Information & Ethics committee  I would say it is your decision, because it is the person who has to decide. But if they were aware of all these issues, I would point out the ethical issues. It's not necessarily clear-cut that a relationship a member of the family had at some point will continue in the future, or whatever.

Information & Ethics committee  It was what? Sorry, I missed.... I think the translation missed the last couple of words there. You're positing a case of choices to be made, I think. Maybe you could just say in a nutshell what it is you're asking. I think the translation missed a bit there. I'm sorry.

Information & Ethics committee  I would advise caution. I would advise to go back to the people who are recommending this happen and see what the rationale is, and hesitate. If there's no assurance about something that's important, you wouldn't go ahead.

Information & Ethics committee  I think malice or forethought, or whatever, would be taken into account. Again, I go back to the section that says it's a condition of your employment or appointment. My reports, and I'm sure the current commissioner's reports, spell out the circumstances. It's for people to read.

Information & Ethics committee  I mean that we can't catch them all. That's exactly why I highlighted in my opening remarks that our most important work is to educate, to be available for consultations and to give advice. You know, there are going to be ethical breaches that slip through the cracks, and there always will be, because somebody will not be paying attention.

Information & Ethics committee  I sure hope so. I did the best I could to make a good decision in all my investigations.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes. In my reports, I have quite often commented on how these things happened. I tried to make my reports quite fulsome, explaining the circumstances as they were, so.... I sort of lost the train of the question.

Information & Ethics committee  Well, the test in section 6, for example, is “if the public office holder knows or reasonably should know”. It's not necessarily that they actually know, but if they're willfully blind or something, in other words if they're not paying attention, they reasonably should know, so it's a reasonable man test.

Information & Ethics committee  The Prime Minister is one member of the government. The Prime Minister, I believe, has his heart in the right place, basically. Maybe he's not as careful as he should be, I don't know, but when you look at how the various things have been handled through this pandemic, I thought he did a good job on that and we're in a strange situation right now.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, I did on several occasions, and there were several occasions when they would have started something and they'd let me know that as well, and then I'd have to discontinue.

Information & Ethics committee  I don't know quite what I said at that other committee, but the thing is that there is a rule in the Conflict of Interest Act that your report speaks for itself and you're not supposed to divulge, as an Ethics Commissioner, any information you got in the course of your investigation, or anything outside of what you have put in your report.

Information & Ethics committee  That comment was made in response to a question about the fact that there were three reports that came out, all of which had some sort of connection to the Conflict of Interest Act. Maybe it was a little bit of a flippant remark, but the point I was making is that I feel that the Prime Minister's heart is in the right place, as I said.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, I think so. I don't know. What do I know? I know what I see in the media or whatever. To me we're a pretty good society. I'm proud of being a Canadian.

Information & Ethics committee  Ethics issues are always going to come up. This is a vehicle to deal with them and to try to make things better.

Information & Ethics committee  I'm not sure exactly what you mean, but certainly when I was commissioner, and probably still, we frequently made ourselves available to meet with, for example, ministers' offices or different commissions to discuss the ethics roles. That was a very good exercise because we could discuss where some of the issues were.