Finance Committee on Feb. 10th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you. You guys are the best.

MP Beech is next, I think, and then Daniel's hand is up.

Go ahead, MP Beech.

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Burnaby North—Seymour, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm never as good at resolving impasses as MP Blaikie is, so we'll see what he has to say after me.

I might have misunderstood exactly what was being asked for with regard to the budget timeline and pre-budget consultations. One date that I do have is the timeline that the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance gave for her own pre-budget consultations, which is February 25. That is publicly listed. That is information that I'm happy to share with the committee. I don't know if that's a helpful piece of information with regard to Mr. Ste-Marie's question.

With regard to Mr. Chambers' concern and timeline, I still believe that your amendment is kind of out of order for this particular motion, but I do want to resolve the invite. If you were able to find a way to let this motion go through and withdraw your amendment, then I think we would be supportive of re-extending the invite with a deadline. We could do that with a separate motion following this motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Okay. Now I have MP Blaikie.

I apologize, MP Dzerowicz. I now see the clerk waving his hand. I guess you had your hand up. You also wanted to go after MP Blaikie. My apologies for not seeing that.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have a couple of quick things. I really want to hear from the Governor of the Bank of Canada. I'm happy to have that happen in the next three weeks or so. I agree that he is a key witness for that study, and I think that hearing from him earlier in the study would be better since some of what we're going to hear from him will help inform some of the questions we may want to ask of other witnesses when they come to appear, including what their comments are on some of the things we might hear from the Governor of the Bank of Canada.

I think this motion probably isn't the place for re-extending that invitation, because this is about Bill C-8. It's not obvious to me that there is anything in the bill that we would solicit the opinion of the Governor of the Bank of Canada on, so I think making sure that we keep those things separate and that we have the testimony of the governor for the study without requiring any additional procedural work by the committee, in order to make sure we can have that testimony serve in the context of the study for which it is meant, would be a good thing.

I want to come back to a comment that was made either by the clerk or perhaps by you, Mr. Chair, about the Governor of the Bank of Canada's response to the initial invitation, because you indicated that the presence or absence of his officials might have played a role in his decision as to whether he was available.

To me there's a bit of a question here for the committee. If the governor appearing without any officials at all is going to be a hindrance to scheduling, I'm happy to have the governor appear with his officials, if that helps facilitate getting him before the committee earlier. For me there's not much that hangs on whether he comes all by himself or whether he brings the people he feels are most appropriate to support him in providing timely answers to the committee.

If that is a hang-up, I would certainly offer that the clerk could contact him again and offer him to come with his officials. That's my personal point of view. If we have consensus on the committee that we'd rather expedite the appearance of the governor and that he can bring whichever officials he likes, then that's something we can go forward with. If not, and his appearing alone continues to be a barrier to scheduling, then perhaps the committee could consider a motion or something that would allow us to decide, on a majority basis, whether or not the governor could appear with his officials.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Blaikie.

MP Dzerowicz, go ahead, please.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

One of the key things I was going to mention is what Mr. Blaikie talked about a minute ago. I do recall that our governor had asked whether or not he could bring officials, and I wanted to bring up whether or not we'd be okay with his bringing them, so I entirely agree with Mr. Blaikie's comment. I do think it's important for us to hear from the Governor of the Bank of Canada on inflation, and I'd be, as Mr. Beech mentioned, very open to having another motion, although I'm not sure we need one. I think if we're all in agreement, we can ask the clerk to extend another invitation to the governor and we can talk a little bit about timing.

In terms of the budget, this will be my third budget process. Typically a date is set, and then we usually give three to four weeks to the analysts to come up with a draft report. Then we usually have two big sessions in which we go through all of the recommendations, and those are fairly intensive. Then a final report is crafted from that.

I'm not sure if this is helpful, but it seems as though we might need a little bit of time to figure out the time. It might be helpful if we move pre-budget consultations to Monday, which is just two days away, and then by that point maybe have a proposal about how we unfold Bill C-8 and then also how, if we're making an invitation to the Governor of the Bank of Canada, that would fit in with any of the proposed timelines around Bill C-8.

I don't know if everyone is amenable to that. I hope even our side is amenable to it. It seems as though that might be the most sensible proposal.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Dzerowicz.

I have MP Beech and then MP Chambers.

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Burnaby North—Seymour, BC]

I'll let Adam go first.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thanks, Terry, and thank you, Daniel, for always trying to find a solution where we can all agree. I appreciate everybody working together on this.

Perhaps it would be more appropriate to revise the amendment such that the study of Bill C-8 could be interrupted if the governor would be available in the time period that we provided. I think that would be reasonable, but again, I would like to say that it would be within the next three weeks. I think that has to be important for this committee.

I will make the point that the governor appeared in front of a Senate committee on February 2. I'm easy with it, if it is with or without additional support, although I would hope that's not the hang-up. We look forward to hearing him.

I also think it's important for the committee, as we are talking about inflation, to hear from the governor before we wrap up pre-budget consultations. I also think that's another reason for this.

I hope I haven't caused too much discomfort, but hopefully we can find a solution.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you.

I have MP Beech and then MP Ste-Marie.

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Burnaby North—Seymour, BC]

I'm trying to figure out the easiest way to do this. Perhaps if I could ask a question of Mr. Chambers, we could resolve this.

My recommended solution would be to withdraw the current amendment. Let's vote on the motion. Then perhaps introduce a motion, although I don't think you're going to need a motion—I think you're going to get the agreement of committee, from what I'm hearing around the table—with regard to an invitation with a timeline that you like.

If you're open to it, I would recommend withdrawing the amendment. Let's have our vote. Then take the floor to make your suggestion with regard to the Governor of the Bank of Canada. Assuming that the chair can get unanimous agreement, we might not even need to vote on it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

I have MP Ste-Marie, and then I guess MP Chambers will want to weigh in on this.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

I'll let Mr. Chambers go first.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you.

Do you think we could pass a motion, my motion, prior to this one, with unanimous consent, and we may be able to resolve that? Is that reasonable for everyone?

I see some nodding.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

I see all thumbs up. I don't know about the room.

Clerk, can you look at the room?

Everybody looks to be in agreement.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

I don't know that it's a procedural best practice, but with unanimous consent you can do anything, so I'm on board.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Okay. It looks like we have UC to do that.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you. I'll withdraw it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Okay. That's been withdrawn.

Now we'll go to Monsieur Ste-Marie.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

I just wanted some clarification about everything that's being discussed. Again, Mr. Blaikie may not be happy about the order of things.

When we invited the Governor of the Bank of Canada, it was agreed that he would appear alone for three hours. The wording of the motion is open to interpretation.

My personal interpretation was that a three‑hour meeting would be devoted only to the governor, without inviting anyone else to appear, for example, the Minister, in which case it would be an hour and a half for each guest. In my interpretation, that did not mean that the governor could not be accompanied by his usual staff. As far as I know, the governor always comes accompanied, and that's the way it's done. I had no problem with that.

I just want to make sure that only the governor will be invited to appear during the three hours, and that the committee won't invite other witnesses to talk about other subjects during that meeting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

You are correct, Monsieur Ste-Marie. The motion that we had from MP Poilievre went out. The invitation went out to the governor, who would have to appear alone. The governor did come back to us, through the clerk, and was not interested in that. We did speak with MP Poilievre. MP Poilievre was not in agreement. He wanted the governor just alone. That's where it stands right now.

Clerk, is that pretty much it? Okay. It captured everything.

That is where we ended, but now, with this new light of MP Chambers', we may be able to do it a different way. Let's hope the governor would take us up on this invitation and come and meet with us.

Go ahead, MP Beech.

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Burnaby North—Seymour, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Of course we're happy with the governor coming alone or coming with his officials. We just want the governor to be here. With that, I'd like to call the question on the motion.

[Yvan Baker, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

I think you're muted, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Beech.

I look to the clerk and then to the members.

Is everybody in agreement? Can we do this with UC or is it...? I think everyone is in agreement. We have unanimous consent.

(Motion agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Clerk.