Procedure and House Affairs Committee on March 17th, 2011

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Well, thank you, and I respectfully disagree.

We put in place a Parliamentary Budget Office that has done some good work. It was put in place to provide information to provide costing estimates to legislation--as well as private members' bills, I might add. The finance committee actually requested the Parliamentary Budget Officer to cost some of the private members' bills that come forward. We think that is very important and very relevant to the role of a private member of this House, actually being able to put forward legislation. That member has access to the Parliamentary Budget Office, which can actually provide a costing. The individual can then come forward with a true and realistic cost of what that private member's bill would be.

On the website of the--

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Chairman, this really isn't beneficial to us. As interesting as it is, we have very little time.

I was wondering if I could ask a question now.

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

But Mr. Chair, I was just getting to my point.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Wrap it up, then.

[Pat Martin]

I think your point was made, Mr. Menzies.

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

I'm not sure how you would assume that, Pat, but thank you for pre-judging a comment.

The Parliamentary Budget Office has a website. All of the office's requests are on there for the public to see. We've provided answers to all of those official requests from the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

And that, Mr. Chair, was my point.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Mr. Martin, two minutes are left.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Chairman, a lot of Mr. Menzies' report was actually bragging about the dubious benefits of corporate tax cuts at a time when we have a $50-billion deficit.

We're really here to talk about a breach of privilege and about what we believe is a systemic denial of fundamental information to this committee.

The government's response to the finance committee motion was, and I'll quote, “Projections of corporate profits before taxes and effective corporate income tax rates are a Cabinet confidence.”

Do you still stand by that statement, Mr. Menzies?

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

In whole, I do.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

“Projections of corporate profits before taxes and effective corporate income tax rates are a Cabinet confidence”: you're asking the people of Canada to borrow $6 billion from somewhere to hand over to the corporate sector at this time, and you won't tell us the financial impacts, or the whole cost to Canada, of this.

Could I ask one question? When this came as a memorandum to cabinet, it must have come with some costing by the Department of Finance, by Treasury Board, even by the PCO. Did you factor in the cost of borrowing that money to offset the lost revenue for taxes? And if that information exists, is it under the rubric of cabinet confidence?

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Certainly that's always factored in. Those kinds of decisions--and you would know this, Mr. Martin--

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I would hope so.

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

--are not taken lightly.

[Pat Martin]

I would hope so.

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Even you, I'm sure, would understand that--

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

But the expert testimony we received yesterday to this committee--from the people you cited, from the former clerk of the Privy Council--is that once the initiative is finished with cabinet and presented to the people of Canada, the financial information leading up to the decision by cabinet should no longer be considered a cabinet confidence.

Are you aware of that?

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Well, there are a lot of projections. A lot goes into those projections. As I said, it's not an exact science.

Let me share, if I could--

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

You can finish your thought, Minister, but we are running low.

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

The projections that we put in are in line with, are actually in the centre of, what 15 private sector economists provide us. We consult with them on a regular basis. Some are higher projections as to what corporate tax costs and corporate tax revenues are going to be, and some are lower. We're middle of the road.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you.

I'm going to try to do a two-minute round here and see if we can get it in. I know we had suggested that the minister would be here until noon, so it's going to be hard to do that, and even harder with points of order, but let's try it.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

On a very short point of order, the minister referred to “legal advice” that had been given to restrict documents...that some documents be tabled. Could we ask the minister to table that legal advice, Mr. Chair?

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

I was referring to legal advice that any department gets as to what is and what is not....

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

I also--

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

It shouldn't be a problem to table it--

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

What is not what? He didn't finish his sentence. I want the minister to finish his sentence. What is or what is not...?