Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. I do appreciate the work that the committee has done with respect to this motion. However, we cannot support it for the reasons that I'll now provide.
Like Ombud legislation across Canada, subsection 15(1) currently provides that the Ombud's mandate is to investigate any decision or recommendation made or any other act done or not done by government that relates to a matter of administration. Although a matter of administration is not defined in the act, or in other Ombud legislation, a matter of administration could include any practice, procedure, action, or decision that government makes, as it implements or administers its laws and policies.
The court has defined it as conduct engaged in by governmental authorities in furtherance of government policy. However, the motion proposed to amend section 15(1) to provide that the mandate of the Ombud is to investigate any decision or recommendation made or any act done or not done by the government that relates to a matter of administration or, or the implementation of a policy. That gives us some problem. Although the intention of Motion 5 may be to clarify the meaning of a matter of administration, we do not believe this motion accomplishes this by the right number.
For one, we are concerned that the inclusion of this additional phrase will confuse rather than clarify the Ombud's jurisdiction because a decision, recommendation, action, or omission made while implementing policies is an example of a matter of an administration. However, the motion as written, a decision, recommendation, action, or omission that relates to the implementation of a policy is not presented as an example of a matter of administration, but set as an alternative to a matter of administration.
The use of the word "or" appears to indicate that the phrase "implementation of a policy" is something different than a matter of administration. This means consideration must be given to the meaning of the term "policy" in the motion.
An Ombud is supposed to have jurisdiction in relation to administrative matters only, not political decision-making. Our concern is that the addition of the phrase "the implementation of a policy" may have the effect of expanding the Ombud's jurisdiction to include investigation of decision, recommendation, actions, or omissions made or taken in the implementation of public policy decisions.
For those reasons, we do not feel that we can support this motion. Cabinet will be opposing this motion. I'm sorry if I've misidentified it by number. Thank you.