Government Operations Committee on March 6th, 2008

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

I'm going to call the meeting back to order.

We're now moving to the second part of our agenda. We have as our first item a notice of motion from Madame Bourgeois, which I believe you should have in front of you.

Madame Bourgeois.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

The motion is seeking to find more information on the involvement of the Prime Minister's office in the conflict between Rosdev and Public Works and Government Services Canada.

We would like Mr. McGrath and others to appear before the committee to answer some questions, as well as Mr. Loiselle, the chief of staff for the unelected Mr. Fortier, and the deputy ministers; first, in order for us to determine whether or not these people were all present, and then, in order for us to obtain more information.

The motion is very clear.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Did you raise your hand, Ms. Folco?

Now we go to debate on the motion.

Mr. Kramp, followed by Mr. Dewar.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

We have some difficulty with the motion as it stands. I'd like to suggest a friendly amendment. We as a government and members have no difficulty with calling in witnesses to add more clarification to the issue between Rosdev and Public Works in that. With regard to the witnesses, though, I would like to remove the second paragraph, “That the unelected Minister of Public Works [...]”, and the reasoning is very, very simple.

Minister Fortier has appeared before this committee probably more than any other minister on the Hill--six times now before this committee. The last time he was here, just a short while ago again, the minister was left wanting for questions on this file, and the minister left early simply because there were no more questions.

This motion suggests that the minister is hiding something. He has been totally forthright for six consecutive times coming before this committee.

Also in here, the wording says “to explain, among other things”. Well, it's totally ludicrous to ask a minister to come before committee to explain “things”, without even knowing what “things” are. How would you even prepare information to come to explain “things”?

I really think that is a real level of inadequacy that just doesn't do justice, to bring officials here to give explicit answers to explicit questions. I really honestly do believe that it's politically motivated, because obviously the minister is running against one of her compatriot members, and I think we should get beyond that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Is this a friendly amendment?

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

Yes, it is a friendly amendment.

I really think this is an affront. It is going overboard--let's get information, call the ministers. We had Mr. Loiselle just here at committee. We had the minister, again, just here at committee. Why would we be bringing back these same people for the same questions on the same times? Obviously the responsibility is on all committee members.

If you want to ask questions when people are here, then be prepared and dig into your files and do your homework and ask the questions when they're here.

On a simple matter of courtesy and respect, there's a difference between using and abusing. I really think it's preposterous to ask a minister to be at our beck and call for every other time we have a session here.

Madam Chair, you were a minister.

[An hon. member]

She was an elected minister.

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

Madam Chair, I really think I've made my point on this. I really think we are abusing a minister and our privilege. I would certainly lose a bit of respect for common decency when we obviously have had every question answered fully by this minister every time he's been here and left wanting. So to carry on on another witch hunt now, simply for partisan purposes due to a potential election again, once again gets away from doing what we have to do as a committee.

If we need evaluation of Public Works officials, bring them in. That's our job. Let us investigate. We already asked this minister, time and again, on this same subject. How many times do you want him back--every other day here? Ministers have a lot of other serious responsibilities too, and never once has the minister said he would not appear. He has always been a willing attendant at any of these meetings here. So I just ask our committee members to use a little discretion, a little intelligence, a little compassion, a little capability, and a bit of maturity in just simply dropping the second paragraph.

Certainly we as a government have no regret and/or no objection to the intent of Madame Bourgeois' motion on discussing the issue. That's why I would suggest that friendly amendment. I think that would make sense at this time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Debate on the amendment.

Madame Folco.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

That is an amendment—

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

It is an amendment to strike the second paragraph which is asking the minister to reappear.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

It was supposed to be a friendly amendment; it was not official. May I go back to the friendly amendment and explain why I cannot agree to it?

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

I have just given Ms. Folco the floor, an amendment was made and that is how I am going to deal with it.

Ms. Folco, you have the floor.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

That's fine.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

I will let Ms. Bourgeois speak, but first, I would like to say two things. First, I appreciate and understand the point of view expressed by my colleague Mr. Kramp. Rather than tell us 10 times though, he could have said it once or twice. We understood him the first time. The same goes for all of my colleagues opposite.

Next, if I understand what Ms. Bourgeois is saying, since the motion was made in French, I am wondering if we could use the French text as the official version. Mr. Kramp has just referred to three words in the second paragraph, namely, “among other things”, which appears to be a rather loose translation. The French word “notamment” is an expression of what Ms. Bourgeois intended to say. I would like to use the French text for the official motion, since I believe that Ms. Bourgeois drafted it herself.

As to the amendment, yes, the minister did appear on numerous occasions, but as my colleague Mr. Holland has said, it is the only way for opposition members to speak to him directly, on the record. When we ask questions in the House, during question period or at some other time, the person who answers on his behalf is his parliamentary secretary, who is an elected member of Parliament.

When the Minister for Democratic Reform was here yesterday to speak to us about Bill C-20 on Senate reform, I asked him how someone could have been appointed by the Prime Minister. The minister was not elected. He ran in the riding of Laval—Les Îles, the riding that I currently represent in the House of Commons, he was rejected by the voters, and the Prime Minister appointed him to his position. After that, the senator even refused to run in a by-election, something that he could have done. This is the only place where we can direct questions to him.

I agree wholeheartedly with my Bloc Québécois colleagues that this person should appear before us to answer our questions. We have more questions for him.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

May I just intervene for half a second here on the translation?

The word “notamment” does not really mean “among other things”. Here is how I would translate it. Correct me if I am wrong.

I want to correct.... I think there's a different intonation in the English translation of the French motion. The word notamment does not mean, I feel, “among other things”. I would say it's probably better reflected to say, “again to explain specifically why he tried to hide information from the committee”, instead of “among other things”. That is somewhat stronger. I think that's possibly a better translation—I remain to be corrected—but definitely “among other things” is a little more vague.

Ms. Bourgeois, you are next.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Me?

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Yes.

Mr. Dewar, did you want to speak on the amendment? I have had your name here and it was there before.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Yes, on the motion and the amendment, both.

I just had a quick suggestion on the amendment, maybe a compromise. It's not to remove the entire second paragraph but simply to take out the word “unelected”. We all know he's unelected. He's a senator. They're all unelected.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

No, no. Bert Brown.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Yes, well, legitimately, like bona fide adult elections, not these make-up elections.

What I want to do is just suggest we take out “unelected”, but I think it's really important that we obviously have the minister present. This story goes beyond this minister, particularly with Rosdev. I have files here. It's a long and tried story with Rosdev, as you know.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

You're putting this forward as a subamendment.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

It's a friendly one, to just take out “unelected”. It's argumentative, obviously, and if we want to get to the task at hand, then let's go, but he should be in front of the committee.

If you want to take out “unelected”, then by all means....

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

It's a subamendment. So we'll go to Mr. Albrecht on the subamendment.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Maybe just to follow up on Mr. Dewar's idea, then, we've already had the minister here.... Maybe we should get the other six ministers that he's talking about here to just completely do this thing.

I want to come back to the point you made about “specifically” or “notably”, or whatever you're going to change that word to.