OTTAWA—The CBC will be in contempt of Parliament if it fails to comply with a Commons committee request to provide the committee with corporate information under dispute in a court battle the national broadcaster is having with the Federal Information Commissioner, says the top Conservative MP on the panel.Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro (Peterborough, Ont.) told The Hill Times the CBC has no choice but to hand over the documents to an in camera meeting of the Commons Access to Information and Ethics Committee, even though the Federal Court of Appeal is at the moment deciding whether the broadcaster must release them to Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault.
In an explosive series of hearings by the Conservative-dominated committee, Mr. Del Mastro, Parliamentary Secretary to Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.), has led the charge in Conservative efforts to pin the CBC down over its protracted battle with Ms. Legault, who has challenged the CBC over documents it refuses to disclose on grounds it wants to protect creative and journalistic secrets.
On Nov. 2, the committee sent a request to the CBC to produce the documents at an in camera committee meeting, arguing the panel of MPs could decide whether the case the crown corporation has been attempting to make with Ms. Legault is acceptable, even though neither Ms. Legault or any of the Federal Court judges who have so far been involved in the dispute have yet seen the information.
“We expect the CBC to comply,” Mr. Del Mastro told The Hill Times.
Asked what the situation would be if the crown corporation fails to deliver the documents to the committee, Mr. Del Mastro replied: "They would be in contempt of Parliament."
The standoff is reminiscent of a 2010 battle between the minority Conservative government and the opposition over documents the government refused to disclose concerning the cost of prison expansions from a series of crime bills. Then Commons Speaker Peter Milliken ruled the government was likely in contempt of Parliament for refusing to disclose the information, a view subsequently confirmed by the opposition majority on the Commons Procedure and House Affairs committee, only days before the March 26 federal election call.
But the courts, constitutionally separated from Parliament, are already weighing the current dispute.
Mr. Del Mastro was responding to a claim from NDP MP Paul Dewar (Ottawa-South, Ont.) on Monday that the Conservatives are attacking the CBC because the Crown corporation—as with the federal long-gun registry—is a lightning rod that motivates hardline Conservative supporters into digging deep to contribute to the Conservative Party when it is being attacked in Parliament.
“Killing the long gun registry, we know that was a money maker for the Conservative Party,” Mr. Dewar told The Hill Times.
“What actually has out-done that, the long gun registry, in terms of bringing in money, was when they would put out financial appeals on the CBC, either to cut its funding or come up with some reason to get people irritated about the CBC. That always brought in money,” he said.
“Clearly this is politically motivated by Harper, to put Del Mastro on the file so to speak, because it generates funds for the Conservative Party,” Mr. Dewar said. “This isn’t about strengthening Canadian culture, it’s about attacking Canadian institutions that they don’t like. And it turns out that it’s a money maker for them.”
Asked why he has that view, Mr. Dewar replied: “If you ask Conservative Party officials what raises the most money for them when they do appeals, number one is CBC, followed by the long-gun registry, so this is about making money for the Conservative Party, it’s not about transparency at the CBC.
“It’s a little too cute by half when these guys, the Conservatives go after the CBC for transparency, the only media corporation that has to submit to the overview of the auditor general, and submit their budgets and has an open policy of transparency is the CBC. No other media corporation has to go through that kind of scrutiny.”
Mr. Del Mastro rejected Mr. Dewar's claim.
“He’s making it up as he goes along, there is not truth to that, you know that’s absolutely false," Mr. Del Mastro said. “The bottom line is we have a situation where the CBC and the information commissioner are locked in what the Information Commissioner calls a long and protracted battle.”
Mr. Del Mastro predicted a legal battle all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada whichever way the Federal Court of Appeal rules on Ms. Legault’s claim that the CBC must provied her with the documents.
He would not comment on what the government majority will do if the CBC refuses to hand over the information.
"I'm not going to play a ‘what if’ game,” he said. “I think they understand that they’ve got a committee order to produce documents, I just cannot imagine that the public broadcaster is going to refuse to release documents to an in camera committee meeting. These aren’t going to be publicly released, you’re not going to get your hands on them, nor is anyone else going to see them, nor are the contents of those going to be subject to or part of the report that’s in fact produced.”
He said the information is crucial if the committee wants to produce a report on the dispute, centering on the section of the Access to Information Act under which the CBC is refusing to disclose the documents.
“If we are going to put together recommendations that address both the concerns of the CBC and the concerns of the information commissioner and every witness that has appeared before the committee, then we’ve got to understand exactly what is going on,” he said.
“What is in these documents, that say for example, how many vehicles do they have in their fleet? What is in that request that is covered either under journalistic, creative or programming protections? It doesn’t appear that there’s anything there."
Mr. Dewar, contesting the NDP leadership, zeroed in on Mr. Del Mastro after outlining a leadership campaign that featured support and continued funding for the CBC as part of a series of measures supporting the arts and culture in Canada.
NDP leadership contenders continued to stake out a range of positions against Mr. Harper and the Conservatives on Monday when the ninth candidate to enter the race, Manitoba MP Niki Ashton (Churchill, Man.) outlined a vision of “new politics” that would emphasize social and economic justice.
“The new politics seeks to bring Canadian together, this is a progressive social approach and it is based on tolerance and understanding. Old politics leads to poverty, injustice and inequality, and treats them as normal things,” she said at her leadership launch in Montreal.
“Stephen Harper’s old politics sees Canada involved to a greater extent in global conflict,” Ms. Ashton said. “New politics seeks to rebuild and to promote peace and reconciliation. New politics seeks to fight against global poverty and seeks to see that as Canada’s number one priority on the world stage.”
Origin
Source: Hill Times
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