MPs looking into the federal sponsorship scandal were urged yesterday to use their special powers to examine what politicians did, looking behind the veil of cabinet secrecy to determine whether ministers should be forced to resign, or even whether Prime Minister Paul Martin's Liberal government should fall.
The inquiry by the Commons public accounts committee is the only one that has the power to compel the government to reveal cabinet secrets, giving it the opportunity to place a special focus on "ministerial responsibility" that may be a lesser focus in other investigations, the Law Clerk of the Commons, Rob Walsh, advised the committee.
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Witnesses such as former prime minister Jean Chrétien and former public works minister Alfonso Gagliano could be compelled to appear before the MPs.
The committee will finalize the direction its hearings will take tomorrow, but chairman John Williams, a Conservative MP, said yesterday that Canadians want answers soon about the $250-million sponsorship program.
"We will focus on who failed in their responsibility, who participated in this scandal, was there covering up to this scandal, [and]did anybody do anything when the Auditor-General said every rule in the book was broken," he said.
The committee's hearings are a key part of Mr. Martin's government's strategy to try to deal quickly with the aftermath of the sponsorship program, on which Auditor-General Sheila Fraser issued a scathing report last week, concluding that $100-million was channelled into Liberal-friendly advertising firms.
The Liberals continued to be hit by fallout from the report yesterday as backbencher John Bryden quit the party and denounced the new Prime Minister for his handling of the scandal and his iron grip on the party. Mr. Bryden said the scandal brought doubts about the Liberal Party to the surface and that he will consider running for the Conservatives in the next election.
There are a number of investigations related to the scandal.
A judicial inquiry is to get its terms of reference today. Its mandate will be to determine how the scandal occurred, but will be limited to finding misconduct by responsible parties and will not be able to make findings of criminal or civil responsibility. The RCMP is investigating criminal matters.
The public accounts committee is considered best placed to hold the highest reaches of the government to account, Mr. Walsh said.
Mr. Walsh, the Commons' top legal adviser, advised MPs that other inquiries will delve into criminal wrongdoing or an accounting of "who did what to whom," and told MPs their most important role is to decide what role government ministers played.
"To what extent was the ministry - whether it's the Prime Minister, or this minister, or this former minister, or a collection of ministers, and from them, their staff and perhaps senior government officials - using their political authority, ministerial authority, to cause a circumvention of the usual rules or to cause a violation of the law?"
The committee should determine whether it has lost confidence in the government or individual ministers, something the public inquiry can't explore, Mr. Walsh told the committee.
Such a probe would hinge on the question of whether ministers, such as Mr. Gagliano and his deputy, interfered with the public service.
Mr. Walsh suggested former ministers and prime ministers such as Mr. Chrétien could be called to appear. Mr. Martin has already said he would testify.
Mr. Walsh said he advised MPs to take great care not to press witnesses on areas that could be part of a criminal investigation, but he said that the parliamentary committee could respond to the public's demand for immediate action by calling witnesses quickly to give their version of events, without cross-examination.
That could intensify the spotlight on the scandal, but it could also provide Mr. Martin's government with a chance to show that action is being taken , and perhaps blunt the worst criticisms of inaction, before an election.
Mr. Martin's government is still hoping it can reverse the sharp decline in polls that saw it drop 14 percentage points, to 35 per cent, in a month, in time to call a spring election.
But if MPs follow Mr. Walsh's advice, they might zero in uncomfortably on Liberal ministers, looking for lapses that could cause MPs to recommend to the full Commons that ministers, or even the whole government, no longer has the confidence of the Commons. A government without the confidence of the Commons must resign.
Mr. Walsh said that the committee does not have to determine whether politicians broke the law, only whether they acted properly and should retain the confidence of the Commons, and if not, be forced out. The committee could recommend action to the whole House of Commons.
The committee was warned that its hearings could also inadvertently damage the RCMP investigation into criminal wrongdoing. Not only can information revealed in the hearings not be used in a criminal investigation; the police would have to show that evidence they use was not obtained because of parliamentary testimony.
At the same time, Treasury Board president Reg Alcock offered a form of whistle-blowing protection to civil servants who testify on improper government conduct, pledging they will not have to fear for their jobs because of their testimony. Mr. Alcock said the government will offer the same guarantees that would be in effect if Canada had whistleblower-protection legislation.
Campbell Clark