Finance Committee on Feb. 10th, 2009

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Once again, I am going to support Mr. McKay's suggestion.

I certainly recognize that it is an issue. I personally haven't heard this, but thank you for raising it.

In the interests of how much we have to get done at this committee, can I suggest that we perhaps ask you to withdraw this temporarily? If you can share the details of your concern with me, I'll take it to the revenue minister and ask if we can sit down and meet with him. If, after that, you still want to bring it forward, then bring it back.

I think we all recognize how important it is to get our budget implementation act through. I'm not trying to take away the importance of this, but can we try another process first? If not, then you're welcome to bring the motion back. It's just a suggestion.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Mr. Laforest.

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Mr. Menzies, thank you for saying that you do consider this an important problem. In fact, one of the letters was forwarded to all party leaders at the beginning of the election campaign last fall. Your party is aware of the issue. I'm sure some individuals are familiar with the correspondence on this issue.

I would be prepared to accept the suggestion, subject to bringing the issue before the committee again if in the end we find that the process you are suggesting is not necessarily the best one. I very much appreciate your suggestion. We can talk about it again, and ensure that some progress is made on this issue.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Mr. Carrier.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

I too would like to thank Mr. Menzies for his open-mindedness about this problem. If I understood correctly, he is prepared to organize a meeting with officials from the Revenue Agency, or even with the minister. We would also need to hear from some of the workers themselves, to get a better explanation of their situation. In fact, a request for a meeting was sent to the minister's office a month ago.

We presented this in a motion in an effort to speed up the study, but I also note that the committee has a very full schedule. In any case, in an effort to deal with this problem, I think it would be adequate if you were take steps to speed up the meeting request that has already been sent to the minister.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay, merci.

Mr. Menzies.

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

The only promise I will make is the promise to bring it to the minister. I can't promise that he will facilitate a meeting, but I promise that I will take it to the minister and I will get back to both of you. If that doesn't work, then we'll come back to this process.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Monsieur Laforest, the parliamentary secretary will take this to the minister. If you're not satisfied, then you, as the mover, will bring the motion back to committee.

We'll now go to the second motion by Mr. Pacetti.

I'll ask Mr. Pacetti to introduce his motion and argue why the committee should adopt it.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's not going to be much of an argument; it's just to clarify the misunderstanding that I think occurred last meeting. I want to make sure that we don't embarrass the committee in the future.

I haven't changed the order. Basically the only thing I've done is broken down round three into round three and a round four. If, at your discretion, you feel there is enough time to go to a third round, that third round will be Liberal, Conservative, and the fourth round will be Liberal, Conservative, NDP. It's just to provide you with more parameters, but I haven't changed the order or the number of minutes.

This is not debatable; it's just to clarify what we've already passed in routine proceedings.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

Mr. Mulcair.

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

I'm always suspicious when I hear a member from the new Liberal-Conservative coalition say that something is not debatable, that it is just for our own good. I would like to point out, Mr. Chair, that this was passed very recently. I believe our colleague, Mr. Pacetti, is calling you incompetent. You are doing a very good job, even though sometimes we do not agree with the way you enforce the rules, in which case, we point this out to you.

Take a good look at what he is trying to do here. He is trying to concoct a system that will favour the Liberals. They have exactly twice as many seats as the NDP. Take a good look at the way he likes to present this. When a minister appears before the committee, the Liberals would have the floor first on the first round; on the second round, it would be the Liberals once again; on the third round, it would be the Liberals; and on the fourth round it would be the Liberals once again. That means that the Liberals would easily have four turns, as opposed to one for the NDP.

That is what I protested last time, when you added on some time. It seemed to me that given the way things were presented, that was the least that could be done—if you were to extend the time, everyone should at least get equal treatment. You said that quite eloquently at our last meeting.

Now his way of breaking down the time simply makes things worse. It is even clearer that he will be guaranteeing that the Liberals will get much more than they are entitled to. They are having trouble dealing with the fact that the Liberal Party of Canada had one of their worst election results in history. This party has one quarter of the seats in the Parliament of Canada.

The Liberals must face reality and accept the fact that the NDP has one seat to their two. As a result, giving the Liberals four questions to one for the NDP should not be the rule.

I absolutely reject any attempt to play with what has already been passed. The member's explanation attempting to water things down is not convincing. We must stick with what the committee has just decided.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Merci.

Mr. Kramp, please.

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll speak about when the regular witnesses come, rather than the minister. I'll leave that to a further discussion.

I wonder if Mr. Pacetti would be amenable to an amendment, basically for two reasons, one being the principle of fairness. I've just gone through some other committees. As a matter of fact, the amendment that I'm going to suggest is one we just adopted at the public accounts committee and it is really reflective of the seat count in Parliament generally. So I'd like to offer that for your suggestion right now, under the two principles—one, fairness; and two, representation that is there—with the recognition that it would change the seat count from Mr. Pacetti's count.

I'll go through the illustration. The NDP would still have two speakers in the first round. The Bloc would still have two speakers in the first round. But instead of the Liberals and Conservatives both having four in the first round, I would propose to go three and five, and I would propose that it would go as follows.

In the first round, as Mr. Pacetti has, it would be Liberal, Bloc, Conservative, NDP, so that we can rotate through. In the second and third round, I propose that we simply change the positions of the NDP and the Conservatives. So it would go Liberal, Bloc, NDP, Conservative; in the second round, we'd go Liberal, Conservative, Bloc, Conservative; and then in the third round, we'd go Liberal, Conservative, NDP, Conservative.

I'd be pleased to draw that out for you or say it more slowly, but it gives us one after the other and it just rotates straight through. The government comes in after the opposition, we get the three full rounds in, and everybody is represented fairly. It has already been adopted by other committees, and I think it's a pretty good template. It really didn't have a lot of argument, because it was inherently fair. It represents the composition of Parliament now, to the broadest extent, and I would ask that Mr. Pacetti entertain that thought.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Mr. Kramp.

Mr. Pacetti, do you want to respond?

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Yes. I don't want to go back and change it. I think the amendment is even out of order. I didn't want to reorder what we had already decided; I just wanted to break down the second round into a second, third, and fourth round, so it clarifies your role as chair. I didn't want to rejig the speaking order. I didn't want to touch the routine proceedings, because I do agree with what Mr. Mulcair has said. We did adopt these routine proceedings just last week, so it was just to clarify something.

If it's too complicated for this committee, I'm willing to drop it, but I think we should just vote on the motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

Mr. Wallace, please.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Thank you. I appreciate Mr. Pacetti's attempt.

I'll be frank with you. I don't mind what he has laid out here. We tried it before. But today was a typical example of why I think maybe there would be an exception or an additional rule if the witnesses were here for only an hour. If you look at the number of speakers, we split the time so we could get two Conservatives—well, we got three Conservatives, but we had two time slots in that hour. If we had a witness for only an hour, such as the Bank of Canada, if the first round was only five minutes and not seven, I think we could have squeezed in another two speakers. I still could volunteer not to speak. So it's at least one more Liberal or one more Conservative.

We didn't get enough time. We had limited it to an hour, and the chair did what this committee had put out in terms of an agenda. With a two-hour meeting with the Bank of Canada, for example, we would have gotten through a number of these rounds if you split them out, which would have been fine. But with one hour, it didn't seem fair to me that we had only a couple of speakers. I would suggest that we go with what you have here, unless the exception to the rule would be that if an officer of Parliament, or whatever we call them, is here for just an hour, we reduce the first round from seven to five minutes. That would be my suggestion.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Mr. Kramp's amendment is in order, so we have to deal with that amendment first. Unless I see further speakers, I'll call the question on Mr. Kramp's amendment.

Do you want to repeat your amendment, Mr. Kramp?

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

Yes, I will repeat it.

In the first round we would have Liberal, Bloc, NDP, Conservative. In the second round we would have Liberal, Conservative, Bloc, Conservative. In the third round we would have Liberal, Conservative, NDP, Conservative.

This reflects the balance in the House and it is what other committees, such as the one I just came from, have adopted.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

On the amendment, Monsieur Laforest.

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Mr. Chairman, given that Mr. Pacetti has stated he intends to withdraw his motion if it were not acceptable, I fail to see why we are discussing the amendment, which should also be withdrawn. If the mover withdraws his motion and if we are discussing an amendment, it is as though the amendment were the main motion. In any case, I will be against this.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

I understand Mr. Pacetti said he might, but he in fact did not withdraw his motion.

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

I see.

Mr. Kramp's motion will reduce the amount of time on the first round. Everyone had agreed that seven minutes was a minimum amount of time for the first question. Quite often, parties do not have enough time to state their position, because they can only ask one question each on the first round. Consequently, I will be voting against the amendment. In any case, we have already discussed this.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Mr. Pacetti.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Just to clarify, is Mr. Kramp's amendment in order? Can I just ask why?