Trust versus transparency
At what point do we substitute trust for transparency?
DOMINIC LEBLANC, the minister responsible for democratic institutions, didn’t talk about “trust” during his appearance before the Procedure and House Affairs Committee yesterday, but it was implicit in the case he made to his fellow MPs.
The committee had summoned LeBlanc and NATHALIE DROUIN, the PM’s national security and intelligence adviser, to explain why the government was redacting or withholding some documents requested by MARIE-JOSÉE HOGUE’s Foreign Interference Commission.
Conservative MP MICHAEL COOPER and New Democrat JENNY KWAN were among the MPs who pushed LeBlanc the hardest to explain why the government wasn’t giving Hogue what she had asked for. (Hogue’s commission has said it is in talks with the government over getting the unredacted documents.)
LeBlanc returned several times to the following points:
1. That Hogue already had everything she needed, in the opinion of the government. The information that had been withheld or redacted wasn’t relevant to the Commission.
(Kwan asked: Shouldn’t Hogue decide for herself which documents are relevant? Neither LeBlanc nor Drouin really refuted this suggestion, but Drouin assured the committee that the government had not withheld any information about a specific “incident” of foreign interference.)
2. The government had already turned over a great deal of sensitive information to the Commission—the sort of stuff that previous governments would have kept under wraps. “No government is going to evacuate cabinet confidence to somebody other than the sitting head of government,” LeBlanc said at one point.
3. Neither the prime minister, nor anyone else on the political side of the government (ministers, staffers) had done any redacting. Only civil servants.
(Cooper had suggested that the prime minister was deciding what information was being withheld, and was therefore in a conflict of interest, because the Commission is examining his government’s actions to counter foreign interference.
LeBlanc said that only civil servants made those decisions. Still, Cooper’s point didn’t entirely miss the mark: civil servants also seek to avoid embarrassing the government.)
4. The House leaders from the opposition parties had agreed to terms of reference for the Foreign Interference Commission, and those terms dictated which documents would be provided to the Commission. Ergo, in LeBlanc’s view, the opposition shouldn’t complain that the government is clinging to secret documents that were not included on that list.
LeBlanc also said that he expected to meet with the Commission’s lawyers again at some point in the next few weeks, as it readies for another round of interviews with government witnesses.
Drouin, the national security adviser, extolled the value of cabinet confidence: that is, allowing ministers and public servants to exchange ideas and advice in secret, thereby producing the best final decisions, and allowing the cabinet to appear unified in those decisions. She even suggested that revealing those exchanges would weaken Canada’s democracy, and thereby play into the hands of Canada’s international adversaries.
We elect politicians and empower public servants to govern us, and provide them with the tools (mostly) needed to do so, including a degree of secrecy. We also know that politicians and public servants are subject to the temptation for self-preservation, like the rest of us.
How far should we trust them to ignore that instinct—in this case, when deciding what Commissioner Hogue does and does not need to see? Where should transparency end, and trust begin?
Your answer may differ from your neighbour’s. We’ll have to stay tuned to find out whether the government yields to Hogue’s request.
Click this link to read the news story:
https://www.hilltimes.com/story/2024/06/21/freedom-from-on-the-hill/426181/
