Mr. Strahl spoke with The Hill Times three days before he announced his resignation from the committee on Jan. 24. He expressed frustration at the criticism he had received for lobbying the B.C. government on behalf of Enbridge while chairing the Security Intelligence Review Committee, but gave no indication that he was considering resigning from the intelligence oversight committee.
“I asked the ethics commissioner about her opinion on it. I spoke to her before I ever took the appointment, and explained who I work for and what I do. I talked to Privy Council about it, I talked to SIRC management, I talked to other members of SIRC who come from all political parties,” Mr. Strahl told The Hill Times. “I told them, ‘This is what I do and [SIRC] is a part-time appointment—is this appropriate, and is this exactly what appointees have done since SIRC was created?’ The answer I got was, ‘Yes, this is exactly what happens. You aren’t expected to abandon your other work.’”
Mr. Strahl’s involvement in SIRC began to receive attention from The Vancouver Observer in January after the former Conservative MP and Harper Cabinet minister registered to lobby the B.C. government on behalf of Enbridge’s Northern Gateway Pipelines L.P.
SIRC provides civilian oversight of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, which has been working with the RCMP and other agencies to monitor the activities of opponents of Northern Gateway. Opponents of the pipeline project accused Mr. Strahl of being in a conflict of interest, and opposition critics called on Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) to remove his former minister from the intelligence watchdog agency.
In his Jan. 24 resignation letter, Mr. Strahl said that he kept Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson’s office and the Privy Council Office informed of his private business activities and was always told that he was fully compliant. He released a response from Ms. Dawson to two emails he sent seeking clarification on his ethical obligations following The Vancouver Observer report. Ms. Dawson’s letter responded to six questions from Mr. Strahl covering various aspects of the act.
Ms. Dawson said there was nothing preventing Mr. Strahl from working as a consultant as long as he wasn’t using information obtained in his position as a public office holder to further his private interests. She said Mr. Strahl was no longer restricted by the act’s two-year post-employment restriction on former cabinet ministers making representations.
The ethics commissioner also responded to a letter from Liberal MP Joyce Murray (Vancouver Quadra, B.C.) in which the MP raised concerns about Mr. Strahl’s lobbying for Enbridge while acting as SIRC chair. The commissioner examined the conflict under three sections of the act and responded that Ms. Murray’s letter didn’t set out reasonable grounds to believe Mr. Strahl had contravened it.
“I hope people will understand, because of the way the CSIS Act is structured, it’s against the law for me to talk about the specifics of what I do in that committee,” Mr. Strahl told The Hill Times on Jan. 21.
In the end, Mr. Strahl wrote in his letter that: “Despite the fact that my compliance with all relevant rules and regulations has been clearly demonstrated, I retired from politics three years ago and do not wish to be in the centre of the political fray. Nor do I want to be a distraction from the important work SIRC does everyday in ensuring the security of Canadians. It is therefore with regret that I have concluded it is best for all concerned that I step down as chair of SIRC.”
Mr. Strahl’s resignation demonstrated that the perception of a conflict of interest is more powerful than “technically” following the rules, pollster David Coletto of Abacus Data said.
The government’s sensitivity to ethical issues has increased in the wake of the Senate-PMO expenses scandal, with everyone “kind of walking on eggshells” as it tries to avoid other ethical questions, Mr. Coletto said.
“My view is perception’s all that matters,” Mr. Coletto said in an interview. “Even if the rules haven’t kept up with the expectations of the public, or the media, or what the media thinks the public’s expectations are—everything’s perception based—that’s beside the point. It’s what the perceived expectations are that will ultimately be the rules.”
Lori Turnbull, an associate professor of political science at Dalhousie University, said the inclusion of “apparent and perceived conflicts of interest” in the Conflict of Interest Act would help prevent situations like Mr. Strahl’s.
“He got his technical opinion and technically he was in the boundaries of the rules so he went about his business, and then when there was enough stink about it he just dropped the government appointment,” Prof. Turnbull said in an interview.
“The issue, I guess, is when the ethics commissioner decides one thing and people are still offended then what do you do?” she said.
Including apparent and perceived conflicts changes the standard to prohibiting something that looks bad even if it doesn’t break the rules, she said. The problem is MPs, who make the rules, often won’t subject themselves to restrictions that reflect the public standard, she said.
“Sometimes you don’t know what the public standard is until you’ve offended it,” Prof. Turnball said.
The House Ethics Committee is set to table a report on its statutory review of the Conflict of Interest Act as early as this week, to which the government will be required to respond.
Duff Conacher, founder and board member of advocacy organization Democracy Watch, agreed that the act should be expanded to include the appearance of a conflict.
“Just say you cannot act if you’re in the appearance of a conflict of interest, with no loopholes in the definition of conflict of interest,” he said in an interview.
Democracy Watch also sent a letter to Ms. Dawson’s office requesting an inquiry into Mr. Strahl’s work with Enbridge.
Section 34 (2) of the act prohibits former public office holders from giving “advice to his or her client, business associate or employer using information that was obtained in his or her capacity as a public office holder and is not available to the public.”
Mr. Conacher said the only way to enforce the section is to ban former public office holders from taking on a client interested in a federal government position about which he has privileged information, as he said Mr. Strahl would have had in Enbridge’s case from his time as a federal minister.
But Former SIRC members, including Mr. Strahl, said reforming the committee could help prevent controversies like the latest one. He said that it was up to Parliament to put in place the oversight that it wants for Canada’s security and intelligence apparatus.
“That’s an absolutely valid view… people should have that discussion. The unfortunate part is when people don’t really want to talk about a process or change in this mechanism that’s been around for 30 years,” Mr. Strahl when he spoke with The Hill Times on Jan. 21.
Rather than reforming the committee, Mr. Strahl said, he and his former committee colleagues at SIRC have been attacked for political reasons.
“It’s national security. There should be a bi-partisan effort to make it as good as we can, not a gotcha moment that doesn’t serve anyone well,” he said. “I saw a column the other day attacking all the members of the committee. All of them, over the last 30 years of their lives, have done something, so all of them are suspect... I find it awful.”
SIRC was established under the CSIS Act in 1984 and is responsible for reviewing the spy agency’s activities and investigating complaints against the agency. Despite the seeming importance of the committee, SIRC met less than ten times last year, typically for two days at a time. Members spend about additional 20 days of the year conducting in camera hearings on complaints against CSIS, and receive relatively modest per diems for their work.
A 2007 Order in Council set the chair’s compensation at between $550 and $650 per day, while other committee members receive $450 per full day of committee work. Under the act, SIRC members also receive reimbursement for travel and accommodation related to their duties.
Former MPs on the committee, like Mr. Strahl and interim chair Deb Grey, are limited to earning $5,000 per year from participating in SIRC, with additional earnings clawed back from their MP pensions.
Former Ontario NDP MPP Frances Lankin, who was appointed to SIRC in 2009 and completed her five-year tenure on the committee last week, told The Hill Times that committee members were supportive of Mr. Strahl continuing to serve as chair of SIRC, despite the coverage of his activities as a lobbyist for Enbridge.
“Every one of us at the meeting… expressed our concern for him personally and his reputation,” she said. “Some people perceived that this could be a conflict of interest, but we saw no conflict of interest.”
Ms. Lankin, who served as minister of Health in the Ontario NDP government of Bob Rae, said that the part-time nature of SIRC appointments puts appointees in the difficult position of balancing outside activities with committee responsibilities.
“The structure is placing people in positions where there may be perceived conflicts of interest, or there may be real conflicts at some point in time,” she said. “It’s not reasonable that people are not able to use their skill sets in ways the integrity commissioner says don’t create a conflict of interest.”
Ms. Lankin said Parliament needs to reconsider what kind of oversight it wants over Canadian intelligence agencies.
“We need to look at that structure alongside the other very important issues that have been raised about how you follow issues across the various security and intelligence agencies with oversight.”
She added that if Mr. Strahl’s activities were problematic, the rules around outside activities should reflect that.
“It’s fair game to have a discussion about part-time and even full-time roles, and what other activities have to be precluded,” she said.
Original Article
Source: hilltimes.com/
Author: CHRIS PLECASH, MARK BURGESS
No comments:
Post a Comment