Evidence of meeting #20 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was dates.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Dan McTeague Liberal Pickering—Scarborough East, ON
I echo Mr. Martin's comments and your comments as well. I think it's absolutely vital. I don't mean to disparage parliamentary secretaries, but I do think we want to hear from the genuine article. We're talking about a lot of money here. It's Parliament's best bullet to try to fend off a declining economy. It's absolutely important, as far as tying trust in our institutions and the credibility of these expenditures to the announcements that we hear from the minister and nothing less than the minister is concerned.
Thank you, Chair.
11:55 a.m.
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
Mr. Chair, personally, I have no objections to hearing from the three ministers. Since June will soon be upon us, I just want to be sure that we will have time to hear from witnesses in June. The committee has two reports to prepare.
Ms. Barrados has sent us a letter that answers some questions and a report long-awaited by SMEs should be tabled any day now.
We need to be sure, Mr. Chair, that we leave ourselves time produce two reports.
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
I would concur that we do have some outstanding work that needs to be completed, specifically the issue of procurement. If we schedule that in June, we'd have all relevant reports that we've been waiting for. But we may want to have at least a day of witnesses before we have that completed. I know there were some suggestions from Martha Hall Findlay and me with regard to possible witnesses for a final day. Then, of course, we have to consider the reports sometime after that. I know that we are running out of days. Then, of course, I have a motion that I'd like to.... Remember that we have the whole issue of the aging demographics. It's something we had hoped to at least start to consider before the summer break.
Noon
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Derek Lee
I was hoping to address our procurement SME study when we finish this stimulus package discussion today too. That's fine.
Do we have a crisp articulation of your...? Oh, we do have it here.
June could be busy for us. Can we move from this to SME procurement now?
I was hopeful that we could begin to try to give some preliminary focus to our researcher here on SME procurement. As you all now know, this is a very big and complex subject, and every time you open one door, two more doors open. If we aren't prudent in how we handle this, we'll never finish and get something tangible done. I think it's the view here that we can finish this and get a report into the House before we break for the summer. I'm sure we can. But in order to do it, we're going to have to limit how many of the chains we keep pulling on.
We have an hour. We don't have to use the whole hour, but could we go around the table and I'll recognize anybody who wants to offer a suggestion or thoughts to our researcher on how we want to frame our report, the focus.
Perhaps I could start. It was my sense that we have identified up to half a dozen principles or dynamics that we are very concerned about as members of Parliament. I think we should be able to flag those and give examples and explain why these criteria and principles are important to Public Works when they design procurement strategies.
Ms. Scratch would love to have some articulation of those. I'm not going to mention them now. Members will design this; I'm not going to do it. If that's okay, I'll go around the table and recognize members at random. Or I'll follow the normal order, if you want.
Noon
Liberal
Dan McTeague Liberal Pickering—Scarborough East, ON
I hear from others on this, but I think the position—certainly the Liberals have taken this—is that we do appreciate the cadre of recommendations, particularly as it comes to the approach that they have taken in terms of looking not so much at service-based projects but more at the idea of projects themselves. I suggest that if we're looking to draft something down the road, this is one that certainly interests us. But I have a few more comments I want to make in just a moment.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Noon
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
SMEs need to be protected at all costs so that they can at least continue to operate. We want to be very clear from the outset that we are not opposed to rationalizing services or to combining 125 cable services into one. However, we mustn't lose sight of the fact that SMEs are the driving force behind the Canadian economy—this according to Industry Canada officials. Therefore, it is vitally important that there be a place for them in the economy.
Another important consideration is duplication of services. That was clear from the assistance that was supposedly given to SMEs by the Business Development Bank of Canada and MERX. Another very important topic to examine is the Small Business Office which, I hate to say, appears to be made up of people who are looking for some direction at this time. They do not seem to have defined their mandate very clearly.
According to recent newspaper reports, Public Works and Government Services Canada appears to be willing to truly target or acknowledge SMEs. The department's efforts in that regard should be encouraged. Witnesses have suggested to us various small ways in which their efforts could be supported.
Ms. saint pierre appeared to have a firm grasp of the problem, but I got the impression that someone higher up on the ladder had changed opinions. So then, I say that we should help Ms. saint pierre. She seems to have clearly understood the issues. We need to come up with some arguments.
Finally, on an entirely different subject, I would very much like for us to have a steering committee, Mr. Chair, so that we can communicate with one another.
I have nothing further to add.
12:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Derek Lee
That's music to my ears.
Colleagues, we're sort of in a drafting report mode now, although we're just giving preliminary instructions. Normally we would go in camera. It's just easier to do it, and we don't have to burden the public record.
Could I have a motion that we go in camera now? Mr. McTeague.
(Motion agreed to)
[Proceedings continue in camera]