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Results: 1 - 15 of 691
View Joe Jordan Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I was reluctant to break into my colleague's speech because he was on a bit of a roll. My concern with this motion is that I think we might be debating a false point here. Based on my somewhat limited experience, if events play out the way everybody is assuming they're going to, and that seems to be what's driving the flavour of this debate, I don't think it's physically possible to get a report out of this committee and have it tabled in the House. I'm wondering if perhaps we could pick up on Mr. Kenney's earlier suggestion.
The other thing I would add to that is that I think Mr. Walsh's comments need to be taken into consideration. My concern is that if we start trying to draw conclusions or recommendations, we're essentially finding a fix, which indirectly is finding a fault and may cause us some problems. I think today might be shot, but tomorrow and Thursday, if we were to do the summation of evidence, as we did before in camera, and not have it be a report of the committee that would then be tabled in Parliament--it would be a document similar to what we produced last time—and stay away from conclusions and recommendations, because it's my sense that's not going to be allowed to go forward anyway, maybe that might be a better use of the committee's time than what we're currently engaged in. But that's just a suggestion.
View Joe Jordan Profile
Lib. (ON)
I think we're all at different places, but I'm just trying to be realistic. Clearly there are some machinery-of-government recommendations that some people feel strongly about, but I don't think there's enough consensus to go.
The other thing I suggest that we could do, again trying to be realistic about where we're going, is this. With the KPMG document and the strategic plan, if we were to take a summation of what we've done to date and plug it in as to how that fits into this plan, I think we would be doing whoever picks up this ball and runs with it a huge favour in terms of giving them a document. The newly struck committee, in the fall or whenever, could go back at this. That might be something useful. I just don't think wasting the week is useful.
View Joe Jordan Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Neville, you mentioned at one point in your testimony today that you had thought deeply about how this was allowed to happen. We had testimony from two gentlemen who were part of the quick response team, and I thought for the first time they had actually explained part of it. It's going to take some time, if we can ever put it all together, but they listed three factors. You touched on one of them today. The first was that this was an environment of program review and that the balance point between risk and benefit was changing. In some cases decisions were made to cut internal audit functions at the expense of programs.
View Joe Jordan Profile
Lib. (ON)
The second point they made is that there was a culture, they felt, being created within the civil service that focused more on innovation than regulation. It was a sort of entrepreneurial notion within the monolith.
View Joe Jordan Profile
Lib. (ON)
Third, they referred to a number of large information technology projects that were trying to automate systems, and perhaps, rather than revisiting the system in light of a new technology, we were just speeding up manual systems, and there were problems not unlike those industries face when they do that. This isn't my question, but is that a fair assessment? Do you think those factors would have influenced the environment that gave birth to this thing?
View Joe Jordan Profile
Lib. (ON)
Okay.
Now, you seem to have added one observation today, if I heard your testimony correctly, that in 1993 there was this amalgamation of a number of different departments into one big entity, bringing the number of people at Public Works to 20,000, and that may have influenced what went on at a micro level.
View Joe Jordan Profile
Lib. (ON)
Here's where I get excited, because I'm going to advance my own theory, for which, up until now, I haven't had a lot of buy-in, although I'm heartened by Mr. Benoit's--and others touched on this.
Prior to 1993--we heard testimony on this, and we just discussed it--there were political people right in the bureaucracy of APORS. Is it conceivable that the professional civil servants, the people who are supposed to sort of hold the politicians accountable from regime to regime...? The analogy I use in my own mind is that it's not unlike working in a factory, if any of you have ever done that, where the boss's son works. So here you had a department that had political staff in it, and to me that would certainly send signals throughout the public service that they are going to do things a little differently, that they have a pipeline through to the political side, that over time it's probably not worth worrying too much about what's going on over there, because they have their own back channels and they'll answer to their own masters.
My theory is that when the Liberals came in with the best intentions and said this doesn't make sense, so take the political staff out of there--and Mr. Benoit asked you this--they weren't replaced with anybody.
I guess my theory suggests that perhaps Mr. Guité filled that vacuum.
View Joe Jordan Profile
Lib. (ON)
This just stems from discussions we had last week, Mr. Chair. I think there was a general feeling that there were elements of Mr. Richard's testimony that were pertinent, and perhaps it might be prudent to do an affidavit, and then if the committee decides later on that he should come before the committee, it has that option.
View Joe Jordan Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Chair, part of my question was answered by my colleague's questions. I was going to ask if this extends to potential--I don't want to prejudge motions--recommendations, and I guess what I'm hearing is it would.
My colleague Ms. Ablonczy talked about what the balance is, and I was wondering, if the committee were in camera, could it have discussions periodically about where the balance line is? Because normally drafting reports would be in camera. Does that give the committee some cover in terms of trying...? To me, it seems like it would be a bit of a moving target, it would be issue-specific, and there may be cases where you'd have to go a little bit too far in order to know where to come back to.
Does that convention apply to just public...? If we were in camera, would we be free to have more detailed discussions and try to find that point?
View Joe Jordan Profile
Lib. (ON)
So is Stephen Harper...[Inaudible—Editor]
View Joe Jordan Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Chair, I don't necessarily disagree with your ruling on Ms. Ablonczy, but I think we need to stick to the facts.
I didn't get to ask the Auditor General questions last time. You people all got to ask questions last time.
View Joe Jordan Profile
Lib. (ON)
I didn't. So I think I have a right--
View Joe Jordan Profile
Lib. (ON)
We ran out of time. Excuse me, we ran out of time.
So when she says that we're just stalling--
View Joe Jordan Profile
Lib. (ON)
Who's eating up the time?
View Joe Jordan Profile
Lib. (ON)
Give me a break.
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