HANSARD

Printed and Published by Nova Scotia Hansard Reporting Services

Ms. Maureen MacDonald (Chair)

Mr. Chuck Porter (Vice-Chairman)

Mr. Keith Colwell

In Attendance:

Ms. Mora Stevens

Legislative Committee Clerk

Mr. Gordon Hebb

Chief Legislative Counsel

HALIFAX, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 10, 2007

SUBCOMMITTEE ON PUBLIC ACCOUNTS

8:30 A.M.

CHAIR

Ms. Maureen MacDonald

VICE-CHAIRMAN

Mr. Chuck Porter

MADAM CHAIR: Good morning. I'll call the subcommittee to order. We have several items on our agenda this morning. The subcommittee had put aside the legal opinion that was sought back in September, from Mr. Hebb, to give the new members of the committee an opportunity to look at documents and what have you. That time has now elapsed, so we're bringing forward this matter for recommendation to the Public Accounts Committee. I think that's where we'll start this morning. You have the letter in front of you. I'll just summarize, as I understand.

We had sought the legal opinion because the matters in front of this committee essentially came to a halt in some way, because of the dissolution of the House and the ensuing election. We wanted to seek counsel from Legislative Counsel on how to proceed if the Public Accounts Committee wanted to follow through on the work that it had been doing in the previous session. This is the advice we've received from Legislative Counsel.

Essentially, as I understand it, Mr. Hebb is saying there were two things we were asking him about. First of all that a report had never been written, because of the dissolution of the House and the intervening election, with respect to S&J Potato and Magic Valley. He indicates in this letter that a report could be prepared using the documents.

The other issue that we raised was the fact that points of privilege had been raised in the Legislature with a request that the Speaker rule that the privilege of members of the Public Accounts Committee had been breached by the failure of the fulfilling of the information sought in the warrants that were issued.

So, he speaks to that, as well, in his letter, that points of privilege can still be raised in the various ways that they can be raised, including if they form a piece of a report to the House of Assembly. So, you can read this as well as I can. I'm very interested in hearing what your views are in terms of how we should proceed. I'll start with Mr. Colwell.

MR. KEITH COLWELL: Madam Chair, I think we should proceed with this. I moved a motion earlier that the PC caucus be given a month to review the reams of information that was given to us from S&J Potato Farms and Village Developments Limited. I believe they should have had enough time by now to go through that process. I think I would make a motion that we move forward with the recommendations put forward by Mr. Hebb. We can see if we can bring this matter to a conclusion.

MADAM CHAIR: Further discussion?

MR. CHUCK PORTER: First of all, I thank both members of the committee for allowing us to take some time to review the documentation. The other, I won't be favouring that motion, which is probably not a surprise. There are a couple of reasons. In reading the article, in discussion with our caucus, with the dissolution of the House, we felt that there was a fair bit of discussion prior to. Also, on Mr. Hebb's second point, a point of privilege must be raised at the first opportunity, in our opinion that should have and could have been the first session of the 60^th sitting, which would have been the Fall session. That was not raised. Again, this is Mr. Hebb's opinion. Our caucus is confident in saying that we're comfortable with the discussion that has been had in the past. When the House ended - the dissolution on May 13^th - that this, indeed, was dissolved with it. Thank you.

MADAM CHAIR: I think it's really important to be clear about what the issue is. The issue, and why it's important - perhaps even more so, that's what I would like to say - the issue is that the Public Accounts Committee, within their mandate, was examining the files out of the Office of Economic Development with respect to loans that were approved for these two businesses, S&J Potato Farms and Village Developments Limited. In the course of attempting to have the information that the committee required to do its work, we were stonewalled in getting documents, and many documents were released that were incomplete, that were heavily censored. A subpoena was issued by the Public Accounts Committee, ordering the documents to be provided. That is the issue.

The issue is that the subpoena has not been complied with. It was not only the view of the Public Accounts Committee that the subpoena wasn't complied with, it was, in fact, the view of Legislative Counsel - who we worked very closely with - who concurred that in the view of Legislative Counsel, the advice to this committee was that those subpoenas had not been complied with.

Now, if this committee is to be able to do its work, it needs to have access to information that is in departments of government. That's the issue here. The issue is, what are the implications when a government fails to comply with subpoenas from a Standing Committee of the Legislature acting within its mandate. So, the question for me is the need to pursue this, because this will set a very bad precedent if the departments of government, and if the government itself feels that it doesn't have to provide information to a Standing Committee of the Legislature operating well within their mandate. This is why this is important to proceed with. So, I support the motion. Mr. Colwell, you may want to add more to that.

MR. COLWELL: Yes, I agree, Madam Chair. When we got the documentation, and in the documentation, when it was blanked out "Cabinet confidentiality", and it was a memo between staff members - that's beyond belief, actually. When you looked at the lawyer/client privilege, there's no idea who the lawyer was, no idea who the client was. It really smacked of a major coverup on the whole thing. I was very disappointed with that sort of approach. I can understand in one way, and I'm not protecting the government in any way, don't get me wrong with my statement that I'm going to say here, I can understand where certain things in Cabinet are confidential. Being a former Cabinet Minister, there are certain things that are confidential and could hurt companies. I know as a committee, we did everything we possibly could to ensure that the companies were not hurt in any way, except for the negative publicity that came out of this because of the nature of the grants - they're not loans, they're grants. That I can understand, when the Cabinet Minister comes and says, this I can't discuss because it may cause some problems for the companies.

But when there are memos coming back and forth between staff members about how they're going to handle it with the media, that's definitely not stuff that's Cabinet confidentiality and only a Cabinet Minister, I would think, would be able to have Cabinet confidentiality, or a deputy minister, perhaps, that would be fully informed of what's going on.

So I think this is a blatant misuse of the ability of the committee to do its work. As I say, I moved before that the PC caucus have an opportunity to review the reams and reams of information, and I respect that they've had the opportunity to do that now. Hopefully, this will set a tone that other members of the Public Service will have to come and answer appropriate questions from our committee. Again, appropriate is in minds of different people, different things, but I think it's very important that we move forward

with this and come to some kind of resolution not only for this particular incident, but in the future, that the people of Nova Scotia have the right to know exactly where their tax dollars are being spent and why they're being spent this way and on what. Thank you.

MADAM CHAIR: Good morning, Mr. Hebb. Thank you for joining us.

MR. GORDON HEBB: Sorry, I'm late. There was an elevator problem in my building.

MADAM CHAIR: That's not a problem. We actually started a wee bit early, perhaps we should have been less hasty. For your information, we do have a motion on the floor that a report be prepared based on the - I'm going to sort of word this, and you can help me out here if you think it doesn't reflect your intent, but that a report be prepared based on the transcripts and documents of the former committee's work that the report be submitted to the House of Assembly and that the report include the basis of points of privilege. I think if we do it in that way that we have, I think, a greater possibility of having the matters dealt with, and not dismissed because of the time factor.

MR. HEBB: I can't guarantee that that could not happen in any event. As I say, it's not my decision, it's the Speaker's. But, I think any other approach, in my opinion, would be doomed to failure.

MADAM CHAIR: Yes. I think that is what we will have to do in this case.

MR. PORTER: Just one clarification. The motion probably should read that it's moved to committee for discussion. Is that not correct?

MADAM CHAIR: Yes, of course. This is the motion of the subcommittee, which will then go to the full committee today, yes.

MR. PORTER: It just didn't state that, I guess I just want to be clear that is the . . .

MADAM CHAIR: You're absolutely correct. That's what we'll do.

MR. PORTER: Thank you.

MADAM CHAIR: So, the motion has been moved, and now we'll vote on it. Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

We have on our agenda a discussion of scheduling approved witnesses and setting a subcommittee meeting date. We'll let Mora speak to that.

MS. MORA STEVENS (Legislative Committee Clerk): There are a couple of witnesses that are on the approved list, there are only a couple left. There are a few problems with getting them scheduled quickly. One is the Department of Energy, and OTANS. They're preparing for hearings before the Utility and Review Board, and they are doing some intense work. Every day they have staff assigned to these, so February and March are very bad for them.

MADAM CHAIR: They have requested that we bring them in later on. Agreed? Okay.

MS. STEVENS: Also, the Department of Health, the Corpus Sanchez Report, the deputy - and she's more than willing to come to speak on the process, but until the report is actually made public, she can't speak on the contents of the report. That was supposed to go over to the Office of the Premier either late December or the beginning of January. The report has not been made public yet, so she just wanted to let you know that, but if it's about process, she's more than happy to come.

MADAM CHAIR: I think that was on the NDP list, that was one of the items on our list, and I'd be prepared to - I think the Public Accounts Committee wants to have witnesses in front of us when we have information that we can deal with and not to use the Public Accounts Committee in a way that doesn't serve the public interest, and having the information is important. On behalf of our caucus, I'm prepared to let that go until we have a report.

We have the Auditor General's Report being released later on today. What I would like to propose is that we schedule a subcommittee meeting for sometime next week, and each member of the subcommittee will have an opportunity to confer with their caucus. We'll have a chance to look at the Auditor General's Report, and no doubt there will be matters coming out of that report that we may want to bring forward to the subcommittee, with the subsequent topics we want to cover. How do you feel about that?

MR. COLWELL: Next week, we don't have anything scheduled.

MS. STEVENS: We have Nova Scotia Gaming Corporation.

MR. COLWELL: I think that's a good idea.

MADAM CHAIR: Then that following week, I think we have the Auditor General, or fairly . . .

MS. STEVENS: On his public hearing.

MADAM CHAIR: Yes, that's right.

MR. COLWELL: We have a couple of weeks.

MADAM CHAIR: We have two weeks to do some legwork and give Mora some time to line up some more witnesses.

MR. PORTER: Yes or no to a meeting next week?

MADAM CHAIR: Yes.

MR. PORTER: Is Wednesday okay?

MADAM CHAIR: Wednesday would be fine with me.

MR. PORTER: We're in for caucus anyway. That makes it maybe easier for you.

MS. STEVENS: We have the Nova Scotia Gaming Corporation from 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.

MADAM CHAIR: Sorry. So, maybe 8:30 a.m., would that be okay?

MR. PORTER: I'm good, that would be fine for me.

MADAM CHAIR: Okay, 8:30 a.m. Wednesday morning, perfect.(Interruptions) Anything further?

We stand adjourned. Thank you very much.

[The subcommittee adjourned at 8:43 a.m.]