Finance Committee on Nov. 27th, 2013

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Shall the title carry?

Debate, Ms. Nash.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

I just want to make a point while we're dealing with the title, which is “A second act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 21, 2013 and other measures”.

It's the words “and other measures”. We have here, for the fourth time, a budget implementation act which is an omnibus bill that has everything in it but the kitchen sink, including the Supreme Court of Canada.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Why not?

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Why not? We've dealt with immigration, the environment, first nations; they're all thrown in. Not everything has to be mentioned in the budget.

I just want to say that this process is so offensive to Canadians. We hear about it at the doorstep. I'm sure Conservatives are hearing about it too. People don't like this process. They say it is anti-democratic.They say it is lacking in transparency.

We have dealt in this bill with mistakes that have resulted from bills being rushed through. Previous acts that were rushed through this committee, rushed through the House, resulted in mistakes. It resulted in legislation that isn't in the best interests of Canadians. You have to go back afterwards and correct it. It creates a lot of uncertainty, and it's not good democratic process. You folks know that, and I'm sure you hear about it too.

I just want to register again—and the only place I really have to do it is under the title—that I don't believe this is a budget bill. It is everything but the kitchen sink.

If the title of this bill were “everything but the kitchen sink bill; our entire legislative agenda in one fell swoop that we will rush through with unseemly haste and without due consideration”, if that were the title of this bill, then I could maybe support it, but with this title, I cannot.

We should have put in an amendment, perhaps.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

How about “everything but the kitchen sink act”?

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Yes, we should have put in an amendment.

We do believe in truth in advertising, and Canadians have a right to at least expect that from their government. They're not getting it with these budget implementation acts.

I just want to close with this. If you have the courage of your convictions, whether it comes to the Supreme Court, the environment, labour relations, whatever it is—

[An hon. member]

The courage?

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

If you want to gut environmental provisions, undermine first nations' rights, trash labour relations in the public sector, and that is your goal—

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Sorry, Ms. Nash.

A point of order, Mr. Adler.

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Shouldn't Ms. Nash be speaking through the chair, and directing her comments at you?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Mr. Adler is correct. Ms. Nash should be speaking to the chair.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

You're not that bad, Mr. Chair.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

If the government has the courage of its convictions and wants to undermine first nations' rights and trash environmental provisions, and change measures in public security and labour relations, and change how we appoint people to the Supreme Court of Canada, if that's what the government wants to do, we disagree with it profoundly, but my goodness, have the courage of your convictions, have the confidence to put this in. The government should have—

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Come on, pick on the chair.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Through you, Mr. Chair, I'm talking about the government. Have the courage of your convictions to put this in a separate bill that will have the due consideration, due process, and appropriate time for the study and consideration that gets the absolute best legislation for Canadians.

Through you, Mr. Chair, if the government wants to be cost-efficient—a lot of money goes to our democratic process, to our salaries as parliamentarians, to this House, to all the fine work that the public sector does for us in this place. I think we all respect that very highly. If we want to truly respect the dollars that are spent for the democratic process, then let's utilize the democratic process in the best way possible, and it's not through omnibus budget bills. It is by having the courage of your convictions to present bills and have them debated in the appropriate committee.

That's why we're going to be voting against the title of this bill.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Ms. Nash.

I have Mr. Brison and then Mr. Saxton and then Mr. Adler.

Mr. Brison.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

I want to thank Ms. Nash for her intervention, which also sums up, I think, the way we feel on this.

Of all the provisions in Bill C-4, those that really are most farcical are the amendments to the Supreme Court Act and the process for nomination of Supreme Court judges. I can tell you that at some point in this place, members of Parliament of all parties will be, I believe, compelled to consider the importance of committees, the independence of committees, and the appropriateness of legislation considered by committees. It's a question not only of independence of committees but also of respect for Parliament and respect for the committee process and resources.

At some point, perhaps not in this Parliament but maybe in the next, I think as parliamentarians we're going to have to have a discussion about how we can both strengthen the resources and independence of committees and truly engage them. If you go back to the Mulroney government when Don Blenkarn was chairman of finance committee, that committee regularly attained unanimous reports of the committee. It took on the government of the day and it disagreed with the government.

We ought to see committees actually taking on government policy and approaches at some point. This is serious stuff. We have a responsibility whether we're in government or in opposition as individual members of Parliament to hold government to account. We're not doing that. In the recent byelections when we campaigned, we heard people's concerns about this. It's easy to assume that the public doesn't care and to play to that apathy or to assume that apathy, but I actually believe that in the four byelections it's one of the reasons we saw support for our party go up 17% and support for the Conservatives drop 11%. I don't know why the NDP support dropped. That's another issue.

The point is that at some point maybe we should have informal discussions among us across party lines about how we can strengthen our roles as parliamentarians and strengthen the roles of committee. We should look at what is done in other parliaments and even at the U.K. model where committees are much more independent. Otherwise at some point we're going to look back at our time here. We don't want to look back with regret because we did not take seriously the institution to which we were elected and the institution for which we have a responsibility. I think this is really very serious and at some point not doing more as individual members of Parliament to fight this becomes untenable. It's just fundamentally wrong.

As a committee we do not have the expertise or resources to be dealing with a lot of these issues. It's not a joke. This is very serious. I'm not feigning concern about this. I am genuinely concerned not just as a parliamentarian but as a citizen about what's going on here. I implore members of the governing party to understand that this is a grave situation which they are complicit in and contributing to.

It's going to be awfully hard to explain to active, engaged citizens what we're doing here.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Mr. Brison.

I have Mr. Saxton and then Mr. Adler.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Just in conclusion, for budget implementation act two, which is what we've been debating here for the last number of weeks, we've had numerous witnesses and numerous opportunities for debate. This is our plan for jobs, growth, and long-term prosperity. It's a plan that's working. We have the best employment record in the G-7. We have the best financial system in the world, according to the World Economic Forum. We have a growth rate that is the envy of many other developed countries. We have a system that's working. We have a plan, and we've just completed budget implementation act two at the committee stage over the last number of weeks. I want to thank everybody who's been involved in that process. We may not have agreed on everything, but we certainly have had the opportunity to discuss it and to voice the views and opinions of our various parties.

More importantly, today we just spent the last almost five hours working on this here in committee. I'd like to thank the clerks, the translators, and everybody who has assisted us in this process.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much, Mr. Saxton.

I have two more speakers, Mr. Adler and then Mr. Caron.

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I found the remarks of Mr. Brison referring to the chair an abomination, sir. I felt bad on your behalf. Saying that the former chair of the finance committee was more independent and seemed to be a better chair than you.... I felt very bad on your behalf, sir, and I took great umbrage to the remarks of Mr. Brison.

Let me also say that when Ms. Nash was speaking about omnibus budget bills, I think it's safe to say that because she didn't mention our government specifically, she was referencing the Liberal omnibus budget bills of the late 1990s. I just wanted to make that point.

Thank you, sir.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

Mr. Caron.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

I'll start on a positive note. I fully agree with the sentiments of Mr. Saxton in thanking the clerks and the staff who have been helping us with this process. There ends the agreement.

I'd just like to state for the record that despite what Mr. Saxton said, we didn't spend the last number of weeks debating this. We spent the last three days debating this. We started on Monday and we had yesterday and, I think, one meeting last week. We had lots of witnesses in two sessions, plus one session with the officials. That's all we had for a bill of this extent. I have to disagree with Ms. Nash, though. I think the kitchen sink was probably hidden somewhere in this.

I fully agree with the sentiments that have been exposed here. I think we have a responsibility as parliamentarians to actually follow due process, especially for something as important as the budget. If we have to have many elements—and we're not opposed to having many elements in the budget and being able to actually go through it and study it with due diligence—at least let's keep to the main points of the budget itself. There was no mention of the Supreme Court in budget 2013. There was no point to many of the elements that we needed to address.

Then when we're being told that everything we've seen here has a budgetary implication, that means that eventually the government would actually present its whole agenda in one bill, including the budget. To us, this is unacceptable. This is something that makes a joke of what we are really. We're here as parliamentarians. We're here to represent populations—from the minimum population of maybe 30,000 up north to populations of 130,000—who count on us to actually make good laws. A law isn't good because I agree with it. A law is really good if we have examined everything.

This is the fourth budget implementation bill I've studied. All of them have been exhaustive and long. One thing I find really disappointing is that I haven't seen a single amendment yet in those four bills that has been agreed to by the government side. I cannot believe that all the amendments that were proposed were bad. I cannot believe that. I think some of them really made sense and the opposition actually explained why. My point is that I don't think this committee—and I don't think many of the other committees, and I've been on a couple of others—is really working well simply because we're not fulfilling our duty and our function of making sure the government works well. I certainly hope these points will be resolved in the future—if not before the next election, then in the next Parliament for sure.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Mr. Caron.

Mr. Brison, you wanted to make some comments.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

I certainly want to address Mr. Adler's intervention. I was not being critical of our chair; I have great respect for our chair. I believe that Mr. Blenkarn was chair during a time when there was respect for the independence of parliamentary committees. That is not the fault of our chair, but it is not normal. It has become worse in my time here. I really believe that at some point we need to have a meaningful discussion among parliamentarians of all parties about what a more independent committee system, well resourced, with the capacity to invest more significantly in research and public policy development, could actually mean for good governance and for effectively strengthening the capacity for members of Parliament to do their jobs.

There's talk sometimes about the other place, the future of the other place, and changes. If you look at Senate committees, Senate committees sometimes do exceptional work. If you look at the substantive work done by some of the Senate committees, there is important work being done there. Part of the reason for that has been, in the past at least, that Senate committees were less partisan.

Imagine how farcical it would be if the justice committee were debating budget provisions. Just consider that for a moment. It is equally farcical for the House of Commons finance committee to debate changes to the process by which we appoint Supreme Court judges. This is very serious. I sometimes wonder how the heck our chair actually does this, but he is given what he has to deal with and, as former Prime Minister Mulroney used to say, it's hard to polish a turd. This is a difficult situation.