Evidence of meeting #50 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A recording is available from Parliament.
2:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Thank you, Professor.
Thank you, Madame DeBellefeuille.
Monsieur Godin, you have seven minutes, please.
2:35 p.m.
NDP
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
We may not come to a unanimous decision, but we will come to a decision. It is our responsibility to do so.
First, could we really look at the case before us? This is a matter of contempt of Parliament or a breach of parliamentary privilege. The government has known that we are looking for information on its law and order bills for about four months now. After four months, the Speaker had to ask for parliamentary hearings in order to get us the amount you see now. That could take us until July to read.
Do you think that this way of governing is reasonable, or could this be a case of contempt? That is our decision, you have been clear on that; we will decide.
But when members of Parliament, sitting as a parliamentary committee, make a decision in November or December and ask the government to provide explanations about the costs of bills and, on February 17, the Conservatives just come up with one little document, we are sorry, but it is just not enough. Their excuse is that they are cabinet confidences. Then they tell us that they can give us all those documents and that cabinet confidence has nothing to do with it.
Is this transparency? Is this cooperation? Do we have to change the legislation, or do we have the legislation already? Do members of Parliament have the right to information or not?
2:35 p.m.
Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Studies, Queen's University, As an Individual
Parliament is such a strange institution. A big part of it is games between parties, but underlying all of that there is a need to do things for the country and for the people you represent.
I have a feeling--and it's underlying some of my remarks here--that for the last couple of years the games have overwhelmed the consensus working, the sense of trust or having common goals, even if we don't agree on how to get there.
It has been common in Canadian history for a government, when Parliament makes noises about not getting enough information, to overload the Parliament so that Parliament itself has no means of assessing what's there. I can't remember the exact episode, but something like that happened way back in the sixties and again in the seventies. So we're facing a common problem that happens and repeats itself.
I'll stop there.
2:40 p.m.
NDP
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
I was listening to you just now and you were saying that it is perfectly proper for members of Parliament to know about the costs of a bill involving the provinces before they vote. Is that correct?
2:40 p.m.
Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Studies, Queen's University, As an Individual
Yes. You're the Parliament for all of Canada; as far as I know, Canada includes provinces and territories, and Quebec is still, thank God, part of Canada. I think it's an artificial distinction to say that although we are legislating in a national Parliament, we're not going to pay attention to the costs to other jurisdictions.
2:40 p.m.
NDP
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
Okay. I know the book is pretty thick, and we're not in July; we are in March and celebrating St. Patrick's Day today. We're not in July, but when we look at the beginning, right at the beginning it just hits you right in your face by saying:
No detailed cost estimates are available because any impact of the amendments will be on the provincial and territorial corrections costs. The Bill should not result in cost impacts for the Correctional Service of Canada because young persons are rarely held in these facilities.
Now we're making a decision on a bill--
2:40 p.m.
Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Studies, Queen's University, As an Individual
Yes.
2:40 p.m.
NDP
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
--that they say they don't have to cost because the provinces are going to pay for it. We should be able to know what it's going to cost.
2:40 p.m.
Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Studies, Queen's University, As an Individual
Well, what the report could say is that you consider the information inadequate because it didn't include the costs for all Canadians and for all governments.
If the federal government is going to do something and the federal Parliament is going to approve it, it should know the full stream of cost implications to all stakeholders, if you can use that expression, and if you don't get it, then certainly....
The five suggestions on my list aren't written in stone. They were just ideas tossed out, and I think it would be an excellent one to just make it clear that the cost projections that are given to Parliament should include costs to the provinces and to municipal governments as well.
2:40 p.m.
NDP
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
You might as well say that we don't need to let you know what the costs are because they are minimal.
2:40 p.m.
Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Studies, Queen's University, As an Individual
Who knows what is going to happen out of this.
2:40 p.m.
NDP
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
Mr. Page is the Parliamentary Budget Officer and a new officer of the House of Commons. He was appointed by the Conservatives; they were proud of that and they did it in the name of transparency. Even Mr. Page says that he cannot get access to the documents. Do you find that proper?
2:40 p.m.
Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Studies, Queen's University, As an Individual
One of the most complex processes inside a government is the production of the annual estimates, the cost estimates. It begins not much later than this time of the year and it goes right on until the budgets appear in the early part of the following year. There's a huge amount of information that goes back and forth between Treasury Board and departments, between the Department of Finance and Treasury Board and departments, and so on. There are hundreds of people in government who process that material.
I don't think you want to see all of it. I think what you want to see is the significant reports on the cost implications of maintaining a program as it is, of changing a program, and of new programs, and the costs going to all stakeholders, as I said. If you are not getting that, it is a problem because it limits Parliament's ability to function.
2:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Thank you.
We'll go to a four-minute round. That should finish this just about on time.
Mr. McGuinty, four minutes for you, please.
2:40 p.m.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much, Professor Franks, for being here. It's a pleasure to meet you for the first time.
I want to thank you also for your earlier comments with respect to the Parliamentary Budget Officer's status and office.
I have a quick question. Would you agree that not only the PBO would benefit from enhanced funding, but that the PBO would also benefit, and Canadians would ultimately benefit, from an independent Parliamentary Budget Officer reporting directly to Parliament, as opposed to working under the auspices of the Library of Parliament? Do you think that would help us ultimately drive up trust in our democratic system?
2:45 p.m.
Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Studies, Queen's University, As an Individual
What we see, I believe, in the statute governing the Parliamentary Budget Officer is a compromise between those who wanted an autonomous budget office similar to the Congressional Budget Office in the United States, those who didn't want anything, and those who were at other parts of the spectrum. I think it was put in the Library of Parliament to reduce the lines of accountability directly to Parliament and reduce the direct controls Parliament exercises over it. It is up to Parliament to decide if it would like more.
My reaction at this point—and I have changed over the years, I must say—is that I feel the natural tendency of a government to keep information to itself, because information is power, needs a strong, overwhelming position on the other side.
What the Parliamentary Budget Officer has done so far is of good enough quality and suggests the office is useful enough that we might well benefit from strengthening it both in its autonomy, its position, and in the funding it gets, the resources it has.
2:45 p.m.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
On that very note then, Professor Franks, one of the things we have noticed in the last five years, and I'm trying to be as objective as I can, is that it is becoming increasingly difficult, if not impossible, for this government to tolerate voices that speak truth to power.
We have seen a whole series of very senior officials, such as the head of Statistics Canada, resign. Let the Conservative members deny it. We've heard of the former head of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission being informed at 11:45 at night, at home, through a phone call from the minister, that she was fired. We've seen about eight to ten people in very senior positions who ought to be, in a mature democracy, able to speak freely, to do their jobs, but there has been a deliberate cooling-off censoring exercise.
We have also seen in committees, for example, manuals prepared by the government to help Conservative chairs obstruct the testimony of witnesses whose testimony was not favourably disposed to the government's position.
We are seeing all kinds of measures brought to bear to circumscribe and control information, as you say, because information is power. Don't you believe, deep down, that Canadians should know that we need these independent voices? We need people to be able to speak truth to power for a democracy to remain healthy and for government to improve.
2:45 p.m.
Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Studies, Queen's University, As an Individual
Sir, I detect a bit of partisanship in your question, but I will make an answer that I think governments of all stripes and bureaucracies of all stripes prefer to keep information to themselves than let it out, because it's power.
Since the function of Parliament is ultimately based on having good information, I think there's always a tension between Parliament and government on this, and I would like to see the balance go more toward Parliament. I think that's the tenor of my remarks today.
2:45 p.m.
Conservative
2:45 p.m.
Conservative
Tom Lukiwski Conservative Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK
Thank you.
Good to see you again, Professor Franks. Our mutual friend, Art Wakabayashi, says to say hello, by the way.
2:45 p.m.
Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Studies, Queen's University, As an Individual
Good.
2:45 p.m.
Conservative
Tom Lukiwski Conservative Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK
I'll return the favour.
Let me first say I find your five recommendations to be very interesting and obviously well thought out. I'm going to take a good hard look at them because I think they have, in my first impression, some serious merit to them, but that's just by way of passing.
What I want to talk about for a few moments...and you might detect a smidgen of partisanship in my comments, but I'll try to keep it to a minimum. You mentioned the games that parliamentarians play. That's just the nature of politics, I suppose. We've certainly seen the partisanship and gamesmanship played here inasmuch as we've heard at least the Liberal opposition say, before testimony even began, that its end game, its target, is to find a ruling of contempt in this committee. To me, that puts a pall on the entire committee process. What are we doing here if they've already been predisposed to find a ruling of contempt without even hearing a shred of testimony?
This is what we have done here, and I say “we” being the government. About a week ago, as you well know, the Speaker's ruling came down in the House. There was a motion that accompanied that afterwards from the opposition that said the committee should meet, the government should be compelled to bring forward additional information that was lacking in their first presentation and tabling to Parliament, and a report should be tabled in the House by March 21, which is this coming Monday.
The government has complied with the information. We've heard complaints from the opposition saying that it's a document dump, but my goodness, they were the ones asking for the information.
The committee hearings started yesterday. We have consistently stated that we wanted to have the information to the committee by the time the testimony started, which we did. I'm not sure why the complaints are coming, but it was the shortness of time that really made the government have to get these volumes of information presented as quickly as possible.
You stated, and I think quite correctly, that for all members of this committee to do their due diligence, to do their work, to examine the documents that have been presented would take some length of time. This is what I see as the probability of what will be happening here, sir, and I'll just get your opinion on this. Should those members be united in their decision to try to find the government in contempt, which the opposition Liberals have already stated they want to see happen, when clearly they haven't examined all of the documents to the extent they should, I'm not sure what purpose committee hearings like these really serve.
2:50 p.m.
Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Studies, Queen's University, As an Individual
Shall I answer that?