SIFS Committee Meeting

SUB-COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL REPORTING GUIDELINES AND STANDARDS FOR THE PUBLIC SECTOR OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC ACCOUNTS

SOUS-COMITÉ DES LIGNES DIRECTRICES ET NORMES INTERNATIONALES RELATIVEMENT AUX ÉTATS FINANCIERS DU SECTEUR PUBLIC DU COMITÉ PERMANENT DES COMPTES PUBLICS

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Wednesday, March 1, 2000

• 1533

[English]

The Chairman (Mr. John Williams (St. Albert, Ref.)): I'd like to call this meeting to order.

Ms. Sgro has to run to another meeting, so she is excused, but we do note that she has been here.

We have several small items on the agenda. Looking at the committee's orders of the day, pursuant to its mandate dated Tuesday, December 7, 1999, this is consideration of matters relating to the future business of the subcommittee. We have witnesses we want to talk about, as well as travel to Washington, other business, and adjournment to the call of the chair.

I think I'd like to deal with some other business before we get started.

Last week we had a presentation by Jean-Pierre Boisclair, the president of the Canadian Comprehensive Auditing Foundation, and Mr. Tim Plumptre, director of the Institute on Governance. Unfortunately, we didn't have enough members present to form a quorum to hear witnesses. The clerk has distributed a motion that says:

That the evidence heard by the members of the Sub-Committee on February 23, 2000, from Jean-Pierre Boisclair, President of Canadian the Comprehensive Auditing Foundation, and Tim Plumptre, Director of the Institute on Governance, be deemed to have been received by the Sub-Committee and that it be published as meeting no. 2.

Ms. Beth Phinney (Hamilton Mountain, Lib.): I so move.

(Motion agreed to)

The Chairman: Now let's deal with the travel to Washington. We have a budget that the clerk is going to distribute.

As I mentioned to you before, while we've been gathering information on financial guidelines and standards—and we hope to disseminate the same—I've been working on building an organization around the various parts of the globe.

• 1535

I'm focusing right now on the western hemisphere, which is also the area represented by the Organization of American States. I talked to the Department of Foreign Affairs, and they're very supportive of the initiative we have.

You may recall that this committee approved a letter to the Department of Foreign Affairs last December, outlining what we had in mind. I have talked to the Department of Foreign Affairs since then, and to David Kilgour, the Secretary of State for Latin America and Africa, who is also in full agreement with what we're doing. I've also spoken to Mr. Bill Graham, the chairman of the foreign affairs committee. He is also in full agreement with what we're doing. Bill Graham has invited me down to San José, Costa Rica, on I think April 1, 2, and 3 to a meeting of the Inter-American Dialogue.

The people I've talked to in that part of the world really want to hear what we have to say, but we have to get the United States onside. As you know, they carry more weight by themselves than everybody else combined. Therefore, for one person or two to go down there to try to convince them of something is certainly not going to be possible. That's why I think it's important that we take the committee to Washington to talk to the senators and the congressmen about what we're doing. We would have a full briefing before we go. This is the desire I have. I would like to take the committee down to Washington, and the Auditor General has expressed interest in coming along with us.

It says here that we're proposing to leave on Sunday, May 7, but I thought we were going to be there overnight on Saturday.

The Clerk of the Committee: May I explain the different options?

The Chairman: Please do.

The Clerk: We have to get permission from the House, as you all know. After that, we have to get a budget. We have no control over when we can get permission from the House. We had a budget for Australia, but we never got permission from the House.

The chairman was talking about leaving, but we had a draft circulated a while back, before I was the clerk. The committee was planning on leaving Ottawa either on the Friday or the Saturday. That was to benefit from excursion fares. However, with excursion fares you have to book one month ahead. You can't change names, you can't change departure dates, and you can't change return dates. And all of that is subject to availability.

After all the effort of going through getting a budget, getting House permission, and then not having any seats available and not having any money in the budget for economy class, I went for economy with the understanding that the chairman, when he proposes the budget to the liaison committee, would have in his letter what we would save if we can go excursion. I can tell you right now that going excursion would mean leaving on a Saturday, but in paying the hotel room and the per diem, we'd still be ahead by $6,000.

However, let's not go excursion for the liaison and then not have any seats available if we don't have permission from the House. I can't reserve any tickets until I have House authorization.

Mr. Mac Harb (Ottawa Centre, Lib.): I am very much against the excursions for a lot of reasons. Once you buy the excursions, you're stuck.

The Clerk: But we'll try.

Mr. Mac Harb: Yes, but you're stuck. I have a back condition, and, frankly, if I get stuck there and have to come back—

The Clerk: You can get an upgrade.

Mr. Mac Harb: —that's gone down the tubes.

And sometimes when you are in Parliament a lot, things that you're not expecting to happen might happen, so some of us might not be able to go. At the end of the day, my recommendation is that we should not go excursion, notwithstanding anything.

The Clerk: Maybe once we have permission and everything, what I can do is get the staff to go excursion. That would save a few thousand dollars.

The Chairman: Mr. Harb has a good point. I travel back and forth to the riding virtually every week, but I can't buy excursion. For example, the last two weeks, my plane has been booked for me to go home Friday but I've gone home Saturday. You have to have that ability to change on a whim.

The Clerk: We'll put it in a letter, and we can still say—

Mr. Mac Harb: Just take economy.

The Clerk: Okay, we'll go economy. The chairman will have the figures for excursion if it does come up, but with all the conditions.

The Chairman: Okay.

• 1540

Now, as you can see, we intend to meet with people from the World Bank and from the IMF. I also hope to meet with Marcel Massé, the former President of the Treasury Board, who is now a director of the Inter-American Bank down there. I talked to him last week. We also want to meet with the Canadian ambassador to the OAS.

We're going to line up some more meetings when we're down there so that it's a productive time, but the most important thing is to meet with some senators. Bill Graham is going to introduce me to Senator Graham—a namesake but no relative, I understand—from Florida, who is very much involved in Latin America. So if we can make contact there and bring senators and some congressmen aboard, then that will be the objective of the meeting, but as I say, we'll have further discussions on the details.

Mr. Harb.

Mr. Mac Harb: Mr. Chair, do they not have an committee equivalent to ours in the Congress?

The Chairman: No, they don't. They don't have a public accounts committee.

Mr. Mac Harb: Do they have a finance committee?

The Chairman: They have the OMB.

What does the “O” stand for?

Mr. Jean Dupuis (Committee Researcher): It's for “Office”—the Office of Management and Budget.

The Chairman: OMB is part of the executive branch. There's also the GAO, the General Accounting Office, which is a bureaucratic thing, but they do have the ways and means committee. The ways and means committee is equivalent to the finance committee in the fact that it approves budgets and so on.

Mr. Mac Harb: Who would have the authority in Congress or in the Senate to, for example, push the agenda forward? If we say this sounds interesting and we want to push it forward, which committee...? I think we have to find the anchor and talk to the anchor.

The Chairman: As I say, because we have foreign affairs department support here, we'd certainly have the embassy in Washington to figure that out ahead of time.

As far as I understand, because of their congressional style of government, where things bubble up from the bottom rather than percolate down from the top, it relies to a significant degree on the individual interests of individual senators and congressmen.

Mr. Mac Harb: But it has to go to a committee at some point, and—

The Chairman: Yes, we will have a say. I've been in some discussions with the foreign affairs department, and we will ensure that our ambassador looks after us, sets these meetings up, and identifies these people. Bill Graham, chairman of our foreign affairs committee, knows a lot of people, and I've been talking to Bill on this issue.

Mr. Mac Harb: Yes, because I'm going to have a problem, for example, if somebody asks me if we're going there to meet with legislators and says “Well, that's interesting”. But if I can say we're going there to meet with a committee that's equivalent or that has a certain equivalency or connection to what we are trying to do, we'll have a lot more credibility and we will be able to sell it to those in the public domain as well as to our colleagues and the Board of Internal Economy.

I think it's exceptionally critical for us to establish that link, to either meet with the chair or the individual members who sit on that committee.

The Chairman: Let me see if I can get that identified, Mr. Harb, before I present it to the liaison committee and to the House leaders and so on, so that I have that ammunition. That's an excellent point.

The reason that we are proposing, for example, to travel during the time the House is sitting is that when we are on a break, they're on a break. So if we go down to Washington during our break, there's not going to be anybody to meet.

Mr. Mac Harb: As long as we make sure that we have equivalent numbers of government and opposition members. If you want to take six opposition, take six government.

The Chairman: We're calling for a maximum of eight MPs.

Mr. Mac Harb: So four and four, or three and five—

Ms. Beth Phinney: Is your party going to not support it again? You're the ones that brought it up the last time and said that only the chair could go. The same thing—

The Chairman: I heard conflicting issues out of there. I heard that story. I heard other stories. I really don't know what transpired.

Ms. Beth Phinney: Well, I know, in the House.... I just happened to be sitting in the House that day.

The Chairman: Yes, that's the story I heard too.

Ms. Beth Phinney: That was a true story.

The Chairman: I will have it pre-sold beforehand.

Ms. Beth Phinney: All right.

Mr. John Richardson (Perth—Middlesex, Lib.): They should be proud that you're going and representing them.

Ms. Beth Phinney: Well, they were. They only wanted him to go—nobody else.

Mr. John Richardson: I see.

The Chairman: As I say, there is no point in me going down there as an individual. I want the full committee, because you can't go to Washington and think you're going to make an impact unless you have the committee.

Mr. John Richardson: And meet with some of our associates—

The Chairman: And meet with some of our associates.

• 1545

The clerk advises me that we have two motions here. Have they been circulated?

The Clerk: Yes.

The Chairman: The first one is that the committee present a report to the House seeking authority for members of the Subcommittee on International Financial Reporting Guidelines and Standards to travel to Washington, D.C., from May 7 to 10, 2000, in relation to a study on international financial and reporting guidelines and standards for the public sector and that the necessary staff accompany the subcommittee.

Mr. Sauvageau.

[Translation]

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau (Repentigny, BQ): Mr. Chairman, the government side tried—and I for one am not convinced—to prove beyond reasonable doubt that committees did not need to travel to prepare their reports. They tried to argue their case, bus as I said, I'm still not convinced. But I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. That's why I believe the committee need not travel. And since we are told that committees do not need to travel, we can either invite the witnesses to Ottawa or hold a video-conference or something of the kind. For that reason, I will not support—

Mr. Mac Harb: Before then, if only to—

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: Please wait. I'm not finished yet.

I will not support the draft motion calling for the committee to travel to Washington from May 7 to May 10 and I call upon my colleagues to support me and to invite the honourable witnesses and experts to meet with us here to share their grievances, and that way we will be able to press our case upon them.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[English]

The Chairman: Mr. Harb.

Mr. Mac Harb: Mr. Chair, just to respond to my colleague, this is not a hearing we are doing. It's not that we are introducing something or putting something here and inviting the public to come to it. It's the opposite. This is an initiative of the committee that has nothing to do with the government or the opposition.

It's a committee initiative that the one who was a member of the committee before you supported and endorsed, that is, it is an initiative for us to be proactive and to move out around the world to like-minded countries in order to get some sort of a consensus so that we will have international standards for financial reporting.

In a sense, this is our own baby. It has nothing to with the government or the opposition. The members of the committee themselves have agreed on it as one of our initiatives.

I understand what you are trying to say, but it would be important for us not to mix what's going on with the legislation the government is trying to deal with. I think you're talking about the clarity bill, but there is no link here, because these are completely different animals. This is our own initiative. It didn't come from the government side. It didn't come from the opposition side. This came from the committee members.

I hope that with my argument you now will give it some thought, and if you want to go and verify this with our colleagues from your party who are members of it.... They were very enthusiastic about it.

I hope we will be able to unanimously proceed with it. Otherwise, it's going to keep the committee as just a reactive committee rather than a proactive committee. We wanted to move out from the whole notion of continuously reacting to the Auditor General's report into something proactive. This would probably be one of the very few committees in the House of Commons to ever come up with all of its reports by consensus. We rarely had disputes over any issues. We fight it over, but at the end of the day we come out unified.

I would say to you, Benoît, that once we promote this issue and have two or three countries say that this makes a lot of sense, we will go down in the history of the House of Commons as one of the most effective committees, one that really has made a difference in the history of the House of Commons and has also brought about sanity to the system in terms of how government reports their financial statements, how government deals with corruptions and deals with transparencies, which members of this committee have been promoting for quite some time.

I will appeal to your good side to ask you to look at it from that perspective rather than that of all of the other issues that might come into play.

The Chairman: Ms. Phinney.

Ms. Beth Phinney: I'm just wondering if we could go over with Benoît exactly what the committee would be doing there. They're going down there to take an idea that we have here down there, and what is that idea, and...?

• 1550

The Chairman: Let me recap.

As the clerk has mentioned, and as you may recall, we had tried to take the committee down to Australia last year, where I was invited to make a presentation to the Australasian Council of Public Accounts Committees on international cooperation in the areas of financial reporting and accountability in an attack on the bribery and corruption so rife in many parts of the world. Like any other crime, it has to be fought or else it will grow. Even here in Canada we're not immune to such issues.

I planted a seed there in conjunction with a gentleman by the name of Mr. Max Trenorden, a legislator with the Legislature of Western Australia, a state or a province of Australia. I made the presentation to the Canadian Council of Public Accounts Committees, who thought it was important that we try to develop international reporting standards as a first, bottom-line attack on bribery and corruption.

As you know, when you have good, audited financial statements, presented on a timely basis, that's the first and fundamental step towards attacking mismanagement, lack of accountability, and worse, bribery and corruption in a government and around the world.

Since that time, as a matter of coincidence—and I haven't had time to have it translated and distributed—I have received a letter from Mr. Bob Charles, MP, chairman of the federal public accounts committee of the Commonwealth of Australia. I got it just last week.

In the letter he indicates that he had presented the idea to the Asia-Pacific Parliamentary Forum, where it was endorsed. I have talked to numerous people around the world, and they've all said “Great idea”. In fact, the idea started when I was invited by the World Bank and the Parliamentary Centre to attend a conference in New Delhi a couple of years ago. After the conference, people said “This is great, but what are we going to do from here on in?” And there was nothing. There was no mechanism to carry the agenda forward.

That's when we started to realize that we needed an association of public accounts committees to keep the agenda moving, to keep the ball rolling. Then it became apparent, as Mr. Harb has just pointed out, that there was no public accounts committee in Washington, for example, and that other styles of government don't have public accounts committees. Some have anti-corruption committees and anti-bribery committees and good ethics committees and different kinds of committees, but many governments don't have public accounts committees.

So the idea kind of broadened out into parliamentarians focused on accountability and good governance, be it, as here in Canada, in public accounts committees, or be it, as in other countries, under a different name. It has gathered enough momentum, and enough people are talking about it, that we in Canada should continue to move this agenda forward. That's the initiative.

Now, we in the western hemisphere, which happens to be the same geographical entity as the Organization of American States.... Of course, Canada is in the western hemisphere and part of the OAS, and Canada's going to play a lead role in the OAS in the next couple of years. In fact, the Summit of the Americas, as Mr. Sauvageau will know, is going to be in Quebec City next April.

It seems timely that Canada should play a role in new initiatives. As I said, I've talked to the foreign affairs department and Mr. Kilgour, and received their endorsation on this issue. If we are to create an organization of the Americas in the same way as.... I mentioned Mr. Charles and the Asia-Pacific Parliamentary Forum. I know there's one just starting up in Africa, and there's a recognition in the subcontinent of India that they're going to try to get one going there. Canada still has an opportunity to play a lead role in this.

But in the Americas, if you don't have Washington you don't have very much. That's why we can't really invite a senator or some congressman to come up here, because the idea would be to try to bring the western hemisphere nations together, and perhaps, in conjunction with the fact that Canada is playing a lead role in the next couple of years, here in Canada.

If we can bring them all to Canada, all to Quebec City, then that would be beneficial. It's on that issue that we want to go to Washington to sell this to Congress and the Senate and to, at the same time, talk to others who would be interested in this—the World Bank, say, Interamerican Bank, IMF, or whomever.

• 1555

Ms. Beth Phinney: I mean, maybe my head's a little thick today, but you're talking about “this”—to sell them this, to go and see them about this, to talk to them about this. What's “this”?

The Chairman: Okay. Do you want to know what “this” is?

Ms. Beth Phinney: Yes. What's “this?”

The Chairman: “This” is the potential of having a meeting, perhaps in Canada, and within the next year or so, to ask whether it is beneficial that we have international cooperation amongst parliamentarians to focus on bribery and corruption.

We have government focus and we have civil society focus, but parliamentarians, whose role it is to keep government accountable, are acting in isolation. So we're talking about setting up an organization of parliamentarians that will focus on accountability, on good governance. It's our role here to focus—

Ms. Beth Phinney: Would the meetings be to sit and discuss with each other, for instance, how they do it in Australia and how they do it in India and what we do on our committee in Canada? Is that it?

The Chairman: Well, it's not so much how we do it in different parts of the world.

I've talked to people in South America, for example, and there's a major drug problem down there, as you know. They have a very serious corruption problem that is primarily drug-oriented. That is not the case in the Australasian part of the world. Australasia will look after their organization and they will look after their concerns in their part of the world. The western hemisphere will look after trying to build and develop policies and methodologies to improve good governance in the western hemisphere that focus on the primary issue of so much illegal money buying so much illegal influence that governments are incapable, in some cases, of delivering services.

I listened to the ambassador this morning from Colombia talking about the problems down there, how the drug money is fuelling a civil war, in essence. The government is incapable of really doing very much about it. What are the parliamentarians doing? They have no support from the outside world. We, as parliamentarians here—and Canada has a strong connection with Colombia—should perhaps have the role of helping and sharing information of best practices with these people.

But it's not just Colombia. It's everybody in the western hemisphere. We are a part of the western hemisphere. If we have an organization focused on the western hemisphere where we work together and motivate each other and provide research and assistance to other parliamentarians, and work towards helping their citizens, then we are making progress.

Mr. Mac Harb: With the focus, of course, Mr. Chair, on the objective of the subcommittee, which is to establish international financial reporting guidelines and standards. As a spinoff of that, we will be able to have transparency that will fight corruption and everything else.

The Chairman: If you don't have financial statements, what do you have?

Mr. Mac Harb: You would not be able to do anything else.

I think we're all shooting in the same direction and at the same target.

The Chairman: The key is to focus people's minds on one issue—that is, we as parliamentarians have a responsibility to help each other.

Mr. Sauvageau.

[Translation]

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: I don't want to hog the floor, but I find what you said interesting.

“We, parliamentarians,” this is what you said—it reminds me of someone who began with “We, the people”—“can help them, since we are good and nice and have strong arms.” In my humble opinion, Mr. Chairman, I would like to remind you that we, parliamentarians, withdrew from COPA, the Parliamentary Conference of the Americas, because the Liberal parliamentarians wanted to do so, whereas we wanted to be part of political interactions within the Americas.

Mr. Chairman, I will conclude by saying that I agree with your example of Columbia, a country which does have a problem of corruption.

• 1600

At a meeting of the Sub-Committee on International Development, I asked the president of the EDC if, under current and internal EDC rules, it was possible—I repeat, would it be possible—for the EDC to give a grant or a loan to a Canadian association or organization dealing with Columbia if, by pure coincidence, the business being dealt with had hired guerillas who, to get rid of the union in the business—I'm not really exaggerating—publicly killed a union representative with a bullet to the head. I asked whether this was possible, and the president of the EDC answered yes, since EDC rules don't concern themselves with whether EDC loan guarantees are being made with an eye to upholding Canadian values. Those are the words of the president of the EDC.

If you choose to ignore the fact that Liberal MPs withdrew from COPA, if you choose to ignore the situation within the EDC and if you want to change the world, because we, the members of this committee, sincerely believe that we can change the system, not in Canada, not in North America, but of the Americas and throughout the world—why not?—, I think we have to begin by leading by example and make changes, where possible, at home first.

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, what is more important than the future of the people? In fact, when it came to dealing with the future of a people, we were told that it was not necessary to hear what the people had to say—both of our parties agreed on that point—because the witnesses were able to travel to Ottawa. First, I think we withdrew from COPA because the governing party did not deem it important enough and that it was not worth being part of it. This might be news to you, but speak to Bill Graham: he'll let you know.

Second, we are not aware of the EDC's internal regulations because they are not subject to the Access to Information Act.

Third, regarding the future of a people—this issue, in my view, is much more important than investigating what is going on within Columbia and Uruguay—, it was deemed unnecessary for the committee to travel.

Let me say from the outset that it won't be easy to convince me. You can try to talk me into it for as long as you like, but given those three facts, if you're looking for a filibuster, all I can say is good luck if you're trying to convince me.

[English]

The Chairman: Mr. Harb.

Mr. Mac Harb: Again, Mr. Chair, my thoughts here are that we are not talking about the same animal. These are two completely different animals.

[Translation]

Benoît, we're not talking about the same thing. In this case, we are dealing with a committee which took the initiative to establish international standards regarding the way various governments throughout the world, especially democratic governments, are financed. Frankly, I'm not concerned by the fact that this is done through existing organizations, whether Canada is a member of these organizations or not. What is ultimately important is that if we want to sell our initiative to our American colleagues, and if they support us, it would be a huge bonus to have them on our side, not only for South or Latin America, but for every democracy throughout the world.

That's why I said I was not in agreement. There are all kinds of conflicts, there are conflicts of interests, political conflicts and conflicts of opinion. As a member of this committee, I don't want to get involved in those types of conflicts. I want us to be clear, I want our ideas to be clear, I want us to have a vision and I want us to take a leadership role which, ultimately, is ours to play. It is not up to another committee or another organization or other members to show leadership in this area. This is our baby. We gave birth to it. We worked very hard to give birth to a healthy baby and we want to see this baby grow into a man or woman. That's why I said we should carry on with our work and to keep that in mind, despite what other people may think.

[English]

The Chairman: Ms. Phinney.

Ms. Beth Phinney: Oh, I didn't necessarily want to speak.

If we don't have a consensus here, does that mean we don't have a consensus in the House?

• 1605

The Chairman: I think we can quite easily put it to a vote here and carry it through. There are various checks. There's here, there's the liaison committee, there's the House leaders committee, there's the House.

Ms. Beth Phinney: But Benoît knows now that if he's going to say no at the other end.... It only takes one person in the House to say no, which we did when we went through the last time.

The Chairman: My recommendation is that we push it on to the next date, but we don't have the motion actually moved at this point. I don't think we ever did move it on to that.

Mr. Mac Harb: Mr. Chair, we should air out our views, which I think is very healthy. I don't think Benoît is opposed to the notion of promoting the initiative. I think he just has some grievances against some other committees or some other initiatives. I would like to hear from him further and hopefully we'll be able to somehow come to a consensus.

The Chairman: Consensus is always desirable; there's no question about that.

[Translation]

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: Mr. Chairman, I would like to add something to what Mac said. I have nothing against the motion introduced regarding the work which has been done in committee. I suggest that we meet with the witnesses here and we invite the Parliamentary Conference of the Americas to tell us what has already been done within the organization called COPA, which the federal government has withdrawn from. We are the only democratic government in the Americas who is not a member of COPA.

For that reason, I believe we should hold the meeting here. I suggest we invite the members of the board of directors of COPA to come before the committee and tell us about their work so far, despite the unfortunate absence of the Canadian government, which did not want to be involved. In fact, Bill Graham was the government's spokesman who argued for Canada's withdrawal from COPA. But COPA has already reviewed those countries' finances.

Mr. Chairman, you might think that the second person to invent sliced bread had actually been the first to do so, if you had not actually seen the first loaf of sliced bread. For these reasons, I will object to the committee travelling. Incidentally, Washington is a nice place.

Mr. Mac Harb: Benoît, based on the information I received, there is nothing in Latin America or in South America. There is not even a process in place to establish what we are trying to achieve.

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: Talk to me about COPA, Mr. Harb. I explained what COPA does. So talk to me about it.

[English]

The Chairman: One at a time. Mr. Harb first.

[Translation]

Mr. Mac Harb: I am not too worried about what the organizations are doing, because my work bears no relation with existing organizations that have different policies. I don't want to get mixed up in that. I am promoting an initiative of this committee, and I want to talk to our partners—there is over $300 billion in trade each year between our partners and ourselves. I want to talk to these countries, their parliaments and their legislatures, and encourage them to participate with us in an initiative that our committee unanimously supports and that we have to promote. I don't care how we promote it, whether we do it through an organization like COPA or through some other kind of organization. I really don't care. I want us to choose countries—particularly among the G-7—to promote this initiative along with us.

To date, our committee is probably the only entity in the world to propose and promote an initiative as concrete as this one.

I will leave other disputes to other committees. There will be other forums in which we can discuss them.

[English]

The Chairman: I have to ask for clarification from Mr. Sauvageau. When you talk about another committee of Canada not being a member, I think you're referring to something that is western hemispheric, like North and South America. Am I correct in saying that?

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: That's right.

The Chairman: Perhaps you can give me a greater explanation. I'm not aware of what you're referring to.

• 1610

This is not specific to the western hemisphere, North and South America. As I mentioned, Mr. Charles, my counterpart in Canberra, Australia, is promoting this in the Asia-Pacific Parliamentary Forum. I know we already have a small organization going in Africa. I've talked to people in the Indian subcontinent who are very interested in getting something going there. So this is not a western hemisphere initiative. This is a global initiative with regions such as the western hemisphere and other regions.

You can't attack an issue such as this in one big global sweep. You have to break it down into manageable groups. Maybe the western hemisphere can be broken down into North America, Central America, and South America. We'll see how that works. To get the issue launched on the table, it seemed appropriate to pick a geographic region, which happens to coincide with the Organization of American States as far as borders are concerned. Since we have the summit coming up in Quebec City next year, it seemed appropriate to use the Americas as a region because Canada is in that region.

The reason I thought about the Americas is that it would be arrogant of us as Canadians to go to other countries and say “You have a problem and we have the answer”. We're all in it together. Remember, the mandate of the committee is to gather best practices for endorsation by Canada as well as for dissemination in other parts of the world.

We pride ourselves on having been quite good in our financial statements. As you are aware, we're making the transition to accrual accounting through the financial information strategy, which is a major revision of our accounting. Assuming that goes well and is accomplished, we're going to be on a much higher plane in terms of the openness, transparency, detailed financial information, and so on that we have in Canada. We're following Australia, New Zealand, the U.K., and to some degree the United States.

Other countries haven't even made the commitment to accrual accounting. They don't know what it is. As Mr. Harb pointed out, if we want to recognize that Canada and parliamentarians should have a contribution to help other parliamentarians, this appears to be a good way to do so.

[Translation]

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: I think this is an interesting point. We should invite people from the Department of International Trade to explain the status of negotiations on the Free Trade Area of the Americas.

The FTAA was instituted by the three partners. During the Summit of the Americas held in San José, Costa Rica a few years ago, in which Sergio Marchio participated, a number of subcommittees were created. These included subcommittees on corruption and on audit, subcommittees which already exist. I don't think any parliamentarian would want to set up bodies that do exactly the same thing their own parliaments already do. That would make no sense.

You seem to know a fair bit about COPA—speaking about parliamentarians, we suggested the establishment of a Free Trade Area of the Americas that would extend from Alaska all the way down to Tierra del Fuego.

[English]

The Chairman: Please, you'll have to inform me. I'm sorry; I don't know about COPA.

[Translation]

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: That's right. When we launched the FTAA, the National Assembly invited all parliamentarians from the Americas. All the governments of the Americas came together in Quebec City for the first parliamentarian conference. There were about 2,000 parliamentarians there, if I'm not mistaken, representing all the countries.

As I said, I'm quite certain you don't want to introduce duplication, particularly for things you are already doing in your government, in another department. It may be a good idea, but if it is already being done elsewhere, why do it again? COPA is made up of parliamentarians, not political parties. If you are a member of the opposition in Brazil, you can still be a member of COPA. If you are a member of the opposition in Uruguay, you can still be a member of COPA. Parliamentarians are members of COPA, and COPA has subcommittees. It has follow-up committees. That's why I believe this trip should be put off indefinitely.

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However, we should invite International Trade department officials involved in FTAA negotiations to talk about the subcommittee that will be dealing with this subject, if there is one. If there isn't one, then I don't have a problem.

Secondly, I suggest that we invite people responsible for COPA. There will be no Canadian parliamentarians on COPA, because you have withdrawn. Only one country of the Americas has withdrawn from COPA, and that is Canada. We could invite the President of COPA parliamentarians to tell us what they plan to do. Rather than trying to duplicate what they are doing, we could try to find ways of completing their work rather than reinventing the wheel, with the excuse that we're more intelligent because we are from the federal government. Now isn't that an interesting idea? This work is already being done by Liberal official, either within COPA, or within the FTAA.

Then, we could contact Pierre Pettigrew to determine which officials are responsible for this work. The researchers will be able to tell us whether the research has already been carried out by the committee, though the Chair does seem to know. I'm not sure, since I have just joined this committee.

If we know that COPA, subcommittees or the FTAA follow-up committees are not doing the work, then we can carry on. But if they are doing the work, let us see how we can work alongside them to effectively complement the work already being done.

Mr. Harb, you say that you do not know what COPA is. That is hardly surprising, since you withdrew from it. You said it wasn't any good.

The chairman also said he doesn't know about COPA. I think this is an excellent reason to cancel the trip to Washington, invite COPA representatives and officials from international trade to appear before the committee, and get some basic knowledge so that we know where we are going.

Mr. Mac Harb: I think we can reach a consensus. I would like Benoît to hear my proposal and give me his views. On the basis of what he just said, I suggest that we support this motion conditionally. This is the condition: that committee researchers communicate with COPA by phone to determine whether they are currently working on international standards for public-sector financial statements. If they are, I would agree they should be invited to appear before the committee. But if they respond that there is no committee or subcommittee working on the issue, then we would pass the motion and get on with our plans. Are you comfortable with that?

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: You are an excellent negotiator. However, I will go a little further than you did. I would say you have forgotten one department: yours.

Mr. Mac Harb: Which?

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: The Department of International Trade.

Mr. Mac Harb: Or is it the Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade?

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: Let me show you what a good team player I am: I will say that if we invite COPA, Canada will have to join it again. Then I would be happy to support the Washington trip.

Mr. Mac Harb: I don't want us to diverge from our main purpose, but I do accept your statements. We do not want to go backwards. We want to continue working as a committee that has achieved maturity, that is pragmatic and intelligent. So we can say that we have considered the motion, and that our researcher will contact COPA. If there is no work already being done in the area that interests us, we will pass the motion.

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Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: Let's do the research. Let's see what we learn, and then we can move the motion again.

Mr. Mac Harb: Then...

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: I cannot support a conditional motion. Let us do the research and see what we learn, and then we can make a decision.

Mr. Mac Harb: How long would it take to make a call like that?

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: Sometimes it can take two calls.

[English]

The Chairman: I think we're talking here, if I may say so, if I may use the expression, about the blind leading the blind. Therefore, I think the first thing we have to do is ask our research people, Jean and Brian, to contact COPA and find out, as Mr. Harb has pointed out, if they are studying the subject of financial statements or not.

Mr. Mac Harb: The financial statement, which is very important in what we are trying to do—it's the national standard.

The Chairman: That's right, that's our mandate, financial statements. If they have something to contribute, then we'll come back and we'll hear what the research staff have to say.

Benoît.

[Translation]

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: Forgive me, I did not understand the end of that. We will give you the name and telephone number of the person at COPA who is responsible for this issue.

Mr. Mac Harb: Right.

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: Then what do we do?

[English]

The Chairman: So we will leave the issue in abeyance at the moment.

Mr. Mac Harb: Until next week or the week after.

[Translation]

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: Yes, but I won't vote on it.

[English]

Mr. John Richardson: You must remember how much you slip when you slip a week.

The Chairman: I know when we slip two weeks, because next week is a break week.

Mr. John Richardson: Yes, that's true.

Mr. Mac Harb: I didn't know that. Then I would like to vote for it and do the research. And in the event that there is a problem, and they are doing the same thing we are trying to do, then we can revisit it. So I would like to see a motion be put in place.

The Chairman: The clerk has advised me that the rules of our terms of reference are.... Would you please re-quote?

The Clerk: The motion that set up the subcommittee provided for the following.

[Translation]

I will go slowly. There were quite a few...

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: You can go faster, I will understand.

The Clerk: Very well.

[English]

There were quite a few powers given to the subcommittee. I realized going back to the minutes of the main committee, dated December 7, 1999, that the mandate of the subcommittee included that the subcommittee be authorized to seek the authority and the necessary funds to travel if deemed appropriate. This means that the subcommittee would not have to go through the standing committee to seek the authority.

Mr. Mac Harb: Go ahead then.

The Chairman: Therefore, the motion that—

Mr. Mac Harb: We don't need a motion.

The Clerk: You need a motion for the committee. However, you don't need a motion to go through the committee to advance it.

Mr. Mac Harb: Good enough.

The Chairman: So the clerk has advised me that the motion that has been circulated should be amended to state that the subcommittee seek the authority to travel to Washington, D.C., from May 7 to 10, 2000, in relation to its study on international financial reporting guidelines and standards for the public sector and that the necessary staff accompany the subcommittee.

You're moving that, Mr. Harb?

Mr. Mac Harb: I'll move the motion.

The Chairman: Mr. Sauvageau.

[Translation]

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: What is the quorum for a vote?

[English]

The Chairman: He's asking what is a quorum.

The Clerk: The quorum is five.

[Translation]

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: Mac, you're good at counting.

[English]

The Clerk: We do need a quorum to make a decision.

[Translation]

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: They will appoint you Minister of Human Resources Development if you can count five members here.

[English]

The Chairman: The clerk advises that we do not have a quorum, Mr. Harb, so unfortunately the motion fails.

Mr. John Richardson: It will be the first item on our agenda for our next meeting.

The Clerk: As soon as we come back.

Mr. John Richardson: We should, with just as good foresight, continue to keep in touch with whatever you're trying to do back here while we're away.

Mr. Mac Harb: So you can find out the information Benoît was suggesting. We might be able to kill two birds with one stone.

The Chairman: We'll call the meeting adjourned at this point then.