FINA Committee Meeting
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Standing Committee on Finance
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EVIDENCE
Tuesday, May 2, 2023
[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
[English]
I call this meeting to order.
Welcome to meeting number 87 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance.
Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Thursday, April 20, 2023, the committee is meeting to discuss the subject matter of Bill C-47, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 28, 2023, as well as divisions 10 to 31, 35, 36, 38 and 39.
Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the House order of June 23, 2022. Members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application.
I'd like to make a few comments for the benefit of the witnesses and members.
Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. For those participating by video conference, click on the microphone icon to activate your mike, and please mute it when you are not speaking.
For interpretation for those on Zoom, there is a choice at the bottom of your screen of floor, English or French. For those in the room, you can use the earpiece and select the desired channel. As a reminder, all comments should be addressed through the chair.
For members in the room, if you wish to speak, please raise your hand. For members on Zoom, please use the “raise hand” function. The clerk and I will manage the speaking order as best we can, and we appreciate your patience and understanding in this regard.
I'd now like to welcome our witnesses. With us today, we have 14 departments and 48 officials. Due to the limited time, I won't be recognizing all of you by name, but on behalf of the committee and in advance of the many questions you will be answering as best you can, we want to thank you. Thank you for your work on the budget. Thank you for being before us for this committee meeting and for this study.
When answering questions, please commence with your name, department and title.
I understand that Mr. Graeme Hamilton will be making some quick opening remarks, and then we will commence with a round of questions from the members.
Members, please note that some of the witnesses are in the adjacent room with a simultaneous audio and video feed. Please be mindful when posing your questions to give them a chance to arrive in our room. The clerk and I will take the time to do that into consideration when calculating your allotted time for asking questions.
We will also leave a seat open—I believe it's number 22—here at our table for anybody entering the room or coming from the back and joining us at the table to answer questions.
Mr. Hamilton is going to make his opening remarks.
I see a hand up. Go ahead MP Ste-Marie.
[Translation]
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good morning.
I have a quick point of order. A few weeks ago, the Department of Finance officials pledged to provide the committee with a detailed list of planned expenditures for the $80 billion in green economy and transition funding. I'd like to follow up with the department on that. The clerk also followed up.
The information is especially important since Bill C‑47 introduces mechanisms that put the money beyond Parliament's control. That's why we need the information before we vote on Bill C‑47.
Mr. Chair, I'd also like to know whether we have a date scheduled for the Minister of Finance's appearance on Bill C‑47.
[English]
Yes. I'll speak to both.
It would certainly be helpful to try to get any information that Gabriel needs.
With regard to the ministerial appearance, we haven't selected a specific day, but the minister has committed to appearing prior to the 18th. We're just trying to get a finalized time.
Okay. Thank you, PS Beech.
Thank you, MP Ste-Marie.
I have looked to the clerk. We have made the request, and we will ensure that the request is followed up on.
Now we're going to Mr. Hamilton for some opening remarks, please.
First off, I'd like to say good morning to the members of this committee and to my colleagues from across the Government of Canada.
I am Graeme Hamilton, director general of traveller, commercial and trade policy at the Canada Border Services Agency.
I'd like to thank all of you for inviting this diverse group of people to come and answer your questions. We're here to answer to the best of our ability any questions you may have on our particular measures contained within the BIA, which is in front of you.
With that, I'll turn it over to you for any questions you may have.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much for those opening remarks, Mr. Hamilton.
We have many officials here with us. I know members will have many questions.
We're going right into the question rounds.
In the first round, each party will have up to six minutes to ask questions, pausing of course if there is any transition time with the witnesses.
We are starting with the Conservatives. I have MP Chambers up for six minutes, please.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Welcome, everyone.
I have questions for Mrs. Thomas. If she's not at the table, I'll give some time for her to come in.
Thank you for all of your hard work on the budget. It takes a lot of effort to do that.
This is my first opportunity to mark the passing of Gordon Lightfoot, who was a resident.... He was born and raised in Orillia, Ontario. He was a Canadian music legend. He is to Canadian music what the Group of Seven is to art. I'm sure we'll do tributes to him in the House later today.
Thank you, Mrs. Thomas, for being here. I have some questions about operating costs and people.
I'm curious how many individuals will be hired as a result of the measures in the first budget bill.
Thank you for the question.
I'm Nicole Thomas, executive director in the financial management sector at Treasury Board Secretariat.
There is no new funding being requested to implement this measure. As it relates largely to streamlining processes and introducing flexibilities, implementation of the amendments is not expected to require any additional FTEs.
Thank you.
Last year when we asked the question, they said it was a Treasury Board question. We didn't have anyone from Treasury Board at our hearings last year.
We care about this because, one, we're in a very tight labour market, and two, we've seen significant growth in the public service. Both the Parliamentary Budget Officer and the Auditor General have expressed concerns about the lack of a fulsome human resource management people plan across departments.
I think every project or new fund that gets created has some kind of operating cost. If you would take some of these questions back, it would be very helpful for us as we deliberate.
Thank you for your time.
I'll move to those here who know a bit about the dental care plan. I have a couple of questions.
Thank you very much. Please introduce yourself.
Good morning. I'm Lindy VanAmburg. I'm the director general responsible for policy and program design around the dental care commitments the government has made at Health Canada.
Thank you.
We see a $13-billion cost over five years. I think that's projected for the plan. I'm curious, and I think some of my colleagues are. Does that number include an assumption made for the uploading of individuals who are currently covered today but who may not be covered in the future?
I'll explain, just so we're clear. We are already seeing private sector employers carving out individuals who could be covered by the federal plan but who are already covered by the private plan.
I'm curious about whether you're making an assumption that individuals will have their plans uploaded to the federal government, whether it be from the provincial government or from the private sector.
The estimate included in the budget measures—the $13 billion over five years—is based on our current best estimates of Canadians who are within the income threshold, which is a family income below $90,000 a year, and who are currently uninsured.
The estimate is for what we would call “displacement”, which is additional money that would come to the government if somebody didn't maintain their current plan. However, I would say the measure included here that would compel employers to report whether they offer coverage or not is in part intended to make sure that we can track who currently has insurance and who doesn't.
If someone has coverage today and their employer carves them out the following year, will they not be covered by the federal plan?
It's possible that this number could actually increase substantially as private sector individuals and provinces.... In fact, I've seen a couple of instances where provinces are no longer covering certain individuals who fall in the eligibility category.
We've only been able to estimate based on who we know now is eligible. It's something we'll watch carefully as things change over time, if they do.
No, I don't have it with me. There are certain measures within that amount that would be costed out for Health Canada's component of it. There will be others. You will see, in this part of the bill that relates to employer reporting, that Service Canada will be helping us with enrolment and eligibility. We'll be relying on data from the Canada Revenue Agency, so we would expect there to be some cost there. In addition, we will be relying on the assistance of the third party benefits administrator, and there will be operating costs there.
Some of those elements are still being worked through to understand exactly what the cost will be. We don't have a firm estimate at this time. There are broad estimates included in the amount that was provided.
MP Chambers, you still have an extra minute. You're good? Thank you.
We're going to the Liberals and MP MacDonald for six minutes, please.
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses who are here today.
I want to talk a bit about division 13, which amends the Canada pension plan to allow the Minister of National Revenue to make available information to the Minister of Employment and Social Development.
What types of information is the Minister of National Revenue currently sharing with the Minister of Employment and Social Development?
This is Neal Leblanc. I'm the director of CPP policy and legislation at Employment and Social Development Canada.
At the moment, the information being collected by the Minister of National Revenue and shared for the purposes of the Canada pension plan is only the data necessary to calculate benefits. It's effectively information related specifically to pensionable earnings to CPP and contributions, in addition to some very basic demographic information.
The goal of this is to put us back where we had been in the past when we had access to data that allowed us to see a more fulsome picture of Canadians to get an idea, for instance, of how much the Canada pension plan represents of that person's total income in retirement.
It would put us in the same position that the old age security pension program and employment insurance employment program are in, in terms of being able to use other data collected by CRA in order to do program evaluation and policy work.
Mr. Leblanc, you said that basically this was done previously but now you want to go back to it. Are there new types of information?
No. Specifically what's happened here is that this is a clarification to the legislation that we were asked to make by the Canada Revenue Agency.
We used to have access to this data. They had since determined that the wording in the legislation could be interpreted that we did not. The intent of this is to make it explicit that we do have access to this data for these specific purposes.
[Translation]
[English]
[Translation]
[English]
Mr. Leblanc, we're having some difficulty with your sound for the interpreters. I think it's pretty clear, but maybe you could speak more slowly. That may help.
For all the witnesses and members, at the last meeting we had at this committee, we were having trouble with feedback that was coming back between the earpiece and the mikes, so just keep any devices you may have with you away from each other and away from the mikes.
Maybe we can try Mr. Leblanc just to see if speaking slowly works.
Go ahead.
My apologies. I will endeavour to speak somewhat more slowly.
As I said, the reason for this legislative change is essentially to clarify the legislation and to restore us to a point where we had been in the past. It was requested by the Canada Revenue Agency, because they had determined that the current wording did not allow access to this data we had been using—I'll say as recently as 10 years ago—for these purposes. It was a matter of wanting to make explicit that this data could be used in this way, as is the case for both employment insurance and the old age security program.
Having more data will allow us to ensure that the program is more responsive to the needs of Canadians. At the same time, the legislation and amendment formulas for the CPP make it very challenging to change. We need the formal approval of seven provinces to make any changes to benefits in addition to an act of Parliament.
Based on that, this is purely a matter of being better informed and having that extra information to provide better advice to ministers who will be making potential decisions about ways to adapt the program.
That's perfect. I'm going to change course a bit.
The BIA strengthens our air passenger protections regime to make the process more efficient and to ensure passengers receive compensation from airlines.
Can someone describe the ways these changes will disincentivize airlines from pursuing cases at the CTA instead of settling with passengers?
Good morning. My name is Colin Stacey. I'm the director general of air policy at Transport Canada. I'm very pleased to answer that question.
The changes in Bill C-47 will have a significant impact on how the air passenger protection regulations are administered, in a couple of ways.
To begin with, they are changing the onus: placing more onus on the air carriers themselves. The way they're doing this is.... Currently in the regulations, there are different categories. There are three categories of incident, two of which allow the air carriers to not provide compensation in instances where there are significant delays or cancellations. Those would be where the carrier interprets that an incident is not within its control or where the carrier interprets that an incident is due to safety.
Those categories will disappear, and instead there will be more onus on the carriers themselves to provide compensation in all incidents, except for those incidents that are deemed to be exceptional. A specific list will be articulated in the regulations themselves. As a result of that, to begin with, there will be fewer complaints.
In addition, the legislation will require that the air carriers cover the costs of complaints that go forward, and that are within scope to go forward, to the Canadian Transportation Agency. Once again, that will provide an additional incentive for the carriers to address complaints directly with passengers before they get passed over to the Canadian Transportation Agency. On top of that, I note there will be a specific timeline required for the air carriers to address those complaints with passengers.
Those are various ways in which we would expect there to be fewer complaints. Beyond that, I note there will also be an improvement in the process so that those complaints will be addressed more quickly.
[Translation]
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good morning to all the senior officials joining us in person and remotely. We really appreciate the work you do.
My first questions are for the Privy Council officials in relation to division 31 of Bill C‑47.
Basically, division 31—
[English]
[Translation]
[English]
[Translation]
[English]
Okay. We're good. The members are good.
MP Ste-Marie, you're coming through clearly. Thank you.
You can start now. We did pause your time. Go ahead.
[Translation]
Thank you. That's very generous.
My question is for the Privy Council officials. Division 31 pertains to the Royal Style and Titles Act. Frankly, I was very surprised to come across the following in section 2 of the proposed act, at clause 510 of the bill, near the end of a hundred-plus-page document:
Charles the Third, by the Grace of God King of Canada and His other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth.
It's the royal proclamation under the Great Seal.
What is that doing hidden at the end of a budget implementation bill? Is it a way to conceal a huge change in the system?
I've often asked my fellow committee members whether this was hidden at the end of a budget implementation bill last time.
My name is Joël Girouard, and I am a senior Privy Council officer.
I'm not sure how it was laid out in the 1953 bill, but this is an administrative provision. Ideally, it would be passed close to the date of the King's coronation, May 6. That's partially why the choice was made. It was the right time to introduce the legislation, and this is an administrative measure, in our view.
Thank you for your answer.
In our two previous meetings, I asked senior finance officials to provide a written response to this next question, and I'm going to ask you the same one. The last time, was this part of a budget implementation bill or another bill?
I can't see why it's not part of another bill, so it can be voted on separately, if not for political reasons. Do you have any other information you can share with us about that?
As you know, the department doesn't bring forward bills. That said, we felt it was acceptable to include this measure in the budget implementation bill because it was administrative.
As I see it, this is much more than an administrative measure because it makes Charles III the King of Canada.
Obviously, then, I look forward to your written response as to how this was done the last time.
My next questions are about employment insurance, or EI, so they're for the senior officials from the Department of Employment and Social Development.
[English]
MP Ste-Marie, we have paused the time again as the witnesses come to the table.
Mr. Leblanc, who was with us virtually, will no longer be able to participate due to the quality of the sound and the effect on the interpreters.
You may commence.
[Translation]
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The Bloc Québécois has been asking the government to absorb the EI account deficit accumulated during the pandemic, as it did for all the sectors of the economy. The government doesn't seem to be doing that, however.
The bill doesn't include any changes to bring balance to the EI account, despite the rule that the account be balanced over seven years. That means workers' and employers' premiums will have to cover the $17‑billion deficit. Do I have that right?
Crediting the EI operating account to absorb the pandemic-related expenditures would require legislation.
I also want to mention that the premium rate is $1.63. The EI chief actuary's latest forecast puts the seven-year break-even rate at $1.73. That forecast will be repeated this summer, and a new report will be released in September. That will give us a better estimate of the premium rate for 2024 and the rate required to balance the operating account.
That's very clear.
I want to stay on the topic of EI, but I'm not sure whether my next question is directly tied to the changes proposed in Bill C‑47.
Last Wednesday, the spokesperson for the Conseil national des chômeurs et chômeuses met with senior Service Canada officials, including senior assistant deputy minister Tammy Bélanger. The department confirmed that, for privacy reasons, it would no longer provide information on the files of claimants represented by organizations assisting unemployed workers. That is an assault on the primary mission groups like these have taken on, which is to support and represent workers. What's more, it severely limits people's access to justice.
Does Bill C‑47 change things? The Privacy Act is not new legislation, so what is the reason behind the decision? On top of it, these claimants duly sign a form appointing their representative. Do you no longer recognize those consent forms? How do you explain the change?
[English]
[Translation]
I think we'll have to take note of your question and get back to you with an answer, because that doesn't fall under our purview.
Yes, you can get back to the committee with a written answer. We would appreciate that. Thank you.
Thank you again.
[English]
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I'm curious with respect to division 22(d), which has to do with rail interswitching. Why is the government considering a pilot for interswitching at this time to increase the interswitching distance?
I'm Tamara Rudge. I'm the director general for surface transportation policy at Transport Canada.
Currently, regulated interswitching is at 30 kilometres. That provides shippers with a radius from the interchange point with guaranteed access to another carrier at a rate regulated by the Canadian Transportation Agency without an application. This means it's easy to use and they have cost certainty. Also, shippers indicate that it provides meaningful leverage when they're negotiating contracts with the railways.
We have another piece called long-haul interswitching. That was introduced in 2018 as a competitive option for shippers outside of that 30 kilometres. This measure hasn't been used. There have been concerns from shippers about the measure, because you have to apply to the agency, so you have uncertainty as you apply and they will determine the cost. Then you have to take that once you've applied. It doesn't give them the same type of leverage as the normal interswitching does.
During the work of the supply chain task force, they put forward a recommendation on interswitching to extend the distance. Therefore, in the budget implementation act we are mimicking an approach that was taken from 2014 to 2017 to increase the limit to 160 kilometres for a pilot of 18 months to gather more data.
When that longer interswitching distance was in place, as you said, for about three years, from 2014 to 2017, there was another task force, under David Emerson, that looked at that and recommended that the practice be terminated. What has changed between 2017 and now such that the government, which was prepared to and did in fact put an end to that practice, thinks it would be advisable to do the same thing again? What results do you think you'll get that you didn't get between 2014 and 2017?
The Emerson report was completed at the end of 2015. The previous measure had not been in place that long, so when the Emerson task force made their recommendations, they didn't have the full information. In fact, for that previous measure, there was an uptake over the three years of those using the extended interswitching measure. This time—
If I could just intervene, my understanding is that uptake largely meant a lot more freight was being moved by the BNSF in the United States along the southern edge of the Canada-U.S. border, and it resulted in a loss of work for folks at railways like CN and CP. Has the department conducted any kind of analysis in terms of what they think the employment impact will be for Canadian rail workers?
From 2014 to 2017, less than 1% of traffic in the Prairies actually used extended interswitching. At the time—and we're going to collect more data under this pilot—I don't think we had evidence of that. This time we will be getting information from the railways and from shippers during the pilot so the government can do a full assessment of the impacts, such as whether there is an impact on employment.
You should be aware that I've heard from railways and I've heard from railway unions. Their impression is that it did cause a loss of work for folks who worked at Canada's major railways and that the organization that benefited most was an American railway. You can take that as feedback into the department, and I would encourage the department to ask those questions and to get that information during the course of this pilot.
Absolutely. I think we will also be looking at the impacts on employment of the shippers and whether they were able to ship more of what forestry or agriculture was able to grow.
Well, maybe they will get better contracts so that grain can be shipped differently, or better access, which helps.
This is a measure that shippers say is very important for their businesses to grow. It's not limited to just grain. It is all commodities. Last time, there were different industries that used it, such as chemicals. We know that forest products have been interested in this also.
Could you provide the committee with a list of industry associations or companies that, in the course of the consultation that went into preparing this measure, have asked for the increased interswitching distance?
Thank you.
For the officials from ESDC, I wanted to confirm the sections of the act that pertain to the employment insurance board of appeal.
We have a bill currently before Parliament that institutes changes to that appeal mechanism. Are these provisions identical to the separate bill that's currently before the House?
[Translation]
Thank you, MP Blaikie. That's the time.
Witnesses and members, we are moving into our second round of questions. The timing is a little different in this round.
We'll be starting with the Conservatives, and that's for five minutes.
I have MP Lawrence.
Thanks very much, Mr. Chair.
I was hoping to talk to the Privy Council. If Mr. Girouard could join us, that would be terrific.
Thank you very much, sir.
I have some questions with respect to our great public officials, and I do mean great.
I thank you all for being here. I know you work very hard.
If you don't have the answers right now, that's fine. You can provide them in writing.
For transparency, what is the total cost per civil servant right now? That means their salary, equipment and computer. What is the cost per civil servant?
Is there perhaps an official that the question could be better directed to? I'm here on behalf of the Privy Council Office for the Royal Style and Titles Act.
No worries.
As I said, I don't need the answer today. If we could get it in writing, that would be great.
Good morning. Thank you for the question.
This is Nicole Thomas, executive director within the financial management sector at Treasury Board Secretariat.
That question is outside of the area of my responsibility, but I'd be happy to take it to officials.
I have another question for you. This might be outside of your scope, but I would appreciate if you could take it back and provide an answer in writing.
What's the impact of the recent settlement with respect to PSAC on the debt, the deficit and government spending?
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to start more with a comment about this particular budget. Part 4 in particular has 39 divisions. Each division in and of itself could be an independent piece of legislation.
Going through this is really overwhelming. For example, the part about division 24—the Customs Act and Quarantine Act—just in the Q and A is 21 pages long.
I'm not sure I'm really clear on how we as a finance committee can give proper scrutiny to something like this. I'm not the only one who feels this way when it comes to this sort of omnibus legislation. For example, in 2013, the current Prime Minister said that he was upset with the prior government doing this exact sort of thing. He said, “omnibus bills...prevent Parliament from properly reviewing and debating his proposals. We will...bring an end to this undemocratic practice.”
On omnibus bills, he went on to say, “I wouldn't use them.” This is in 2013. “There will always be big bills, but they need to be thematically and substantively linked in all their different pieces so that they form a piece of legislation. The kitchen-sink approach here is a real worry to me.”
I'm wondering how this happens. The Government of Canada's website defines what a budget is: “The Budget is a blueprint for how the Government wants to set the annual economic agenda for Canada.” However, in division 4 there are provisions on refugees. I'm sure a lot of these are laudable goals. I'm not criticizing the legislation itself, but we see the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the Yukon Act, the Marine Liability Act, the Wrecked, Abandoned or Hazardous Vessels Act, passenger air rights, the National Research Council Act, the Patent Act, and cosmetic testing on animals, which I'm sure is a very laudable goal. I'm not sure what it's doing, though, in a budget implementation bill.
Do you see my problem?
I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.
I think the questions the honourable member has are very important. I think it is very important for us to be responding to why we're putting certain elements into a bill. I think all the questions being asked are super important.
I do not believe, though, that they are questions for our civil servants, who are here to answer technical questions on each of the items. I think they should be reserved for our minister when she comes.
Okay, MP Morantz.
We'll go over to MP Chatel for five minutes, please.
I do pause the time, members, when there is a transition with witnesses. Also, I'm going to ask witnesses to make sure that your voices are heard through the mikes and to make sure the mikes are well positioned so members can hear you.
Go ahead, MP Chatel.
[Translation]
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Brimmell, I have questions about division 11 of the bill.
As we speak, my community and many others in Quebec are experiencing the effects of the climate crisis yet again. Many areas have been flooded. Unfortunately, two firefighters are even missing in Charlesvoix. The climate crisis is having tremendous repercussions, and we are feeling them more and more.
I'm glad to see the government has addressed the crisis in the budget, even proposing to make Montreal the host city to the new NATO Climate Change and Security Centre of Excellence. When we were hit by floods in 2017 and 2019, the armed forces had to be deployed to the Outaouais. The armed forces and NATO are paying more and more attention to climate change security. With this NATO centre being set up in Montreal, how will Canada benefit?
Thank you. I am Blair Brimmell, head of the climate and security policy section at Global Affairs Canada. I am also the acting director for this new NATO Climate Change and Security Centre of Excellence.
Canada will benefit from this new centre of excellence in many ways. The centre will help Canada, its allies and international partners better understand all the ways that climate change will impact our security interests.
The centre's work is meant to help Canada and its allies come up with policies and measures so that armed forces can better adapt to a security environment affected by climate change. The centre will also be a way for Canada to identify best practices and share information with international partners.
Lastly, the centre of excellence will help Canada and its allies find ways that armed and security forces can reduce their climate impact and greenhouse gas emissions. This will address the global necessity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
I am very glad that Montreal will be the host city for this important NATO centre. May our leadership of this very important mission Canada has taken on meet with every success. Great work.
Now, I'm going to turn to you, Mr. Turcot, to discuss division 25 of the bill. Much has been said about Canada lagging behind when it comes to business productivity and innovation. The budget contains additional funding for the National Research Council of Canada. Can you give us concrete examples of how this funding will stimulate business innovation and productivity, especially among small and medium-sized businesses? How will the research council be able to help them?
[English]
It's a great question, but we're almost at the end of the time, so maybe give one example really quickly, please.
[Translation]
Thank you very much. My name is Marcel Turcot, and I am the director general of policy at the National Research Council of Canada, or NRC.
The NRC provides small and medium-sized businesses with access to centres, plants and other infrastructure. These are facilities they could not build themselves. The NRC provides businesses with expertise they wouldn't otherwise have. They're able to test out new products and grow their research and development knowledge to improve goods and services processes for Canada.
[English]
[Translation]
Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question is about division 36 of the bill, so it's for the environment officials. Are they already with us?
[English]
They are making their way to the table right now. We will pause the time for that transition.
The floor is yours. Go ahead.
[Translation]
Thank you.
Currently, the carbon tax that big polluters pay is used to fund green projects in the province where it was collected. If the oil companies don't have any green projects, they lose the money at the end of the year. It's a bit like the infrastructure money for municipalities: if the work isn't carried out by the end of the year, they lose the money.
If Bill C‑47 is passed, division 36 will make it possible to put the money aside for future use. That could incentivize oil companies to take their time, so they would be in no rush. Do I understand the division correctly?
[English]
My name is Paola Mellow. I'm the executive director of the low-carbon fuels division at Environment and Climate Change Canada.
If I understood your question correctly, it was with respect to carbon pricing.
What we are talking about here today is an amendment to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. Carbon pricing is not associated with that act. We are speaking about the clean fuel regulations. These regulations impose a life-cycle carbon intensity reduction requirement on fossil fuel producers and importers in Canada, like, for example, refineries.
Basically this change enables a compliance fund mechanism. What that means is that regulated parties—for example, refineries—will be required to come into compliance with their obligations every year. If they choose to come into compliance with 10% of their annual obligation through contributions to the fund, they will need to do that in their compliance year. The fund will then have five years to deliver real short-term reductions with those funds.
[Translation]
I'm going to stay on the same topic. If division 36 of Bill C‑47 is not passed, what will happen to those refineries and oil companies?
[English]
There is a suite of compliance options underneath this regulation. As I stated, the option to comply through investment into the compliance fund mechanism is only 10% at most in a year. The regulation itself is based on a credit market. Regulated parties, such as refineries, need to retire credits equal to their debits at the end of every compliance year. Those credits can be created in a suite of ways.
There are generally three credit creation categories we talk about. The first one is GHG reduction projects along the life cycle of fossil fuels, like, for example, carbon capture and storage at a refinery. We also talk about a second credit creation category, which is low-carbon-intensity fuels, such as blending gasoline with ethanol. A third credit creation category is advanced vehicle technologies, such as EV fleets.
A regulated party needs to retire credits equal to their obligation each year. They can generate credits by taking actions in the three compliance categories I discussed. They can also purchase credits from other credit creators—that could be regulated parties or voluntary parties—or they could make use of compliance flexibility, such as, for example, this compliance fund.
[Translation]
[English]
Thank you very much.
My question is in respect of division 16 in part 4. It would amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act “to provide that a claim for refugee protection made by a person inside Canada must be made in person and, with regard to a claim made by the person other than at a port of entry, that the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration may specify the documents and information to be provided and the form and manner in which they are to be provided.”
I know that recently the government adopted the Conservative position on the safe third country agreement and that the implementation of that agreement will change substantially as a result. I'm curious to know whether these changes are tied to that in any way. How will the interaction between what's being proposed here and the safe third country agreement happen?
We're just in the middle of a transition here. I believe Mr. Chan is here to answer your question.
Perhaps you can introduce yourself and the department, and answer the member's question.
Good afternoon. I'm David Chan, acting director of asylum policy at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.
What these amendments bring is not really related to the safe third country agreement. The amendments we're putting forward are in relation to the practice of online claims that were introduced during the pandemic. We weren't able to do these processes in person, so we allowed claimants to file their claims online.
With the pandemic behind us, we're looking to formalize this arrangement because it has provided enormous benefits to case processing for claimants to be able to access their claims online, and for a more seamless data transfer among departments that are involved in claim processing.
That's really the main focus of the amendments under division 16.
When this amendment says that folks will have to apply in person, that's in addition to applying online. The idea is that they will do an online application, but they won't count as having applied until they appear in person. It's more like an in-person component. It's not like the entire application is done in person. Am I understanding that properly?
You're correct that the amendments will more formally introduce an in-person requirement. As you can imagine, prior to the pandemic the process by which a claimant would make a claim was always done in person. It was never necessary to put that in law.
Now that we're embracing the online mechanism, we need to be more clear in law to say that a claim is not considered made from the perspective of the law until the claimant meets with an officer to verify some of the integrity requirements from the IRCC's perspective. It's just for collecting their documents. It's just for verification that they're in fact in Canada, because that's a fundamental principle of why we provide protection to claimants.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Just picking up where I left off, there are a few other legislative initiatives within part 4, like attempts to solve issues with Canada Post parcels being stolen—and I'm not sure what that has to do with a budget—and establishing the employment insurance appeal board.
I guess my point is that a few years ago I thought there was a lesson learned. A few years ago, in the budget implementation bill, there was a section that amended the Criminal Code to allow for deferred prosecution agreements. That initiative led to a major scandal that resulted in the dismissal of the first indigenous attorney general in the history of Canada.
When I see these kinds of bills, I worry, because there's just so much in them. I know the government wants to get their bill passed, and there's pressure to get it done.
I'm wondering if anyone can answer this question. Are there any changes in Bill C-47 that would benefit any one particular company? Can anyone here answer that? You don't know. There might be. There's a lot of silence around the table.
Okay, I'll go on to something else, but I think that non-response speaks volumes.
I want to ask a question about SEMA and the Magnitsky act. Is there someone here who can take that up?
Specifically, my question has to do with the prior changes. The briefing notes say:
In response to Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine...Canada implemented legislative changes to both SEMA and JVCFOA to authorize the Minister of Foreign Affairs to seek forfeiture of seized assets. The forfeited funds can be used in support of reconstruction of a foreign State, to restore international peace and security, and/or as compensation to victims.
I'm just wondering what action has happened under that section since it was implemented. What's the value of assets seized to date? Have any of these monies been allocated to reconstruction or as compensation to victims?
My name is Marie-Josée Langlois. I'm the director general for the strategic policy branch at Global Affairs Canada.
Thank you for your question on the sanctions and the seizure and forfeiture clauses that were passed last summer.
As you know, those clauses were passed last summer. In December, the government announced a first seizure of $26 million, which is believed to be related to Roman Abramovich.
The departments are working together on gathering information and following due process. The clauses bring into place a multistep process. Once seizures are done of assets related to listed persons, we work together to develop the evidentiary package and find the information to support an application. The second step is an application to the superior court of the province in which the assets are found. From there, depending on the decision of the court, the disposal of the proceeds will follow the act.
In terms of the first assets, we're still working on those steps.
The RCMP lists the amounts that were frozen, because as soon as sanctions come into force, amounts are frozen. Canadians can no longer deal with listed people. The RCMP has a website that provides the amounts that were frozen, which is updated regularly.
The first seizure was of $26 million in funds.
When I was on the foreign affairs committee, we spent a lot of time talking about the sanctions, of course, especially once the invasion took place.
Do you think the particular legislative changes outlined in division 10 should be studied at the foreign affairs committee, as opposed to the finance committee?
I know the foreign affairs committee talks about sanctions quite a bit, as you've noted. There's been a decision by them recently saying that they would like to look at sanctions issues.
The Senate committee is also looking at the sanctions legislation, with a report that will soon be forthcoming.
Thanks very much, Chair.
I'd like to start by thanking everybody for being here.
Usually, I like to ask questions of every witness on the panel. You'll forgive me if I don't do that today, but I want to sincerely thank you for all your work in preparing the BIA and for your work on behalf of Canadians every day. Thank you for being with us here today to share your knowledge.
What I want to do is come back to Ms. Langlois, if I could, on the topic that was being discussed previously on the seizure of assets.
Could you speak briefly to what the desired impact is of the measure whereby the Canadian government can not only sanction and freeze those assets, but actually seize them and use them for the reconstruction of Ukraine? What's the intended impact?
At the heart of the sanctions application, including the seizure and forfeiture parts of it, is an intention to change behaviour, to hold people to account in terms of respecting international norms and rules, and to advocate for key issues for Canada. An example is the protection of human rights and addressing significant corruption.
In the context of Russia's genocidal war on Ukraine, what are some of the desired changes in behaviour that we are hoping to see as a result of the measures you've just spoken about?
In terms of the sanctions that have been imposed to date in the context of Russia, as you can see, a number of measures have been imposed. There are dealings bans on Canadians. There are also services measures and measures related to goods.
Basically, we want to send the signal that the situation is not acceptable, and that those who try to benefit from or support that situation cannot use the Canadian financial system and cannot use Canadians to enrich themselves or support or contribute to what's going on right now.
I represent a community called Etobicoke Centre, which is a suburban community that borders Pearson airport in Toronto. It brings joy to me every time I drive up Highway 427, which is adjacent to Pearson airport, because I see a big cargo plane with a big Russian flag parked there. I don't know if it was strategically planned that way, but I really appreciate that they parked the plane in such a way that it has maximum visibility. My understanding is that it's been parked there since late February of last year, shortly after Russia's further invasion of Ukraine.
My understanding is that it is subject to sanctions. In other words, it cannot be moved. I believe that was initially because of transport regulations.
Are you able to speak to that particular plane and what the Government of Canada's intent is with regard to that plane?
Last year, in February, as you noted, the Department of Transport had a no-fly measure for planes of Russian origin. That's why the plane is at Pearson airport. On April 11, the government announced sanctions on the Volga-Dnepr Group, which is believed to be the owner of that aircraft. That aircraft is now frozen, as are the assets of anyone who is on the list of sanctioned individuals and persons.
In terms of future plans, I cannot address that.
My hope is we freeze, seize and sell as many of the assets as possible of those linked in any way with supporting Russia's war in Ukraine. I think it would have the impact of getting the behaviour we need to see, as you suggested earlier, by imposing costs on the Russian state, on Vladimir Putin and on his regime. I think the more costs are imposed, the more likely it is that Russia will eventually have to withdraw from Ukraine and stop perpetrating the human rights abuses it perpetrates every day against the Ukrainian people.
Not only that, but it's really important that we.... I believe we should impose the harshest sanctions possible. These measures are part of that.
I thank you for the work you've done thus far. I encourage you and your colleagues to do as much as you possibly can as quickly as you possibly can. It's not just because lives are at stake in Ukraine or Ukrainian sovereignty is at stake. I think Ukraine winning this war is in Canada's interests, for our security and the quality of life we enjoy here in Canada. I think we need to do everything we can so Ukraine wins. When Ukraine wins, we will all win.
I thank you for that work and I encourage you to keep moving forward.
Thank you, MP Baker and Ms. Langlois.
I border MP Baker's riding and drive up Highway 427, and I have to say that it does give me a great deal of glee to look at that plane parked there and to know that sanctions have stopped it from moving. Hopefully it can be sold to help with Ukraine.
We're on to round three of questions.
I have MP Chambers for five minutes for the Conservatives, please.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to talk about the EI changes, specifically for workers in the 13 regions where we're planning to extend EI by an additional five weeks.
My understanding is that the five-week extension is a temporary measure.
What's the average unemployment in the 13 regions above the national average? Does that makes sense?
When the 13 regions were initially chosen back in 2017, they were chosen in part because there were higher than average unemployment rates in each of those regions. I don't have the most recent numbers with me. However, as you know, the unemployment rate has decreased significantly across Canada, including in those regions.
Could you provide the committee with information on the 13 regions, like where they are and their unemployment versus the national average? Is that reasonable information?
Thank you.
I read that—maybe there was a pilot—10% of applicants at the end of an EI period did not have a job prospect, and that's one of the reasons we are extending it by five weeks. Is that correct?
That's correct. The pilot that was done from 2018 to 2021 found that in the reference period, which is 2013, 10% of seasonal claimants did have a gap between the end of their EI benefits and the start of their subsequent season.
The reason is that this was a year in which there were no additional supports provided to seasonal claimants.
I guess I'm trying to understand, though, why we would give 100% of the people in a region an additional benefit that might only help 10%.
Not all seasonal claimants need the extra weeks. A lot of them return to work before they even need additional weeks.
Among those who do need them, they took on average 3.9 additional weeks of benefits, and based on the pilot, we know that approximately 42% of eligible claimants did access at least one additional week of benefits.
Is there a study or something that you're referencing? Is that something you could provide to the committee, if it's publicly available? The link is fine.
Thank you.
Ten per cent, though, is maybe close to what the unemployment rate is in these regions anyway, and we're also in a period of time.... I know we're looking at the 2013 period, but every region in the country is at a historical low for unemployment. Regardless of where they are versus the national average, historically we're at a very low unemployment rate with a very tight labour market.
Can you understand why some people might ask why we're extending unemployment benefits while there's not quite a million but almost a million vacant jobs in the country?
The other reason we're targeting claimants in those regions in particular is that they have a higher than average percentage of seasonal workers compared to other regions across the country. That, combined with the higher unemployment rates on average, means that it's more difficult for these workers to find work during the off-season. That's why we're targeting those regions and those workers in particular.
Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.
I too want to thank everyone for being here today. Thanks for your hard work.
I'm going to start off with a couple of comments, because there have been some very thoughtful questions from some of my colleagues on the opposite side, and I'd like to address them.
My colleague Mr. Chambers talked about how many new FTEs there are in this budget, and there's a lot of concern around that. It's an important concern and is something we always have to be thinking about. For those who might be watching from home, it's important to know that we are an activist government. We have been one since we were first elected.
We've put in place major unbelievable programs, like national child care. We're putting in national dental care. The reconciliation that we're doing is historic. We're taking aggressive climate action and promoting gender equity and innovative economic measures around innovation and immigration. There are lots of reasons there has been a big increase in FTE counts.
I would say, though, that it's very important for every government to always ask, as we're introducing new programs, what tightening we need to do. It is important to note that in this year's budget, we have $15.4 billion over five years for a reduction plan. We should always be looking at where we should be reducing as we're looking to adjust programs. Those are absolutely important questions, but I think it's important to put that on the record.
My colleague Mr. Morantz mentioned that a number of different elements are included as part of budget 2023 and asked what the correlation is. I want to say that budgets by various governments have included a number of different elements. Our government is very careful to ensure that all of the measures included are either mentioned in some budgets, whether it's budget 2023 or budget 2022.... The former Conservative government, when they were in power, did not do that and often included elements that had no reference to any other budget. I just wanted to point that out in terms of the difference.
With that, I have about 45,000 questions and only two and a half minutes to ask them.
I'm going to start off with some immigration measures.
If I go to part 4, division 16, part 4, division 17 and part 4, division 19, we have a number of changes or amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act: capping the number of sponsorship applications, establishing a clear framework for asylum claims and providing electronic means to administer and enforce the Citizenship Act modernization program.
My key question is for whoever might be here to respond. I forget. Was it Mr. Pink who responded before? I want to see how this will improve processing times, if Mr. Pink happens to be here.
I don't see him here, Mr. Chair.
If not, then I will just ask the officials to please respond in writing to that. I would be grateful, just because I think it is important to have these measures. It is important for us to be dealing with processing times.
Yes, but please don't take all that time. I have 44 more questions.
Mr. Chan is who I was thinking of.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will start.
The measures with regard to the Citizenship Act are intended to address some legislative gaps. Unlike the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and the immigration program, the Citizenship Act and citizenship program have very limited authorities for electronic administration and efficiencies, which are essential for us to continue to improve the modernization of the program under way and to vastly improve client service.
In addition, the citizenship program is the only remaining program in the government that subjects applications for citizenship to a name-based, date-of-birth-based criminality check via the RCMP. Through the budget, amendments are being sought to move to a biometric process, which will be more efficient and will secure and enable more rapid checks.
Those measures together, once the legislation passes and can be implemented, are aimed at catching up to the authorities that exist in the immigration act and will also continue our efforts to vastly improve the service that citizenship applicants expect.
I'll just pass it to my colleague with regard to the other part of your question.
Sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Nicole Girard, the director general responsible for citizenship policy.
I'm Michelle Mascoll, director general of resettlement policy.
Really quickly, for division 17, the objective is to manage application intake to bring the number of applications we receive more in line with the targets set out in our immigration levels plan so that we'll be able to manage our processing times and backlogs better.
Thank you to all of you.
Thank you, MP Dzerowicz.
Now we'll go to MP Ste-Marie for two and a half minutes, please.
[Translation]
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My questions are about division 23 of the bill, so it's for the transport officials. Could they please come to the table?
While we're waiting, I'd like to thank Mr. Beech. We just got the answers to the questions we had asked. The information isn't broken down by province and doesn't provide much detail per sector, but we really appreciate the response that was provided.
I'd also like to take this opportunity, Mr. Chair, to reiterate something. If I understood Ms. Dzerowicz correctly, she has numerous questions, so it's very important for everyone on the committee to get the answers to all of their questions before voting on Bill C‑47. I think we'll need at least a hundred or so more committee hours to get through the honourable member's list of questions.
I will now ask the transport officials my questions on division 23 of the bill.
Which exceptions is the Canadian Transportation Agency expected to define in the regulations regarding the minimum compensation air carriers are required to provide to passengers for disruptions caused by a flight delay or cancellation, or by being denied boarding? What will happen to a complaint if the dispute resolution officer doesn't make a decision within the prescribed time frame?
Thank you.
[English]
[Translation]
My apologies. My name is Colin Stacey, and I am the director general of air policy at Transport Canada.
In response to your first question, Mr. Ste‑Marie, I can say that the Canadian Transportation Agency will be responsible for defining the exceptions in the regulations, so we don't know now what those exceptions will be.
If I understand your second question correctly, you would like to know what consequences air carriers will face when they do not comply with the 30‑day deadline after receiving a complaint. Is that correct?
Yes, that's correct.
What happens if the dispute resolution officer doesn't make a decision within the prescribed time frame?
Good afternoon. I am Vincent Millette, director of national air services policy.
If the dispute resolution officer doesn't issue a decision within the prescribed time frame, they would not be complying with the legislative framework, but presumably, they would be allowed to complete their review of the complaint.
Thank you very much.
In respect of the Royal Style and Titles Act, I'm curious as to what the practical consequences would be if Parliament weren't to approve these changes. I understand, whether folks like it or not, that Canada is a constitutional monarchy. We have a new monarch, and presumably they have some say in how they're titled.
I'm curious to know what would happen if Parliament didn't institute a new title for the new monarch.
Thank you. It's Joël Girouard again, from the Privy Council Office.
The royal style and titles are used in formal documents and a variety of situations like that. As I mentioned earlier, we consider it an administrative measure. There's no real consequence if it is not adopted.
The King became the King of Canada last September, and that does not change. The Royal Style and Titles Act simply allows us to formally give him a title. This new version modernizes the title to better reflect Canada's current reality, but there's no practical consequence if it's not adopted.
The title has not been used to this point. The Queen's old title has been used out of respect for allowing Parliament to express its will. It does not have a practical effect if it is not adopted.
Okay. Thank you very much.
I was hoping that somebody from the Privy Council Office might be able to speak to the final division in the bill, which has to do with the application of privacy principles to federal political parties. I understand that this is a response to a court decision from the province of British Columbia.
I wonder if an official could provide a little more context for the committee.
Yes. I'm Rachel Pereira, director of democratic institutions at the Privy Council Office.
Thank you for the question.
If I understood it, the intent of this measure is to establish a single, uniform national privacy policy for federal political parties under the Canada Elections Act. If there are other pieces of legislation, this would deem the federal regime the regime that federal political parties would need to abide by.
Is this coming up in response to any particular court decision or other deliberations about privacy principles, privacy legislation and federal political parties?
I can't speak to other pieces of provincial legislation, nor litigation that's in play. I can speak to the intent of the legislation, which is to establish a single national regime for federal political parties. That's to mitigate the potential for a patchwork of different rules and regulations that federal political parties would need to consider depending on potentially which province they're in. It would be a federal regime for all federal political parties.
Thank you, MP Blaikie. We've gone well over time.
Now we're going to the Conservatives and MP Lawrence, please, for five minutes.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Once again, thank you to all of you for being here today.
In the budget, it was announced that there would be a 3% cut to departments, pretty much across the board, starting in 2024. I assume that you've probably already started planning towards 2024, or you will soon.
I'll start with you, Mr. Hamilton.
Have you started planning for 2024, and do you believe that it will be easy to remove 3% from your budget?
Thank you very much for the question.
Unfortunately, my area of expertise is outside of the budget planning cycle. I'm not in a position to respond to that question.
Is there any official who has started the planning process on reducing their budget by 3%? In six or seven months, you're going to be reducing your budget by 3%. Has anyone started that planning process?
You can take the microphone. If you're in the other room, you can run in here right now and tell me that you've started the process of cutting 3%.
This is Lindy VanAmburg from Health Canada. I think in most of our departments or agencies, that would be a question for our chief financial officers. I don't imagine they've been invited here today.
Let's invite them, then, Mr. Chair. I have some skepticism, and I think maybe that was validated by the response there.
Next I would like to talk about the clean fuel regulations. If anyone is able to comment on the clean fuel regulations, I'd very much like to hear from them.
Again, thank you to all the officials for being here in the crowded room. I very much appreciate you being here, especially in the room.
As I said, you may not know these numbers off the top of your head, so an answer in writing will be more than fine. What will be the total cost to the economy of implementing the clean fuel regulations?
Thank you for that question. My name is Paolo Mellow. I'm executive director of the low-carbon fuels division at Environment and Climate Change Canada.
I have not come prepared to speak to the costs. However, an economic assessment accompanied the final regulations. That is public. It does detail the economic framework that was used to assess the regulations. It has costs, it has benefits and it has greenhouse gas reductions. That information is publicly available.
Thank you. I appreciate that. If you could send the link to the committee, that would be terrific.
Would you happen to know from that report, or even within a reasonable margin of error, what the cost per litre of gasoline, diesel or home heating fuel would be?
I would prefer to follow up in writing, because there is a suite of economic assumptions made around the analysis. I would not want to misrepresent any of the costs without having that framework.
We absolutely can respond in writing.
That's fine. That's great.
What would be the cost to the government of enforcing the clean fuel regulations?
Again, that economic analysis will include cost estimates to government for administering the regulations.
Perfect. You're now excused, as it were. Thank you very much. I appreciate your time.
Next I want to talk to someone with respect to the National Research Council.
That's you, Mr. Turcot. Thank you very much.
It's my understanding that you are asking to have your own separate procurement process. I'm curious to know why.
Thank you for the question. I'm director general of policy at the National Research Council.
What we are intending to do with this measure is speed up the operations of the NRC so we can better work with our Canadian business partners and academic innovators. At the NRC, we often have to procure pieces of scientific equipment in order to perform our research services and technical services with our collaborators and clients. We perform R and D services for those clients. The purpose of the measure is to speed up that process so that we're not having our clients wait six months to a year for us to process the paperwork through the normal cycle.
What we would like to do is have an increased speed of operations so that we have a more rapid response and more effective partnerships with our clients, overseen by a procurement oversight board that will ensure that we have all the appropriate mechanisms in place.
Thank you.
I understand the necessity for procurement. I completely understand and respect that need. However, you're saying that through the normal Public Works process, you'd have to wait six months to a year to get what you need.
It depends on what you're procuring. It depends on the financial limits, the types of contracts and the specifics that you want to put into the contracts. For example, if you have to go through Public Works and then get Treasury Board approval, that process can take six months to a year. That's what I was referring to in my response.
Mr. Chair, I'll be sharing my time with Mr. Beech today.
Mr. Cadieux, sticking to the Gordon Lightfoot tribute, Mr. Chambers asked some of the questions that I was going to ask. If you could read my mind, Mr. Chambers.... I think you did.
What criteria is utilized to determine which economic regions are eligible for the extension, compared to those that are not?
As I mentioned in the previous round of questions, the regions were determined in 2017 for the 2018 to 2021 pilot. There were two conditions they had to meet. They had to have an unemployment rate higher than the national average, which at the time was 6.3%. Those regions also had to have a higher than average percentage of seasonal workers. At the time, about 4% of the workforce had to be seasonal workers. Those were the two criteria used for why those 13 regions were chosen.
Thank you.
I'm from Prince Edward Island, by the way, which is a very seasonal province in Canada. We have two EI zones, which is unfortunate. We have families on one side of the road who require so many hours. Possibly a family member lives across the road and requires fewer than those hours. That was an initiative of the former Conservative government. It is extremely unfair in Prince Edward Island.
Thank you for the answer.
I'll now turn my time over to Mr. Beech.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to my colleague for generously sharing his time.
Colleagues, there have been significant discussions about the motion that I tabled yesterday. My apologies to the 48 officials who are currently here. Hopefully we'll get back to you very quickly.
Given that it's the topic we're currently studying, I would like to take this opportunity to move this motion. I apologize in advance for the length. It is a necessity to make sure that we meet the needs and desires of all the conversations we had. Members will find that it is in a form similar to last year's to make sure that we get a minimum of 20 hours of witness study.
The other aspect speaks to something that Mr. Morantz was referring to earlier in this meeting, which is dividing up the bill and a timeline for that, and sending some of these sections to committee. If other committees would like to comment on or study them, they'll have the opportunity to do so.
The one thing I'll note is you'll find that everybody's opinions on how it should be divided were included here. There were a couple of minor conflicts. Luckily we were able to work with critics and resolve those conflicts around which criteria or which content should go to which individual committee. This reflects the consensus of all committee members.
I hope we can pass it rather quickly.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, PS Beech.
I did see some hands go up. It's MP Chambers and then MP Lawrence. Is that correct?
Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Is it the ruling of the chair that the motion is valid, given it has not seen the proper notice period?
I think we should allow our witnesses to go home. This is going to take some time.
Don't worry. You won't offend us. You can probably feel free to go.
Well, I think we should buckle up, because this motion is missing a few things. It's a good thing, I guess, that we have virtual Parliament now, because we usually have some time limits. If this was the old days, we would go late into the night.
We are missing “no presence from the minister” in the motion. I recognize that Mr. Beech indicated the minister would prefer or look to come prior to the 18th, but I think we should have that in the motion, just for good hygiene and measure. This will be the third or fourth motion that includes a request of the minister's presence. Unfortunately, she has not accepted the previous three.
I think we've been pretty clear on this side of the table that this is not a majority Parliament. This is a minority Parliament, and a minority Parliament committee has requested the presence of the minister on multiple occasions, which she has declined.
If you have a majority, that's one thing, but in a minority, when a committee expresses its view and requests the presence of a minister to discuss inflation and discuss what's happening, I think it's incumbent on that minister to not ignore the invitation. It would seem to me that if the minister would like to, as is reported, potentially grow her portfolio, she should welcome the opportunity to come and answer questions from parliamentarians.
I'll leave my suggestions on some amendments to my colleague Mr. Lawrence, but this is 100% a non-starter if we do not reference the minister and request her to attend. I would recommend that it be for at least two hours. Two hours seems reasonable to me given that the Bank of Canada governor has come here at least three or four times and spent 90 minutes with us on three of those occasions, and the Deputy Prime Minister has not yet appeared to talk about inflation.
I will yield the time to my friend Mr. Lawrence or whoever is next on your list.
Thank you, MP Chambers.
MP Lawrence, you're on next. Then I have MP Morantz and MP Dzerowicz after that.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I would repeat the comment of my colleague that maybe we can dismiss the officials, as they have some work to do to cut 3% from their budgets according to the budget put out. Maybe we could give them that extra time to start planning for 2024 and the impending cuts that this Liberal government has put on the public service. That was without the relationship.
Once again, Mr. Chair, I would ask you to dismiss the officials, because we are not—
MP Lawrence, I think I'm going to hold on to the witnesses. We will see how this discussion goes, but we still have some 20-odd minutes. The witnesses are here. We hope maybe we can get to their questions.
MP Lawrence, the floor is yours.
Okay.
I want to proceed in a way that is professional and that does not waste anyone's time. I would also ask, if we had unanimous consent, to suspend the meeting and allow for some further negotiation. I'm more than willing to sit down in good faith, as I have with the parliamentary secretary, whom I have tremendous respect for.
I just don't see the need.... We can continue, and I'm happy to talk for as long as I need to, but if we suspend, I'm open to having those conversations again.
Could I fancy up that ask to suspend? Is there a way to get unanimous consent to continue questioning the witnesses for, say, five minutes while Philip and I have a discussion?
The clerk says yes. Okay.
Members, I'm looking for consent for that.
Some hon. members: Agreed.
The Chair: We are going to get back to questioning the witnesses.
Mr. MacDonald, you're ceding your time to MP Chatel. Is that what I see?
Mr. Heath MacDonald: Yes.
The Chair: Okay. We have MP Chatel for three minutes.
[Translation]
Thank you.
Mr. Turcot, I want to follow up on the examples I asked you about earlier. How will the NRC help mainly small and medium-sized businesses with production and innovation? The idea is to improve their competitiveness so they can drive the economy of tomorrow.
[English]
Thank you for the question. I'm going to answer in English this time.
My name is Marcel Turcot. I am the DG of policy at the National Research Council.
Essentially, the National Research Council holds a series of facilities—126 R and D facilities across the country at 24 locations. We work directly with SMEs and other Canadian companies on collaborative research products and technical services, and they can bring an innovation or a problem if they have one. They come to our facilities and hire our expert teams. Often they hire them with the assistance of another program as well so that the government system is working together to support them.
We help to work out their problem and the technology they're trying to develop, and we help them bring it up to what we call the TRL scale, the technology readiness level. They may come with a problem at mid-stage. They're still developing it, but they're not sure how to commercialize it because they are encountering an innovation problem. We will lean on our innovation team and our facility. “Facility” means, for example, our photonics lab just down on Montreal Road.
Companies that are trying to innovate in a digital space into photonics and quantum space can come to that facility, hire our team, use our facility—which they wouldn't be able to afford themselves—and work out a new product or a new process technology that leads to them having a new innovation that they can then deploy into the market. Essentially we're helping with their competitive advantage so they can compete better in the global marketplace.
There was a lot of discussion about information technology, because a lot of the funding will be for investing in and modernizing facilities. Can you explain to Canadians what information technology is?
The question is about information technology. The Canadian economy, as a global economy, is becoming increasingly digital, so often products that we were manufacturing in the 20th century are now digital in the 21st century. Information technology is essentially the process of creating a digital product, such as your phone, that could be used for digital processing or to move information technology.
In our reinvestment in our facilities, we're prioritizing a lot of digital solutions and digital innovations. For example, there's the photonics example that I was providing, which is photonic-based chips. We also do laser technologies. More importantly to your question, we have a digital technologies research centre specifically focused on, for example, developing capabilities in AI, which is the next-generation technology, as well as capabilities in quantum. As we know, quantum is an important next stage of digital technology. Essentially, information technology allows you to be globally competitive in the digital economic space.
Thank you, Mr. Turcot, and thank you, MP Chatel.
Now we're moving over to the Conservatives and MP Morantz, although I do see PS Beech and MP Lawrence—
Mr. Philip Lawrence: We're still going.
The Chair: They're still working. Okay.
We have MP Morantz, please, for five minutes.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank all the officials for being here today.
For those watching, it might be difficult to see, but when I walked into the meeting room today, I saw all these people here and I thought, wow, there's such interest in what we're doing here today. However, then I found out that there were about 50 public servants here in the room, so it burst my bubble.
I wanted to ask about division 12 and amending the Service Fees Act. Is there someone here who can respond to those questions?
Thank you, Ms. Thomas. What does this—
I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.
I'm just being prudent, because I know we said five minutes, and I'm guessing we're tipping up to that on our UC. We probably just need another five, so perhaps you could keep asking the witnesses—
Yes, PS Beech, we're going to continue with questions until you come back in the room and we hear otherwise.
Mr. Terry Beech: Thank you.
The Chair: MP Morantz, I think we're just over a minute into your time.
Go ahead.
What types of fees does this affect? I have a lot of questions about this. Maybe just give a few examples of what types of fees this would affect.
Thank you for the question. I'm Nicole Thomas, executive director in the financial management sector of the Treasury Board Secretariat.
There's a broad range of government services for which fees are charged. Some of them are for families visiting our national park system. Others are for testing of prescription drugs, ensuring safe foods for Canadians and providing import permits for goods that are sold in Canada.
You are amending the way government services.... Basically, your briefing note says:
As part of its efforts to minimize costs to Canadians, the Government is proposing to amend the way fees for government services are administered. It will do this by making changes to the legislative framework governing fees for government services.
Does this mean it is the intention of the government to raise an array of fees?
Essentially, when the Service Fees Act came into effect in 2017, we received feedback from departments as they implemented the requirements. What we are trying to do is streamline certain processes and introduce flexibilities to make it more cost-effective to provide these services.
I'm having trouble putting my eyes on it, but there's something in your briefing notes about making sure that taxpayers don't carry the brunt of these costs. To me, what you are saying is that you want the costs to be borne by the people who are paying the fees.
Would that not mean it's your intention to raise certain fees, rather than having the cost subsidized out of general revenues?
No, the intent is to streamline certain processes. As an example, in the way the legislation is currently written, departments are required to do an annual adjustment for CPI. We had an experience when that adjustment was a reduction of 0.2%, so one of the proposed changes is to reduce the burden of applying that by deferring if it doesn't hit a 1% threshold in any given year.
I want to go back to the sanctions legislation. The official is still in the room. I thank you for that.
Again, in terms of Bill C-47, if it's adopted, how would the Government of Canada's interpretation of “deemed ownership” of property by a sanctioned person compare to the way that Canada's allies determine ownership of property held or controlled by an entity?
Thank you very much.
As before, I am Marie-Josée Langlois, director general in the strategic policy branch at Global Affairs Canada.
In terms of the provisions on ownership and control in the sanctions legislation, those provisions have been there from the beginning. The dealing ban talks about the fact that Canadians cannot deal with property that is owned or controlled directly or indirectly by listed entities.
The amendments that are proposed at this time are meant to clarify those provisions. They clarify that the properties of the subsidiaries or related companies are deemed to be the property of the listed entities, and that there are tests or criteria that Canadians can use to assess whether they can deal with an entity or not.
This is similar to what is found in other countries' sanctions legislation, for example, in the U.S. or the U.K.
[Translation]
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I have a question about the Canada growth fund, which is in division 32 of Bill C‑47, but it looks like we're missing a group today. I don't think we have anyone available to answer that question. It's fine. I have other questions. I'll turn to division 26 and the Patent Act.
Mr. Chhabra, much has been made of how long it takes to issue patents, which are crucial to support Canadian business innovation. I was speaking with Mr. Turcot earlier about the importance of innovation. Can you tell us more about division 26? How will the proposed changes expedite the issuing of patents?
Thank you for your question.
I am Samir Chhabra, director general of marketplace framework policy at Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada.
[English]
I'm going to answer your question in English. It's a little bit technical.
The changes that are being proposed to the Patent Act are really to implement changes that were agreed to under the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement, CUSMA. The nature of the changes is regarding the availability of an additional patent term when an unreasonable delay occurs. CUSMA holds that an unreasonable delay occurs when a patent applicant has to wait for longer than three years after their examination begins or more than five years after they initially file.
This allows for the extension of a patent term to accommodate for any delays that might have been on the part of the Canadian Intellectual Property Office during the administration of it.
What that means is that, if CIPO takes longer than the prescribed amount of time, which will be worked out through regulations to follow, the applicant would be enabled to have an extension of their patent term that is equal to the amount of time that was taken on the part of CIPO that was beyond what's considered a reasonable amount of time in the CUSMA.
[Translation]
That's a good question.
[English]
I think it's fair to say that what it will do is provide the appropriate incentives to maintain a well-functioning patent application and review system, which certainly could be supportive of innovation.
It also ensures that those who put in the research and development effort and the resources required to support research and development are better assured of having an appropriate amount of time under the law to take advantage of that innovation, which, of course, would be supportive of continued investment.
[Translation]
After spending some time with Mr. Turcot, they turn to you and they are well served. Thank you, Mr. Chhabra.
Mr. Chair, I'm going to give the remainder of my time to Ms. Dzerowicz, for her 42 questions.
[English]
I have 44.
My question is about modernizing the National Research Council, so this is for whoever is able to respond to that.
It says, as part of our notes here, that budget 2023's proposed legislative amendments to the NRC Act provide flexibilities that are critical to ensuring that the NRC has the flexibility it needs to speed up capital purchases to match the speed of business and provide its partners with the timely access to specialized facilities and expertise they need to succeed.
I have two questions there. The $962 million that we're investing in this, what problem is it seeking to solve and how are we defining the speed of business, since that is what we're targeting to match?
Regarding your first question, it's the result of a four-year study we undertook at the NRC that included a panel of peer reviewers of Canadian international experts in academics that looked at our current facilities footprint and the state of those facilities across the country. What it found was that there was deferred maintenance of upwards of $700 million because of an underinvestment over time in our facilities.
The $962 million, which was announced in the fall economic statement, is meant to revitalize those facilities to bring them up to modern standards and to better allow them to work with innovators.
Mr. Chair, I'm very glad that we were able to get some more witness testimony, but according to the UC motion that we passed, I'd like to return back to the motion if we can, please.
Thank you. I'll be brief.
What we found is that often some of our partners are waiting for some of our procurements to take place, some of our purchases to take place, in order to do a collaborative project with them. For example, if a company wants to come in, and we need a new piece of equipment to do testing or to help them with an innovative product, they're waiting on us to procure that piece of equipment. These legislative amendments are so that we can work at their pace and their speed so that we're not the delay. We can be a partner in real time with them to deliver on their project.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Turcot.
We appreciate all of the witnesses who are with us. Thank you for all of your hard work on the budget. Thank you for coming before committee with all of your testimony, all of the questions that you've answered and those that you'll be getting back to members on that you weren't able to answer at this time.
We apologize for any of the interruptions as we brought forward a motion.
Thank you very much, witnesses. You are free to go.
Before the point of order, we had PS Beech. We are on the motion, as PS Beech said.
MP Chambers, go ahead on a point of order.
I see MP Lawrence and MP Morantz. I think I got them in that order. I'm not sure. It was pretty close. I'll give the nod to MP Lawrence and then MP Morantz.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I would like to say that hundreds of billions of dollars are going to be spent. If I were the minister in charge of the budget, I would welcome the opportunity to talk to the committee and explain all these great things—including, in question period, when she notably but somewhat inaccurately characterized what I said in the finance committee when I said the naming of the GST rebate was a “cheap marketing” trick, which I stand by.
It's not the GST rebate. Conservatives have, of course, supported the GST rebate at numerous times, including this time. In fact, we stood up and let it go through all levels and all stages and passed it so we could get the GST rebate to the most vulnerable Canadians. Conservatives will always be on the side of tax reduction and tax cuts.
I know the Minister of Finance is probably watching this right now with intensity and curiosity. I would throw the warmest of welcomes to her to come to this committee. I'm sure she can count on some strong questions, but very cordial and respectful questions, as to the position she has obtained and the position she holds in the Canadian government.
As I said, with the warmest of greetings I would request her presence here before the finance committee. We have invited her a number of times, including on the inflation study, and she has failed to appear.
Once again, if I were the Minister of Finance—and clearly I am not—I would for sure want to be in front of the Canadian public, just like the Governor of the Bank of Canada, who has responded to all of our invitations and who has been very open and forthcoming with this committee and not in any way afraid or nervous about talking to our committee, because he realizes that ultimately he's not talking to the finance committee; he's talking to the representatives of the Canadian people.
I believe that democracy really compels all of our public officials to talk and engage, even with people we disagree with. I know that in my constituency office, if I get someone who has a different view than mine I actually have them put at the front of the line because I believe it's through diversity of thought and through various opinions that we actually are able to grow and expand our own mindsets going forward.
Maybe I'll start getting into the substance of the budget as it were.
Mr. Chair, how long do we have resources for?
My understanding is that we have an extra 10 minutes or so, and then we are asking the whips for more resources.
Thank you very much.
I certainly do hope that the whips grant that because I will enjoy having a conversation with my constituents and the Canadian people moving forward.
Let's start maybe with what I was hoping to see in the budget and the budget implementation act. Conservatives really came into this looking for three things, one of which was tangible support for Canadians through more powerful paycheques and taking less of those paycheques, because it's extremely challenging.
I had—I can say his name I guess in committee—Kevin Lamoureux challenge me when I talked a little bit about the marginal tax rate. He didn't seem to know that there are Canadians who are earning well less than $50,000 who are paying a marginal tax rate in excess of 50%. That has been characterized as the war on work, and I think it really is.
Can you imagine earning $40,000 or $50,000 a year, and because of the housing crisis your cost of rent has gone up to $2,000 or $3,000 a month, so the after-tax income you are left with is maybe half? Then for every dollar you earn over that $40,000, $50,000 or $60,000 you are giving up more than 50% of that to the government.
Let's say you're offered that overtime shift for $20 per hour or whatever it is. Now you have to arrange child care. Maybe now instead of making food at home you now have to go pick something up, so there are additional costs in that. These are all of the costs that are associated with those additional hours, and you're only going to keep maybe 40¢ on the dollar or 30¢ on the dollar.
The Liberals are great at giving themselves a pat on the back and saying, “Well done, man. We really took that money from A and gave it to B. We should be heroes for that.” The reality is that they have absolutely zero dollars on their side. That's all Canadian taxpayers' money. In order to give something, you have to take something first.
The war on work continues on that side, as we have single mothers who often have to pay more than a marginal tax rate who are earning less than $50,000 a year and who are often paying more than 50%, meaning 50¢ on every dollar they earn goes to the government.
Seniors who are receiving the GIS, or the guaranteed income supplement, are also often giving up...because the GIS claws back at 50% irrespective of even income tax, which then starts at $14,000 or $15,000. They are already starting at a marginal tax rate of 50%. Then you add income tax on top of that, so you're looking at 60% or 70%. A senior may be only keeping 30¢ on every dollar they are earning at the massive income level of $20,000 a year.
These are shocking numbers, and I can't believe that this government and other folks in the media don't shine a brighter light on the war on work that's currently being engaged in by these Liberals and this Liberal government. We are penalizing people who are trying desperately to make it to the middle class.
Winston Churchill once described how a country taxing itself into prosperity is a bit like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by pulling the handle. I don't know if anyone's ever characterized so well what this Liberal government is attempting to do. They are pulling on that handle so hard, and they are in complete frustration and confusion as to why we have one of the lowest rates of innovation, productivity and GDP rate growth predicted in the OECD, because they are just reefing and reefing on that handle. They don't understand why they are not lifting things up. They don't understand why our housing has doubled over the last eight years. They don't understand why the cost of rent has doubled and why we are not getting more powerful paycheques.
The second thing the Conservatives were looking for was fiscal restraint. I will hand it to this government. In the fall economic statement, they actually showed a path—granted it was five years out—to a balanced budget. It's amazing, in just four or five months that path has completely disappeared. It has disappeared into the ether. Instead we have deficits as far as the eye can see.
According to Tiff Macklem, interest rates are going to stay high. That means we'll see, likely within the next couple of years, that the cost of borrowing will exceed the total health care transfers. We'll be spending more on interest than we will be spending on health care. We need a path back to sustainability.
If you remember, Mr. Chair, about four or five months ago, the finance minister said, we have “a line we will not cross”. The debt-to-GDP ratio will not increase, no way, no how. That can't happen in Prime Minister Trudeau's Canada. It will not happen.
Well, less than six months later, guess what: We are now forecasting that the debt-to-GDP ratio will increase.
They say, “Hold on, Phil, don't worry. We've got a plan. In two or three years, we are going to cut departments by 3%. We are going to get that debt-to-GDP ratio under control. We're going to see after this mild recession, so mild of a recession that you can't even feel it, that this economy is going to roar back. Don't worry about it. We're going to have more revenue than you can imagine. We've got these 3% spending cuts.”
As we heard from officials today, we're less than six months from when this government believes those spending cuts are going to start, and not one of them has a plan. Not one of them could tell me one dollar that they were going to reduce their spending by. We see this over and over again. This government continues to get an “A” for announcements, but an “F” for follow-up. We do not have a plan.
I'm curious, too, as to whether the strike was priced into the budget. Will that be an additional cost? The negotiation took over two years and required a work stoppage to get this government to a serious bargaining position finally. Will that make it even worse?
We have right now.... I refuse, with all respect, to take with any seriousness a budget forecast that is anything more than a year in advance. I suspect that will change, just as it did from the fall economic statement. As you remember, six months ago, we were going to have a balanced budget in five years. Now we have deficits as far as the eye can see. Six months ago, we weren't going to have a recession, and now we're going to have a recession. They told us we were going to have deflation. We had inflation.
You'll have to excuse my skepticism with respect to this ability to forecast anything. They could not tell us whether there was going to be inflation. They said deflation. They told us that there was going to be a balanced budget, and now we have deficits for as far as the eye can see.
We now have a forecasted debt that's going to go over $1.3 trillion. Even if we took out the COVID spending, this government has dramatically increased expenditures since 2008. There's no reason why we couldn't have a meaningful approach to balancing the budget. In fact, they showed that we could do it. They showed in the fall economic statement that there was a way to balance the budget. They're continuing their reckless tax-and-spend policies. Once again, they're standing in that bucket reefing on the handle, trying to pull it up. In complete frustration and confusion, they don't understand why they can't get that bucket up. They're just reefing on it as hard as they can.
It boggles my mind. Honestly, when I sit in the House of Commons and hear these Liberals once again praising themselves on spending other people's money.... It's not their money. It started with a single mom in Orono, with the steelworker in Hamilton, the oil and gas worker in Alberta. Those are the folks who generate income. Governments don't generate income. They don't generate value. They can divide equity, which is an important role, and I don't think any of us would dispute that. However, our future prosperity will never come from a government program. It will never come from a regulation. It will never come from a tax policy. It will come from the people of Canada.
Canadians are the engine that drives our economy. In lots of cases, the best thing the government can do is just get out of the way and let Canadians do what they do best, which is to work hard, generate great ideas, innovate, reinvest in the economy and grow our economy.
We have entered into a potential economic decline. We're forecast by the OECD to be the worst in the OECD over the next 20 years with respect to capital investment. That's scary. Capital investment means buying machinery. If you can imagine, we have two factories, factory A and factory B. Factory A invests in the equipment it needs. Now it can produce the same level or better quality of product, but it can produce it at half the cost. You can imagine that if factory B hasn't done that investment, it's really only a matter of time until factory A puts factory B out of business.
We are in danger of being factory B, because we're not making the capital investments. That's a direct result of this government's policies. We are not incentivizing business. We are not encouraging. We are not rewarding businesses to make those investments back into the production of their goods and services. Instead, this government is taking a larger and larger piece of the economy. We are strangling, starving out and depriving the private sector of oxygen so that they can't do what they need, which is to reinvest in that factory A to make sure we have state-of-the-art factories.
The world is changing, too. The pace at which we need to invest in innovation has never been greater. We have artificial intelligence. We have biohealth sciences growing at tremendous speeds. We need a government that's agile and that's able to put in place the type of regulations and legislative framework needed for us to be a leader in these technologies going forward. Instead, we get more of the same: tax and spend, tax and spend, tax and spend.
We know that, with the government, from the very first promise that the budget would balance itself.... As Prime Minister Harper said, there would be these itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny little deficits. Guess what. Prime Minister Harper was right. Those deficits became perennial deficits, and you see that. Keynesian economics will tell you that when times are good—times are good—we need to save money as a government. We didn't do that. We just spent. We spent the cupboard dry. As Prime Minister Harper said, those tiny, itsy-bitsy deficits, so teeny you can't see them, became larger and larger deficits.
When we then came to a significant challenge with COVID, we'd already spent the cupboard dry. Instead of just spending on the COVID relief, which Conservatives supported, this government spent on anything and everything, including spending nearly $1 billion on WE Charity. They spent and they spent and they spent. Now we're in a continuing deficit position of tens and tens of billions of dollars going forward. Our debt is forecast to be over $1.3 trillion.
Conservatives were expecting to see a path back to financial sustainability. Instead, we saw the casting aside of the fiscal anchor that had just been adopted a year earlier. Now we're once again adrift, without a fiscal anchor and without a fiscal plan. We'll just continue to spend, spend, spend.
We know what that results in, because the leader of the official opposition forecast it. In fact, I can remember him in the House talking about the possibility of inflation, and then what the finance minister said: “No, no, no, we're in fear of deflation. What don't you understand, Mr. Poilievre? It's deflation we need to worry about.”
It turns out that the leader of the official opposition was right. We got inflation that we hadn't seen for 20 years. The more this government spends, the more inflation we have. If there's anything I could share with my colleagues across the aisle, it would that very basic, fundamental principle of economics: The more the government spends, the more inflation we'll get and the more things will cost.
I'm sorry, Marty. Are you on the list here?
I'd feel bad taking up all this time. I can see my colleague to my left here—
—welling up with excitement, so I'll give some of my time to Marty. Please don't take too much time as I'd like to return back on the speaking order.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank my colleague Mr. Lawrence for his bang on remarks. We're having this problem in the finance committee today because, ironically, the finance minister won't commit to coming to the finance committee to answer questions about her own budget. I think it's important that Canadians know what it is we're talking about.
I want to try to follow the rules, Mr. Chair, as much as I possibly can. Since we are debating a motion, I thought we should take a few minutes to go over the wording of the motion so that everyone watching can understand what it is we're debating about.
The motion begins with this:
That the committee continue its pre-study of Bill C-47, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 28, by:
(a) Inviting witnesses to appear on the contents of Bill C-47 during meetings scheduled the weeks of May 1, May 8, and May 15, 2023, and that;
Members of the committee submit their prioritized witness lists for the study of Bill C-47 to the clerk of the committee by no later than Wednesday, May 3, 2023, at 12:00 p.m., and that these lists be distributed to members of the committee as soon as possible;
(b) Moving to clause-by-clause—
For those watching, “clause-by-clause” essentially means we literally go through the bill, discussing each and every clause and voting on every clause. That's some of the terminology we like to use here on the Hill when we're dealing with legislation.
—review of Bill C-47 no later than Thursday, May 25, 2023, at 11:00 a.m., provided that the bill is referred to the committee on or before Thursday, May 18, 2023, and that;
i. amendments be submitted to the clerk of the committee in both official languages [by] no later than 4:00 p.m. on Friday, May 19, 2023;
ii. the clerk of the committee write immediately to each member who is not a member of a caucus represented on the committee and any independent members to inform them of the study of Bill C-47 by the committee and to invite them to prepare and submit any proposed amendments to Bill C-47 which they would suggest that the committee consider during the clause-by-clause study of the Bill;
Now this particular portion is very important because, for those watching, they may not realize that it is generally officially recognized parties that sit on the committee. For example, this committee has 12 members. There are six Liberal members, four Conservative members, a Bloc member and an NDP member, but there could also theoretically be other parties—there aren't right now—in the House that are official and that might not have a member sitting on the committee. That could happen. There's the Green Party, but they're not actually an official party. They are not a member of the committee, so technically, under our rules, they're independent members even though, out of deference to them, we call them the Green Party.
What this clause is speaking to is giving those types of members notices. Also, there are independent members who deserve the right to be able to come make submissions for recommended amendments to the committee. Therefore, (b)(ii) is an extremely important measure to make sure the democratic process will be followed and be inclusive of members who are either a member of an official party that is not represented on the committee or independent members who have no party affiliation. That's what that particular clause is trying to deal with.
Let me move on. There are a few more points here:
(c) If Bill C-47 is referred to the committee by the House during the subject matter study of the Bill, all witness testimony, evidence and documentation received in public in relation to its subject matter study of Bill C-47 be deemed received by the committee in the context of its legislative study of Bill C-47;
(d) Subject to the approval of the recognized parties’ whips, and the availability of meeting slots from the House of Commons, the committee hold as many additional meetings as possible with the goal of accomplishing at least 20 hours of study prior to the beginning of clause-by-clause consideration of the bill;
(e) That the Chair of the Committee write, as promptly as possible, to the Chairs of the following standing committees to invite them to study the subject matter of the following provisions of Bill C-47, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 28, 2023:
I'm going to go through these letters, but I think this is an important point that I want to circle back to. It's something I raised earlier in the meeting. It's very important that Canadians who are watching this meeting right now understand this. Budget implementation bills are supposed to be about the budget. They're supposed to be about revenues and expenditures, economic policy, fiscal policy and that kind of thing.
The problem is that a massive part of this bill has nothing to do with any of those things. They call it an omnibus bill, and it's really an opportunity for government, politicians and public servants to basically get into legislation things that they should really be trying to get into legislation through the normal course, through the ordinary process of introducing a bill, having it go through the various readings, the committee stage, third reading and then over to the Senate.
This omnibus method is essentially a shortcut, particularly in a budget bill, which is essentially considered to be a confidence motion. The reason that's important is that a confidence motion is a bill for which, if the government loses the vote on it, it loses the confidence of the House and in all likelihood an election ensues.
I think public servants and politicians who put those types of non-budgetary matters in the bill think that it will slide by, and it's going to pass because we have the costly coalition. The NDP's going to support it no matter what, because they're basically not an opposition party anymore and they're just going to support this budget. This is an opportunity for them to get something passed, to short-circuit the process, essentially, to get something passed that they might not be able to get passed in the ordinary course. That's really unfortunate. I'm really not a big believer in these types of bills, but I'm not the only one. In fact, I have very well-known company on this opinion. I'll tell you what he said before I tell you who said it.
He said:
Omnibus bills—I’d like to say I wouldn’t use them, period. There will always be big bills, but they need to be thematically and substantively linked in all their different pieces so that they form a piece of legislation. The kitchen-sink approach here is a real worry to me.
There's also this:
Stephen Harper has also used omnibus bills to prevent Parliament from properly reviewing and debating his proposals. We will change the House of Commons Standing Orders to bring an end to this undemocratic practice.
Do you know who said that, Mr. Chair? It was Prime Minister Justin Trudeau who said that.
He and I are of the same mind on this one. There's not a lot that we agree upon, but it begs the question of why he would say that back in 2013 and now be doing the exact same thing he said he would never do. He called it undemocratic.
I shouldn't be surprised because there are so many things. They said, we'll plant two billion trees; it didn't happen. The debt-to-GDP ratio is going to go down; it didn't happen. We will have electoral reform. This was the last first-past-the-post system election. We should be worried about deflation not inflation. Interest rates are going to stay low. We're going to have the budget balanced by 2019. Don't worry; vote for us. By the way, you get more back from the carbon tax rebate than you pay in carbon tax. We know all that's not true, so I shouldn't be surprised when the Prime Minister says something for political convenience and then literally does exactly the opposite thing.
That gets me to the rest of this motion, because what this bill ironically tries to do is deal with all these non-budgetary rules, things like the style and title of the King of England. Some of them may be laudable goals, like experimentation on animals and things like that, but I don't know what that has to do with a budget bill.
What they try to do to get around that is say to us that they recognize that the expertise to study all sorts of things in this budget bill doesn't really exist at the finance committee, so they're suggesting that we send letters to a bunch of other committees and ask them to study those types of things. For example, earlier today I was asking about the amendments to the sanctions legislation, or what's called the Special Economic Measures Act and the Magnitsky act.
I was surprised to see in this motion that, although there are referrals to a number of different committees, there's no referral to the foreign affairs committee, which would be the right place to study those provisions. I don't see that in this memo, unless I'm missing it.
That also begs this question: What else isn't in here? In part 4, there are 39 different pieces of legislation, most of which have actually nothing to do with the budget.
What they're doing is saying that they recognize that, so we're going to send the immigration stuff to the immigration committee and the foreign affairs stuff to the foreign affairs committee. We'll send the national defence piece to the national defence committee. We'll sent the natural resources stuff to the natural resources committee. We'll send the environmental stuff to the environment committee. However, so many of these things have actually nothing to do with revenues, expenditures, fiscal policy or economics.
It's just a kitchen sink that the government has decided to throw this stuff into to try to get it through the legislative process and make it very difficult for members of Parliament to scrutinize all these different pieces of legislation. I think I mentioned that, in the briefing notes of the department for dealing with some of the border stuff, the briefing note itself was 21 pages long. It should be its own piece of legislation.
I have a lot more to say about this, Mr. Chair, but I know that my colleague, Mr. Chambers, is chomping at the bit to finish off his arguments. I am prepared to cede the floor to him since I don't see the Liberal member here.
Thank you, MP Morantz.
Yes, MP Dzerowicz is not here at this time.
We have MP Viersen and then I have MP Fast.
Thank you very much.
If Ms. Dzerowicz does come in, out of generosity and the spirit of goodwill, I'm more than happy to have her interrupt me and put some excellent comments on the record here.
I did want to go over the importance of the legislative process and thoroughly examining legislation. I guess I'd start by thanking the 48 officials who are here today.
I had a private member's bill. That's why I missed some time at foreign affairs and certainly missed my time here with one of the best committees, I think, in all of Parliament. My private member's bill was small. I think it was fewer than 10 pages, and we had four meetings with extensive consultations and discussions, and many amendments from all parties. That was just one small private member's bill.
When we look at an omnibus budget like this, which has tens if not hundreds of pages in it, I think it's important—in fact, it's critical—that legislators are able to do their jobs. We're talking about billions and billions of dollars that are being spent. It's critical that as legislators we have the time to review and understand that.
Quite frankly we all missed, at least in the opposition anyway, what was in the budget when it came to the deferred prosecution agreement with respect to SNC-Lavalin. We, like all legislators, need to make sure that never happens again. We need to make sure that we have the appropriate consultations.
Just for my private member's bill, which, as I said, is just a couple of mere pages, we had officials testify for probably hours when you combine them on just this relatively small provision. When we're looking at a budget of this size, hundreds of billions of dollars, to me, as a I believe one of the members already said.... I think it was Gabriel who said that we really require hundreds of hours on this. I think that's a fair comment when you look at the billions of dollars that would be spent.
Let me just go through and discuss a little bit this notice of motion, as my colleague did. I, of course, respect and like my colleague, but I think he was a little too brief in discussing some of this.
We're inviting witnesses to appear during regular meetings on May 1, May 8 and May 15. Those are our three regular meetings, where we sit from 11 to one o'clock. I would have expected maybe the parliamentary secretary to work with the chair and set out additional hours so we could get the maximum amount of time possible to discuss this. Honestly, it seems a little odd that we're struggling so much for resources.
It was very surprising to me that we weren't able to get an emergency debate with respect to The Globe and Mail's story respecting the member from Wellington—Halton Hills, Michael Chong, and the acts by a diplomat in the consular office in Toronto. We weren't able to get parliamentary resources for that.
It would seem that this government is bent on burning resources, as we had a relatively reasonable request to move forward with this and have the minister speak for two hours on this, but the finance minister evidently doesn't have time for the Canadian people, which we see, as she would not spend two hours on a budget that's spending hundreds of billions of dollars.
The finance committee is fine—I understand. I may be of no particular significance, but I do represent 100,000 people from Northumberland—Peterborough South. I would have thought that the finance minister would be willing to give two hours of her day. I know she's extremely busy. She works extremely hard, but two hours in the scope of a year to discuss hundreds of billions of dollars in expenditures that will guide the government financially for the next year seems like a relatively modest request.
If we look at the rounds of questions, at six minutes—
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I guess because we are venturing out into long-talk territory, my question is this: Am I to take from his remarks that if there were a commitment from the minister to appear on the bill for two hours, he'd be prepared to otherwise pass the motion in its current form with that addition? Or are there other things he would need to see changed about this motion in order for us to have a vote?
It's not a point of order, but I respect my colleague tremendously. If hypothetically we were—perhaps it's dangerous to negotiate in public, as I've heard multiple times in the last couple of weeks—to get the minister for two hours, and instead of starting the clause-by-clause on Thursday just doing it three days later, on the Monday, my sense is that we would be able to move forward with this in a meaningful way.
We respect the will of the people. On our side of the aisle, we understand that the Liberal Party won an election and they entered into a supply and confidence agreement with the New Democratic Party, so we just want to make sure that the Canadian people have the ability to hear their finance minister for all of two hours. We would just, in the regular schedule of business, delay the bill for all of three days. Then we can all move on with our lives.
I stand to be corrected—and if the parliamentary secretary or anyone on their side wants to correct me, I'm more than willing to be—but my understanding is that the deputy leader and finance minister is unwilling to give two hours to the Canadian people, to the representatives of the Canadian people. We were all—Ms. Chatel, Ms. Dzerowicz, Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Baker—duly elected, and we are all representatives of the Canadian people. She's unwilling to give us two hours—which might be, I don't know, 10 to 15 rounds of questions at most—to answer the questions we are duly elected to ask.
Yes, Mr. Blaikie, essentially all we're asking for is three days and two hours. I don't think that's an extraordinary ask.
I'll continue on, though. I would love it if the parliamentary secretary would get up at this point and say that this sounds like an official opposition doing its job, working hard for the Canadian public and still trying to be productive and work with the other elected representatives in the spirit of collaboration and collegiality, but we'll carry forward.
The next part is, “Members of the committee submit their prioritized witness lists for the study of Bill C-47 to the clerk...no later than Wednesday, May 3rd, 2023, at 12 p.m., and that these lists be distributed to members...as soon as possible.”
I would actually take this opportunity.... We still have a couple of days before this motion is passed to get witness lists in to the clerk. I would make a call-out to the folks in my riding. If anyone has been affected by inflation, as many of you have, and you wish to talk, please.... We believe in a democratic process. If you have a good story to tell, we'll certainly do our best to put your name forward for our study here at the finance committee. I'm looking forward to having some great witnesses.
The Conservatives are willing to extend hours and work through the break week to get this done, as I said, in the spirit of good faith, collaboration and congeniality, and in acknowledgement that the Liberals did take the most seats, even if they didn't win the popular vote in the last election.
Unfortunately, two hours is just too long for the Deputy Prime Minister to spend with the people of Canada regarding the finance portfolio she oversees. I guess it's too long for her to come down and talk to the Canadian people. I'm sure she believes she has more important things to do.
I'll go back to the motion, which says, “Moving to clause-by-clause review of Bill C-47 no later than Thursday, May 25, 2023 at 11:00 a.m.” As I said, we would like to bring in the clause-by-clause just three or four days later, on the Monday, so we can do it in the regular course of the meeting. The Conservatives have absolutely no problem sitting throughout the break week to make sure that we can get as much testimony on record as possible and so that we hear from Canadians. We believe that as elected representatives, one of our critical obligations to the people who elected us is to engage with them, talk to them and listen to them.
Then, of course, we have the usual with respect to amendments, which would be on Friday, May 19. If we did move back the date, we would probably move that back as housekeeping, going forward from there.
The motion continues with this:
ii. the clerk of the committee write immediately to each member who is not a member of a caucus represented on the committee and any independent members to inform them of the study of Bill C-47 by the committee and to invite them to prepare and submit any proposed amendments to Bill C-47 which they would suggest that the committee consider during the clause-by-clause study of the Bill
Of course, we do have a number of independents. We used to have Jody Wilson-Raybould, but she was thrown out of the Liberal caucus for speaking truth to power. She decided not to re-up, which is unfortunate because I though she was an excellent member of Parliament.
I'll continue with the motion:
(c) If Bill C-47 is referred to the committee by the House during the subject matter study of the Bill, all witness testimony, evidence and documentation received in public in relation to its subject matter study of Bill C-47 be deemed received by the committee in the context of its legislative study of Bill C-47;
(d) Subject to the approval of the recognized parties' whips, and the availability of meeting slots from the House of Commons, the committee hold as many additional meetings as possible with the goal of accomplishing at least 20 hours of study prior to the beginning of clause-by-clause consideration of the bill;
In the spirit of good faith, the Conservatives are willing to work with this government, but I really believe that 20 hours would be the absolute minimum. I can't overstate the amount of money that the government has going out the door. It's billions and billions of dollars. Think about that. How many billions are being spent and are getting out the door for every hour of witness testimony?
I really believe that the more consultation and engagement in the democratic process we have, the better off Canadians are. Then we can find issues and we can find ways to improve things. No person—no government—is perfect, and this government is certainly far from perfect.
I think it's great to have discussion, to have NDP ideas, Green Party ideas and Conservative Party ideas, so that we can improve this budget. Twenty hours, to me, is the very minimum of what we should be utilizing to discuss this—not to delay or in any way obstruct the process, but to make sure that as many voices as possible are heard.
Next is (e), which recommends this:
(e) That the Chair of the Committee write, as promptly as possible, to the Chairs of the following standing committees to invite them to study the subject matter of the following provisions of Bill C-47, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament....
I think my colleague Marty talked about the fact that we're not studying the proposed changes with respect to sanctions in the foreign affairs.... I believe that's correct, and I think it should be something we add there. Just in spending the last four or five meetings with the foreign affairs committee, I know they're working extremely hard, and the sanctions are a critical part of that.
In fact, in my own private member's bill, Bill C-281, we sought to give Parliament some say and some power with respect to the imposition of Magnitsky sanctions. Bill C-281 would give Parliament the ability to ask the government to report back to Parliament with respect to individuals who Parliament believes should be sanctioned but have not been. The Magnitsky sanctions have been, by nearly all accounts, underused in Canada. We're not seeking a full parliamentary or legislative trigger, as actually exists in many different countries around the world. All we're asking for is some additional transparency and for them to come back to the foreign affairs committee and report that.
I was very impressed with the level of expertise of many of the members of the foreign affairs committee, and I think that studying those changes in the foreign affairs committee makes a lot of sense, as we have some real experts. Of course, among them is Michael Chong, a parliamentarian renowned both for his ability to communicate and for his incredible level of knowledge on foreign affairs and everything relating to foreign affairs.
We have the various divisions—which I think is a good step for this committee—to divide up the budget for committees that have some greater expertise. Certainly, we all try to spend as much time as possible gaining knowledge and understanding in various fields, but when you look at this and you see an omnibus budget like this.... I know that the New Democratic Party and the Liberal Party complained about omnibus bills when the Conservatives were in power, but they have everything but the kitchen sink in here.
Let me read off what's included here, just some of the areas that are included in this budget. We have the status of persons with disabilities, and skills and social development; citizenship and immigration; health; industry; national defence; government operations; natural resources; industry and technology; the environment; procedure; indigenous topics; and international trade. Those are just some of the topics covered in this massive omnibus budget.
I sincerely believe that it should be an obligation for all of us as parliamentarians to cover these subjects in the depth that they require. This will affect people's lives. This could have a significant effect on many Canadians. The least we should be doing as parliamentarians is ardently studying these important changes to the Canadian budget.
The next part, (f), calls for “recommendations in relation to the provisions considered by them be provided in the form of a letter to the Chair of the Standing Committee on Finance, in both official languages, no later than 12:00 p.m. on Thursday May 18, 2023”. That date is really coming up. As I said, we as Conservatives would like to work forward and just get to work so that we make sure we can get through this substantial amount of work and testimony as quickly as possible, and that, in the spirit of collaboration, we can get the maximum number of testimonies and conversations on the record. That way as many voices as possible can be heard.
Paragraph (g) says, “if a standing committee listed in (e) chooses not to consider the subject matter of the provisions, it advise the Chair of the committee by letter, in both official languages, no later than 4:00 p.m. on Friday, May 12, 2023.” I would hope that all committees would have the ability to study these important provisions, but other things could certainly get in the way of that.
The other part of this budget implementation act that is critical is the context that we are in right now in Canada. We're facing some significant economic headwinds, not the least of which is our productivity numbers, which are lagging behind other countries'. Our dollars earned per hour and GDP contribution per hour of work, in other words, are only $55. That's lower than in the United States. That's lower than in Ireland. That's lower than in Switzerland—considerably, I might add. There are countries blessed with far fewer resources than we are blessed with that are just, quite frankly, eating our lunch when it comes to productivity, innovation and capital investment. We need to get those issues solved.
One of the things that I want to ask officials and other witnesses is what in this budget will enable greater productivity. What in this budget will really put us on the map with respect to innovation?
We have, in my opinion, the smartest, hardest-working people in all the world right here in Canada. Unfortunately, we're not enabling them. We're not facilitating. We're not putting them in the position to maximize their potential. In fact, some of them are being scooped up and taken down to the United States or to countries in Europe where they can ply their trade.
I talked to one gentleman who is an absolute genius. He's already contributed to the creation of multi-million dollar and multi-billion dollar companies. He's an immigrant to Canada, loves Canada and is a supporter of our country. He is a terrific individual and human being. He said it was great news that he made those million-dollar and billion-dollar companies, but he said with great sadness that he had to do it in the United States. He just didn't have the support he needed in Canada to make that happen.
This is really a condemnation of this Liberal government's failure to put in place the framework that he knew we needed in order to succeed. We don't have to be just branch plants. Branch plants are great, and I certainly appreciate every single manufacturing job we can bring to Northumberland—Peterborough South, the greatest riding in all the world. We certainly appreciate that, but in addition to attracting manufacturing and services, there's no reason why we shouldn't have headquarters and R and D right here in Canada. We have great professors and we have great universities, but we're losing intellectual property.
Too often what happens is that ideas are generated here in Canada but are not commercialized here. What happens, if you can believe this—and this happens over and over and over again—is that ideas are generated at our great post-secondary education facilities and are created and generated by a great population of inventors and entrepreneurs, but then, because we don't have the intellectual property framework, because we're overly burdened when it comes to taxation and regulation and because we're not agile enough as an economy, those ideas leave our shores. Oftentimes people might go down to Silicon Valley, Europe or other places in the world where they can find a more supportive framework, a place where they believe they can turn their ideas into a product or service that will change the world and will make our world a better place.
The sad part, though, for Canadians is that those products and services, which were created in Canada by Canadians, are sold back to us at a premium. It's often that we're pushing aside some of the jobs that create the greatest amount of GDP per worker. That's one of the reasons why our GDP per worker lags behind that of the United States, among many other OECD countries. We're not capturing those ideas. We're not keeping some of those great jobs here in Canada.
The average is about $50 to $55. That's what the Canadian worker contributes to the GDP per hour. In clean Canadian energy, it's about $500. That's 10 times more. This Liberal government is doing everything it can to compromise, limit, reduce and eliminate clean Canadian energy from our economy, which will have a tremendous impact not just in Alberta or in Saskatchewan, where many of those resources are located.... Those resources fuel our economy. They are really a bright light in our economy.
While we struggle with our productivity per GDP per hour in many sectors, we don't struggle in Canadian energy. That's $500. Every hour a worker out in Alberta, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick or Newfoundland is working in the energy sector, they're contributing $500 to the GDP, whereas the average is $50. This is something we need to build on, not eliminate.
It's incredibly troubling when the government doesn't acknowledge the contribution of the great folks in Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Alberta, Saskatchewan and, of course, in my very own province of Ontario as well. In fact, they're compromising it. They're making it more difficult to get our product to market.
In the regulatory regime, we will have many critical minerals that will be important to the economy in the future. Whether it's lithium for batteries or other natural resources located in Canada, we need to do everything we can to encourage the development and extraction of those important minerals and get them out of the ground and into the market as quickly as possible, because without those critical minerals, we simply won't have the batteries needed for electric vehicles or other technologies. We need to make sure that we do it in a way that allows Canadians to get the benefit of it.
Some say too many ideas are just flying out of Canada. They are flowing out of the Canadian economy and growing without being of any benefit to Canadians in growing our prosperity.
I see that one of my colleagues wants to.... I feel like I'm hogging the floor here. Watching my son play hockey, I was amazed this year by his U-11 team and how well they shared the puck, so I will practise what I preach now and share the puck a bit with one of the other members.
Who's next on the list, Mr. Chair?
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I too would like to express concern about the motion we have before us and the lack of clarity around the minister coming to appear before this committee. It would seem to me that the minister would be very interested—
Perfect. Hopefully Mr. Fast isn't upset.
I see we're coming across two o'clock. We would have to cancel, I believe, the natural resources committee. I'm more than willing to continue to talk, but I would like to impede as little as possible other committees' business, so I move that we suspend right now.
Thank you.
I want to thank my colleagues for giving me time to speak at this committee. It's not often that I get to participate at the finance committee, so I would really like to thank them for this opportunity.
As we were saying earlier, I would expect the Minister of Finance to be more than happy to come to this committee and explain the government's budget. This is the finance committee. This is the committee that's responsible for scrutinizing her work and scrutinizing the finance department. I note that we had nearly 50 bureaucrats here today to do just that and explain what the budget was all about, and explain the implementation act that is Bill C-47. We heard about a great many things.
What's interesting is that the bureaucrats are generally empowered to implement the actions of the government, not necessarily to explain why these things have been chosen. Generally, the buck stops with the minister, so it's interesting that the minister is not interested in showing up, or that this motion does not require her to appear for a couple of hours. That seems like it would be the bare minimum of the minister's obligations. I would note that we had several bureaucrats here today who said they were knowledgeable on the technicality of what's being implemented, but as to the logic and the why, that generally falls to the political staff or the politicians, or the finance minister in general.
It's frustrating to hear that we're not able to hear from the finance minister for a couple of hours. I was very interested in—and we had some of the bureaucrats here talking about it—the clean—
I'm sorry to interrupt, MP Viersen. It is question period.
We're going to suspend at this time. We will take up MP Lawrence's proposal and come back at 3:30. We'll see you after QP.
Perfect.
Through some negotiations, Mr. Chair, I have put in an offer that I think is pretty fair and reasonable. We'll see where that goes with Mr. Beech, whom I do respect tremendously. He is looking handsome today.
I would like to say something else here. It's for the benefit of the people in the room. I apologize to the hundreds of millions of viewers who are currently tuning in on CPAC to watch this right now. My team was generous enough to go and get “smile cookies”. I suggest that everyone go and buy smile cookies. I am giving out these smile cookies and donuts. As I said to Mr. Beech in my difficult negotiation with him, my only condition was that the staff has to eat first. Other than that, we were good.
Solidarity, Daniel Blaikie, if you're online.
That's just a little levity to start. As I said, I'm hoping that Mr. Beech will have some good news for us. Until then, I'm happy to talk about the budget and budget implementation act.
The BIA is a tremendously complicated and large piece of legislation. Of course, we just concluded a meeting today, one of many meetings, where we had no less than 48 government officials. That's 48 experts in various areas. This was with respect to one part of the BIA. It's absolutely incredible and mind-boggling. I believe it's absolutely critical that we have a lengthy discussion.
[Translation]
The Bloc Québécois spoke very intelligently about the bill, with Mr. Ste‑Marie saying that we could easily spend a hundred or so hours discussing it. I think that's a very smart thing to say.
[English]
This budget will have long-ranging impacts. Everything from health transfers to the Transportation Act to even the royal family is included in this bill. This omnibus bill requires in-depth consultation.
In particular, it's of critical importance to today's economy. We are at a tipping point here in the Canadian economy. After eight years, we're dealing with a huge deficit and debt, and perhaps a negative GDP per capita number, which is extremely troubling. The deputy leader and Minister of Finance was somewhat disingenuous in the House when she said that we had a 2.5% GDP growth rate in the first quarter of the year. That part is true, but she left out that the vast majority of that growth was in January. March was actually in decline. We are technically in an economy of decline. It's her own budget that forecasts a recession in the latter half of this year.
We need to be signalling to our domestic market and to international markets around the world that Canada is open for business and that we are actively seeking and engaging in capital, not just sweetheart deals for Liberal insiders. We're open to all the entrepreneurs and business owners across our great land who want to make investments, who want to grow their businesses, who want to hire people and who want to increase the prosperity of this great country.
Quite frankly, we are not making that well known domestically or internationally. We should be known as the best place to do business in the world, especially given that we have strong institutions and great people here in our country. However, we continue to create roadblocks in our own way, whether it be through overtaxation, over-regulation or the long arm of government reaching into what business owners are attempting to do. We need to be clear, and we need to be forthright with Canadians as well.
As I said, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance took umbrage with my comments describing the GST rebate as “cheap marketing”. Well, I'm sorry, but that's what the name is. In fact, if she wishes to check Hansard, the officials agreed with me that there was no reason to call this GST rebate a grocery rebate other than for a marketing purpose or for advertising so she could go across the country and say, “Yay. We have this great grocery rebate.”
It actually caused some confusion, I might add, in my constituency. I'm sure I'm not the only one who fielded calls about how to use this grocery rebate, how it worked and whether it worked like food stamps in the United States. Not only was it without substance and without reason to call it a grocery rebate and not a GST rebate, but it actually had a negative impact on Canadians, because it confused some Canadians, including people in Northumberland—Peterborough South, the best riding in all the world.
I guess she took umbrage with that. I think clarity in marketing isn't something that should just apply in the private sector; it should apply to the government as well. When the government does something like calling a GST rebate anything but a GST rebate, they in effect create confusion, and it just creates deception in the media. If a private sector actor did that, I would think the government would come after them for being disingenuous and for not being open and transparent.
We've come a long way since this government said they were “open by default”. It's been a struggle and a challenge since then. This government said that it was “sunny ways” and that they would be “open by default”. Now we've gotten to the point where we're calling GST rebates grocery rebates for no other reason than just to sell the Liberal brand, which, granted, has taken some significant hits over the last eight years. We're facing declining GDP, exploding debt and exploding deficit. We've just gone through that and continue to be ravaged by the impacts of high inflation.
I'm thinking that maybe, once again, I'm holding the puck too long for my colleagues. They might want to discuss this, but I guess I'll just carry on for a little longer here, Mr. Chair, if you don't mind.
Maybe my colleague would like to say something.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to opine on the merits of budget 2023.
I will start off by saying that I am deeply troubled by this fiscal document. After eight long years of a Liberal government, we have a document that is disingenuous and that, in fact, reflects an untruthful spirit on the side of the government. Canadians, I believe, have the right to ask who they can trust with the finances of their country. At the end of the day, Canada's prosperity hinges on whether budgetary documents actually put in place a fiscal environment within which not only government but Canadians themselves can flourish.
A budget document should outline not only what the government's spending priorities are, but also what the government's growth objectives are and how it intends to actually achieve those economic growth objectives. I'll get to that further down in my comments.
As to the question of who you trust when it comes to budget 2023 and, more broadly speaking, who you trust to manage the finances of our nation, we can begin by going straight to our finance minister and her statements. I am going to quote her statement here at this table. It's been quoted before in the House of Commons. It's probably been quoted here at this table.
Here's what the Honourable Chrystia Freeland, our finance minister, said a year ago when the 2022 budget was tabled. I believe she was already scrambling at that time to try to make sense of Canada's finances. I don't think she actually got a grip on those finances, but she made this bold statement:
...let me be very clear: We are absolutely determined that our debt-to-GDP ratio must continue to decline. Our deficits must continue to be reduced. The pandemic debt we incurred to keep Canadians safe and solvent must—and will—be paid down.
This is our fiscal anchor. This is a line we shall not cross.
That was our finance minister almost exactly a year ago. “This is a line we shall not cross” is something she said. We were going to have a declining debt-to-GDP ratio to ensure that after this massive spending that took place during COVID, our country would finally pivot back to living within its means, to having a defensible, sustainable, fiscal policy going forward.
Then, in the recent fall economic statement, less than six months ago, the minister doubled down. She was still predicting balanced budgets. Now it was going to take five years to get to balanced budgets, but at least she had a commitment, or we thought she had a commitment, to balance budgets at some point in time in the future. Then budget 2023 came around and we dug, dug and dug. We couldn't find this restatement of a commitment to a balanced budget because the reality is there was no such commitment anymore. It's gone, disappeared into the ether.
Of course, what this means is that we will be adding to our national debt, year after year after year, into the future, without any plan of living within our means, the way most Canadian families have to do when they're managing their family finances. A family can't continue to spend, spend, spend on luxury items if they can't pay for those items. They can't keep drawing down on their lines of credit, on their credit cards, without at some point in time finding a way of repaying back those borrowed funds with interest. By the way, interest rates are increasing in Canada.
I get back to the question I asked earlier: Who can you trust? Who should Canadians trust when it comes to managing our country's finances? I think Canadians are slowly but surely concluding it is not the Liberal government.
Let me go back to the notice of motion that we are debating at the table. I am going to quote from it. It asks that the committee continue its pre-study of Bill C-47, which is of course the budget implementation act, by:
(a) Inviting witnesses to appear on the contents of Bill C-47 during meetings scheduled the weeks of May 1, May 8, and May 15 2023, and that;
Members of the committee submit their prioritized witness lists for the study of Bill C-47 to the clerk of the committee by no later than Wednesday, May 3rd, 2023, at 12 p.m., and that these lists be distributed to members of the committee as soon as possible;
(b) Moving to clause-by-clause review of Bill C-47 no later than Thursday, May 25 2023 at 11:00 a.m., provided that the bill is referred to the committee on or before Thursday, May 18, 2023, and that;
i. amendments be submitted to the clerk of the committee in both official languages no later than 4:00 p.m. on Friday, May 19, 2023;
ii. the clerk of the committee write immediately to each member who is not a member of a caucus represented on the committee and any independent members to inform them of the study of Bill C-47 by the committee and to invite them to prepare and submit any proposed amendments to Bill C-47 which they would suggest that the committee consider during the clause-by-clause study of the Bill....
I'll stop there, Mr. Chair, just to highlight the fact that the amount of time that's been reserved to review and amend this huge bill, which is a culmination somewhere in the order of half a trillion dollars' worth of spending on behalf of this Liberal government over the last eight years.... The amount of time that's been allocated to study this budget is not sufficient. In fact, it's a travesty for Canadians to have to witness their Parliament and their parliamentarians having so few days to review a document that reflects a reckless approach to the fiscal situation of this country, the finances of this country.
The motion goes on to say:
(c) If Bill C-47 is referred to the committee by the House during the subject matter study of the Bill, all witness testimony, evidence and documentation received in public in relation to its subject matter study of Bill C-47 be deemed received by the committee in the context of its legislative study of Bill C-47....
That sounds fairly straightforward. Witnesses will be coming to this committee, and of course the pre-eminent witness we would call to this committee is who? It is the finance minister of our country. We have asked, time and time again, for the minister to free herself up to come to committee to defend her budget, to explain why we have spent so much money as a country and find ourselves in the middle of an incomprehensible inflationary crisis where the cost of living has skyrocketed.
Today we're debating a motion in the House of Commons brought forward by our Conservative MPs in which we lament the fact that, despite having spent close to half a trillion dollars' worth of taxpayers resources—borrowed, I might add—this government has been unable to provide an affordable housing plan. In fact, we're in a situation where Canada's housing prices have virtually doubled over the last eight years. When we look at the price of housing in the markets of Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, Halifax, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary and all the communities in between, we see that housing prices have virtually doubled. We've seen rents double.
We have seen deposits or down payments that prospective purchasers have to make increase dramatically. We have seen the payments that mortgage holders or mortgagees have to make go up almost overnight by an incredible amount.
Why? It's because we now have rising interest rates driven by the fact that we have, yes, inflation in our country.
Yes, inflation is in part driven by supply chains that were compromised during the COVID pandemic. Yes, inflation was driven in part by the fact that we had to shut down our economy during the COVID pandemic.
However, one of the major contributors to inflation in our country—and it has been confirmed by economist after economist—was the fact that this government spent so much money during the COVID pandemic. It was far beyond what was required to support Canadians with benefits. This Liberal government spent so much money and pumped so much liquidity into the marketplace that we are now grappling with an inflationary crisis that has become existential for many Canadians.
Many Canadians are on the verge of insolvency, personal bankruptcy or foreclosure, because they cannot afford life in Canada anymore. Exacerbating that problem, of course, is the fact that interest rates have gone up dramatically over the last half year or so.
Why? It's because the Bank of Canada had to intervene in order to fight inflation by raising those interest rates.
The fault lies with this government, which created the problem in the first place and is now asking the Bank of Canada to resolve it by increasing interest rates.
The question goes back to who we trust as a country to manage the country's finances. Is it a government that is directly responsible for creating inflation in our country? Are we going to trust a government like that?
As we entered the budget process, Mr. Chair, you will remember that we, as Conservatives, had three requests. That's all we had.
The first was, Mr. Prime Minister, end the war on work and lower taxes on Canadian workers. They are suffering from inflation. They need a break. That was the first request.
The second was, Mr. Prime Minister, please end your reckless spending and end the endless inflationary deficits that are driving up the cost of everything that Canadians buy, whether it's groceries or gas at the pump, and whether it's going into the hardware store or, yes, buying a house. Stop these inflationary deficits. That's the number two ask we had.
The third was remove those gatekeepers, those folks in elected and non-elected positions who are increasing the cost of homes and reducing the number of homes that are actually being built. Get the gatekeepers out of the way so that average Canadians can buy a home. Now we have enough homes coming on stream that will mitigate against some of the rising housing prices that we have seen across our country.
Sadly, nine out of 10 Canadians today believe that their dream of home ownership has evaporated. Nine out of 10 Canadians no longer believe in the dream of home ownership. That is appalling, Mr. Chair. I cannot believe that we, as a country, have got to this place in time when our children, our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren no longer have the hope of home ownership.
When I first got into the home ownership market, Mr. Chair, I was a recently graduated law student. I was articling, receiving a pittance in terms of a salary. Do you remember those days?
That was me, slaving away in a law firm, making $1,500 a month, yet back then, in the middle of the year that I was articling, in July, my wife was out of town and I found a bargain. I bought a home. At that time, interest rates were 18% to 20%.
That should shock you, Mr. Chair, that 18% to 20% was the interest rate at the time I bought my first home. The vendor of the house I purchased was agreeable to taking back a 10% mortgage. I thought I had hit the jackpot. I phoned my wife and I said, “I bought a house with a 10% mortgage; I got a real deal,” because I did get a good deal on that house.
I was able to make the mortgage payments on the house, and over the years we were able to pay off that house and buy a new one and upgrade to maybe a slightly larger home, because we quickly had four daughters in succession.
When I got home after buying that house, and my wife got back from a two-week trip abroad, she saw the countertops and they were orange laminate. The carpets were—
On a point of order, Chair, I have much respect for the member from Abbotsford.
I have three daughters, and I understand now that he has four daughters. Mine weren't born in succession. We had a COVID blessing.
I think it would be really great to get back to the topic of the budget and how great the budget is for Canadians, especially middle-class Canadians and those working very hard to join the middle class.
Mr. Chair, that wasn't actually a point of order, but I would just respond by saying that I am actually deeply disappointed that this respected member of our House and of this committee does not want to debate housing affordability in our country. That is what I was addressing. I was sharing my experience of housing affordability as my wife came home and found these orange laminate countertops and three different carpet colours. One—
Chair, I have a point of order. The member is not speaking to the motion.
The member is required, according to the Standing Orders if I am not mistaken, to speak to the topic at hand, which is the motion that's being debated. Anything that's not specific to that topic.... He needs to return to the topic; otherwise, he needs to cede his time.
I am just wondering, Chair, if you could remind him to do that.
As far as wanting to speak about housing affordability, that's actually what we want to do. That's why we want to get this motion passed and move forward with those issues that Canadians really care about.
If we could have a vote on this, that would be great, and we could all move to talking about housing affordability and the other things that are in this budget that are going to help Canadians.
If the member wants to continue to speak, I think he needs to speak to the topic at hand.
That's exactly what I was doing, so I'll quote back the relevant portion of the motion: “That the committee continue its pre-study of”—what?—“Bill C-47”—that is the budget implementation act—“...tabled in Parliament on March 28, by”, and it goes on to talk about a number of things that would be done.
I'm speaking directly to the budget and to housing affordability, which has become an appalling failure on the part of this Liberal government, so I'm going to continue to talk about housing, Mr. Chair. I note that other members of this committee have also addressed the issue of the budget and have been given much leeway to actually address the broad scope of this fiscally irresponsible and reckless fiscal document.
Mr. Chair, I'll go back. This house that I purchased—with the green carpets, the orange carpets and the crimson carpets that my wife was shocked to see when she came—became our first home, and it was affordable. I was on a very low salary at the time, and even on that salary—my wife wasn't working anymore because we had our first child at home—even on that single salary, I could buy a home with a down payment and afford the mortgage payments when the interest rate was 10% per annum. Today, no matter what the interest rate is, housing is no longer affordable in Canada. It is a major failure on the part of this government.
It's not only housing, Mr. Chair: Taxes are going up on everything, whether it's CPP, EI premiums or payroll taxes, and whether it's excise taxes that go up in this budget and carbon taxes that go up in this budget. This is what the Liberal government is doing to Canadians. Not only did it create the problem; it's making things worse.
Here's another problem, Mr. Chair. We have stagnating wages. Inflation is eroding what the dollar buys, and wages are not keeping up. Sadly, those with assets are growing richer, and those who rely on a paycheque are getting poorer day by day, because of the eroding value of those paycheques.
Did you know that one in five Canadians today is skipping a meal each day? One in five people across our country, one in five individuals in our neighbourhoods, is skipping a meal every day just to get by, because they can't afford that extra meal.
It's a perverse situation, Mr. Chair, when the working poor and the indigent are approaching food banks and asking for medically assisted death: actual proven cases of people approaching our food banks and saying, “I want to die rather than live in poverty and live hungry.” Is that the perverse situation Canada now finds itself in? Is that how we want to live as a country?
Yet there's very little in this budget that addresses that problem. Today, I viewed a video online about a food bank in Toronto called “Fort York”, with a line blocks long.... That's going viral now, of course, because it symbolizes what this Liberal government has done to our country.
Now I want to go to the issue of uncontrolled spending, Mr. Chair. I mentioned earlier that uncontrolled spending actually contributes to the inflationary pressures that we face today in our country.
Uncontrolled spending undermines the value of the paycheques that Canadians receive. Uncontrolled spending undermines the work that Canadians do. We're pumping so many dollars—so much liquidity—into the economy that there are way more dollars chasing the same number of goods and services. Any economist will tell you that if we cannot improve our productivity in our country—in other words, what every single Canadian produces—we have some serious problems on our hands. One of those problems is inflation.
The deficit in this budget is $43 billion. Remember, it was the finance minister who said that they were going to reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio and that they were on track for balanced budgets. That was the finance minister, only months ago, in the fall economic update. Today, she's saying, “Sorry, folks,” and that she was just kidding.
It's actually gone. The balanced budget commitment is gone. You know that line that she drew in the sand a year ago and said she'd never step across? Well, she just did. Nyah, nyah, that's tough on you.
Mr. Chair, this country has moved from having a $2-billion surplus under Stephen Harper some eight years ago to having a massive structural deficit. I mean that word “structural”, because it implies that these deficits are going to be a way of life for Canadians for the foreseeable future. These are interminable deficits that we are running.
Who pays for that, Mr. Chair? It's future generations of Canadians, so I want to speak to those future generations of Canadians. They are our children, our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren and new immigrants who are looking to Canada as a great country to come to and live in. Their future is a future of debt, deficits and rising interest rates, where they'll be paying back the money we're spending today.
In other words, we're spending our children's and our grandchildren's inheritance as this government blows the wad year after year. In fact, it will shock Canadians to know that over the last eight years, this government has racked up as much debt as every single Canadian government before it—combined.
It should come as a shocking statistic to Canadians to understand that this Liberal government has paid no regard to its obligation to future generations of Canadians, but continues to spend recklessly, knowing full well it will be left to a Conservative government to clean up the mess in the future, as it always is. It's always Conservative governments cleaning up the mess of previous Liberal governments. That's where we find ourselves.
The generational debt that I talk of is of epic proportions. Today, $81,000 is owed by every single household in this country. It's going up in leaps and bounds as this government continues to spend.
Let me talk a little, Mr. Chair, about the staggering cost of government.
Now, one would have thought that a government that's going to spend so much money at the very least would understand that it's important to exercise restraint in how much it spends on the government itself, and that it would exercise restraint and spend cautiously when it comes to growing the civil service. However, over the last eight years of this Liberal government, the government has added 80,000 new positions, federal government positions, each of which has to be paid with benefits, with pension....
I ask Canadians, has your service level gone up since the government added 80,000 federal government jobs? Are your passports coming quicker, the renewals that you need...? Are your visas coming more quickly? How about your tax refund? Is it coming more quickly?
It goes on and on. The service level we get has decreased, Mr. Chair, yet the cost of government has gone up dramatically. In fact, it's a 30% increase in the cost of government, with a lower level of service and interminable deficits. That is the staggering cost of government today under a Liberal government.
Well, what about our economic performance, Mr. Chair? I had hoped that at the very least there would be a plan in this budget for economic growth. This has been promised every year since Prime Minister Trudeau got elected, and every year economists point out that his budgets do not have a growth component to them.
Canada suffers from a major weakness. It is our Achilles heel, and it is what I mentioned earlier: our productivity, our declining productivity. In other words, it's what Canadians produce. Each Canadian is producing less and less as time goes on, which undermines our economic competitiveness vis-à-vis the very competitive countries around the world that want to eat our lunch when it comes to our economy, to manufacturing and to trade. When productivity lags behind, it undermines our long-term prosperity as a country.
Did you know, Mr. Chair, that Canada is at the bottom of the list of OECD countries when it comes to foreign investment or, in other words, attracting investment from abroad? When we attract dollars from abroad, when foreign investors say that Canada is a great place to invest in, that's good for our economy. Now, there are some investments from abroad that we have to review very carefully, of course, to determine whether they are to Canada's net benefit, but overwhelmingly, the money that comes from abroad, from the United States, from the European Union and elsewhere, is used to create jobs in Canada, to grow our prosperity as a country. Sadly, we are falling further and further behind when it comes to foreign direct investment in our economy.
Why is that? One of the reasons is regulatory strangulation. In other words, we have so many laws and so many regulations spread across our country, especially at the federal government level, that businesses are no longer free to thrive in an open marketplace. Bit by bit, we're shutting down the marketplace by imposing level upon level of government regulation, so that many businesses simply give up. They say, “We just can't grow,” or they say, “We're going to have to shut down.” When we have a government, a Liberal government, that calls those small businesses that are growing our economy—or that are supposed to be growing our economy—tax cheats, that's a great way of incentivizing and encouraging our small businesses to grow—to call them tax cheats, the way this Liberal government has done.
Another area where we're declining is domestic investment. Fewer and fewer Canadian companies and entrepreneurs are willing to reinvest their profits in our economy. Do you know what they're doing? They're looking elsewhere. Colleagues, you know this. Domestic investment is disappearing. It's going to markets around the world that actually appreciate their investment and welcome their investment.
Our taxation in Canada requires, I believe, significant reform. There hasn't been tax reform in our country for many years. We're paying a huge price for that. We need to review how our tax system operates to ensure that Canadian businesses and foreign businesses that want to invest here can do so in a thriving economic environment. Right now, that doesn't exist.
Here's just a note. It's a little factoid, Mr. Chair. Did you know that Canada's per capita GDP.... There are a number of standards and organizations that assess per capita GDP around the world. I've just taken one of them and plucked these figures. The per capita GDP in Canada is $59,000.
Do you know what it is in the United States? It's $78,000. That's almost $20,000 more. Do you know what it is in Australia? It's $9,000 more than in Canada. We are falling further and further behind when it comes to our economic performance as a country. We're falling further behind in terms of our competitiveness when it comes to attracting investment from other countries. Mr. Chair, we are failing when it comes to economic growth.
I'm going to close my remarks and pass it on to my colleagues here.
I want to say this as well, that there was one last thing that I wanted to see in this budget. I think you can guess what that might have been. Beyond its being just a growth budget—which it isn't—and beyond its being just a low-tax budget—which it isn't—I wanted to see if this budget actually had a substantive amount allocated to address the curse and the threat of foreign interference in our country.
As you know, colleagues, our country faces a very significant threat from hostile actors around the world who want to interfere in our elections, steal our intellectual property, steal our research, and conspire to undermine our long-term prosperity as a country and our long-term national security. It's right for us to ask if there is a sufficient amount in this budget that would address the threat of foreign interference.
This week we learned that one of our colleagues, Mr. Chong, had his family threatened because he voted in favour of human rights in the House of Commons. Mr. Chong is a champion of human rights at home and abroad. Because of his firm stand on human rights, his family elsewhere around the world has been threatened by the Communist regime in Beijing.
It's right for us to ask if there's enough in this budget to address that very specific threat to our democracy. The sad answer is no. There's virtually nothing in this budget to address that threat.
When we raised the issue and asked in the House of Commons, Mr. Chair, that the Speaker allow us an emergency debate on the issue of foreign interference—specifically on the intimidation of Canadian MPs and their families when it comes to standing up for human rights—the response was, I'm sorry, we're not going to grant this emergency debate. It seems that foreign interference isn't important enough.
Mr. Chair, you will sense my profound disappointment in this budget, and you will understand why we, as Conservatives, had no option but to vote against the budget earlier today in the House of Commons. We will do so again at third reading.
Whenever called on to do so, we will vote against this budget, unless there are substantive amendments made that allow us to confirm that the investments that are required to be made in things like addressing foreign interference, are, in fact, made. We don't see that there now. There are many other failings in this budget.
I now yield the floor to my colleague, Mr. Morantz.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Wow, that's how it's done, Mr. Chair.
To my great colleague here, Mr. Fast, you are going to be a tough act to follow. I agree with everything you said, and I wish I could say it as well. It was so well done. In fact, I'll yield the floor back to you so you can do it all over again.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Mr. Marty Morantz: Now, I just want to make a few points. I don't think I'll hold the floor too long, because I know that other colleagues are anxious to get at it as well.
The biggest concern that Conservatives have about this motion is not particularly what's in it; it's what's not in it. The glaring omission is that it does not contain an invitation for the Minister of Finance to appear at this committee to defend her own budget. Yielding on that, I will quote somebody who has used this line in the past. This is a line we will not cross.
A voice: Who was that?
Mr. Marty Morantz: When Conservatives say it, we mean it.
Now, all this stuff got me to thinking. I recall an article I read by Philip Cross earlier in April. In this article, he talks about former finance minister Bill Morneau's book, Where To From Here. He said that Mr. Morneau “described how the absence of a fiscal target and constant meddling from the Prime Minister's Office 'shattered any pretense of fiscal restraint.'”
It just so happens that I read Mr. Morneau's book when it came out. It reminded me of something I thought was very interesting. There's a passage in this book called Where To From Here, where Mr. Morneau describes his experience dealing with the Prime Minister's Office. In one passage, he talks about the CERB. He was asked to go back to his officials, do a calculation and come up with a recommendation as to how much the CERB ought to be. It seems like a reasonable question for a prime minister to ask of his finance minister, to do that analysis.
He talks about his experience. He says:
After looking at all the options and variables, we submitted a range of weekly incomes justified by our carefully considered calculations, only to be overruled by the prime minister and PMO, who rejected our recommendations in favour of distributing $2,000 per month or $500 a week because the numbers “sounded good”.
It's hard to believe that's how fiscal policy is done in Canada.
I'm going somewhere with this. Don't worry, Mr. Chair. I know you're very anxious to hear where I'm going with this argument. Trust me, I am. I have a landing spot.
Mr. Morneau said, “Supporting people off work was critical, but we recognized that the amount decided on by the PMO was over the top.” He called it “over the top”, Mr. Chair.
This is the finance minister:
For many part-time workers or those in low-income jobs, this amount would exceed their regulate take-home pay. I wanted to be generous, but the PMO's figures, chosen with no regard for our detailed calculations and justifications, meant we would be distributing billions of dollars more than was actually needed under the circumstances.
This is the finance minister of Canada saying that. It's stunning, actually. It's absolutely stunning.
Now, he doesn't say what he would have recommended, and I don't know if we'll ever be able to get that information, but I would love to know what he recommended. Whatever it was, this $1.2-trillion debt the Prime Minister has racked up—well, he's doubled the debt since 2015, as Mr. Fast mentioned—would be significantly lower if the advice of the finance minister had just been followed.
He goes on to talk about the wage subsidy as well. He says:
Once again, my team worked through the night to make our calculations and shape our recommendations on how much money businesses would actually get. I managed to deliver our report to the prime minister at 10 p.m. one evening early in the pandemic.
At a press gathering the next morning, about 12 hours after he had agreed with all aspects of the program I had presented, I watched and listened as he introduced the program to Canada. With great pride he announced the amount of money made available to individual businesses via CEWS...a figure significantly higher than we had agreed was the highest we should go the previous evening!
It's unbelievable. I'm getting to my point about this motion, because I'm not sure, I'm absolutely really doubting, sincerely, Mr. Chair and colleagues on the other side, whether Ms. Freeland, the finance minister, is even the right person to come to defend this budget. It seems to me, if you listen to Mr. Morneau, that it doesn't really matter what the finance minister thinks, says or recommends.
Honestly, I think maybe what we should be doing is changing the motion to call on the Prime Minister to appear to defend this budget. It's clear to me that, by the way this Prime Minister operates, his cabinet ministers really have no real authority.
On that, I want to return briefly to a point I was making earlier about the omnibus nature of the budget.
There are 39 separate legislative initiatives contained in part 4. Earlier today, we had something like 50 officials—50 officials—from the finance department here, and I asked them a very simple question.
Some of you may remember that a few years ago the justice department put a provision into a budget implementation act, saying that the Attorney General should be able to defer prosecutions at her discretion. It breezed through. It became law, and that laid the groundwork for what became known as the SNC-Lavalin scandal.
I asked officials today if there were there any changes. This bill is absolutely massive. Most of the things it contains really have nothing to do with budgeting. It contains things like withdrawing most favoured nation status from Russia and Belarus. That's not a budget item, but it's in there for some reason. It amends the Privileges and Immunities (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) Act to enable the Paris Protocol to be implemented in Canada. That's not a budgetary item in anyone's estimation, but it's in the budget document.
It amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the Yukon Act, the Marine Liability Act, the Wrecks, Abandoned or Hazardous Vessels Act, and air passenger rights—some of these are laudable goals, Mr. Chair—and prohibits testing of cosmetics on animals, and so many other things.
I was worried, so I asked these 50 officials if there is anything in this bill....
Remember, the amendment for the deferred prosecution agreement was specifically there to benefit the Prime Minister's buddies at SNC-Lavalin, so that they could avoid criminal charges on very serious charges.
I asked them, “Are there any changes in this bill that would benefit one particular company?” Do you know what happened, Mr. Chair? There was no response, not a peep, from any single one of the 50 public servants who were sitting here a couple of hours ago. Silence.... I would still like that question answered before we go any further. I think Canadians need to know if there is anything that is going to be scandal-worthy again in this budget. We need to know it right up front.
With that, I have made my points for now, anyway. I have a lot more to say about this document, particularly around....
I want to say one other thing, because I want to reiterate one point before I finish, which Mr. Fast touched on.
From the day of Confederation in 1867 to 2015, when this Prime Minister took office, the amount of debt accrued by the consecutive governments of Canada was just over $600 billion. Today it's over $1.2 trillion. From 1867 to 2015, it was $600 billion, and from 2015 to 2023.... You be the judge.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
There is the parliamentary secretary right now, and I'm glad he's here.
Also I want to note for the viewers at home that the member from Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan is in the building and has a number of materials that he will draw upon for his comments. I am just the warm-up act.
As we talk about the motion before us, we had some requests on this side with respect to clause-by-clause maybe starting on June 6 instead of Thursday, May 25, but we will give all other demands or requests up if we reference an invitation to the minister to appear at the committee for two hours before clause-by-clause.
Based on previous experience, invitations that include the minister don't even need to be abided by the minister, so I'm not really sure what the government's issue is with having an invitation to the minister included in this motion, unless, of course, the minister is intending not to show up.
If the minister does show up, I have some questions for the minister, and this is why it's important.
I have just a quick point of order, Mr. Chair.
I think Mr. Chambers point is well taken, certainly by me, if I understand it right. I'd be happy to suggest an amendment to that effect, but I can't do that unless I have the floor.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr. Chambers, for offering me the floor.
I would propose to amend the motion to add the following clause:
that the Minister of Finance be invited to appear for two hours on the bill, and that this appearance be scheduled on or before May 18
I think that would make the most sense with the motion we have before us.
That is May 18, 2023, of course.
I'm sorry. As a point of order, could that be read again a little more slowly, so we can make note of it?
Yes, that works for me, if it works for everyone else.
It would be something to the effect that the Minister of Finance be invited to appear for two hours on the bill, and that this appearance be scheduled on or before May 18, 2023.
As always, I am impressed by Mr. Blaikie's ability to bridge the unbridgeable.
I have one small addition to his language, and that would be changing the motion that the clause-by-clause beginning—and I believe the date is the 18th, if I have that right—is made contingent on the minister's appearance for two hours.
Yes. Perhaps you could give me just a couple of minutes.
The Chair: Sure.
Mr. Philip Lawrence: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate your generosity.
I just wondered if we were going to have some debate on the amendment. I'd be very happy to motivate it. I know that we were in kind of a conversational mode before, but if we are going to be debating it—
I'd love to have an opportunity to motivate it if we are going to be in debate mode, and it seems like that may be the case. One never knows for certain, of course, until proceedings are under way, but it certainly seems that way.
I want to start by saying that I of course agree that the minister should appear on her bill. I'll furthermore agree that she should appear in the context of our inflation study. I've been very consistent about that over...well, over the years now, I think it might be fair to say. It's certainly close to that. It's many months—over a year's worth of months—so that is something that I want to see.
I'm cognizant of parliamentary principles that prohibit committees from compelling ministers to appear, but many ministers do appear without having to be compelled. I think it would make a lot of sense for the minister to appear. There's a fair bit in the bill. Of course, there was a lot in the budget, and there are lots of issues that the committee has been inviting the minister to talk about for some time. I certainly have some sympathy for my Conservative colleagues, who would like to see the minister appear here for more than an hour on the bill, or, if she is going to come for only an hour on the bill, to be clear about her intention to appear for however much time in the context of our inflation study, and to be clear about when she intends to appear.
I think all of that would help the conversation. I thought I spotted a moment, perhaps, where we could get past our current impasse on the present motion, which I also think is a good motion, because I think it helps us prepare our work over the time to come. I've listened now at some length to Conservative colleagues talk about the importance of studying this legislation. It's why I'm keen to get studying it. I've been happy that we've found a way to start a prestudy and to start hearing from officials, because that was a way to get that work started. I really don't want to end up in a situation where we end up using our time to do this kind of thing as opposed to using our time to hear from Canadians on the substance of the budget implementation act, because I think that would be a shame. It's the kind of shame that we have seen around this table before, where we used a lot of our meeting time to discuss the ways we were going to study the budget implementation act without actually studying the budget implementation act.
Of course, as I say, here we are. We have a decent motion for how to proceed that doesn't put an end date on the study of the bill. It doesn't require clause-by-clause to be finished by a certain time. I think we have enough goodwill around the table that, if we could get to a vote, we could include in there an invitation for the minister to appear for two hours.
As I say, there's a long-standing parliamentary principle that doesn't really permit us to compel a minister, as much as we might like to. Of course, if members are interested in changing that principle, allowing committees to compel ministers to appear, I'm open to that discussion, but this isn't the place where that discussion is going to happen. This isn't the place where that decision is going to get made. I'm open to more dialogue about that and to finding the appropriate place to have that conversation. It would probably be the procedure and House affairs committee.
Some members may know that the procedure and House affairs committee is set to meet this evening on the subject of foreign interference, which, as Mr. Fast rightly pointed out, is a very important and topical issue at the moment. I fear that our current conversation now, if we can't at least get to a vote....
I want to be clear that the conversation we're having is one that we're having because of quite a high bar that the Conservatives have set, which is to have consensus in order to be able to make any decisions. I know that when we talk about electoral reform, Conservatives are always very quick to point out that we live in a majority system, and that a simple majority ought to be enough to make decisions in Parliament, and in fact that a plurality should be enough to make decisions in an election. I know they're very familiar with the principle of majority decision-making, but at the finance committee, for some reason, they feel that we need to have a consensus rather than a simple majority.
That requirement that the Conservatives are putting on the committee, which is to have a consensus in order to be able to make a decision, means that tonight another committee is going to get cancelled. It may well be the procedure and House affairs committee meeting that is going to get cancelled. Wouldn't it be a terrible irony if the study of foreign interference that Mr. Fast has said is so important, and the absence of resources that he's decried in the budget, were to be cancelled, and the witnesses who were to appear this evening didn't get to provide their testimony or had to reschedule their appearances?
Those witnesses include Gerald Chipeur, a partner in Miller Thomson LLP; Ward Elcock, former director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, or CSIS; and Michel Juneau-Katsuya, former chief of the Asia-Pacific unit, CSIS. Then, from the Vancouver Anti-Corruption Institute, there's Peter German, barrister and solicitor; as an individual, Nancy Bangsboll, independent researcher; Thomas Juneau, associate professor at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa; Christian Leuprecht, professor, Royal Military College of Canada; and, of course, Jenni Byrne, who has an impressive connection to the current leader of the Conservative Party and the Conservative Party generally.
She has said and the Conservatives have said that they're happy to have her appear. Certainly one would hate to think that we're getting filibustered here in order to shut down another committee so that Jenni Byrne doesn't get to say her piece about foreign interference at PROC. I'm sure that's not what's going on, but people speculate around Parliament Hill, and one never knows, of course, what kind of conclusions others will draw.
Here we are. We have Conservatives, who say they believe in majority decision-making, requiring a consensus because they don't like, among other things, that there aren't resources to fight foreign interference. We may well end up cancelling a meeting that's about investigating foreign interference. It just seems like a really basic dysfunction that's happening here, which we could fix by just going to a vote.
If we went to a vote, we could amend this motion to include a two-hour invitation to the minister, accepting the long-standing principle that we can't compel a minister to appear at committee. That's not anyone's fault around this table; that's a long-standing item. Then we could move forward on Thursday with our study of the budget implementation act, which Conservatives have said is going to take a lot of time. In fact, they want more time, not less time.
Also, if we do it soon enough, I think there's a good chance we could allow PROC to do its work examining foreign interference. I just appeal to my colleagues. Let's not get stuck here tonight. I think that's a real possibility, but it's not too late to avert it.
I think we could honour some important Conservative principles, like majority decision-making and investigating foreign interference—which, as it happens, is also an important principle to the New Democrats—and we could be ready to show up to work on Thursday to study the budget implementation act instead of just talking about studying it.
Those sound like three good things to me. I think it's still within our reach to accomplish all three of those things, so I would appeal to my Conservative colleagues, not to agree with something that they don't agree with, but to at least allow a vote to happen so that the committee can make a decision and get on with our work.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the committee for allowing me to open debate on my amendment.
Thank you, MP Blaikie.
On your friendly amendment, I saw that Mr. Beech raised his hand. Then I have Mr. Genuis.
Go ahead, Mr. Beech.
I won't take up too much time, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to take this opportunity to speak in favour of the amendment.
Also, I want to thank all members of the committee for the discussions that have happened over a lengthy period of time. Since we suspended and came back to enjoy spirited discussions on a variety of topics with regard to this motion, of course, the BIA has now been passed and referred to this committee. It is quite timely that we are debating this at the moment.
I'm in a tough position because, as a good-faith negotiator, I don't want to get into the details of the various talks that have been going on for a long time around this, but I think Mr. Blaikie was correct that this feels oddly familiar. If we go back to BIA 2022, we had a similar motion to this, but with an end date on it. It was filibustered by the Conservatives after some negotiation, until it wasn't. Then it was passed, and the only thing we lost was the time for witnesses to come and share their concerns about the BIA.
Like I said, I don't want to get into all the details, but we have followed a very similar path. It is quite interesting, I think, that through conversations with the Bloc and through conversations with the NDP, we were able to determine where the Liberals were, where the Bloc was and where the NDP was fairly consistently and fairly reasonably.
I think I'm on version 11 of the asks from the Conservatives. I've actually gone through multiple negotiators as well. People wonder why we're currently having a Conservative filibuster at committee. Let's be very clear about what this resolution is: This resolution is the consensus that was shared prior to the resolution's being drafted. At some point, everybody agreed to this, and then the goal posts changed.
Now Mr. Blaikie has put forward an amendment that addresses the primary concern, even though I would also note that the prestudy already has an invitation for the minister to appear. On the request of Monsieur Ste-Marie hours ago, we're working on a date between now and May 18. I think it's a fair resolution. It's a great way to study the BIA. It does it in a timely way that reflects what we did last year and the year before, and I am very excited about getting to a vote.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
It's a pleasure for me to be able to join the finance committee. A lot of my service in Parliament has focused on issues of foreign affairs and public accounts, so it's good to be able to visit this committee and to hear Mr. Blaikie share some information with us about his assessment of Conservative principles. It's always interesting to hear those things.
Chair, there's a consensus among Conservatives that we want to see a robust study of the budget implementation act move forward.
Yes, it happens sometimes, Mr. Beech.
Respectfully, I would say that it's a target-rich environment. There is a lot to talk about in terms of what is in the budget implementation act and some of the concerns it raises.
Sincerely, if the government's wish is for this committee to be able to move forward with meaningful study of that document, of the budget implementation act, the simple thing would be for the witnesses to be scheduled and for the committee not to pass this kind of programming motion.
In my experience, there's absolutely no need for committees to have some predefined programming motion in front of them that says that we will do this in only this way, on this date, with this limitation, and so forth. Most committees undertake studies. They begin studies, and they do so with maybe a general understanding of how they're going to proceed, but with a certain open-handedness to the possibility that there may be reasons to shorten or extend studies based on witness testimony. There may be witnesses who come and raise issues, and those issues may require further discussion or response later on.
I question at the outset the premise of the parliamentary secretary's remarks—and I think Mr. Blaikie said something similar—that we must have a programming motion, that we must pass this motion or something like it in order to be able to study the BIA. I don't think that's true at all.
If this meeting is adjourned without this motion passing—maybe my colleagues can correct me if I'm wrong—my understanding is there is nothing at all to prevent a study from happening. I think that's an important caveat in terms of what's out there.
I have great respect for Mr. Blaikie. He and I have played chess on a number of occasions, and I won't share the win-loss record. That would be unfair. I enjoy chatting with him, etc. To his point, he's put forward an amendment that is fine, but not sufficient. The amendment says that the committee would invite the Minister of Finance to appear before the committee to discuss the budget. In normal times that wouldn't even be necessary. The idea that the finance committee would hear from the finance minister on the budget implementation act.... That should be a pretty obvious, automatic thing. He's putting forward this motion saying the committee would invite the minister to appear to speak on the budget.
Well, again, I would have thought that would be a given. It's maybe less of a given, given the evident, ongoing general absence of the finance minister. It's like we need to make the movie “Finding Freeland” to know where she is. She's very rarely in the House and has not been before this committee.
In terms of finding Freeland, the committee should invite her, and she should appear for two hours. Again, this would normally be a given, but it's not, given that the finance minister has not been as visible and as available in terms of answering questions of the committee, which is why this “finding Freeland” conversation is required.
There is an invitation inherent in the motion, aimed ostensibly at finding Freeland, but the reality is that it does not actually necessarily affect that outcome; it doesn't necessarily ensure that's going to happen.
In the interests of ensuring that we are actually finding Freeland, Mr. Chair, I have a subamendment to propose. Actually, there are two component parts to the subamendment. One brings in, I think, another issue.
Before I share the text of that, I will speak a bit to the underlying principle. Obviously, this committee's primary engagement in terms of ministers is with the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, who is responsible for putting forward the budget, but it should hear from other ministers, especially in a time when we're seeing budgets that are so expansive and that cover so many different policy areas, as my colleagues have alluded to, with respect to foreign affairs, public safety, national defence, international development and housing. It's any policy area you could imagine that involves expenditure, which is virtually everything. Anything the government does has to involve some kind of expenditure. The budget covers such a breadth of policy areas that I think that not just the Minister of Finance but also other ministers should be heard from as well, as part of these deliberations. I think that's important.
In terms of getting ministers to come before committee, I can share that my experience with other committees is that we've had significant challenges getting ministers before other committees. I'm the vice-chair of the foreign affairs committee. We have tried to have ministers appear more often. We've asked for ministers to appear for two hours. We are hearing from the Minister of Foreign Affairs this week for one hour, which is the first time we will have heard from the minister since last summer. We've asked to hear from the minister on multiple sites.
The context is that I think there's a plan. There's some kind of strategic direction from the government, saying that our ministers are not able to answer questions very effectively from members of the opposition, so we're just going to hold them back and encourage them to not appear before the committee. Hence, we have the whole finding Freeland issue and the need to bring the Minister of Finance here, but there's also the need to bring other ministers to appear before this committee. That is the subamendment.
Also, invitations aren't good enough. Committees can issue invitations. We need to take more seriously the role of parliamentary committees in bringing people before them to hear what they have to say. We have this problem of people just blowing off committees that need to hear from certain witnesses who are doing important work.
As Mr. Blaikie pointed out, we don't have the opportunity to compel ministers to appear before committees. As he pointed out, you could have a debate about the provisions around that, and anybody else could be compelled. Private citizens can be compelled. Political staff.... There are debates around the merits of that. The powers of the committee include the power to compel political staff, deputy ministers and any of these folks. Anyone in Canada can be compelled to appear, except for elected officials.
The irony is that our system is supposed to be built around the idea of ministerial accountability. Ministers are supposed to be accountable. Typically, the back and forth that occurs is when one says that we need to hear from a deputy minister or we want to hear from political staff, then the government says that we can't compel those people to come because it's ministerial accountability. The minister is the one who is supposed to be accountable for the department.
Then the ministers decide not to appear. They have this unique privilege of being able to choose not to appear—just because.
There needs to be some kind of a—
I have a quick point of order, if you don't mind, Mr. Chair.
At one point, Mr. Genuis indicated that he was moving a subamendment. I respect that I may have missed it, but I was just wondering if he had moved it already, in which case I missed the substance of his subamendment. If he wouldn't mind sharing it with the committee, I think that would be helpful.
If not, that's fine. I expect that he is coming to it.
I think it would be useful to know whether we're debating a subamendment or the amendment right now.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We've gone from “finding Freeland” to “finding the subamendment”. I haven't read it out yet, but, in deference to my honourable colleague, who is honouring me with his close attention to my remarks, I will now proceed to read the subamendment, then speak further to it.
The subamendment, as I indicated, seeks to make two substantive changes.
One, I believe the committee should hear from the public safety minister on the issue of the budget implementation act, given the issues we're dealing with around foreign interference and the fact that this budget deals with efforts to combat foreign interference. It creates an office of combatting foreign interference. I would like to hear from the Minister of Public Safety, as well.
Then, I would like to establish that clause-by-clause not begin unless both of these ministers have appeared for two hours.
The subamendment is adding, after the word “Finance”, “and Minister of Public Safety”. Later on, it reads “that this appearance”. That should be changed to “that these appearances”—
Mr. Chair, on a point of order, with apologies to my colleague, if this subamendment has already put it in and the process is already complete, that's fine. However, I'm wondering—
Yes, exactly. If we could hold court on that, go back in time and pretend it didn't exist, and if Mr. Beech is okay with suspending the meeting and negotiating off...until Thursday in a good faith way.
I'm perfectly fine with continuing forward. I think we need to get to a vote. I'm interested to hear what this subamendment is. Certainly, there are negotiations going on, and I would say this is probably unhelpful.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It's no problem at all. Mr. Lawrence is doing great work here and on his excellent private member's bill, which we hope will pass into law soon.
The subamendment adds “and Minister of Public Safety” after the word “Finance”, and it changes the term “this appearance” to “these appearances” for grammatical clarity. It adds, before the word “appear”, the word “each”. That's earlier. After “Finance” is “and Minister of Public Safety”, then “be invited to each appear for two hours”. It should say “each appear separately”—because sometimes they'll show up together and that isn't as effective—“for two hours on the bill, and that these appearances”. It continues with the language of the amendment as it was written, then adds the full phrase afterwards, “and that, notwithstanding the proposed date, clause-by-clause not be scheduled unless both of these ministers have each appeared for two hours.”
If the subamendment is accepted, the amendment would read as follows:
“That the Minister of Finance and Minister of Public Safety be invited to each appear separately for two hours on the bill, that these appearances be scheduled on or before May 18, 2023 and that, notwithstanding the proposed date, clause-by-clause not be scheduled unless both of these ministers have each appeared for two hours.”
I have some comments on that subamendment. Before I proceed to those comments, is it understood by all members?
[Translation]
I'm being told that it all works in French too. That's great.
[English]
First of all, let me speak to the issue of why I think it's important that the committee hear from the Minister of Public Safety. As I said, yes, this is a budget implementation act. Yes, it's a budget bill. Yes, it's proposed in the House by the Minister of Finance. However, it is also the case that the budgetary framework of the government—the budget or budget implementation act we've seen—covers a broad expanse of different issues. I could have proposed any number of ministers, I suppose.
It's interesting to me, in general, in this place how sometimes we give so little time to the most significant issues. So much of the decision-making of the government and the legislative work of the government is packed into one document, which is the budget. There's some expectation that we rush it through quickly, and then committees spend substantially more time doing studies, which lead to recommendations but don't even necessarily lead to legislation.
When the committees are at their peak in terms of exercising real, hard power, I personally think that sometimes we seem to spend less time on that and substantially more time on issues that may be important in terms of the philosophical matter they raise but don't actually involve committees' exercising their hard power.
It is important that this committee, in the process of taking the time it needs for the study, hear from ministers—I think multiple ministers—who can speak to the importance of this.
In terms of the full spectrum of possible commentary that we could hear from ministers, though, let's acknowledge that the particular issues that might be present in the testimony of the Minister of Public Safety are a real priority for the consideration of this committee. This budget and budget implementation act come at a time when I think there's really significant, heightened concern about the issue of foreign-state-backed interference in our country, which is the defining national security challenge of our time.
When I was growing up, I think there was a lot of discussion of terrorism, and it's still very much an issue in terms of national security threats. However, I think we need to adjust our paradigm to recognize that there's this issue of foreign state-backed interference in our country that, in the past, has been under-engaged in by the government. We have tried to sound the alarm on it for a long time. I was the vice-chair, in the last Parliament, of the Special Committee on Canada-China Relations, and we began a study on the national security implications of Canada's relationship with the People's Republic of China, trying to understand what those dynamics were and what things we could do to respond to them.
I'm going to stay on topic, as I have been.
My subamendment, just to refresh, is that the public safety minister be invited before the committee. The reason I think we need the public safety minister before the committee is to address the proposals in the budget implementation act that deal with the issue of foreign state-backed interference, which is a defining national security threat.
There's no way one could be more on topic than when speaking about the national security threats we face, the context in which they exist and the proposals in the budget to address them. Maybe just to foreshadow where I'm going, the budget contains provisions around creating an office of.... It's not an office of foreign influence. There are a few other offices that are of foreign influence. It's an office of combatting foreign influence, ostensibly, or an office of responding to foreign influence.
Mr. Chair, the budget has this proposal, and I think it's ill defined. I think it generally misses the point. Obviously, there's a lot of work that needs to be done on foreign interference. There's a lot of expertise out there. So much of the problem has seemed to be political will. The problem has been that we have intelligence agencies, especially CSIS, that are waving the flag. They're saying to the government that we have these big issues. They raised concerns with the government about multiple things that were happening. The government has given very ambiguous, unclear answers about what and when it knew about various issues. Now it says, “Oh, no, we're on top of this, we're creating an office.” It's creating a relatively small office that's going to put all the pieces together.
One of the challenges we already have is that when people look at the issue of foreign interference, it's not always clear where they can go for resolution. If you're a Tibetan-Canadian, and you are facing foreign state-backed interference.... I could list various real-world cases where this is happening. The most publicized one was a student leader elected to an office on her university campus, who was subsequently subjected to a series of threats in a way that was likely coordinated from abroad.
If you're a Tibetan-Canadian, if you have concerns and you face this sort of thing, then where do you go? Maybe you go to this office of combatting foreign interference. Maybe that's your call. Do you call that office? Do you contact Global Affairs Canada, the RCMP, your local police or CSIS?
In fact, in many instances, people have been—
I do have my hand up, Mr. Chair.
It's not a point of order. If you can put me on the list, then I'll be happy to speak when it's my turn.
Thank you, Chair.
If you're a person who is facing these kinds of issues, if you're a victim of this and you're looking for support, where do you go? Who is responsible for coordinating this response? I don't think that response is going to be coordinated by this small office that, as it sounds in the budget, is going to exist sort of independently from these other institutions.
There's a lot of information that CSIS already has, but the issue has been political will. The issue has been the government not responding to that information or taking it seriously or maybe making the calculation that it's not in their interest to respond seriously to that. What we have seen in reports in various newspapers is that the Communist Party in Beijing believed that it was in its interest to see the re-election of a minority Liberal government.
That's what has been reported, so it's, I think, this structural challenge that we have, which is that if we are seeing foreign state-backed interference that has as its goal political interference that benefits political actors—and those political actors are the ones who are supposed to be solving the problem and those political actors are not motivated to solve the problem because they are the ones who are in some way benefiting from this interference—then we have a problem. I think the only response to that is some degree of sunlight. When these issues get exposed, the public understandably is concerned about the issue and puts pressure on its leaders to do better.
We have a case right now that has just come out. It's really a baffling and horrifying situation, such that it was the lead item for all three opposition parties in question period—rarely does it happen that there's such a unity of focus and concern on a particular issue—which is to say that we have foreign interference that involved threats against the family of a member of Parliament in response to a vote and work done by that member of Parliament on human rights issues, particularly on the Uyghur genocide. The government, it seems, was aware of that information and did not inform the member involved until it became public.
The government's response since then has been to say it has offered reassurance to the member and so forth, but that engagement should have come much, much earlier. I think any of us would expect that if a foreign government were involved in something that was impacting one of our families, the government would be engaged with us right away.
These are questions that I think we need to put to the Minister of Public Safety. We need to understand what he knew and when. He was asked repeatedly in question period today: When did he get this information, and when was he told what was happening? In fact, at no point did he provide a response. Well, he provided responses, but at no point did he provide an answer to the question in terms of actually saying when he became aware of this information or not. These are the kinds of questions we would likely pose to the public safety minister if he were here.
Related to that, to the BIA, I think it's important to establish what the government is actually planning on doing structurally to combat these problems. On this “we're going to create a new office and we're going to appoint someone new” response, how is that actually going to constructively respond to the problem?
It has been, I think, the pattern of the government in general, as is recommended in the great British television show, Yes Minister . When the minister sees a problem and his officials ask him what is he going to do, he says, “I'll appoint someone.” He almost has a special rapporteur, but he's not at that point yet.
This is the tendency, but it's not actually resolving—
Excuse me, Mr. Genuis. Could you just move away from the mike and give it some distance? The feedback is affecting the sound for the translators and, of course, it's for the health and safety for our translators, please, if you just keep back a bit from the mike. Thank you.
If I do it from here, is that being heard on the mike? Is that okay? That's perfect. I can lean further back, even. Is that okay?
This is much more comfortable, Chair.
I've been a parliamentarian—
I don't think anyone is struggling to hear. The struggle is in appreciating what's being said, not in hearing it.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Mr. Blaikie, I look forward to your subsequent comments on what Conservative principles are, but I welcome your attention.
To be honest, I've been a member of Parliament for eight years, and I've always leaned into the mike, so this is great news.
Anyway, Mr. Chair, what I was—
Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here.
Sorry to interrupt my colleague, but I just want to make sure I'm following. The clerk has been kind enough to send me the original motion from Mr. Beech, but if Mr. Genuis could circulate his amendment to the members so that we can put it in the context of the whole thing—so, send it to the clerk and perhaps have the clerk send it to us—that would be helpful.
Mr. Genuis is welcome to submit it to the clerk, and the clerk can then distribute it to the members.
Just a moment here.
What I sent you is the text of.... I bolded and underlined the additions that I'm proposing and used a strikethrough for the bits that I'm removing. Otherwise, it's the text of the amendment from Mr. Blaikie.
Thank you, MP Genuis. It will need to be translated before it can be distributed.
Mr. Garnett Genuis: Okay. Thank you.
I think this demonstration of technological prowess is meant to make the case as to why we need to hire experts to combat foreign interference.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Mr. Blaikie, we'll open a chess.com window once somebody else is....
It will no doubt be a great source of disappointment to members when I say that I have to duck out at six o'clock. I will quickly conclude my remarks. I think others may have some points to make, but if the discussion is still going on after seven o'clock, to quote the great General MacArthur, I will be back and I may have more to say at that point.
To conclude, on the issue of the Minister of Public Safety and the importance of his role, as well as the important moment we're going through right now in terms of concern about this issue, I think in the budget implementation act it would have been wiser to allocate funds for a full inquiry into what's going on. That would have been the more appropriate approach. We need to actually look at what has happened, get to the bottom of it and hold people accountable.
I might say that the national inquiry should not be led by someone who works or has worked at the Trudeau Foundation. There are still some Canadians out there who have not worked for the Trudeau Foundation. I'm sure one of them would be available to lead such an inquiry.
Again, this speaks to the importance of having the Minister of Public Safety speak on the budget implementation act and answer some questions about what he's been up to and what the spending plan is around strengthening our police response to these issues. We'll probably have some other questions for the Minister of Public Safety about the challenges this country faces in terms of crime and how the budget seeks to respond to those. The government is devoting enormous resources to targeting law-abiding firearms owners while failing to directly deal with the issue of repeat violent offenders, which can be directly traced to changes the government made to the parole system.
The subamendment that I put forward does deal with the fact that ministers should appear. They shouldn't just be invited to appear; they should be expected to appear. Indeed, the subamendment does say that the clause-by-clause will not proceed unless the ministers appear.
To explain that a bit, there's no way to compel ministers to appear, as has been said and as members know. We can't compel ministers to appear. That's the one exception. You can compel anyone to appear, but you can't compel ministers who, ironically, are the people who should be appearing most often and are most fully accountable for the work being done by their departments. That's the principle of ministerial accountability.
We can't compel ministers to appear, but if we say that the committee expects them to appear before the committee proceeds to clause-by-clause, I think that enshrines the principle that.... I guess you could say it uses the leverage that we have. The committee doesn't have the ability to legally compel ministers to have the Sergeant-at-Arms drag them here. The committee can say that if the government wants to proceed with this legislative agenda, then it has to explain that legislative agenda to committees. It has to make its ministers available for a reasonable period of time—I think two hours is a reasonable period of time to answer questions—and at least respond to questions, if not answer them. If they do so, then the clause-by-clause will proceed.
With great respect for Mr. Blaikie, I think the idea of inviting ministers is fine. Let's invite the ministers, but it would be too easy, if it was simply a matter of an open-ended invitation, for those ministers to blow off the invitation. It will be back to finding Freeland territory again and wondering where the Minister of Finance is and wondering where the Minister of Public Safety is.
In the interest of not being in that territory again and not needing to worry about finding Freeland and so forth, we could proceed with passing the subamendment. Again, to not being in that territory of finding Freeland, I think we should pass the subamendment and therefore be able to move forward.
I will yield the floor at this point and proceed to my other meeting.
As I said, Mr. Chair, I have more things to say. I may have a chance to say them later on this evening.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, committee members, for the warm welcome for joining the finance committee for the first time during this Parliament and for the first time as a first-term member of Parliament, who was elected for the fine riding of South Shore—St. Margarets in Nova Scotia in 2021.
You may recall, if you ever visited Nova Scotia, that it includes the beautiful towns of the UNESCO town of Lunenburg, Chester, Mahone Bay, and Peggy's Cove. We can't forget Peggy's Cove, which is the most visited tourism spot in Nova Scotia.
Welcome to the member.
As some advice, we are currently debating a very specific and novel subamendment. If the member opposite would like to speak more generically to the general motion, perhaps we could vote on the subamendment, vote on the amendment and get back to the main motion. Then we'd love to hear all about his worldly experience back home.
I appreciate Mr. Beech's intervention. I would welcome you to the riding anytime, by the way, to visit those places. We'd love to see you.
On the subamendment to the main motion, which is a question about finding Freeland and whether or not the minister will appear, or the Minister of Public Safety, frankly there are a few other ministers I'd like to see appear on this important omnibus bill.
Remember, omnibus bills were something that were promised would never happen under this government but are not a part of every budget. The effort to get the Minister of Public Safety—
Before Mr. Genuis leaves the room, I want to thank him for demonstrating some of the hazards of subbing in a committee. I hope to be able to say more soon, but I fear that he may be gone. I didn't want him to leave without my having the opportunity to offer that thanks.
MP Blaikie, yes, he is exiting the room. He said he will read the blues about what you had to say.
MP Perkins, on the subamendment, please, which is to add the Minister of Public Safety, that's what was being spoken to.
I appreciate Mr. Blaikie's intervention, and I must say that I appreciate the work he does in the House. I knew his father. I was a young staffer in the Mulroney government when his father served in Parliament very effectively. He was a large, imposing man in the House, as Mr. Blaikie is as well, and he represents his father well.
On the amendment and the Minister of Public Safety, there are a lot of questions to ask the Minister of Public Safety. He is part of the cabinet that oversees a number of important things, including the expenditure of our police forces and the parliamentary appropriations to the budget for that.
Of course, there are a lot of questions around the issue of the effectiveness of the expenditures from my province to the RCMP in terms of community policing. I think the minister would have some insight, in particular, on the recent Mass Casualty Commission report on the Portapique mass murders in my community in Nova Scotia, where 22 Nova Scotians and an unborn child were murdered, and the fact that it took the RCMP 45 minutes to get to the site after the phone calls that were made within minutes of the first murder being reported.
I would also like to understand why the RCMP took so long to set up a security corridor. It was so long that the mass murderer was actually out of the community before they set that up.
I would also like to know from the Minister of Public Safety how a person with a 72-page rap sheet who was known to the RCMP and to the Halifax police for a variety of crimes—like assault, being convicted of assaulting a 15-year-old and putting him in hospital, and threatening to kill police officers, and who had been reported to have illegal firearms many times and to have committed spousal abuse many times—managed to get a NEXUS card.
As we know—if you have read the report or attended any of the Mass Casualty Commission hearings, as I did—that individual got the NEXUS card from the Canada Border Services Agency, which the Minister of Public Safety is responsible for. This was after he had committed all of these assaults, had all of these complaints, assaulted his father and threatened to kill police officers, yet he still got a NEXUS card.
Why is a NEXUS card important in this discussion? The NEXUS card is important because four of the five firearms that were found in his vehicle after the RCMP located and killed the mass murderer were brought in illegally from the United States. They were bought at gun shows in the United States by an individual friend—not him directly, but he was there—who then resold them to him, and he brought them across the border. He brought them across the border in his truck, with his partner occasionally in the vehicle, using his fast pass NEXUS card to get through the border and not have his truck inspected. He brought these firearms in that way.
I think the Minister of Public Safety has to be available to answer questions around how the agency he's responsible for expends its dollars in this budget in order to ensure that we are kept safe at our borders. It's probable that a fairly fundamental element of the sovereignty of a nation is its ability to police the border. Our inability to police the border is evident with how a NEXUS card was given to the mass murderer.
I think the Minister of Public Safety needs to answer for those questions. In fact, I think he needs to answer for the questions, as my colleague Mr. Genuis said, around the issues of foreign interference, which we heard in the House today, and when they were notified about personal threats against a member of Parliament. That, again, goes to the expenditures of RCMP, Canadian border security, CSIS and our intelligence expenditures, which that minister is responsible for.
I think it's vitally important that he appear and answer those questions.
In fact, some may even remember that, during the public inquiry into the blockade, the trucker convoy, it was discovered, of course, that no police service had actually asked the Minister of Public Safety to invoke the Emergencies Act. He has never answered properly in the House for his claims in the House of Commons that he was recommending that to cabinet because police forces had actually asked for that.
I think there is a lot to account for in the expenditure of the responsibilities of the Minister of Public Safety. I know that it's a difficult situation for him, as it would be for any public safety minister, to actually go the fine line, being careful about what the minister can and cannot say publicly about national security issues. However, we're asking some fairly simple questions, and he is being briefed by his police services and his security agency services. He's, presumably, publicly representing the advice that he's gotten from them or that he, in some cases, has overturned.
If he's getting advice that says that it's okay to give a NEXUS card to somebody with a 72-page rap sheet, we'd like to know how the Canada Border Services Agency budget is being monitored in terms of its effectiveness, its performance. Did the Canada Border Services Agency executives get bonuses in those years when the mass killer received his pass and then was able to come across the border quite easily, without any inspection whatsoever of the illegal firearms he had? We could also speak to the fact that he was able to obtain a firearm from an individual who passed away, and for whom he was the executor of the estate in New Brunswick. He then took the firearm himself. There's also the question about how the minister reacted or found the advice he got on how to deal with the fact that others, who had licences, had actually purchased the ammunition for this individual.
There is a lot we can still talk about. I represent a fishing riding; I know I mentioned that earlier. I have 7,000 commercial fishermen in my riding. I have a number of other questions for other ministers as well, which I would like to ask. On the issue of ministerial accountability before committees, in my first meeting of Fisheries and Oceans in this Parliament, the minister came to speak—it was her first appearance in the new Parliament—about estimates. We had requested in that committee, and the Liberals had agreed—in fact it was unanimous—that the minister appear for two hours. We had all prepared for a two-hour hearing with the minister. While we were in the committee room, 15 minutes beforehand, the clerk texted all of us and said the minister had decided to cut her appearance to an hour.
A minister is invited as a guest. Obviously, we can't compel the ministers to come, but when a minister agrees to come for two hours, and we plan for two hours, I think it's incumbent upon the minister to stay for the two hours. I think it's disrespectful to Parliament when a minister does not stay for two hours. In fact, I think it's disrespectful for a minister, given that we have a number of parties around the table, to think that one can adequately question the minister on an omnibus bill and all the elements of an omnibus bill in simply one hour. I think the committee is actually being generous by requiring her to be here for only a two-hour session. I think it would be totally within the committee's rights to ask her to appear for much more than that, given the number of programs in this bill.
We've talked about the Minister of Public Safety. Perhaps we could talk about the Minister of Industry. I was the fisheries critic. Regarding the fisheries department, in case you're not aware of the expenditures of the government....We've often talked about the growth of this government. It has grown by almost 80,000 public servants in the time of this government, which is a massive growth.
I'll give you a small example. In my part of the world, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has grown from 10,000 to 15,000 employees in three years. If you were to think those are employees being put out into the field to ensure we have better fisheries science, that we have better fisheries management, that we have better fisheries enforcement, well, you would be mistaken, because the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, in that 5,000, hired over 1,200 people at the head office. It hired another 400 people in HR.
You may think 400 people is not a lot for a department of 15,000 people, but that's on top of the more than 400 people the Department of Fisheries and Oceans already had in HR. This department of 15,000 people now apparently needs 832 employees in Ottawa to manage payroll. Yes, it would have been great if they were all in the south shore of Nova Scotia, or other particular parts of the country, but apparently Ottawa was the focus of where they had to be.
Not to be outdone, because of course the people in the finance part of the fisheries department actually control where everyone goes, so the finance department in Fisheries and Oceans is now over 1,000 people of the 15,000 people in the department. Some 200 were hired in the last three years just for corporate strategy.
I know that's being effective—
I'm sorry. I just stepped out for a second. Can I assume the subamendment has been resolved, since we're talking about fisheries? I just want to check and make sure we're still dealing with the subamendment.
You didn't miss the boat. We would have called you in. We would have given Mr. Beech that courtesy. We would have waited, but this is in the context of ministerial accountability. We're discussing—
—public safety and the finding Freeland main motion. If we can find a way to make sure that we're not only finding Freeland, but we're finding the Minister of Public Safety unless, I would venture that....I will probably move a subamendment in a little while to say that the finding Freeland effort should be complemented by the finding Champagne amendment. That would move forward, because the department of industry, as well, has a huge amount in this.
We're back, everybody.
MP Perkins, you were on, and then I have MP Lawrence, MP Blaikie and then MP Kurek after.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
As I was saying, part of the accountability of the Minister of Public Safety, obviously, is on the spending in the budget or the plans for our security agencies that he oversees.
It might be of some interest. I was referring to the RCMP and the experience of the inadequate community policing they give, at least in my part of the world in Nova Scotia. Regarding the community where the mass killings were, it took 45 minutes for the RCMP to get there because they're not stationed in that county.
Most of the residents there know that, at certain times of the day and certain days of the week, it's easy to speed because the RCMP aren't there, even though they have a contract with the Nova Scotia government to provide adequate policing services. I know that the RCMP has, since 2004, received about $1.5 billion in taxpayer money, so I think the Minister of Public Safety needs to be accountable for that fact.
In fact, there is a wide discussion going on in some provinces. Newfoundland has its own police force to deal with community policing. Ontario has its own police force. Quebec has its own police force. Alberta is having discussions about having its own police force.
Recently, a colleague of mine on our side of the House did an OPQ on 911 services and found that, for example, Nova Scotia has the highest vacancy rate of permanent positions for RCMP 911 offices in the country. Thirty-three per cent of the permanent positions of the 911 RCMP facility in Nova Scotia are vacant, which compounds our issues around crime.
In fact, we're dealing right now with the issue of the enforcement of the Fisheries Act around elvers. I've raised it a number of times in the House and a number of times with the Minister of Fisheries. Some of you may have heard me raise it. If you're in a city, you probably don't know what an elver is. It's a little baby eel. They're not as cute as seals, especially baby seals, but they're a lot more valuable. They sell for about $5,000 a kilogram. For five years, we've been warning the government of increasing poaching. There are only eight commercial licences for those and another three for first nations.
There are two aspects to the enforcement of the law. One is DFO's enforcement, which falls to their police force called Conservation and Protection—C and P as it's more colloquially known—and the RCMP, because the RCMP will back them up when we have disputes like we had with the lobster dispute a few years ago in the previous Parliament around 2020, but we also have the issue of this situation.
I've met with a lot of my constituents. A lot of these licences are in my riding. They phone the RCMP. When they can get through.... They phone two lines, actually. They phone the crime line that is listed in the phone book for DFO when they see illegal activity happening, and they phone the RCMP line. In fact, 911 gets called when there are crimes being committed.
Ten minutes from my house.... You may have read a couple of weeks ago that with this illegal elver fishery, an individual was beaten with a pipe. The RCMP got a tip through that line, pursued that individual and arrested them the next morning.
There have been reports to the RCMP of elver poaching in a community called Hubbards—some of you may know it. It's on St. Margarets Bay. In Hubbards, there were calls to the RCMP, constantly, from the neighbours who live by the property, not only about the trespassing happening on their property but also about what was going on, even before the elver season started. Though not quite as cute as baby seals, glass eels are fished only from March 28 to the beginning of June in the rivers of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. They are then sold as live fish that get transported to Asia to be grown to full-size eels, then used for seafood consumption.
We have been constantly complaining to the RCMP over the last five years about this going on. Two minutes from my home on the Ingram River.... The RCMP were called because the poachers park on the private land of this homeowner. They park themselves in the evening, in the dark, on the river, and they catch elvers with illegal nets. Unlicensed elvers at $5,000 a kilogram are being sold on the black market. The homeowner has called me and the RCMP many times and complained. I have visited her a number of times, both while the legal elver season was on and 17 days ago, on the last two weekends. The minister closed the entire elver fishery 17 days ago. Do you know what happened when the minister closed the legal elver fishery?
A voice: What happened?
Mr. Rick Perkins: All the licence-holders—the legal harvesters—left the rivers. Guess who stayed? All the poachers were given free rein. In fact, they moved into all the prime spots where the legal licence-holders were. I visited those sites in the evenings, on the weekends I've been home, and stood beside these poachers.
This is not the first year. Last year, a number of them were charged with trespassing by the RCMP. Good for the RCMP. When they went to court, the court fined them $7 for trespassing.
A voice: Are there zeros missing?
Mr. Rick Perkins: No, there are no zeros missing. It's $7. The maximum fine for trespassing on private property in Nova Scotia is $500. When you're fishing a fish and pull 12 to 13 kilograms out a night, at $5,000 a kilogram, $7 is just the cost of doing business. It's not much of a deterrent. It's a tip. It's not a very good tip, but $7 on $5,000 a kilogram is nonetheless a tip.
The community of Hubbards—where this assault happened and where the RCMP arrested the person—again saw more poachers this past weekend. The homeowner where they were trespassing phoned the RCMP and complained. They said, “Will you please come down here and get these illegal trespassers who are poaching fish illegally off my property?” Do you know what the RCMP call centre, which is understaffed by 30% in Nova Scotia, said? They said, “If you keep calling here, we'll arrest you.”
The RCMP and the call centre are getting so many calls about the illegal elver fishery that they're actually threatening law-abiding citizens with arrest for calling and reporting crimes. Is that ironic? Only under the administration of this Minister of Public Safety, who needs to be questioned in this committee, could the RCMP have the freedom to threaten to arrest people for reporting crimes and not do the job of arresting the people who are actually out on the rivers.
The other aspect of this—which the RCMP and the minister need to be held accountable for, in the expenditure of these budget dollars—is the fact that many of these poachers are coming from the United States, the fine city of Toronto, Quebec and New Brunswick. How do we know that? They are bold. They drive around in their trucks with their licence plates and they're parked right by the rivers. You can see them.
Do you know what else they have when they're in their trucks, on the rivers, illegally? This was reported by the legal licence-holders, but it's also one of the reasons why the Department of Fisheries and Oceans told their enforcement officers not to enforce the law on the rivers: They're carrying firearms. They're carrying long guns.
Four weeks ago in West Nova, my colleague Mr. d'Entremont's riding, in a dispute on a river between two poachers on a favourite spot, one of them shot the other. This is what's going on. Our job as a police force is not to stop violence; our job is just to observe. At least, that's what C and P at DFO has been told.
In the last week of the legal elver fishery, the legal elver fishermen have GPS locators on their nets. For the police forces, it's like finding Freeland: Do you whack a mole here? Do you whack a mole there? We have thousands and thousands of poachers on the river. While the poachers are present, maybe it's easier to find a poacher than it is to find Freeland, but the issue going forward for the RCMP has been how they deal with this. Well, an elver fisher had his legal nets stolen, and he had GPS locators in the net. This legal licence-holder phoned me up and said that he did something he probably shouldn't have done. He looked on his phone, and he tracked the net. He tracked it to a house not far away in Shelburne County, the southern part of my riding where they catch the best lobsters in the world. He drove up to the house in his pickup truck. He parked. He took the law into his own hands because the RCMP are not present, and here's another question to ask the Minister of Public Safety: Why are the RCMP not arresting people for transporting firearms, long guns, probably not legal—but, apparently, legal firearm owners are the government's target, not illegal firearm owners—not for the purpose of going to a shooting range to practise and not for the purpose of hunting but to defend their illegal poaching on the rivers? The RCMP are not stopping them from doing this. The Minister of Public Safety needs to be accountable for the fact as to why the RCMP are not arresting people who are poaching and committing crimes, actually transporting illegal firearms throughout Nova Scotia in order to protect their poaching efforts on the rivers.
If that's not bad enough, this fellow actually went to the house where his nets were, and he saw them. They were in the back of a pickup truck. He parked his pickup truck right behind that one and rolled down his window. The guy came out and said, “What are you doing here?” and he said, “I'd like my nets back.” The fellow who had stolen the nets said, “They're not your nets.” The fisher said, “I kinda think they are because spray-painted on them is my DFO licence number. So, they're not your nets; they're mine. I can show you my licence if you want.” Well, the fellow went into his garage, got a shovel, came out and started beating on the guy's truck. When he was done beating on the truck, he dropped the shovel, and he got in his pickup truck and backed it up and slammed it into the front of my constituent's, the legal elver fisherman's, truck and pushed it out onto the road and drove away. So, like the law-abiding citizen that he is, who obeys even DFO fishing laws, the fisher phoned the RCMP.
The minister needs to hear this, and we've not had a chance to ask him in the House. However, I'd love to ask him before the finance committee why it is that when a citizen reports to the RCMP that he has just had his vehicle smashed by a poacher and that he has the tracking, the RCMP does nothing. Not only did he report that—and, of course, there was the insurance company because of the damage that was done—to the RCMP but he also actually reported it three more times to the RCMP. Do you know what he did three more times? The net was in three more poachers' houses. These guys aren't the brightest people in the world, clearly. So, he reported to the RCMP the location of three more poachers' houses that had the net they illegally stole from him, the legal licence-holder. That was a month ago. The RCMP have never called him back. The RCMP have never gone to the houses of any of these individuals. The RCMP have not made a single arrest.
Crimes are being committed all over Nova Scotia around this, and the RCMP and the C and P branch are not implementing their responsibility, as law enforcement officers, on these complaints. In fact, as I told you, they're threatening to arrest law-abiding citizens who report crimes; it is bizarre to me that they would do that.
The RCMP didn't have an excuse during the public service strike for not going out and doing these arrests, like many of the C and P officers had. Even though C and P is an essential service, half of them were still working and the other half of their enforcement arm was not.
As for the elver fishers in the community, people were sick and tired of people defecating on their lawns, sitting on their lawns all night, having to clean up their trash in the morning and having the threat of having people with firearms outside of their houses while they illegally destroyed a fishery. The RCMP did nothing. C and P also did nothing.
When they would call the DFO enforcement offices, the DFO enforcement officers would say that they're sorry, but they're not leaving the office—the few who were essential services. They said they were only there in case there was a shellfish poisoning and they had to cut that fishery down.
Otherwise, if there's illegal lobster fishing, if there's illegal elver fishing and if people are stealing our natural resources.... DFO and its rules exist so that for generations to come—as we've had for generations in the past—we have a sustainable fishery. Fishery is our most renewable resource next to forestry. Fish grow faster than trees. The reason we still have a fishery is that, for the most part, we've managed it well. Although, the seal population—the pinnipeds, the sea lions....
We have pinnipeds. Does everyone know what a pinniped is? A pinniped is a seal or sea lion. There are six types of seals in Atlantic Canada. There are seals in British Columbia. There are seals in the north. It's been a way for indigenous folks to earn a living and feed their families for millennia. There are sea lions out on the western coast in B.C.
Harp seals, grey seals and bearded seals of Atlantic Canada have grown a massive population. It's the only totally healthy population. In fact, yesterday in the fisheries committee, the DFO scientist in charge at DFO was quite proud of the fact that—I assume she gets bonuses—we have a robust seal population. She said that her goal is not to reduce the seal population.
The seal population in Atlantic Canada eats the entire weight of the commercial fishery in Atlantic Canada every 15 days. Ninety-seven per cent of the unnatural mortality of fish on the Atlantic coast comes from seals, with 3% from commercial fishing.
Yet, this government thought it was a revelation last year for the Minister of Fisheries to stand in Newfoundland and declare that seals eat fish. Apparently that was news to her. Maybe she couldn't see them very much from her riding in Vancouver Quadra. I'm not sure what they were eating. It may have been Alberta beef. Who wouldn't want to eat Alberta beef? It's a food source not readily available in the wild in the ocean. They primarily eat capelin, cod and anything they can get.
In 1991—31 years ago—we had to shut down the cod fishery because of its decline. The same thing happened in Norway and Russia at the same time. Our seal population in Atlantic Canada was 2.7 million. That may seem like a lot, but compared to today, it's sort of like trying to find Freeland. Today, we have eight million harp seals and 600,000 grey seals in Nova Scotia—so much so that they've never had them before in Newfoundland, but now they're invasive species. It's the only predator—the only species in the ocean—that we do not commercially hunt.
There are a hundred first nations in British Columbia asking for a start of the seal harvest again. There are first nations in Nova Scotia.
You can now harvest 100% of a seal. Seals are rich in omega-3. Obviously everybody's familiar with their fur and their leather. Some of the Liberal members from Newfoundland quite often have seal fur gear on, as well as some of the Conservatives.
Our member from Notre Dame in Newfoundland, has seal ties, a variety of them. I have one. I've seen one of the ministers in charge of Newfoundland frequently wearing seal fur products in the House of Commons, which I think is totally appropriate, because generally those seals are caught by first nations.
There are a lot of food sources in seals. When you rise to over 12 million of them in the ocean, you have an issue: We're not enforcing part of our responsibility to maintain the biodiversity of the ocean.
This goes back to the issue of the Minister of Public Safety, because the minister's approach, this one's and the previous one's.... I forget what the previous one's job is now. I know where he sits in the House. He's the former police chief in Toronto—
An hon. member: It's emergency preparedness.
Mr. Rick Perkins: That's right. He's the Minister of Emergency Preparedness.
Mr. Chair, this has been—
Mr. Rick Perkins: Fascinating...?
Mr. Terry Beech: —wonderful.
I miss the fisheries and oceans committee. I was on FOPO for three years. I used to be the parliamentary secretary. It has been very educational.
You may have even convinced me. We won't know until we get to a vote.
I think we will suspend at this time.
We'll suspend to our next meeting. Thank you.
[The meeting was suspended at 18:47 p.m., Tuesday, May 2]
[The meeting resumed at 11:03 a.m., Thursday, May 4]
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Of course we have PS Beech here because it's his motion.
We last left off with MP Perkins. Then I have MP Blaikie, then PS Beech and then MP Morantz on my list.
We're going to start with MP Perkins.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The parliamentary secretary is exactly correct. I presume the subamendment to have the Minister of Public Safety appear as part of the broader motion of Mr. Beech to have—
My apologies. I have just a brief point of order.
Chair, would you be able to outline, because we might have some lengthy debate, which I think is important, what you were thinking in terms the schedule today?
Thank you.
The chair was trying to recall what I was discussing in the context of Mr. Genuis's subamendment. I was speaking the other night about the issue of why the Minister of Public Safety, who is responsible for our police forces, security forces and the RCMP in particular, needs to appear to discuss the expenditure of the budget for the RCMP.
In my part of the world, large parts of what they do don't seem to be the enforcement of the law in the context of community policing.
I know Mr. Beech enjoyed his time on the fisheries committee, as do I currently.
I was speaking of the crisis we have in Nova Scotia and southern New Brunswick with the elver fishery and the lack of law enforcement. I'm trying to understand where the RCMP money is going, since it's not going to enforcing the law around this.
If the minister were here, then I would bring some of the things to the minister's attention that were brought to my attention this morning, in fact. The Attorney General of New Brunswick called me this morning. He is Ted Flemming. That's a great, historic, political name in New Brunswick. His father was premier of New Brunswick. He is the Attorney General under Premier Higgs.
He called me about the elver fishery crisis in New Brunswick this morning. It is lawlessness in New Brunswick. Poachers are decimating the rivers. The legal licence-holders of those licences have been taken out of the water by the enforcement arm of DFO. Perhaps the fisheries minister should be accountable for the budget allocations in here as well. That might be another subamendment.
In this case, I explained to Mr. Flemming the history of how the elver fishery had developed in the last 30 years. There are eight legal commercial licence-holders, and an additional three first nations licence-holders. Two of them were granted by the current Minister of Fisheries. Those licences represent 250 to 300 harvesters who are on specific rivers. They are licensed to a specific river.
I'll remind those who maybe didn't have the pleasure of listening to my discussion about elvers the other night that an elver is a baby eel. It's sometimes known as a glass eel. Glass eels, as I said the other night, are not as cute as seals, but they're worth a heck of a lot more money. They're worth about $5,000 a kilogram and they're easy to catch.
They're born in a place called the Sargasso Sea, which is where four Atlantic currents come together in the North Atlantic. They migrate back to the rivers where their parents were. In the case of Atlantic Canada in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, they start coming at the beginning of March, and they go until July returning to the rivers. They go to the headwaters and into the lakes, and they become full-blown adult eels over time. When they're older and it's time to reproduce, those eels leave the rivers and go back to the Sargasso Sea.
Why are glass eels so valuable? It's created this lawlessness issue that's going on in Nova Scotia where the RCMP needs to be held to account—or specifically, the Minister for Public Safety needs to be held to account—for the lack of enforcement and the use of taxpayer money in that budget. It's only existed for about 30 years because there has been technology developed to ship them live to Asia as baby eels. Through land-based aquaculture, they're grown into full-sized eels and then sold throughout Asia, particularly Japan, for seafood. It's much easier to ship a 10-centimetre long little baby eel to Asia than it is to try to catch a full-sized eel. It's a lot more cost effective that way.
As a result of the fact that the most prized eels—glass eels, baby eels—are in the Maritimes and a bit in Maine, the price has gone in 10 years from a few hundred dollars to $5,000 a kilogram.
The licence-holders were reporting to the RCMP as early as March 1 when they arrived that there were poachers on all the rivers. The licence-holders were reporting this to RCMP and to DFO enforcement, but they didn't show up. It was sort of like finding Freeland. We could not find evidence of DFO actually participating and enforcing the law. “Finding fisheries” is a game that's now being played in Nova Scotia and throughout southern New Brunswick on the Bay of Fundy rivers, similar the game we play here in Ottawa called “finding Freeland”.
The finding fisheries issue is that from March 1 until March 28, when the legal season opened, fishery officers in enforcement and visibility on those rivers to prevent the poaching were as infrequent as the finding Freeland issue here in Ottawa. Every day, those licence-holders were complaining—as I'm sure the members of the government do, complaining about finding Freeland—that the fishery officers were not showing up to actually enforce the law. Nonetheless, like most fish harvesters, they were busy getting ready for the season. They gave the government the benefit of the doubt that once when the legal season started, somehow DFO and the RCMP would start doing their job.
Well, they didn't. Only 18 days in, because of the amount of poaching that was going on, the minister closed the season—after only 18 days, when it goes to July. She did that on the basis of an estimate of the total allowable catch. Every fish species except for lobster....
Don't get me going on lobster, because we'll be here for days. I can talk about lobster forever.
The elver fishery has this very limited season. After only 18 days it was closed, because the enforcement officers, DFO and the RCMP, apparently were watching. They were observing. They weren't arresting. They were watching and observing the poachers. What they were doing, apparently, was trying to calculate how much the poachers were getting. When they felt that the poachers had caught the total available catch that DFO had licensed to the licensed fishery harvesters, she shut down the season.
In other words, for those listening, those who legally had the total allowable kilograms to catch, which is about 10,000 kilograms, were not allowed to catch it because poachers were on the river, but the minister was actually trying to verify how much the poachers were catching and using their catch as a reason to shut down the fishery.
This is what has led to the frustration. There is one licence-holder in my riding who every day since then has written to the ministers, including public safety. It started with the local RCMP and the local fisheries folks and has escalated, but every day since the closure he has filed a report. I'd like to read some of those emails to these ministers and to the local fisheries enforcement officers.
The individual who is writing these...because obviously we should identify them. It's easier to identify Stanley King, the licence-holder, than it is when we're trying to find Freeland. He wrote on September 17 to the local enforcement officers: Hello, C and P and the RCMP; I'm writing to report continued elver poaching on the East River.
For those of you who don't know, that's off exit 7 of Highway 103 in Lunenburg County, quite close to Chester. Technically it's East Chester, about 12 minutes from my house.
He wrote that illegal fishing has gone unfettered on the East River both nights since the fishery was closed by DFO.
On Saturday night, I actually visited the East River at midnight. I saw this for myself. He wrote that Saturday night, poachers fished from at least 21:28 nautical time—for those of you who don't follow that, it's 11:28 in the night—until 6:17 in the morning.
How do they know that? All the legal licence-holders have cameras on their rivers, and have for years, to provide evidence in case someone decides to destroy their equipment or actually poaches.
He went on to say that they set three fyke nets.
There are two ways to catch elvers. One is called a dip net and the other is called a fyke net. A fyke net gets anchored in the river and the net channels the elvers into this little hole in the middle, which then captures them in the end, because they're swimming upstream. It uses the great mysteries of the currents of rivers and the tides, because they come in on the in tide.
Elver fishing happens in the night, particularly by poachers. Poachers and people who commit crimes like to do things under the cover of darkness. Elvers come in when the tide is coming in and they come up the river. The poachers go out fishing at night and put lights on their heads, because when they stand there with a light, or flash it on the water....
Does anyone here go fly fishing themselves? You know it's illegal to use a light when you fish at night. In most cases you're not allowed to fish at night, because they are attracted to light.
They use light to attract the elvers as they come up the river, and I'll show you some pictures of this, because they're in these emails. They come up and are attracted, and they get channelled into either this net or this net called a dip net. It's just a thing you do by hand. You just stick it in the water and you put it in a five-gallon, pink pail and then you transport it over to a larger lobster crate, which has a bubbler. Then they transport them to Toronto. Generally they're going through the live cargo facility in Toronto, which DFO or the RCMP doesn't seem to spend any time monitoring.
I'd like to ask the Minister of Public Safety why they do not monitor for illegal activity through the live seafood container facility at Pearson airport, and why they continue to ignore that.
He went on in this first email and said that they set at least three fyke nets. He attached pictures to this email. I didn't bring those with me. This is the next night. He said that on Sunday night poachers fished from 22:40 until 4:46 in the morning. They fished on Saturday from 9:30 at night until 6 a.m., and on Sunday night they fished from 11:40, close to midnight, until 4 a.m. I know this, as I said, because they recorded on their motion-detecting cameras.
East River is very important in Chester, as he says.
I think this may be a point of order. It may not be. I'd appreciate your reflections on that when I'm done, Mr. Chair.
First of all, I just want to say that I am actually quite enjoying the opportunity to learn a fair bit about this. If you look at the motion that's before us, you see that one of the components is actually to send a number of aspects of the budget implementation act to other committees, exactly because we want to benefit from the subject matter expertise of those committees.
I think what my Conservative colleague here today is doing—perhaps intentionally, perhaps unintentionally—is making an excellent case for passing this motion, because it would enable us to send parts of the budget implementation act to other committees for study by folks who don't need to be taught this, because it's already part of their work.
He has clearly done a lot of excellent work on the committee for fisheries and oceans, and that's why it's so important that parts of the BIA land at those other committees, so that they can have these discussions by members of all parties, who have an intimate knowledge of the various industries.
I take him, actually, to be arguing for the motion and not against it at the moment. I thank him for the compelling demonstration of why passing this motion is so important. I would remind him, or perhaps inform him—because he is, after all, a substituting member of this committee—that the clock is ticking in terms of being able to get the benefit of that subject matter expertise, because the committee has not yet sent a letter to other committees asking them to study....
Last year we did that, but it came late, so that meant that some committees opted not to engage in that study. I think our own study of the bill was poorer for it. That was something we had hoped to remedy with a timely motion this year, and unfortunately this filibuster is getting in the way of that, even as the member makes an excellent case for why that mechanism is so important and should be incorporated as a regular part of the study of budget implementation acts going forward.
I just think it would be good to provide a little context not just for the committee, but also for the individual member as to what's going on in the context of his remarks. I am keen to ensure that it's not just for fisheries and oceans that the budget implementation act gets such a rigorous subject matter expert treatment, but that in fact it happens for all of the issues in the BIA.
I would encourage the member to try to be succinct in providing the things he thinks we need to know so that we can get to a vote and so that we can ensure that all parts of the BIA are as rigorously studied as some of the tangential elements of the BIA that he is exploring at the moment.
MP Blaikie is quite right.
MP Perkins, you may not be aware, but we have a letter prepared and ready to go out to all the committees, like fisheries and oceans, to be able to look at the BIA and see how it impacts them and to be able to possibly look into studying aspects of it. So we've learned about the $5 for a kilogram of eel here, but that would probably be—
It's $5,000 for a kilogram of eel. My goodness. Okay, so we'll listen.
Some hon. members: You weren't listening.
The Chair: I heard $5. We will not be seeing eel here for any of our lunches or dinners, because we're very fiscally responsible here at this committee.
But as MP Blaikie said, there is a letter ready to go. It could be sent off to all of the various committees if we can get through this motion, get this passed and get on to the BIA.
Mr. Chair, with the greatest respect, I think you are in error, as is Mr. Blaikie, in fact. When I examine the main motion, I don't see a referral in the main motion to the committee on fisheries and oceans. I can go through them for you. The first referral is to the committee on transport, infrastructure and communities.
An hon. member: I think the chair said “like fisheries and oceans”.
Mr. Marty Morantz: The second referral is to human resources, skills and social development and the status of persons with disabilities. The third referral is to the committee on citizenship and immigration. The fourth is the standing committee on health and then there's the standing committee on industry and technology. Then there's the standing committee on defence and then the standing committee on operations and estimates. Then there's natural resources, the standing committee on industry and technology, and the standing committee on environment and sustainable development....
I'm sorry, I think—
That's important, because the point was specifically about a referral to the committee on fisheries and oceans. What you said, Mr. Chair, wasn't in here.
I think Mr. Morantz is doing what I didn't want to do, because I wanted to be polite to his colleague. I think he's pointing out that there's actually not a lot of substantive content with respect to—
I'm not done. There's actually not a lot of substantive content with respect to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in the BIA, and to the extent that there is—because there are mentions—it's under the Canada Shipping Act, and it has more to do with the problem of abandoned vessels than anything else. So that is being referred to the transport committee.
Now, Mr. Morantz thinks that would be better placed at the committee for fisheries and oceans. Of course, that's an amendment we could consider as a committee. I would invite him to prepare that amendment and to move it. Then I'd be very happy to consider that.
But as I was saying, I was trying to be polite and to recognize that often when members choose to filibuster, they take some liberties in terms of relevance. But if Mr. Morantz wants to call out his colleague for relevance, I'm not going to get in his way. I was just trying to be more polite than that.
MP Morantz, do you want to call on relevance? Because there is not much here in terms of what MP Perkins is talking about.
I think it needed to be said, Mr. Chair. You said yourself that there was a referral to the committee on fisheries and oceans. I'm simply recounting the text of the motion, and that referral is absent from the motion. So I'm just—
And it wasn't that there wasn't any relevance—or very little relevance—to what MP Perkins was talking about with regard to the BIA.
Actually, I find my colleague's statement very relevant to the BIA, and I'd like for him to continue as soon as you rule on this point of order.
Just on this point of order, I agree with my colleague Mr. Blaikie. Mr. Chair, you rightly pointed out that there is a list of committees in the motion. The reason there's not a fisheries committee being assigned to is because there's no measure relating to fisheries in the bill. That's why there's nothing that mentions that in the motion.
I wanted to mention that and that I agree with Mr. Blaikie. If we can maybe keep the soliloquies and the speeches related to the bill at hand, that would be appreciated.
Thank you.
I appreciate that MP Blaikie was very polite and articulate in his intervention.
I think, Mr. Chair, it is important to remind members—all those who spoke on this point of order—that what we're speaking to is the subamendment to Mr. Blaikie's amendment. The subamendment is where the relevance is, because the subamendment is asking the Minister of Public Safety to come before this committee relative to the budget. Since that is in the budget and the motion, and the Minister of Public Safety is responsible for the RCMP—who are not enforcing the law on the elver fishery—that minister needs to be held accountable, through this budget process, for the expenditures of those monies and for why they're not enforcing the law. That's the relevance to the elver fishery. I know that everyone who is fascinated by the elver fishery, as I am, and concerned about criminal activity would like to hear from the Minister of Public Safety as to why.
What's been interesting is that the Atlantic Canada MPs have been totally silent on the issue of the lawlessness going on—the lack of RCMP and DFO enforcement of the law. Those are part of any budget.
As I said earlier, I certainly appreciate his interventions. I would remind him that the subamendment was moved by Mr. Genuis. At the time, I thought it was kind of interesting. This speaks directly to the question of the relevance of Mr. Perkins' remarks to the subamendment moved by his Conservative colleague Mr. Genuis, when he was touring our committee.
There were two things I thought were interesting about it.
First of all, Mr. Genuis said we needed to hear from the Minister of Public Safety to address the question of an office being established to fight foreign interference, which was announced—he said—because it's in the budget implementation act. What I found interesting about that claim is that it's false, because it's not in the budget implementation act. I suspect Mr. Genuis, who himself noted that his expertise is in foreign affairs, missed this. I think it is common for a lot of people who aren't an integral part of the process on a regular basis to not realize that a lot of what's announced in the budget doesn't appear immediately in the subsequent budget implementation act. Often, people conflate the budget document with the budget implementation act. I think Mr. Genuis did that.
That's an important reminder for all of us parliamentarians, when we substitute on other committees: Be properly briefed instead of walking in and throwing our weight around when we don't really know what we're talking about.
Were there mention of such an office in the budget implementation act, or anything to do with it, then the idea, of course, would be that we would send it to other committees, as we've suggested doing with other content.
I hear what Mr. Perkins is saying. I would remind him that the subamendment was moved—at least by the mover—with the express purpose of getting the Minister of Public Safety here to talk about the issue of a foreign interference office here in Canada. It wouldn't quite be relevant, then, to talk about the fishing issues on the east coast. That's not the purpose for which the minister was being called. Of course, the minister was being called for a purpose that is itself out of order, because the thing Mr. Genuis wanted to talk to him about isn't in the bill we're studying.
There is a bit of a regress going on, in terms of what sounds like a good reason being defeated by another reason that itself turns out not to be good. There is a fair bit of confusion. I hope I've helped resolve some of that confusion. I expect we're going to hear more about Fisheries and Oceans. I always appreciate an opportunity to learn. That's why I sub on other peoples' committees sometimes—to get to learn about other things. It's interesting to be on the finance committee and not get to hear about issues of finance, particularly when we have the budget implementation act before us.
I'm a sport and I'm here to learn, so please carry on. I just thought we should carry on with a proper understanding of what's going on. Now that we have that understanding established, let's continue.
Thank you, MP Blaikie.
MP Perkins, I think this is the first time you've sat here on this committee. I'm not sure.
As a member of Parliament it is the first time. As a staff person, I've sat at many finance committee meetings.
I believe MP Genuis was also not here. At times, the public or even members and those here on the Hill may not understand that the BIA is not all-encompassing of the whole budget. Where Mr. Genuis was coming from, your linkage to that subamendment and how that may not be relevant are what MP Blaikie is making us all aware of—and those watching today—in terms of what the BIA is.
I appreciate that intervention.
I'll make another clarification on the point of order, just so you understand. While this may be the second time I've substituted in finance, I have a long history of understanding how the budget works. I worked for the minister of finance in the Mulroney government. I sat in many finance committee hearings over those eight years of the government. I appreciate that, so I know the difference between the bills, the act and the budget statement.
When I look at the subamendment that Mr. Genuis proposed, while there may have been a preamble rationale, when I read the subamendment it makes no mention of the things Mr. Blaikie was talking about. The subamendment just talks about the appearance of the Minister of Public Safety, in addition to the finding Freeland effort that we're going through to get the Minister of Finance to actually show up for two hours on the main motion.
I should remind people that this is what this is all about. It's about the fact that we're trying to get the Minister of Finance to actually show up for a couple of hours, as well as the 11 committees that were referenced earlier by my colleague, Mr. Morantz.
Just on that, Mr. Perkins, that was the friendly amendment, I believe by MP Blaikie, to bring in the minister and to add that to this motion. The minister would be added to the motion to come in for an appearance.
I've searched the subamendment and that amendment and I see no reference to any of the things that Mr. Blaikie said, other than the appearance of the Minister of Public Safety.
If I may, Mr. Chair, it's why I thought it was important to say that it's not in the motion, but it was part of the reasons given by Mr. Genuis.
I accept that the intense focus that Mr. Perkins has put on the appearance of the Minister of Public Safety has distracted somewhat from the important point, which is to have the Minister of Finance show up on her own bill. He'll know that I'm in perfect agreement with the Conservatives on this point. I would like to see the minister here for two hours. I think it would be very helpful for her just to offer to come for two hours. I've been clear about that.
I do think that we got distracted from that appropriate focus of the finance committee by the intense treatment of the importance of the Minister of Public Safety appearing at the committee of finance on a bill that doesn't have any content that the Minister of Public Safety is responsible for.
I can certainly speak to things I think should be in the budget that aren't in the budget. I've talked about employment insurance reform, investment in non-market housing and a whole bunch of other things.
When we're studying the bill, it's important that we know what's in it and which ministers are responsible for it. I do think that's been obscured somewhat by the conversations here today.
Yes, and I think this is a fine opportunity to provide some further context for where we're currently at. I was going to wait until the end of this point of order, but since we've gotten onto the topic that I want to talk about anyway, I'll take the opportunity. It also gives me the opportunity to interact with our guest, Mr. Perkins, who has been very articulate on the fisheries and oceans committee, and now I have learned of his previous experience on finance committee, so I'm even happier that he's joining us here today.
For those who are watching at home, and for anyone else who's paying attention, I think we're either nearing or passing hour five of this Conservative filibuster. I would go through all the different requests, the ebb and flow of things that have happened, but the point is that we're in a filibuster that has prevented various witnesses from appearing at committee today for the study of the budget implementation act. Those witnesses include representatives from food banks, the Canadian Health Coalition, the Canadian Medical Association, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the Centre for Future Work and the Smart Prosperity Institute, all important stakeholders that I think everyone around this table respects and thinks could have a very positive voice that could add to the quality of the budget process and the budget implementation act.
It's also preventing, as Mr. Blaikie has articulated and as Mr. Morantz has clarified, a number of letters going out to committees in a timely way. Last year, they didn't have enough time to actually provide valuable feedback. I think there are committees with expertise that do want to weigh in on the BIA, and I think that would also be a valuable process.
The other impact of this filibuster, of course, is the cancelling of other committees due to a lack of committee resources. The day before yesterday, a meeting to study foreign interference was cancelled due to the fact that this filibuster is ongoing and is consuming House resources. There was a meeting of the procedure and House affairs committee that was scheduled but was cancelled due to a lack of resources.
The motion to study this bill is very much in the form it was in last year, excluding some of the more controversial closing dates that were specifically excluded to make it easy for the committee to find a path forward after discussions with all parties. In addition, it has been amended now to include an invitation to the minister to attend. That is, by the way, the second invitation, because the first was included in the prestudy motion, which was outstanding. Then, Mr. Ste-Marie, from the Bloc, asked when that would be fulfilled. While we don't have a specific date, it was targeted for before May 18.
I am thus very happy to continue listening to whatever topics from whichever ministries and whichever substitutes the Conservatives want to bring to this committee. However, if we are serious about studying the BIA and ending this filibuster, there is very much a sense that the will of the majority of this committee, and likely all parties except the Conservatives, is to actually get these excellent witnesses to the table so we can improve this budget, which has measures to make life more affordable for Canadians and to make sure Canada has a dynamic and sustainable economy. We're creating new, clean, sustainable jobs, not to mention measures that will ensure that we have the resources we need for the provinces and territories to deliver quality health care. As long as this filibuster continues, that is what we are putting at risk.
I just wanted that context for this point of order on the subamendment on the Minister of Public Safety's appearing.
Thank you, PS Beech. I had MP Perkins.
Seeing he's out, MP Lawrence, yes, on that point of order, go ahead.
He's a great colleague.
Here are a couple of ways we could resolve this impasse.
Conservatives want to move forward with the consultation on the BIA. We certainly would like to hear and we certainly do not want to upend any of the other business. In fact, I made several offers to suspend, but the Liberal Party was unwilling. That was mis-characterized, and the public was misled by a statement in the House of Commons that seemed to say that we were intentionally trying to cancel meetings, which everyone at this table knows, quite frankly, is just untrue. It's just a fabrication, and it's sad that it has gotten to this level. Conservatives are ready to move forward. We just believe that, when the government is spending $490 billion, the minister would like to speak to Canadians for two hours. That's $8 billion a minute.
It is an embarrassment that she will not come to this committee. She has three times refused invitations. This is the finance committee. As a parliamentarian, I'm nothing special, but I do represent 100,000 people from Northumberland—Peterborough South, and we all represent millions of Canadians. If Minister Freeland wants—
Exactly. You had a wide breadth, and I'll take the same liberty.
When we look at this, we have a couple of suggestions. One is we remove the clause-by-clause from the date of the start of the clause-by-clause, and then we can move forward in listening to witnesses.
We're ready to go right now. We can get the chair to call the witnesses. All we have to do is remove the clause-by-clause, or we make the clause-by-clause contingent on the minister showing up. Clearly, she doesn't want to show up, and she has a record of ignoring our invitations.
What value does an invitation have if she's ignored it three times already?
We need to make it a condition that we go to clause-by-clause to get the finance minister who, once again, is asking Canadian taxpayers for $490 billion and won't show up for two hours to talk to Canadians. That is an embarrassment. I'm sorry, but it is.
With that, I will end my point of order and turn my time back to Mr. Perkins.
Okay. We were at MP Perkins.
Please, members, speak through the chair.
Was it on the point of order, MP Perkins?
I have two sentences.
This current filibuster is the reason why we need an end date for the study of the BIA.
Thank you.
I really do appreciate, I think, the heartfelt interventions by all of the permanent members of this committee on this important issue.
I could go on, as you know, about elvers and lobster and all of that. I think that the subamendment has a connection to the Minister of Public Safety.
However, I will conclude the elver part of my discussion about the ministers and move on to a next part. If you will give me a little leeway to read the last email on this, I would appreciate it. Then I would like to discuss a bit about the concept of ministerial accountability, if I could.
In the 17 or 18 days since the closure of the elver fishery, as I said, Stanley King has written to the Minister of Fisheries and to other public security officials as to the enforcement of the law.
I will read you one email from two days ago. He wrote another one today, but I think this one is of particular interest. It fits into the finding fisheries officer question and what's similar to the finding Freeland issue that we're dealing with.
He starts off his email by saying, “Hello, Minister Murray.” This was after about 10 direct daily emails to the minister. “I would like to report continued elver poaching on the rivers we monitor in Nova Scotia. The poaching occurred last night on the Hubbards and Ingram Rivers. Please see the attached photographs.” I won't share them with you folks. “Apologies for the poor quality, because it was raining.” It's not unlike what we have been experiencing here in Ottawa.
“Poaching likely also occurred on additional rivers we monitor, but poachers have recently destroyed some of our cameras on these rivers. But rest assured, we plan to replace them so you can have an accurate idea of how impactful FMO closure has been, as well as your enforcement efforts. This is the sixteenth time I have reported elver poaching from these locations in 17 days, since the fishery was closed. I'm happy to report our security cameras captured a DFO CMP officer finally showing up on the river, something we have been unable to capture in our request for 'finding Freeland'. Unfortunately, it was 2:30 in the afternoon. Why would they be patrolling the rivers during that day for a fishery that happens at night? Maybe we should be looking for “finding Freeland” at night. We're currently looking for her in the day. Surely we see officers at the river during actual fishing hours as well. If not, I can only assume today's patrol was just for appearances, something we're challenged with, with 'finding Freeland'. As you know, East River is home to the longest-running class eel index study in North America.”
That's the science that DFO does. “This study has been run yearly for over two decades and is critically important for monitoring the the health of our stock and sustainability of our fishery. Licence-holders have pleaded with law enforcement repeatedly to protect this river, to no avail. Please consider enforcing the shutdown. The federal strike is now over, so that excuse is no longer valid. We would like to think CMP would start enforcing the closure as well as the RCMP, but since there was no meaningful enforcement before the strike, we highly doubt that this will be the case.” You can sense the frustration. “Without enforcement, the shutdown order has only hurt licensed holders, clearing the rivers for poachers. All the best, Stanley King, Atlantic Elver Fishery.”
His exercise of finding fisheries is very similar to the exercise and the purpose of the various motions and subamendments before this committee today on finding Freeland. Really, this is about ministerial accountability. Ministerial accountability is to Parliament. It's not to the Prime Minister, it's not to the Prime Minister's chief of staff, it's not to their deputy ministers.
I would like to turn to an important article written in the Australian Journal of Public Administration, volume 73, number 4. It's by a fellow named Scott Brenton, the school of social and political sciences, at the University of Melbourne. It's entitled “Ministerial Accountability for Departmental Actions Across the Westminster Parliamentary Democracies”.
For those watching, Canada is a Westminster parliamentary democracy.
The summary of the study says:
This study examines the convention of individual ministerial responsibility for departmental actions in the four key Westminster countries of Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. The chain of ministerial responsibility traditionally began in the bureaucratic hierarchy of the public sector up to the minister, who is responsible to the parliament, which is responsible to the people. Many New Public Management reforms changed the roles and responsibilities of senior public servants, which arguably weakened the first link in...codes of conduct, guides, manuals, handbooks and legislation, [and] have attempted to codify and clarify politico-bureaucratic relationships.
This is just the summary.
They have generally captured the complexity of executive accountability and better reflect the original convention, while emphasising the preeminent role of the prime minister in upholding individual ministerial responsibility.
That's what we're dealing with here in these motions, whether it's the Minister of Public Safety, the Minister of Finance or, in the case of the two other committees I sit on, the fisheries and oceans committee and the industry committee, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry. This is about their accountability, through members of Parliament, to Parliament and their responsibility.
All we're trying to get is adequate time for this massive omnibus bill of the sponsoring minister to hold her accountable, but the finding Freeland effort is made more challenging by the fact that this committee—except for Mr. Blaikie and the other opposition members—and certainly government members seem oblivious to the need to have the minister here for a fulsome appearance to defend this omnibus bill.
I think it's important for those watching to understand the concept of what Dr. Brenton says about our Westminster ministerial accountability. I can see how riveted everyone is with this presentation, so I will begin:
Many Westminster parliamentary democracies rely heavily on conventions or unwritten parts of the constitution, which are based on precedent. Conventions by their very nature are customary, informal, uncodified, and therefore unenforceable by courts of law. While conventions are not explicitly articulated, they govern important political practices such as the activities of the cabinet and prime minister....
They are not even mentioned in most constitutions, certainly not in the United Kingdom.
He goes on:
Yet this remains largely uncontentious, while other conventions have come under closer scrutiny in recent times. For example, a House of Commons Committee reports that: “there is no agreed democratic approach to the division of responsibility between ministers and public servants, and certainly no universal model even among Westminster-style democracies”....
I assume this is a House of Commons committee in Australia, which is where the author is from. It goes on to say, “This paper considers whether the convention of individual ministerial responsibility still exists, in what form, and whether it is an effective accountability mechanism.”
We're trying to get at this issue of whether the Minister of Finance, through the finding Freeland effort, is aimed at trying to get a handle on whether this Liberal government believes in ministerial accountability.
This paper goes on to say:
Bovens et al.'s (2008) public accountability assessment tool is used to evaluate whether attempts to clarify or codify politico-bureaucratic relationships have adequately addressed perceived accountability deficits in the four key Westminster countries of Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. The following analytical questions will be addressed: why is there an apparent trend towards codification; how did this trend develop and is it likely to continue; does codification mean the principles are no longer mere conventions; and most importantly, has accountability been improved.
We're searching for that here with the finding Freeland effort.
I'm going to struggle over this next one. Maybe it's my glasses.
In one of the canonical texts in the field, Modern Constitutions, Wheare defines a convention as “a binding rule, a rule of behaviour accepted as obligatory by those concerned in the working of the Constitution”.... Wheare also reconsiders earlier classifications of constitutions in terms of rigidity and flexibility.... While the “procedures” for changing conventions are not rigid like many written constitutions, in practice they are not easy to alter due to the very absence of a tangible and accepted means of immediate change. Rather, they evolve.
Apparently, they're evolving here in this effort to try to find Freeland. This is setting a new Canadian ministerial accountability precedent.
The paper continues:
In a later, yet equally pivotal book Constitutional Conventions, Marshall argues that Wheare’s “emphasis on obligatory behaviour...may obscure the point that the conventions, as a body of constitutional morality, deal not just with obligations or duties but confer rights, powers, and duties”.... It is unclear whether the convention of individual ministerial responsibility imposes obligations in contemporary politics, and if so, whether and which obligations are necessary to ensure accountability.
This goes to the heart of what we're discussing here.
The paper continues:
The doctrine of ministerial responsibility is often interpreted in terms of political responsibilities and parliamentary obligations, rather than in terms of administrative functions....
Bovens et al. (2008) argue that the existing literature on accountability is largely impressionistic based on perceptions of deficits and overloads that are labelled as such without an adequate yardstick. They identify three common normative perspectives—democratic, constitutional and learning—and advocate integration into a multi-criteria assessment tool to determine whether public accountability is working.
That is challenging us here in the finding Freeland effort.
The paper continues:
This study argues that the evidence from the key Westminster countries is mixed; the evolution of the convention, reforms and responses seemingly mirrors the dominance of particular perspectives at particular times, but the pre-eminence of the prime minister in Westminster democracies is not captured by the assessment tool. This confounding variable appears to tie the effectiveness of accountability mechanisms to the “virtue” of the prime minister.
The challenge in this case is that our Prime Minister has been convicted three times of ethics violations. The question of virtue is obviously an issue here in Canada.
The paper continues: “The next section examines the different components of accountability, before briefly summarising the effects of New Public Management (NPM) reforms and accountability. The study focuses on”—we haven't gotten to the details of the study, but it's just setting it up, as all of these wordy academic studies do—“recent attempts to ‘codify’ (capture in a more formal, written form) conventions and considers the adequacy of these measures.”
The first point that the paper looks at is “Conceiving Individual Ministerial Responsibility More as an Accountability ‘Virtue’ Than Just a Mechanism”. On this point, it says, “Accountability is a relationship between an account-holder (or principal) and accountor (agent), where the accountor has an obligation to provide an account to the account holder and is subject to external scrutiny from the account-holder”.
In this case, the account holder would be the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance and the members of Parliament here.
The study goes on to say:
Within the public administration literature there is a tendency to define accountability as answering for one’s behaviour and to then complicate this definition (Bovens et al. 2014).
It has other elements to it.
Yet it remains unclear who should be answerable, while also focusing on answerability rather than the behaviour itself. The convention under consideration here though is one of ministerial responsibility and not just accountability.... This Westminster tradition incorporates elements of both by being called to account for one’s actions before parliament, while also being responsible for internal aspects of one’s actions....
The unwritten doctrine of the responsibility of ministers to parliament was firmly established in the United Kingdom by the nineteenth century. Albeit imperfect, the chain linking the bureaucratic departmental hierarchy to the minister, who is responsible to an elected parliament, remains a chief accountability mechanism.... Bovens et al....disaggregate this accountability mechanism into three stages: the obligation to inform, explain or justify conduct, performance, outcomes or procedures; the opportunity to interrogate or question the account-giver....
That's what these motions are about: our ability to interrogate the finance minister, the public safety minister and perhaps others at this committee and others, in the effort of finding Freeland. It continues, “and the ability to then pass judgement.” That, after all, is the purpose of the examination of a bill: for parliamentarians to pass judgment on what a minister is proposing.
The paper states:
This is the dominant conception of accountability, which also permeates the political science literature, and focuses on agents in accountability forums, whether ministers in parliament or before committees, or governments before the electorate.
Obviously, this is the ultimate in ministerial and parliamentary accountability:
A common—yet inaccurate—interpretation of individual ministerial responsibility has been that ministers are expected to resign due to administrative failings....
There are a few in this cabinet who have set themselves up—which I believe as a member of His Majesty's loyal opposition—and are not being held enough to account. The Minister of Public Safety, whom we are trying to get before this committee, strikes me as one of those who has made questionable statements, in my mind, in the House of Commons on many issues—from the Emergencies Act to his most recent ones with regard to the intimidation of a member of Parliament and whether or not this government has done enough to protect the independence of members of Parliament from foreign country influence. To repeat, “ministers are expected to resign due to administrative failings”. I think there are a lot of examples with this government. The paper, by the way, doesn't say that latter part. That was my editorializing.
The paper goes on to say, “Yet this has not been the tradition for centuries”. It lists a number of sources and then says, “It is now generally accepted that resignation is only likely or expected when it is very serious and direct ministerial involvement can be clearly shown, popularly known as ‘the smoking gun’”.
Well, we know the Minister of Public Safety and the Prime Minister had security briefs on the interference by China with parliamentarians two years ago and refused to act. In my mind, that—to quote this article—clearly shows, and properly, a “smoking gun”. That is enough to say, I would venture, that not only should the Minister of Public Safety resign, because I don't believe he did his job, but also.... The Prime Minister's chief of staff said before a parliamentary committee that he reads everything, especially national security briefs, and must have read that brief two years ago, yet he didn't act. If not protecting the integrity of our Parliament isn't a reason for a prime minister to resign, I don't know what is.
The paper goes on to say, “Ministerial resignation or dismissal by the prime minister is the ultimate and extreme sanction in Westminster systems, but sacrificing a minister has become increasingly uncommon”. I have to tell you, this was written quite a while ago, but it sounds like it was written about the current government. It goes on:
While the ability to impose remedies or sanctions, along with an element of retributive justice, is part of the accountability relationship, resignation is not the only outcome.... Rather, accounting for one’s own actions or for that of the department can involve informing, explaining, apologising, remedying the situation, or resigning.
It's pretty hard to get to any of those levels when the finding Freeland effort is on and we've had challenges getting that answered. In fact, in the fisheries committee—I know I digress—we have often asked for the Minister of Fisheries to appear for two hours. On one occasion, she agreed to appear for two hours and 15 minutes but then beforehand decided to change it to an hour. Now, that is her prerogative, but it is disrespectful to Parliament and parliamentarians, in my mind.
I'll go back to the paper:
In order to remedy the situation and to respond to a web of accountabilities, ministers often need to remain in their positions.... Furthermore, the proportion of resignations or calls for resignation for departmental failings is much smaller than for an expanding range of other reasons, which have generally increased over the last few decades....
NPM is an acronym referred to earlier in my presentation of this paper. It continues:
NPM reforms accentuated the roles of principals and agents and therefore it can be tempting to analyse accountability in terms of principal-agent theory. However, in this context the limitations soon become apparent with the assumptions that principals are interested in specific results and agents are opportunistic being too simplistic, and the social and political environments in which these actors behave are understated.... This study aims to contribute to the literature emerging from the alternative social contingency model.
I'm sure we've all read that.
While this model is also based on the idea of rational actors, the key difference is that these actors have an expectation that they may have to justify their judgements, actions and decisions to others, and this logic of appropriateness guides behaviour.... This basis in historical institutionalism helps to explain the political stability surrounding many conventions, as political actors respond to various situations with what they consider to be the most appropriate conduct with regard to their position and responsibilities
One assumes that in other Westminister systems, that means they're actually attending parliamentary committees to be held accountable, as we are searching for in this finding Freeland effort.
The article goes on to say:
Further, much of the existing literature is about public accountability, in that it is “open” and “transparent”.... Again while this does capture answerability, the substantive behavioural aspect is often not public nor should be public. For example, public servants should not be publically accountable for the provision of frank and fearless advice to their ministers, but they are still accountable to their ministers. Bovens et al....refer to this “accountability as a virtue”, and is inherently contested and domain-specific. It is similar to the commonly used normative term in American academic and political discourse of “being accountable” and relates to the performance of actors and their “sense of responsibility”....
That's very important to ministerial responsibility. Part of a sense of responsibility is a sense to appear before our parliamentary committee, and that's why we are engaged in these motions to find Freeland.
The article goes on to say:
Prior to the ascendency of NPM, there were slightly different senses of what constituted a breach of the convention. In Australia, the rhetoric was that resignation was required for a major departmental “blunder”.... In practice, ministers resigned if they could not support government policy or if they acted unethically....
We've had ministers convicted in this government of breaching conflict of interest and ethics laws. Apparently that's not enough for resignations here, but it is perhaps in Australia.
The article goes on to say:
...but only rarely if they were responsible for a major departmental error, which had to first be uncovered and involve the minister misleading parliament....
We're talking about the Minister of Public Safety appearing before a committee. It's just a thought that comes to mind when I read that sentence.
It then says, “even then they would be advised to ‘tough it out’. I'm sure there are a lot of “tough it out” conversations between the current government's ministers and the boys and girls in short pants in the Prime Minister's Office. “Canadian ministers typically resigned due to problems with cabinet solidarity”. We saw that with Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott. They clearly didn't like being told that they should intervene in a pillar of our democracy, the independence of the judicial system, and they actually had something that many of the Liberal ministers in this government do not have, which is integrity.
It goes on to say, after “due to problems with cabinet solidarity”, “and rarely for unethical conduct”. It's in this paper—“rarely”. Rarely do Canadian ministers, for some reason, resign over unethical conduct. As a new member of Parliament, I find that quite interesting, because in my private sector life, unethical conduct would have put you out the door pretty quickly. It says, “rarely for unethical conduct, personal private misconduct or personal political mismanagement”.
The paper then reports:
In only two of the 151 ministerial resignations from 1867—
That's our year of Confederation.
—to 1990 did a minister accept responsibility for departmental maladministration in resigning. In New Zealand, the Cave Creek tragedy of 1995 is commonly cited as a turning point, emphasising the shift from the traditional convention to a post-NPM separation of the minister and the agency. In the United Kingdom, there were three main grounds for possible resignation: inability to support cabinet solidarity;—
We see that, actually, quite often in Britain today.
—personal errors,—
We've seen that as well recently in Britain.
—particularly private indiscretions but also where the minister acted without the support of their department; and policy errors where the minister misled or misinformed the parliament....
Wow. That's still a concept in Great Britain. Isn't that interesting. I'm editorializing again. I apologize to committee members. I'll just note that again. One of the reasons that ministers resign in the United Kingdom, which is often referred to as the mother of all Parliaments because that's where the first Parliament started in a farmer's field.... That's why the colour of the House of Commons is green. They set the trends and the rules for all parliamentary systems, the Westminster systems, which Canada has.
I'll read that last bit again: “policy errors where the minister misled or misinformed the parliament”. Maybe that should be brought up more directly in Parliament. Perhaps it should be mandatory reading for new ministers when they are sworn in to the Privy Council here in Canada.
The next section of this important paper is titled “NPM: Clarifying or Complicating the Convention?” It says:
While NPM directly recast the roles and responsibilities of senior public servants, ministerial responsibility has also been affected. Four broad reforms have characterised NPM: marketisation; managerial autonomy to increase responsiveness to clients and communities; a results-focus and performance measures; and a disaggregation of multipurpose departments into smaller, more focused agencies.... Rhodes et al....argue that NPM increased the delegation of direct accountability to senior executives, with ministers transferring responsibility and expecting problems to be fixed regardless of whether the cause is a problem of policy or maladministration.
The original New Zealand “model” of the late 1980s was based on principal-agent theory, and included performance contracts between ministers and agency heads to clarify the formal-legal separation of responsibilities and to detail objectives....
That's quite an interesting concept, actually.
Ministers were “principals” while executive agencies and non-government or private service providers delivered and implemented policy. Ministers purchased particular “outputs”...from agencies in order to achieve chosen outcomes. The agencies were then fully responsible for specified outputs....
Outputs are a thing. Outputs are something that this government seems to not understand. It understands a lot of inputs. This budget and the budget framework have $3.1 trillion in spending in the next five years. This government seems to measure success by spending record amounts of money, not by what that money actually produces in results. However, I digress.
Ministers purchased particular “outputs”...from agencies in order to achieve chosen outcomes. The agencies were then fully responsible for specified outputs and thus the chief executive could be held accountable, while the minister retained the more complicated accountability for social impact or outcomes....
Similarly, the 'Next Steps' programme in the United Kingdom during the same period—
Remember, that was the 1980s.
—saw the proliferation of specialised executive agencies with delegated government functions. Hood and Lodge...describe the creation of executive agencies as a “special type of public service bargain”, with agency heads receiving managerial pay, perks and some autonomy in exchange for relinquishing anonymity and permanence.
As an aside, understand that this budget implementation act creates new agencies, particularly in the area of industry and the area of global investment funding. They have these grand titles. There's $15 billion, I think, in that.
Mr. Chair, I think we've heard some robust conversation. I'm wondering at this point if we have agreement to move to a vote on the subamendment.
Hang on, MP Lawrence.
We are now on MP Blaikie's amendment to the motion. That's what we are on right now.
My subamendment would be that section (b) be amended to add “(iii) The Minister appear before the committee for two hours”.
In other words, to explain what we are attempting to accomplish, prior to a condition of heading to clause-by-clause, we'll have the minister appear for no less than two hours.
No. The difference here is that with this amendment, we are making heading to clause-by-clause contingent upon the fact that the minister appears for two hours, as opposed to having an invitation just for two hours.
Mr. Chair, as we've seen, we've had three different invitations that have gone unrequited. We would like some encouragement to have the minister here, as the minister has only spoken 24 times, despite the fact that she has a budget. I have to think that's a record low in the House of Commons. She has only been in the House five times to speak. She has rejected us three times. While we have tremendous respect for the deputy leader and Minister of Finance, her attendance has been less than desirable. This is meant to encourage and incentivize her to come.
Obviously we cannot compel a minister. We can certainly make it a condition and precedent to head to clause-by-clause for her to appear. As I said, we do not mean this in any form to be disrespectful of the deputy leader and Minister of Finance. We believe that it's absolutely critical, given that she is requiring taxpayers to pony up $490 billion, of which $60 billion is new money.... According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, $12 billion is unaccounted for. That means there's no detail or transparency. It includes a $798-million slush fund that has no accountability or transparency.
We very much want her to appear for two hours. Unfortunately, because she's been unwilling to accept our invitations in the past, we are left in no place but to be skeptical of her appearance. We don't believe we should enter into the clause-by-clause and basically pass this through the committee without hearing from the Minister of Finance. In fact, I believe that would be unheard of and, actually, precedent setting.
I understand that the NDP members feel the same way we do. We would very much appreciate their support to have the minister. It seems like it would make sense for all parties, in government and opposition. I'm sure even government backbench members would like to hear what the minister has to say, because she's been so very quiet. As I said, she's only been in the House five times this year and has rejected three separate invitations to appear in front of the finance committee.
Once again, it's $490 billion that she and her ministry are are asking for for the government. We realize that some of that is very necessary spending and important to the Canadian public. However, there is $60 billion in new spending. I'm sure there's some important spending in there as well.
This will give her the opportunity to explain to Canadians why they've had to deal with 20-year highs in inflation, why they're still dealing with high rates of interest and why, in March, economic growth turned negative. We will, of course, treat her with the respect that her office entitles her to.
Our whole job and responsibility here is to be the voice of the Canadian people—the common people—who are so extraordinary in everything they do. We believe that the minister has a responsibility to the Canadian public, if she's going to ask the Canadian public for $490 billion, to appear for two hours before the finance committee. That equates to her asking for $8 billion for every minute she speaks. I don't think this is an outrageous request.
As I said, we would very much like the NDP members, if they are serious about having the minister here.... The reality is that she's ignored three requests. Just putting an invitation out has got us nowhere at this finance committee in terms of getting there. If the NDP members are serious about having her appear, I'm sure they will support this.
Yes, it's on MP Lawrence's....
I have a question. I heard him read the subamendment. I'm wondering if he can put it in the context of this part of the amendment, in full.
I think you said (b), if I understand you?
You said it was a subamendment to MP Blaikie's amendment, but you didn't add on to MP Blaikie's. You actually eliminated MP Blaikie's amendment.
He was eliminating MP Blaikie's amendment.
There was another point of order that came up.
MP Dzerowicz, was that you?
I was going to say the same thing.
I think this is a new amendment as opposed to an amendment to Mr. Blaikie's amendment. That's a technical thing, and then I have some comments for Mr. Lawrence. I think we should deal with the technical aspects first. I think it's a new amendment.
I have a point of order on that.
I think there's some confusion. My point was simply, to start, that you take consideration. Let's have Mr. Lawrence read it in the context of the amendment that he's amending, section (b), so that we all understand that, because it was verbal.
I'm hoping that he can do that for us right now.
—because the subamendment was to come at the end of the amendment put forward by MP Blaikie.
You've not added to that amendment, Mr. Lawrence. You've changed it. Is this a subamendment and are you adding to MP Blaikie's amendment?
Maybe, Mr. Chair, I could ask for some clarity. My apologies to the committee for causing any confusion. It certainly was not my intent to do so.
If I am amending the legislation in a different place than the subamendment, that would be out of order. Am I correct in understanding that?
The only way for it to be in order would be to propose that we eliminate MP Blaikie's language, his amendment at the end of the motion, and then bring forward what you are looking to do.
On this point of order, Mr. Chair, if I may, my understanding is that if an amendment or a subamendment would require the deletion of the entire thing it's trying to amend, the appropriate thing to do is proceed to a vote and then have a new amendment presented. I don't think an amendment can completely wipe out the entire content of a motion—in this case an amendment itself—that it's trying to amend.
Thank you for that, MP Blaikie, and yes, I just spoke with the clerk, and you are correct on that. It would have to go to a vote.
Members, we'll now go to a vote on MP Blaikie's—
Mr. Chair, on the point you just made, we are happy to go to a vote on a motion to invite the minister to appear at the committee for two hours as an amendment, and to then go to a vote on the study to start the study of the BIA so that we can bring in those witnesses ASAP and get to work instead of wasting time.
Thank you, PS Beech and MP Lawrence.
What you are doing in terms of eliminating.... You'd have to eliminate the amendment from MP Blaikie, and that is not possible. We'd first have to go to a vote on MP Blaikie's amendment.
Thank you very much for adding a bit of clarity.
I would ask for indulgence to change my subamendment. The subamendment would add on, after—
MP Lawrence, you need unanimous consent for that.
Unless members give unanimous consent, would we have to go to a vote, Clerk?
You would need unanimous consent to do what you're trying to do.
Mr. Chair, I guess the question is whether you've ruled that the subamendment is in order. If the subamendment is out of order and you've ruled it as such, it's not before the committee, so you wouldn't need unanimous consent to withdraw it, because it effectively was never moved because it was never in order to move it. I'm not sure that we would require unanimous consent if the subamendment is out of order, which I believe it is. In that case, whoever had the floor would be free to present a new subamendment.
MP Lawrence, it could be ruled out of order, but then we would have to go back again to MP Blaikie's amendment.
Exactly. I'd like, at that point, the floor, which I have, to move an additional subamendment that will hopefully be found in order.
Yes.
I'll read in the subamendment to Mr. Blaikie's.... I'll read in his amendment first, and then I'll put in my subamendment so that we have clarity.
His amendment reads, “(h) That the Minister of Finance be invited to appear for two hours on or before May 18, 2023.” I would add, “and clause-by-clause shall not begin until the Minister of Finance has appeared for no less than two hours.”
Mr. Blaikie's amendment is “That the Minister of Finance be invited to appear for two hours on or before May 18, 2023.” I'll add “and clause-by-clause shall not begin until the Minister of Finance has appeared before the finance committee for no less than two hours.”
I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.
I don't know why.... How is it that the Conservatives have a point of order on their own motions? They're speaking to their own motions.
I'm going to raise a point of order on something procedural.
I don't think it's procedurally in order to revoke something that the committee has already decided.
Can we have the clerk maybe rule that this is not in order?