Yes, please.
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.
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.
2:50 p.m.
Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Studies, Queen's University, As an Individual
I'll give you a bit of background. I was a professor of political studies and I was also a professor of physical and health education. I often explain the answer to why both--it's not the true one, but I'll give it to you anyhow--is that politics is a contact sport.
That's what you're involved in here at one level. It's never going to go as long as there are elections and different sides competing, but that's not the end of it. Something that Parliament as a whole has to recognize is that it has a function regardless of party stripe. What I want to see come out of this committee--and I'm not going to say it will, but I would like to see it--is some agreement on a way, and I offered some suggestions, that Parliament might get better information and be better informed when it's making a decision on legislation.
As far as the report of the committee is concerned, I have not been privy to all the deliberations of this committee. I can say that historically it would be a unique event, I believe, in the Commonwealth to find a whole government in contempt, but I must say that I have found the behaviour of the government troubling in some of these areas.
As I say, I can't rule on contempt. I can't say. That's not my job either.
2:50 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Thank you.
Your time is up, Mr. Lukiwski.
Before I move to Monsieur Nadeau, Mr. McGuinty has a point of order.
2:50 p.m.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
Thank you, sir.
I just wanted to get your guidance here. Mr. Lukiwski just said that the government has complied with the delivery of documents. We heard that as well from a couple of ministers this morning.
Mr. Chair, isn't the purpose of our being here to decide whether the government has complied?
2:50 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Mr. McGuinty, you know that's debate. I won't get into it.
Mr. Nadeau, you're up.
2:50 p.m.
Bloc
Richard Nadeau Bloc Gatineau, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good afternoon, Dr. Franks.
We are in the middle of an exercise here. Let us be clear that, the day before yesterday, we got information on five of the 18 bills that had been put before the House of Commons and that were making their way through the legislative process. That means that there was information. What would those bills cost, what were the estimated costs?
Yesterday, we got a catalogue. It is spring, but instead of getting the Sears catalogue, we got the Harper catalogue. It contained information, but it was very vague, very sketchy. Someone said earlier that the provinces are going to see their costs go up. There will be a heavy cost, but we do not know how heavy and we cannot get the slightest idea of the extent. We talked about it this morning and I asked some questions along those lines in connection with some bills.
So here we are with the House, through the Speaker, ordering the government to provide documents so that we as elected representatives and lawmakers can do our work. You have heard all the rhetoric and you know how it has all unfolded.
Maybe it is a little utopian on my part, and that's fine because today's utopia is tomorrow's reality, as they say. Could you shed some more light on this for us? What do we have to do to make sure, right from the time a bill is first introduced, that we know how much it is going to cost and that the information comes from the government? When we as opposition MPs introduce private member's bills, we have to get a minister's consent if costs are involved. We know the process. If we do not have the minister's support, there is no point in debating the bill as it is going to die sooner or later. The government must do the same thing, in my humble opinion. Can you shed some light on that for us?
2:55 p.m.
Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Studies, Queen's University, As an Individual
What I said in my remarks is that I believe the government should submit a cost estimate with every bill before it gets to second reading and that the Parliamentary Budget Officer should have as one of his functions an evaluation of those cost estimates. That would, I believe, over time encourage the government to produce better cost estimates and would give you, through the Parliamentary Budget Officer's critique, a better way of critiquing them.
I think that's very possible. I think it can be done through changes to Standing Orders, and I would like to see this committee as a whole recommend that. I can see you disagreeing on some things, but some of those proposals that I suggested are for the benefit of both sides and for all Canadians. I have an enormous sympathy with that concern; it's bothered me for years, I must say.
2:55 p.m.
Conservative
2:55 p.m.
NDP
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Dr. Franks, I am reading your recommendations. Really, I believe that all your recommendations could be implemented today, if the government wanted. You write that
we should work together on a definition of “cabinet confidence”. We were talking about cabinet confidence; they had already done it with the Afghanistan document. They knew we were asking for documents. They could have proposed that we would sit down and see what they could give. Through the ruling, the Speaker is already saying that Parliament has the right to get those documents, and we're not talking about all kinds. We're not looking at the minutes of cabinet and we're not looking at certain things; we're looking at how much it's going to cost Canadians, how much the taxpayer will pay. That's what we're asking. That's a simple question.
I think we already have your first recommendation, if the government wants to participate in it.
2:55 p.m.
Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Studies, Queen's University, As an Individual
I believe that Parliament should take an initiative--and I would like to see it start with this committee--on defining what is a cabinet confidence and what isn't, because I believe that the present rules create a lot of the problems. The present rule is that what the government says is a cabinet confidence is treated as a cabinet confidence. What Speaker Milliken I think very courageously has said is that's not right.
2:55 p.m.
NDP
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
But, Mr. Chair, the witnesses we had here yesterday said the same thing, which is that if it's a bill already presented to the cabinet, for the information on how much it's going to cost, it is not the cabinet's right to keep it away from the taxpayer.
2:55 p.m.
Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Studies, Queen's University, As an Individual
That was, I believe, what Mel Cappe said to you, wasn't it, among perhaps others?
2:55 p.m.
Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Studies, Queen's University, As an Individual
Mr. Walsh, yes.
2:55 p.m.
Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Studies, Queen's University, As an Individual
Yes, well--
2:55 p.m.
NDP
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
Everybody's saying it, except the ones who want to keep it away from Canadians, to get the power, as you said.
2:55 p.m.
Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Studies, Queen's University, As an Individual
It's an immensely complicated thing, though. I'll give you an example.
Last year and the year before, this House, this Parliament, passed budget implementation acts. In these were bills that in my view really were not implementing the budget but were separate things affecting environmental assessment.
The end product of this is that the number of our environmental assessments being made by the federal government will be reduced by about 6,000 a year. There is a saving because those are not being made, and I suspect the reductions in the estimates of the Department of Environment are because of that.
Now, is that a good thing or a bad thing? I don't know, but what I suspect is that it's not a good thing because I like seeing environmental assessments.
2:55 p.m.
Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Studies, Queen's University, As an Individual
But let me just say one last thing here, sir, please. Really, we are in that situation, as I said earlier, of buying a pig in a poke when we pass legislation. We don't know what the cost estimates--
3 p.m.
NDP
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
Yes, it's a pig in a poke. We have bought the pig, but we do not know how big it is.
3 p.m.
Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Studies, Queen's University, As an Individual
A pig in a poke, indeed.
3 p.m.
NDP
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
It's a pig in a poke, alright.
However, when we see the situation we have got ourselves into today in this case—even with your recommendations that we want to look at later—I feel that you are clearly saying that we do not have enough information and that, if we decide…You are saying that it is true that we have not been given enough information. We have been asking for the information for four months. Why wait until the last minute? Why did the government wait until the Speaker made the request?