose of Dr LeBlanc briefing Mr Laughren about the Sudbury situation.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Conway: One of the other memos -- and I am not going to be able to identify it by name. I have got so much paper here that I will, hopefully, be forgiven. But there is a reference in one of the memoranda to the fact that Michael is going to be debriefed, I think it is.
Mr Elston: Exhibit 59.
Mr Conway: Michael is going to be debriefed -- yes, this is exhibit 59. Thank you, Mr Elston. This is a memo from Ms Colley to, among others, yourself re "Sudbury Physicians." It is dated November 27, 1991. It says, "Could I please get a debriefing on the meeting between Michael and Shelley Martel?"
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Conway: Would I be right in assuming that the "Michael" referred to there is Michael Decter?
Mr Corea: Yes. The memo is addressed to him.
Mr Conway: Because now I know that by November 27, Dr LeBlanc has been dispatched to brief --
Mr Corea: I do not know if he was dispatched.
Mr Conway: Well, he was going --
Mr Corea: I think there was a phone conversation.
Mr Conway: Dr LeBlanc is to brief Mr Laughren.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Conway: The way I would read this memorandum, exhibit 59, is that --
Mr Corea: I believe at Mr Laughren's request.
Mr Conway: Yes, absolutely. I am assuming that, because the whole business starts with Mr Laughren generating the request. Exhibit 59 just tells me another piece of interesting information. Your executive assistant is indicating here that she would like to get a debriefing on a meeting between Michael Decter, the Deputy Minister of Health, and Shelley Martel, which meeting is taking place some time, apparently, between November 10 or 15 and November 27. My guess is that it probably took place between the 25th and the 27th, just the way this reads.
Mr Corea: Yes, I believe that is correct, that it would take place about the 25th.
Mr Conway: It is also suggested, and this is more properly taken up with Ms Colley, but your understanding is that the Michael there would be Michael Decter?
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Conway: I know my colleagues want to ask some questions and I just have one or two others --
The Chair: I just remind you, Mr Conway, that there are 15 minutes remaining.
Mr Conway: Thank you very much. I want to ask just very quickly, have you at any time since November 10 and this date, February 19, 1992, ever discussed any of these matters with anyone in the Cabinet Office or the Premier's office?
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Mr Corea: The Cabinet Office? No, not as I understand the members to be. If you are more specific about it, then I could answer.
Mr Conway: You are a very bright, experienced individual who I respect in understanding the structure of government. I am not going to read the list of who is who in the Cabinet Office. I am asking a straightforward question and I just want to be clear. Have you ever discussed in the last three months any of this with anyone in either the Cabinet Office or the Premier's office?
Mr Corea: Again, by name, I could be more specific, if you would name individuals in that, but as I understand it the Cabinet Office and the Premier's office, I do not believe any of those individuals, who I take to be in those offices, that I have discussed this with them.
Mr Conway: You have indicated that you have discussed this with the assistant to the government House leader, Mr Dee. And you indicated, I gather, that took place within the last three weeks.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Conway: Can you just very quickly summarize how that all took place? Did you call him to talk about it? Did he call you?
Mr Corea: No, he called me and I was asked to meet him at his office at a specific time. I am sorry, I just do not have the date on that, but I do not believe that is at issue, the specific date. But he contacted me and asked me to attend and we conducted -- he conducted an interview of me essentially, is how I would characterize it, for probably an hour.
Mr Conway: Did he indicate on whose behalf he was doing this work?
Mr Corea: I assumed that he was doing it on behalf of the House leader, but he did not indicate -- he did not say, "I am doing this on behalf of."
Mr Conway: But that seems like quite a reasonable assumption. Mr Dee is a lawyer, I believe.
Mr Corea: Yes, he is.
Mr Conway: Could you characterize the -- you have apparently had some experience and some exposure to legal counsel in this process. Can you indicate whether or not your encounter at Mr Dee's request had anything of the character of a lawyer's briefing or debriefing?
Mr Corea: Not of debriefing. It had a lot of the character of a lawyer interviewing you, much as Ms Jackson has interviewed me, and her colleague Mr Taman. It had very much of that character of asking questions and seeking clarification, but it was not -- I would characterize it as very much a him-to-me kind of conversation.
Mr Conway: One final question then before I turn it to my colleagues. You have indicated that to the best of your knowledge you have not spoken to anyone in the Cabinet Office or the Premier's office about the matters that are before this inquiry.
Mr Corea: To the knowledge that I have of who are members of the Cabinet Office or the Premier's office.
Mr Conway: And you have not spoken --
Mr Corea: I could stand to be corrected on that if you --
Mr Conway: Do you know Ross McClellan?
Mr Corea: Yes. I do not know him. I have never spoken to him, but I know his name.
Mr Conway: You have never spoken to Ross on this. You have never talked to Ross on a subject like this?
Mr Corea: Mr McClellan? No.
Mr Conway: You have not spoken to Ross McClellan. You would not have spoken to David Agnew?
Mr Corea: Mr Agnew? No, I have never spoken --
Mr Conway: And you have not spoken to Peter Barnes or any of those people?
Mr Corea: Not Mr Barnes.
Mr Conway: I am not going to take you through the entire list. It is a considerable list.
Mr Corea: Right, okay; certainly. Those are the individuals who I was thinking of and I just wanted to be clear that we were sharing the same assumption.
Mr Conway: You have never spoken to a person like Gerry McAuliffe about this?
Mr Corea: Mr McAuliffe?
Mr Conway: I am just thinking of people who are in the Cabinet Office.
Mr Corea: My only knowledge of Mr McAuliffe is as a radio announcer.
Mr Conway: He traded that in a few months ago.
Mr Corea: Oh, I see.
Mr Conway: The final question then in this connection is, have you talked to anyone in any other of the ministers' office staffs, anyone who could be considered a political staffer at any other level in this government, about the subject that is before this inquiry?
Mr Corea: Have I talked with anyone other than --
Mr Conway: Have you talked to anyone in any other minister's office about the subject that is before this inquiry?
Mr Corea: I have indicated that I talked with Ms Colley about this, and that she requested that I contact her. She essentially asked me very specifically -- and I think that was her responsibility -- whether I had divulged any confidential information during the course --
Mr Conway: You have never talked to Ms Lankin about any of this?
Mr Corea: No, I do not recall talking to Ms Lankin about this.
Mr Conway: Ever?
Mr Corea: No.
The Chair: I would just like to remind members of the official opposition that there are eight minutes left.
Mr Miclash: Just to follow up on what Mr Conway has been questioning about, Mr Corea, you mentioned in your testimony earlier on that there were notes being taken on a machine, a computer of some sort, during your interview with Mr Dee.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Miclash: Do you have a copy of those notes that were taken at that time, or did you request a copy?
Mr Corea: I did not request a copy and I do not have a copy of that. I did not understand that they were available for me at all, so I did not think to ask for a copy.
Mr Miclash: Mr Chair, would a copy of those notes be available to us as a committee? Should they be available?
The Chair: At this point in time, I cannot say yes. I can tell you that in keeping with the rules and responsibilities of counsel it is possible that they might be, but that would be on the advice of counsel to subcommittee.
Mr Miclash: Mr Corea, when you were being interviewed by Mr Dee, did you realize he was a former member of the staff of Shelley Martel?
Mr Corea: No, I did not. I did not know of his -- I only knew him as a lawyer working in Mr Cooke's office.
Mr Miclash: Okay.
Mr Corea: I did not realize his previous association.
Mr Cavalluzzo: Excuse me, I have an objection at this point in time.
The Chair: Mr Cavalluzzo.
Mr Cavalluzzo: Is there any evidence that that is the case?
Mr Elston: It is so well known.
Mr Miclash: As the former House leader, Mr Dee was a member of her staff.
Mr Elston: Maybe we can call Mr Dee to get that substantiated.
Interjections.
The Chair: Order, please. Mr Miclash has the floor. He has asked a question. If there is a difficulty in terms of the response, that will be up to Mr Corea and that is how that has to be left.
Mr Kormos: Chair.
The Chair: Yes, Mr Kormos.
Mr Kormos: I may appreciate Mr Miclash's question, but it is conceded that Mr Dee worked for the House leader both present and previous.
The Chair: Mr Miclash.
Mr Miclash: Thank you very much, Mr Chair. I think that concludes my questioning. Thank you, Mr Corea.
The Chair: Thank you very much. There are six minutes remaining.
Mr Elston: I would not mind taking a couple, please.
The Chair: Mr Elston.
Mr Elston: I am interested in your position, Mr Corea. You are, as described in here, a person who "advises ministry staff on how to deal with issues on behalf of the minister," which to me connotes some kind of a direct relationship with the minister. How often would you see the minister formally during the course of one week?
Mr Corea: From my point of view, not often enough. There are many issues that I would like to --
Mr Elston: What I said was, how often?
Mr Corea: -- talk with her --
Mr Elston: Did you talk with her at a regular meeting?
Mr Corea: No, I did not have a regular meeting with her.
Mr Elston: No regular meetings?
Mr Corea: No, no regular meetings. There was discussion about setting those up but they were always pre-empted.
Mr Elston: I think it may have been you or someone else who has given us testimony that there were contentious issues meetings at least daily in the minister's office.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Elston: From which you were excluded, I presume.
Mr Corea: Not excluded, but the way the contentious issues meetings would work would be that they would be held with the executive assistants to the assistant deputy ministers within the ministry, communications people. Typically, Mr Smalley, the legislative assistant to Ms Lankin, and Mr Howard, the communications assistant, would attend those meetings, bring matters back for discussion within the minister's office. There would also be a process of preparation of briefing material for a noon meeting when the House is sitting. That could also be characterized as a kind of contentious issues meeting or a briefing for the House.
Mr Elston: Okay. But you are the gentleman in the office who is assigned the responsibility for dealing with these contentious issues when inquiries come in?
Mr Corea: Not solely.
Mr Elston: Not inside the ministry, but when they come in from outside you are the person, right?
Mr Corea: Not solely. There are many people working on those issues.
Mr Elston: Oh, okay.
Mr Corea: Typically the ministry staff is also working on those issues and has the information to provide the --
Mr Elston: Mr Howard and Mr Smalley might also get outside inquiries.
Mr Corea: Yes, they might also get them.
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Mr Elston: So if there was some difficulty with the response received from you by Mr Laughren or his staff or by Ms Martel or her staff, they might very well have gone directly to Ms Colley, Mr Smalley or Mr Howard for assistance on these things?
Mr Corea: They could have, yes.
Mr Elston: Basically what you have been trying to tell us, I think, is that you passed no information on to anyone because you did not think any of the personal information in exhibit 44 was for anybody's eyes at all. Is that right?
Mr Corea: That is correct. I had it for a very short period of time and left with the impression that this information was confidential, and my assessment of it was that it was not relevant.
Mr Elston: But you knew enough of the information that it was seen by you to be confidential information, even though you said you only scanned the material.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Elston: You already knew from scanning that it was confidential, but you did not think it was relevant.
Mr Corea: I did not think it was relevant to the issue of services and continuation of services in Sudbury.
Mr Elston: I was interested in the examination of you by Ms Jackson where we went through the one memo. I do not have the memo -- I am sorry, Mr Cavalluzzo -- in front of me. I remember talking about trying to determine what Dr Donahue's real situation was. Do you remember that line of questioning the other day?
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Elston: We were trying to figure out what it was, when you sent the memo, that you were trying to get at with respect to Dr Donahue's real situation. You said you wondered if he was going to close.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Elston: But in asking the ministry to respond to your request for information around his real situation, you said you were surprised that you got back some detailed financial information.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Elston: Why was that the case?
Mr Corea: I did not ask for financial information. What I was asking for was: "Is he going to close? Are there any discussions that have been had with Dr Donahue which would allow some kind of resolution of this, some clarity to be added to the whole situation?" Typically when these events are occurring in the newspaper, it strikes me that key parties have not even talked, so some basic sort of discussion can often resolve a lot of the supposedly contentious issues. I was really interested in: "Has anyone talked with Dr Donahue? Do they understand his situation? Do they understand whether he understands the threshold issues?"
The Chair: Mr Elston, there is one minute remaining.
Mr Elston: Okay. Can you tell us whether or not you talked to Paul Howard about this issue?
Mr Corea: No, I did not talk to Paul Howard. Paul Howard was on vacation.
Mr Elston: Did you talk to anybody in the minister's office about Dr Donahue or about exhibit 44?
Mr Corea: To the extent of saying the information about Dr Donahue's practice is confidential and is very clearly that. I explained that piece of information to my colleagues.
The Chair: Time has expired. I would like to move to members of the third party.
Mr Eves: I just have a few small questions and points of clarification for Mr Corea. On page 1450-3 Ms Jackson was asking you a few questions about area MPPs and you indicated, as Mr Conway alluded to on the bottom of the previous page, that you were quite aware of who Mr Laughren was and for obvious reasons; he is the Deputy Premier and Treasurer of the province.
She says: "So at the time did you know who the other MPPs were?
"No, not at the time.
"Did you know what their political affiliation was?
"No."
When during the course of this process would you say you became aware of who the other area MPPs were and who they were in terms of their position in the government?
Mr Corea: Essentially when Mr Sword contacted me from Ms Martel's office, then I started to realize, well, Ms Martel's riding is very much, you know, adjacent to Mr Laughren's; subsequently, and very quickly in that order, the issue that this would also be affecting Ms Murdock's riding was raised.
Mr Eves: I do not have the exact part in Hansard; it is not really relevant, or necessary I should say. You talked about having a home computer and you could log on to e-mail that you had received at your office.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Eves: So that enabled you to work evenings. To your knowledge, does anybody else have the same ability at the ministry, people you work with?
Mr Corea: Yes, it is a dialogue facility that the ministry has. The only service I have ever used is accessing your own e-mail account. It is a system of double passwords.
Mr Eves: So anybody that had that ability could do that.
Mr Corea: Anybody who had the ability and knew the password. You also have to have privileges to do that, and I had specifically requested privileges of the information system, so there is another piece, having to specifically ask for that privilege.
Mr Eves: Would you have any knowledge of anybody else that you work with that has the same privilege?
Mr Corea: I do not believe anybody else in the minister's office has. They may well have the privilege; I do not believe anybody else makes use of that. I happen to have used and dealt with computers in my work for some considerable time, so they are familiar tools to me.
Mr Eves: What exactly does Mr Howard do?
Mr Corea: Mr Howard -- and I do not have his job description -- is a communications assistant to the minister. He is there advising the minister on issues of communication and assisting her with media interviews and facilitating interviews the media request of Ms Lankin. Typically she gets, as I am sure you are aware, lots of requests to hold interviews.
Mr Eves: Do you work closely with Mr Howard?
Mr Corea: No more closely with Mr Howard than any of the other staff in the minister's office. We all work quite closely.
Mr Eves: The now famous e-mail memo of November 13, exhibit 44, however you want to refer to it, which you received I believe on the morning of the 14th --
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Eves: There were several people, I noted, that received copies, at least if you looked at the face of the memo. Several people supposedly were sent copies of that.
Mr Corea: Yes. They were sent copies.
Mr Eves: One of those individuals was Mr Paul Howard, as I recall. We have heard from Dr MacMillan that he cannot be sure whether in fact that was ever sent to Mr Howard or was not sent.
Mr Corea: Sorry, Mr Eves. I am looking at exhibit 44 and I do not see Mr Howard's name on it.
Mr Eves: No, I notice that. In fact, there were many people who were on the e-mail system, as I recall, whose names --
Ms Jackson: Exhibit 13 is, I think, the one Mr Eves is referring to.
Mr Eves: Okay.
Mr Corea: I am not copied on that particular e-mail.
Mr Eves: Is it possible that people could receive e-mails such as this? I mean, if their name appears, it would be apparent that they would receive such documentation. You and other people have stated, I believe, that Mr Howard was away at the time. Is that correct?
Mr Corea: Yes, he took two days off. My recollection of it is that he sent around a notice that he was going to finally take two days off to paint his house.
Mr Eves: Oh, okay. I had understood from Dr MacMillan that he thought he might have been away for a couple of weeks, but maybe my recollection is incorrect.
Mr Corea: Mr Howard certainly could clarify that, but I understood him to be away the 14th and 15th. We had some discussion about how he had to get this painting done because he had relatives coming.
Mr Eves: Was it normal, in the course of your duties, to receive requests from other cabinet ministers, as opposed to your own minister, Ms Lankin?
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Mr Corea: It was normal to receive requests from a variety of MPPs and federal members of Parliament, but I believe at the time of November 12, there were actually a number of requests that had been received that I personally was working on and they included ones from Mr Runciman and Mr Scott. There were just a lot of requests, whether they were cabinet ministers or not. People wanting various types of information from the minister would often be routed through me.
Mr Eves: Going back to exhibit 44 again for a moment, how many copies of that memorandum did you receive?
Mr Corea: To the best of my recollection -- and my memory is vague on it -- I can only recall very specifically one copy, receiving that. But I have the sense that there is repetition in this, so I cannot be clear. It could have been duplicate copies of that, but when I press my memory for this, repetition seems to come up as an issue but not a clear indication of why things are being repeated.
Mr Eves: Because Dr LeBlanc has stated that he understood you received two copies of the e-mail and both of them were returned. He was quite specific about that on a couple of occasions when he gave his testimony. So that could be true?
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Eves: You indicated, from my recollection, that you were approached by three different individuals about the committee or the possibility that they may be witnesses: Diane McArthur, Dr LeBlanc and Mr Dee. Now, Mr Dee, you did not indicate obviously that he was going to be a witness, I would not think. Did you find it somewhat unusual that these people would contact you to discuss this with you?
Mr Corea: I really thought Mr Dee was just trying to understand the chronology of events within his official capacity. I took both Dr LeBlanc's and Ms McArthur's approaching just as a matter of courtesy. They were indicating to me what their testimony or their evidence would be. I did not take it as any opportunity that they were attempting to influence me. Certainly I do not see how that would have been possible, because at the same time I assumed that everybody who was being interviewed had already met with Ms Jackson. In fact, I had met with Ms Jackson -- or not Ms Jackson, primarily with Mr Taman, her colleague, for about five hours on the Sunday previously. In total, I met for about 10 hours with Ms Jackson and Mr Taman. So I assumed that everybody who was being called as a witness to the committee was going through that procedure.
Mr Eves: Was it sort of general knowledge around the office or in the ministry that different people had been contacted by Ms Jackson or her colleague about the upcoming committee hearings?
Mr Corea: General knowledge? I do not know if it was a general knowledge.
Mr Eves: For example, would Sue Colley know this?
Mr Corea: Yes, I believe that she had been --
Mr Eves: Was this the type of thing you would engage in discussion with her?
Mr Corea: In fact, I think I indicated that I had spent time on a weekend some time ago with Ms Jackson and Mr Taman.
Mr Eves: And all these individuals contacted you, correct?
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Eves: That is what I understood you to say, as opposed to the other way around.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Eves: When Mr Dee contacted you, did he give you any indication of why he wanted to meet with you?
Mr Corea: His indication was that I was just to go through the sequence of events and that he would be just asking me a series of questions. I took it that I was to respond in a fashion, much as a lawyer interviews a potential or possible witness in a hearing.
Mr Eves: Did you understand what his position was, or did he indicate that to you?
Mr Corea: He indicated to me that he was working with -- I am not clear on whether he actually indicated that he was with Mr Cooke's staff or whether that was just assumed. I met him in Mr Cooke's office or within the House leader's area of the Legislature.
Mr Eves: You have never had occasion to meet Mr Dee before this?
Mr Corea: No, I had not met him before.
Mr Eves: There seems to be some confusion, and I guess perhaps it is understandable, among the testimony that has been given by Dr MacMillan, Dr LeBlanc and yourself with respect to the return of exhibit 44.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Eves: You have said quite specifically that you returned the document and handed it to Dr MacMillan. Is that correct?
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Eves: I believe you indicated, but I would like you to correct me if I am wrong, that Dr MacMillan took that document and put it in his briefcase.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Eves: When Dr LeBlanc was before the committee, he said he could not remember who you gave it to. He could not remember whether it was himself, whether it was Dr MacMillan or whether it was Diane McArthur, but he was quite sure that it was destroyed there and then. You are telling me that it was not destroyed there and then; in fact, it was put in Dr MacMillan's briefcase.
Mr Corea: As I indicated, I returned it to what I understood was the source, handing it back to Dr MacMillan; my assumption would be that he would destroy it or remove it.
Mr Eves: Dr MacMillan stated to us that --
Mr Corea: Some of that lack of clarity I think really indicates that this was not a major and earth-shattering event in the course of everyone's day, and the recollection of it is pretty foggy. People are looking at the same event and remembering different bits and pieces of it.
Mr Eves: Dr MacMillan indicated to us that he could not recall whether -- or really was not knowledgeable when your copy or how your copy of the document was returned. He could not recall that. He just understood that it had been returned because he had requested Dr LeBlanc to make sure it was returned. You have said that Dr MacMillan did not seem to be particularly upset about -- at least that is when you were present.
Mr Corea: Not to me. He could well have been more engaged than I had appreciated in the conversation that he had just essentially completed, but in my recollection of it, it was not greeted, "Great, thanks a lot," or anything like that. It was just a nod and he put it into his briefcase.
Mr Eves: You were asked to sit in on the call, I believe.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Eves: Do you know who the call was with?
Mr Corea: Again, I came in partway through it and I understood it to be Mr Davies from the regional municipality of Sudbury.
Mr Eves: On the evening of November 14, you had a conversation at home, I believe, with Sue Colley. Sorry, I missed the very first part of Mr Conway's questions about your relationship with Sue Colley. How long have you known Sue Colley?
Mr Corea: I think I have known her pretty well, approximately 10 years, I would say.
Mr Eves: How did you come to know Sue Colley?
Mr Corea: I think we came to know each other through both -- actually, my wife and Ms Colley were involved in child care issues, and so both the friendship and professional contacts built through that.
Mr Eves: So they knew each other fairly well, then.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Eves: They had known each other for some period of years, in any event. That explains why you said you could not recall whether you talked to Sue before or after your wife had been talking to her.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Eves: When you had this discussion with Sue Colley on the 14th -- I want to refer you now to exhibit 50, which was the next morning, November 15, at 8:58 am. Sue Colley sent you an e-mail or interoffice memorandum referring to the discussion you had had the previous evening.
Mr Corea: Yes.
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Mr Eves: "Further to our telephone conversation last night, and my discussion with Michael Decter, this is a suggested roll out to be developed for a briefing with Floyd." When you talked to her the previous evening, did she talk to you about any discussion with Michael Decter?
Mr Corea: No, I do not believe that the discussion had occurred, but I do not recall the discussion with Michael Decter at that point.
Mr Eves: How well does Sue Colley know the Treasurer?
Mr Corea: The Treasurer?
Mr Eves: Yes.
Mr Corea: I do not know if she knows -- I do not know how well she knows the Treasurer.
Mr Eves: Do you know the Treasurer on a personal basis?
Mr Corea: I have never met the Treasurer. I have never talked with him on the phone, actually, either.
Mr Eves: We can discuss that with her. I just found it kind of odd that she referred to him as "Floyd," as opposed to "the Treasurer" or "Mr Laughren."
Mr Corea: There is a certain familiarity -- I refer to it in my notes as well -- of referring to individuals by their first name, but it does not necessarily mean that you have met or dealt with them.
Mr Eves: What did you understand her words to mean when she said that "this is the suggested roll out to be developed for a briefing with Floyd"? Explain to me that terminology. What did it mean to you?
Mr Corea: Sometimes I would like to get an explanation of that terminology. It is quite frequently used, and used in a variety of ways, but my understanding of this is kind of, "This is how I see events unfolding, or occurring," or, "This is my understanding of the sequence of events." But this term "roll out" is kind of a jargony term.
Mr Eves: You indicated, I believe, yesterday -- I have not got the exact quote in front of me -- that you did not recall, in fact, when you looked at this memo the next morning.
Mr Corea: No, I did not recall when I looked at this memo. When I look at the subsequent memos, at the faxes, there are a lot of similarities in the substance of that, in the substance that is carried from this memo through to the other, but it is equally and more likely to me that there was one of the innumerable brief conversations that occur within the minister's office, that Sue Colley and I briefly talked. At the bottom of that is a mention of a 9:45 am meeting. I do not specifically recall that, but it seems quite in keeping with the pace of events that there is a quick, two-minute meeting that typically, if it is supposed to start at 9:45, starts at 10:15.
Mr Eves: Okay. Was Ms Colley already employed in her capacity of assistant to the minister when you came to work at the ministry?
Mr Corea: Yes, she was.
Mr Eves: And did you find out about your position in the ministry through Ms Colley or --
Mr Corea: Yes, Ms Colley essentially had talked with me on several occasions before and, in fact, possibly as much as a year before, about considering working for either the minister or somewhere else within a minister's office. At that time, the initial suggestions were -- I was very much involved in other work and could not consider it. When she suggested it in the summer of 1991, it was starting to take on a renewed interest, a different opportunity for a short period of time, and would allow me to get a view of government from a slightly different angle, so I viewed it as an opportunity.
Mr Eves: In your previous knowledge or friendship, relationship, with Ms Colley, did either one of you ever express to each other your particular views on politics, whether you had any particular political allegiance of any kind?
Mr Corea: I think we often talked about politics and a variety of issues. I think there is an assumption that many of the issues -- that there is a common, you know, perception of many of the issues. I think, quite frankly, that Sue probably --
Mr Cavalluzzo: Excuse me, if I just might step in. Are we not getting dangerously close to asking a witness his political views, affiliations? We do have a charter of rights in this country, and I am wondering if that is an appropriate question.
The Chair: Mr Cavalluzzo, thank you for your comment. The question was posed to Mr Corea. He can respond as he wishes. If you have been following the hearings, that particular subject matter has been brought up on other occasions, but certainly it is up to the witness if he does not wish to respond, or to respond as he thinks fit. As I had indicated earlier, the question can be posed, but it is up to the witness to respond as he thinks is appropriate.
Mr Corea: My response is really that politics and issues of the day often formed a subject of discussion, and we may or may not agree, and I think we had at times interestingly different perspectives on issues.
Mr Eves: Have you ever been a member of any political party?
Mr Corea: Well --
Mr Cavalluzzo: Mr Chairman, we are getting very dangerously close to very serious political questions, and certainly someone's political views should not be asked in this kind of proceeding. I understand it is not a judicial proceeding, but the witness is under oath and I just do not understand what relevance that has.
The Chair: One moment, sir, please.
Mr Cavalluzzo: Mr Chairman, I can short-circuit this. Mr Corea says he is prepared to answer that question, but for future reference --
Ms Jackson: Could I just point out that I am the one who asked the question yesterday. I asked it of Mr and Mrs Dodds. They knew the question was coming and they were prepared to answer it. I think Mr Cavalluzzo is right. It is an area where, if the witness has concerns about identifying his political affiliation, which in some cases can come pretty close to saying, "How do you vote?" I am sure the committee members would be respectful of a desire to keep that private.
Mr Eves: Well, I am at a little bit of a loss, Mr Chairman, because I can recall sitting here yesterday -- we can dig out the Hansard if you wish -- while Mr Kormos dogged a witness for about half an hour on her current political affiliation, previous political affiliations, statements about communism, the women teachers' federation, whether or not she was a member of the Reform Party etc, etc, and I do not recall either counsel or yourself, quite frankly, intervening to assist that witness.
The Chair: Mr Eves, thank you for that. Mr Cavalluzzo, thank you for your comments. I will again restate what I earlier indicated. Certainly, as the question is posed, Mr Corea, you can respond as you wish and as you think fit, but I am not going to rule Mr Eves's question out of order. I am going to permit the question to be posed, but it is still -- I remind you it is up to you as to how you wish to respond to that question.
Mr Corea: I find it a curious question, but I am going to answer it. I am not a member of any political party. At one time, some 20 years ago, I might have joined a Liberal riding association in Kingston, but I cannot recall.
Mr Eves: Well, we will not hold that against you. We all make mistakes from time to time.
Mr Elston: He cannot remember it.
The Chair: Are you finished, Mr Eves?
Mr Eves: No further questions, Mr Chair.
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The Chair: No further questions by Mr Eves. Mr Harnick.
Mr Harnick: Thank you, Mr Chairman. Sir, do you, in the course of your work, keep any kind of log of your telephone conversations?
Mr Corea: No, I do not. I used to keep the stack of messages that I would receive and watch them grow, but several stacks were destroyed when I moved and I gave my filing cabinet to another person in the office. That was some time in, I believe, late October. So that was my only record.
Mr Harnick: Let me tell you that Dr LeBlanc told us that all of his outgoing calls were automatically recorded. I just wondered whether that was something that exists within the Ministry of Health in all the upper-level offices?
Mr Corea: I have not heard of that before. He means that he records them?
Mr Harnick: I thought they were recorded automatically. That was my understanding of what he told us. He said that was not so with the incoming calls, but with the outgoing calls there was a record of them. You do not have a record of your outgoing calls?
Mr Corea: I did not know. I mean, if they are automatically recorded, that may be the case, but no one has ever told me of that.
The Chair: Counsel may be able to help on this point, Mr Harnick.
Ms Jackson: My recollection, Mr Harnick, is they are outgoing long-distance calls because of the telephone bills.
Mr Harnick: That would be even better. Do you know if you have a record of your outgoing long-distance calls?
Mr Corea: If the system automatically keeps a record, then I would have a record of that or the system would have a record of that. I do not know.
Mr Harnick: Perhaps you could do us a favour and maybe check overnight whether there is a record of your calls that were made by way of long-distance during the period of November 13, 14 and maybe throughout the month of November. Would that be possible?
Mr Corea: Certainly. I would have to check with the administrative staff, probably actually with, I am assuming, the deputy minister. I do not know. I assume that for billing purposes, yes; there is a WATS line process too.
The Chair: If I might just interrupt at this point, in the event that this is possible and there is some information which you can provide, could you then provide that back to counsel for distribution among committee members?
Mr Harnick: You could actually have your counsel contact the counsel to the committee, one way or another, and let us know whether that exists. If it does, I would like to see it; if it does not, I would at least like confirmation that it does not exist.
Now, sir, you told us that you had discussions very early on, prior to I guess meeting counsel for this committee, with Diane McArthur and with Dr LeBlanc.
Mr Corea: No, subsequent to meeting this committee. Maybe I should get the dates. It was subsequent to meeting with this committee.
Mr Harnick: I am not trying to trick you or anything, but at some time you had some discussions with Diane McArthur and with Dr LeBlanc. I think you told us that primarily those discussions were related to things that they wished to confirm, that they would be giving in terms of their testimony. Is that correct?
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Harnick: Do you remember whether that was before or after you started to meet with counsel for this committee?
Mr Corea: That was very definitely after.
Mr Harnick: The meetings with --
Mr Corea: Very definitely after and very definitely I had gone through my 35 exhibits that I had provided to counsel for this committee and indicated my recollection of that. That was all.
Mr Harnick: That is fine. Just to review your evidence, as I jotted it down quickly, Diane McArthur came and spoke to you, I think you indicated, to go over certain evidence. I believe you told us that she told you that she delivered what is exhibit 44 to you by hand.
Mr Corea: Yes. That is what she recalled, that she delivered that to me by hand. That is not my recollection of it. My recollection is substantially vaguer than that.
Mr Harnick: All right. That is fine, but I gather she did that just to let you know and so that if you did not know, you might be consistent in your evidence or at least say, "I don't know," or, "I don't remember."
Mr Corea: I did not take that to be the purpose of why she was telling me. I took it really as a courtesy.
Mr Harnick: Okay.
Mr Corea: It was not going to influence the way I gave my evidence under oath, and I certainly assumed that it would not influence evidence under oath.
Mr Harnick: And then Dr LeBlanc came along and he told you, in a discussion that I think you described as being initiated by Dr LeBlanc, that he recalled that documents were brought by Diane McArthur and that you personally returned it to his office.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Harnick: And that is the substance of basically what Dr LeBlanc said, how you got the information and how the information was returned to him?
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Harnick: And he wanted to go over that with you?
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Harnick: All right.
Mr Corea: Well, he was just extending a courtesy, saying, "This is what my recollection of the events is."
Mr Harnick: Did you ever hear from Dr MacMillan in advance of your appearing here today with any information that he provided you with about the way he saw the pertinent pieces of evidence?
Mr Corea: No, Dr MacMillan did not contact me.
Mr Harnick: All right. So it is just McArthur and LeBlanc --
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Harnick: -- who provided you with what I guess they felt to be significant pieces of information.
Mr Corea: Well, no, they provided me with what they were going to be saying before the committee, and prior to that I had already indicated to counsel of this committee my evidence on that subject.
Mr Harnick: But obviously if they came to see you and that is what they told you, that was obviously significant to them or they would not have come to see you.
Mr Corea: I think they were just really extending a courtesy.
Mr Harnick: All right. And they came and specifically gave you those little pieces of information, correct?
Mr Corea: Correct.
Mr Harnick: And they did not do it by telephone; they came to see you personally? Is that correct?
Mr Corea: Actually, Dr LeBlanc was in the area where my office is, and he stopped and talked with me. Ms McArthur telephoned me, and rather than speak on the telephone, we met.
Mr Harnick: And those are the pieces of information they evidently felt were important?
Mr Corea: They were explaining to me their recollection and the sequence of the events and that was --
Mr Harnick: But that is the sum substance of what they told you, just those little bits of information?
Mr Corea: Yes. There might have been a slightly longer conversation, but yes, that encapsulates those conversations.
Mr Harnick: Okay. Now, Dr MacMillan was here for a couple of days giving evidence, and his evidence was that he never met you, that he never saw you and that he had no recollection whatsoever of your coming into that office and returning that piece of information.
The Chair: Excuse me, just prior to any response.
Ms Jackson: Mr Harnick, I am concerned about the premise in the question, particularly because the witness was not here for the evidence.
The Chair: He can respond by Hansard.
Ms Jackson: What you have said does not accord exactly with my recollection of what Dr MacMillan said.
The Chair: If you have got something from Hansard, Mr Harnick, you could refer to that.
Mr Harnick: I think in Hansard, and I do not have it in front of me, but Dr MacMillan said he would not recognize you.
Ms Jackson: I think he did say that.
The Chair: That is fair.
Mr Corea: Yes, and that is consistent with what I --
Mr Harnick: If he would not recognize you, how do you explain your evidence that you went into the office, that you were privy to -- you had specifically been asked to go there.
Mr Corea: Not by Dr MacMillan.
Mr Harnick: No, not by Dr MacMillan, but you had been specifically sent to Dr LeBlanc's office. You were specifically sent because a particular conference call was coming through. The conference call involved Drs MacMillan and LeBlanc.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Harnick: You were specifically told to be there, and in addition to being there with these two very senior individuals, you were bringing back a piece of information that was very, very sensitive and very, very significant to Dr MacMillan, and he has no recollection of you whatsoever. How do you explain that?
Mr Corea: Well, maybe I am not a very impressive person in terms of recollection. That is certainly a possibility. I think Dr MacMillan is remembering back in time some distance, as are many people in this. I have met many people within the ministry in brief meetings that occur throughout the day who, on subsequently getting on to an elevator, I do not recognize.
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Mr Harnick: Let's compare this with a situation where someone gets on an elevator. You might get on an elevator six times a day and have different people on that elevator every single time. Is that not correct?
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Harnick: And no one would expect you or no one would be --
Mr Corea: No, but if I --
Mr Harnick: No one would be expected to remember who he rides an elevator with if he rides an elevator six times a day. Is that correct?
Mr Corea: Mr Harnick, let me --
Mr Harnick: No, no, I would just like an answer to the questions I pose to you.
The Chair: Order, please. Order. Order.
Mr Harnick: I have met people in the minister's boardroom, attended meetings for many hours with them and not recognized them in subsequent short, brief encounters.
Mr Corea: That may be.
Mr Harnick: And I expect that is the situation that occurs with many people because of the pace of the work and because of the pace of the activity that goes on, that meetings happen and people are introduced or not even fully introduced and business is dealt with and it moves on.
Well, you know, if I was Dr MacMillan and I had realized that this very sensitive piece of information was now in the hands of someone outside the OHIP loop where I would have intended the information to be confined, and if that very individual outside the OHIP loop, who is a political person, had a copy of this and brought it back and gave it to me personally, it would be hard to convince somebody that I would not have recognized you in any way, shape or form.
Mr Corea: Well, clearly your memory is better than Dr MacMillan's.
Mr Harnick: Well, no, it is not my memory; it is Dr MacMillan's memory and recall versus your memory and recall.
Mr Corea: Yes, my memory and recall is different from that, and I would suggest, Mr Harnick, that as you look at that, at the events around that, people's memory and recall is slightly different on several features of that, and I think that is consistent with the way people remember events which are not deemed to be of crucial importance, but are cast into that importance by hindsight.
Mr Harnick: Well, I would suggest to you that it is curious that your information or your evidence was consistent with that of Dr LeBlanc and with that of Ms McArthur, who spoke to you about this significant, very sensitive area, and yet with Dr MacMillan, the most seriously affected person by the release of this information, you never spoke with him and he has no recollection of you whatsoever except in name.
Mr Corea: Well, even the fact that I --
Mr Harnick: You are going to have to do better than that by way of explanation, I would say.
Interjections.
The Chair: Order. Order, please. I would caution, Mr Harnick, that after you have posed a question you would give the courtesy to the witness to respond to the question. You have posed a question, and I did not hear that you had -- a response time was in fact allowed to Mr Corea, which I think is the very least which can be given to Mr Corea. So, Mr Corea.
Mr Cavalluzzo: On top of that --
The Chair: Mr Cavalluzzo, yes, sir.
Mr Cavalluzzo: -- Mr Harnick is not correctly reviewing Dr MacMillan's recollection of events. If he is going to ask questions like that, and leave this person's credibility on the line, I would ask that he have the courtesy of referring to that evidence and reading it back to this witness, because I submit, respectfully, that he has misread what Dr MacMillan's evidence was.
Mr Harnick: I submit I have not misread what Dr MacMillan's evidence was.
Mr Cavalluzzo: Let's look at the transcript.
The Chair: Order, please. Order. Order. Dealing with that one particular issue, I would ask, Mr Harnick, that in the event you are referring to some previous testimony -- we have ordered the transcript on a priority basis, it is here before us, it is capable of being referred to, and I would ask that you do so. I now go back to the previous question that was put forward by Mr Harnick and give to Mr Corea the opportunity to respond.
Mr Corea: Mr Harnick, let me be absolutely clear on this. I had already talked to Ms Jackson or her counterpart and given my recollection of the sequence of events, on the previous Sunday. I realize that, by Dr LeBlanc and Ms McArthurcoming to me, it could be construed in that way, and yet when asked by the counsel for this committee, I very clearly and openly stated that had occurred. I am not attempting to conceal anything on this part and I want to be quite clear on that. They did not influence my testimony on this.
Mr Harnick: Sir, you have told us --
Interjection.
The Chair: Order. I am sorry, Mr Harnick.
Mr Harnick: I am a little confused about the aspect of your perception of the information contained in exhibit 44 being confidential information. I believe earlier in the evidence you indicated that when you were told by someone to take the document back to Dr LeBlanc, as you say you have done, you thought that the reason it was going back was because there may have been inconsistencies in it.
Mr Corea: It occurred to me that was a possible reason. It was not explained to me in the telephone conversation that I recall instigating this -- that Dr MacMillan was concerned that this information was available, or something to that effect.
Mr Harnick: And in reading exhibit 44 it was not obvious to you, I submit, that the information contained was personal and confidential information?
Mr Corea: I think it occurred to me that this was more detailed information than I was accustomed to seeing and that it could be construed as personal information.
Mr Harnick: But did you appreciate at that time, when you first saw it, and Mr Conway very carefully went through that with you, that it was confidential information?
Mr Corea: I believe I understood it was confidential information on looking at it, that all of this was confidential -- not all of it, but that there were elements of this that were confidential.
Mr Harnick: You see, what concerns me is that in your evidence on page 1600-3 you have left me with the impression that it was not until you left Dr MacMillan and Dr LeBlanc that it was quite clear to you.
Mr Corea: Yes, they clarified that. They made that quite clear. My impressions -- and again I am searching back through some time in memory, but they made that clear.
Mr Conway: Point of order, Mr Chairman: It might be appropriate for Mr Dee to join the witness box.
The Chair: Mr Conway, I do not understand your point of order.
Mr Conway: I am serious. I just observe, and I am not complaining, but I observe what for me, as a member of this committee, is a significant development; that Mr Dee, about whom we know this: He has already had an encounter with this witness at his, Mr Dee's, request. I notice that there is some kind of a collaborative relationship between Mr Dee and counsel to this witness. I am just wondering. I wanted to make that observation so that everyone could know of it. I am just wondering whether or not it might facilitate matters if Mr Dee, who has a very close relationship with this witness, we have already been told, might like to join the witness box.
Mr Cavalluzzo: I would like to respond to that.
The Chair: Excuse me. Yes.
Mr Cavalluzzo: First of all, for the record I would note that after Mr Conway's partys' time ran out, I noticed he was giving questions to Mr Harnick.
1600
Mr Harnick: I am not the witness.
The Chair: Excuse me. Order, please.
Interjections.
The Chair: Order. I am sorry; I have listened to Mr Conway's point of order. I have asked for a clarification of that point of order. I do not believe it to be a point of order and I would ask that Mr Harnick continue his questioning.
Mr Conway: That is not bad Paul; it is good.
Interjections.
Mr Conway: A member of the committee -- well, you are the best one I know. There is a difference between being a witness and a member of the committee.
Mr Cavalluzzo: I was asking for the transcript.
Mr Conway: I know that.
The Chair: Order, please.
Mr Cavalluzzo: I am sorry.
The Chair: Order, please. We are attempting as best we can to move along with the rotation of questions and the questioning of Mr Corea. I had asked, on the basis of Mr Conway's point of order, for a clarification. I have ruled it is not a point of order and, Mr Harnick, the floor is yours.
Mr Harnick: It is nice to see how the political atmosphere is infecting other counsel now. It does not take much, does it?
Mr Conway: Mr Cavalluzzo is no stranger to political controversy.
Mr Cavalluzzo: Is that a compliment or a --
Mr Conway: A very high compliment.
Mr Cavalluzzo: Thank you, Mr Conway.
Mr Harnick: What concerns me is that in your evidence you indicate at one point that it may have been just as consistent with the information being not factual that it was being called back, or that it may have been because there was something confidential in it. Let me finish.
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Harnick: In addition, you indicate -- I think page 1600-3 makes it clear that you really were not 100% certain that you were dealing with a confidential document until after you say you returned it to Dr LeBlanc and/or Dr MacMillan. All I am putting to you is the proposition that you did not realize you were dealing with a very sensitive, confidential piece of information until after you gave it back.
Mr Corea: It was not confirmed for me that I was dealing with that, with a confidential piece of information. The superlatives I am not sure about, but certainly -- and this happened within a relatively short space of time and the thought -- it occurred to me but it was confirmed by the conversations.
Mr Harnick: Surely, with your background, with the evidence you have given us that you are a social worker and you have dealt with sensitive issues before, the issue of confidentiality was something that was paramount in the ministry in which you worked. You would have looked at this information and it would have just struck you right away that it was confidential information, would it not?
Mr Corea: No, it did not strike me right away. There were many things vying for my attention at that time, Mr Harnick. I wish I had the luxury to have read this document, studied it, quite frankly, and been clearer that what I have been shown subsequently is indeed the document that I saw. Again, I am left with a frustrating situation of trying to push my memory back through to some very vague events, and having people tell me that this is indeed the document I have seen and not be able to confirm that for myself. It is frustrating.
Mr Harnick: Why did you think the document had all those things deleted with black marker on it?
Mr Corea: I am not even certain that -- I cannot even recall -- I recall that things were missing but I cannot recall black marker and all of that detail on it, and sir, the document I have subsequently seen has names deleted and it does not take a large leap of understanding to see who this document relates to. When I was shown, by counsel, the document I am supposed to have received, there are not large amounts of blacked-out area on it. It is not, for example, similar to the document that you see as exhibit 44.
Mr Harnick: Let me accept the proposition you put to me, then. I am going to accept for the time being that you did not think this was a confidential document, that it did not leap out at you, that it was not obvious, that you did not think it was confidential.
Mr Corea: I considered that it may be confidential, but it was not confirmed for me until I talked with Dr --
Mr Harnick: So it may have been and it may not have been. Now, at this particular time you have received this document. You do not know how many hours it was from the time you received it to the time you returned it. Did you speak to Sue Colley about it?
Mr Corea: I did not speak to Sue Colley about this document in that time period or subsequently that I can recall. I spoke to Sue Colley in that time period, but it again was one of these very passing conversations and she asked me to sit in on this meeting or indicated that -- but it was very passing. She is often not that available to have extensive meetings with.
Mr Harnick: Who else works there in that general area?
Mr Corea: Thirteen other staff within the minister's office; on the other side the deputy minister's office, and on the other side of that, all within relative proximity, a large number of other staff.
Mr Harnick: So you had this document that you were ambivalent about in terms of what it meant, how sensitive it was, whether it was confidential. You had the Treasurer pressing you for answers and you had requests for information out to the ministry to the point where you did not want to bother them any more because you had bothered them up to that time, I think you told us. Do you mean to tell me when you got this piece of information you spoke with absolutely no one on the floor on which you worked?
Mr Corea: That is correct. I did not speak with people about this document. I did not study it clearly. I dealt with some of the other issues that were pressing on me.
Mr Harnick: Did you ever, after you took the document back and it was out of your possession, speak with anyone about this document or the contents thereof?
Mr Corea: I have spoken with no one about this document. I have indicated to people that I have received a document. People were asking me if I received a memo and I said, "I can't recall it as being a memo." I do not have any mental picture of it being in either the form of a standard memo or an e-mail type of memo. But I indicated I received a document. I think I have been quite clear even with counsel in referring to it as a document and not a memo. There has been lots of talk about "memo" and things like that, but to my mind it was some kind of a document that I received.
Mr Harnick: When you went home that night, and I think that was the night you said you went to work on your computer --
Mr Corea: No, I said that I can work on my computer from home. I do not recall logging into the system on that particular night.
Mr Harnick: Well, within those couple of nights did you ever log into the system? I think you told us at one point you did or you would not have --
Mr Corea: I said that was a possibility, a way I could deal with the e-mails that are received and that. I do not recall logging --
Mr Harnick: Was this document in your computer?
Mr Corea: No.
Mr Harnick: Was it available to you through your computer?
Mr Corea: No. I did not receive this, and as you -- I mean, you can note that I am not copied anywhere on this electronically. The only copies I received are hard copies. The only document that I received was a hard copy. That is the curious part, why I would receive -- you know, why it comes up as an electronic mail and I do not receive it as that and I am not copied on it.
Mr Harnick: But you do acknowledge that within your job area you could pass this information on to others, is that correct, if you had wanted to?
Mr Corea: If I had wanted to I could pass -- there is the possibility of passing it on, yes.
Mr Harnick: Because what you told us is that if you had wanted to -- what you said is, and I am reading it, page 1435-2, "I understood within my reporting relationships that it was entirely within my reporting relationships to pass on that information, but not to make it widely available within the office to those who did not have a need to know."
Mr Corea: Yes.
Mr Harnick: So that if you had wanted to, you could have passed this information on to those who had a need to know?
Mr Corea: If I thought it was relevant and they needed to know.
Mr Harnick: In fact in your broader relationship, you said earlier, you could have even passed this on to other ministries?
Mr Corea: No, I did not say that. I said that briefing material prepared for other ministries could be passed on to that.
Mr Harnick: But you said you had never had a situation where information that was confidential --
Mr Corea: No, I said --
Mr Harnick: -- had been requested. Is that correct?
Mr Corea: I have indicated that I have sent material to other ministries, masking out both the advice to the minister and the recommended ministry response. Those also could be construed as confidential information.
Mr Harnick: I think you also said you never had a situation quite like this one arise before.
Mr Corea: No, there was never -- I have not had specific, detailed information about a particular physician arrive at my door in that way.
The Chair: Mr Harnick, I want to alert you to about approximately four minutes remaining.
Mr Harnick: All right. I am very close to being completed. I just want to read to you the transcript of Monday, February 10, 1992, at page 1645-1. I believe this was supplied to me by counsel, who has highlighted the information. I do not want you to think that I am trying to fool you, but I --
Mr Cavalluzzo: Excuse me. What page in Hansard?
Mr Harnick: Page 1645-1. I merely want to read to you what counsel has pointed out, because I gather she gave it to me because she wants me to read it.
Ms Jackson: Mr Harnick, having made the point that you should refer to the evidence, I thought, since I knew where the evidence was, that I would give it to you. I leave it to you what you do with it.
Mr Harnick: No, it would not be fair if I did not, and I do not want anybody to say I am not fair.
Mr Christopherson: I will say it.
Mr Harnick: Go ahead.
Mr Christopherson: You are not fair.
Mr Harnick: Okay. Got that off your chest?
The Chair: Mr Harnick, there are three minutes remaining.
Mr Harnick: What Dr MacMillan said is, "I do not recall seeing anyone from the minister's staff there, but I do recall requesting the answer to whether or not anybody on the minister's staff had been in receipt of the memo." How do you explain that he did not see you there if you say you were there? That is the big mystery. Those are my questions.
Interjection.
Mr Harnick: Well, I have asked the question already, so --
Mr Cavalluzzo: You have asked the question, right, but as you say, you are a fair man.
Mr Harnick: I try to be.
Mr Cavalluzzo: You try to be fair. Well, let's look to the other part of the transcript, where Larry Corea's name is mentioned by Dr MacMillan.
The Chair: Mr Cavalluzzo, with respect, Mr Harnick has posed the question. I think that if there is something in terms of fairness, Mr Corea could respond in the way that he feels is most appropriate.
Mr Corea: Okay. Mr Harnick, maybe I can read back, then, Dr MacMillan's response:
"I am not sure when I recalled this, but I learned indeed that it did not go to Paul Howard. As I indicated, it was my understanding that this memo was not forwarded on the electronic mail but rather created on the computer and printed in the communications branch and hand-delivered to persons who could receive it. It is my understanding -- you can corroborate -- Paul Howard was away for a couple of days and did not receive it. It is also my understanding, but you will have to have it more direct, that Larry Corea, also of Frances Lankin's staff, did receive it."
Ms Jackson says, "When did you learn Paul Howard had not?"
Dr MacMillan: "I cannot recall. I heard he did not I believe that morning -- I heard he was away -- but I cannot remember."
Ms Jackson: "When did you learn Larry Corea did?"
"I do not recall precisely. I do not think I was ever certain that anybody did on the minister's staff. I...admit that in foreign territory up on the ninth floor of the Hepburn Block I simply expressed a very strong position of a senior executive director and I relied on Dr LeBlanc, who was responsible for the preparation of the briefing note."
Mr Harnick: I appreciate that and I do not think there is any need to clutter the transcript, because it does not answer the question. I have no doubt that you received the memo.
Mr Corea: And I returned it, sir.
Mr Harnick: I have no doubt that you read it.
Mr Corea: And I returned it, sir.
Mr Harnick: And I have no doubt that you understood what was there.
Mr Cavalluzzo: You are talking about a different meeting, Mr Harnick.
The Chair: Order, please.
Mr Harnick: Those are my questions.
The Chair: The time has elapsed. Thank you very much. I would like to remind members of the committee that there will be the necessity for an in camera hearing, which will take place in 10 minutes. We will recess for 10 minutes and resume in camera.
The committee continued in closed session at 1615.