It's coming.
Evidence of meeting #22 for Public Accounts in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was pac.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #22 for Public Accounts in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was pac.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4 p.m.
An hon. member
It's coming.
4 p.m.
Bloc
Richard Nadeau Bloc Gatineau, QC
Indeed. Thanks for your prediction, Marcel.
Do Members behave differently or take a different approach to their work in committee?
4 p.m.
Director, Capacity Development, Canadian Comprehensive Auditing Foundation
Thank you for your question.
In fact, this question came up during a CCPAC meeting in Charlottetown. I responded that this was a very interesting subject that eventually we could look into. However, our study involved 14 jurisdictions, and we did not differentiate between majority and minority governments. I think it would be very interesting to do that kind of study.
4:05 p.m.
Bloc
Richard Nadeau Bloc Gatineau, QC
My second question concerns the proportionate representation system. I realize that this is not the system of government in place in Canada.
I'm not sure if elsewhere in the world, there are systems comparable to the proportionate representation system. However, in Commonwealth countries with multi-party systems, have you observed differences in the way in which parliamentarians approach their work?
4:05 p.m.
Director, Capacity Development, Canadian Comprehensive Auditing Foundation
I'm not sure I understand your question.
4:05 p.m.
Bloc
Richard Nadeau Bloc Gatineau, QC
For example, when you have a larger number of political parties, the truth is that more alliances must be forged. Does that lead to different outcomes in terms of the way in which parliamentarians work? Obviously, in the case of a 50% plus one majority, this isn't an issue.
4:05 p.m.
Director, Capacity Development, Canadian Comprehensive Auditing Foundation
Once again, that's a very interesting question.
On pages 14 through 18 of the guide I alluded to earlier, a small study was done of other countries. I believe Australia and Great Britain were the target countries. In both cases, no answer was found, but this is something we could possibly look into.
4:05 p.m.
Bloc
Richard Nadeau Bloc Gatineau, QC
I have a third question for our witness, Mr. Chairman.
My previous questions were about comparisons with other countries. However, I'm more interested in the minority government situation.
Once they've been adopted, are the official minutes of proceedings and reports posted or, at the very least, distributed to witnesses? By witnesses, I mean senior bureaucrats as well as groups in civil society. Do the witnesses receive these documents so that they have some idea of issues retained by PACs? That would be a good idea. I'm simply throwing this out for discussion. Furthermore, if they see that certain important questions have not been raised, they could then provide the committee with some important additional information, to shed more light on the topics discussed.
4:05 p.m.
Director, Capacity Development, Canadian Comprehensive Auditing Foundation
That's also a very interesting suggestion. It ties in with what we were discussing. Witnesses are part of the solution, not part of the problem.
Earlier, I mentioned the survey conducted by the Senate of witnesses who had appeared before a Senate committee. If the committee were to conduct a similar survey, it could put the same kind of questions to witnesses.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
Merci beaucoup, monsieur Nadeau.
Thank you very much, Mr. Dubrow.
Mr. Williams, you have eight minutes.
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
John Williams Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome to our guest, Mr. Dubrow.
You talk a great deal about the non-partisanship of the public accounts committee, but like my colleagues, I'm not sure that non-partisanship actually describes what should be, I think, the proper relationship.
We are the accountability committee and we're here to look, retrospectively, at issues brought to our attention largely by the Auditor General. And while we cannot be non-partisan in this place, we can be less—
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
John Williams Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
Controlled partnership, okay. Is that controlled by the chair, Mr. Chair?
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
John Williams Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
Oh, I see. Self-control, self-control.
I think I've always believed that government members are sympathetic to the government agenda and the opposition members are, shall we say, less than sympathetic to the government agenda. Then it goes from there to, you know, you can support the government's agenda, you're opposed to the government's agenda, or you can support without any reservation whatsoever, totally and absolutely, right on the government side or on the opposite side. So it's a continuum, and we should be at the end where partisanship is at its most reduced, but I don't think we can actually talk about non-partisanship in a parliamentary committee, even though it is a public accounts committee.
We are the committee of oversight, we're not the committee of non-partisanship. We're the committee of accountability; we're retrospective, but we have to see it in that light. And the more the members see it in that light, the more active and the more productive the committee has been, in my experience.
Parliament has, in my opinion, four responsibilities. We do four things as parliamentarians: we approve legislation, or otherwise; we approve the budget to raise the revenues for the government to run the country, or otherwise; we approve the estimates for the government to spend money as allocated and approved by Parliament, or otherwise; and number four, government reports to Parliament. It's this government reporting to Parliament, Mr. Chair, that is our committee responsibility, because this is where government accountability comes in.
Legislative committees deal with legislation, they hear from civil society, they hear from other people who have some opinion on the legislation proposed, and therefore the government can find out whether it resonates with the public at large. This is what legislative committees do. But we are unique in the fact that we deal with this accountability. Government reports to Parliament, and Parliament has delegated that to us.
On the concept that we should be perhaps of a higher profile, in the United Kingdom, for example, PAC is perceived as the premier committee, Mr. Chair. In fact, I was over there one time and one of the parties was having a leadership race. There were two or three contenders; one had been the chair of the PAC and one of the others hadn't. The fact that the person hadn't been the chair of the PAC, running for the leadership of the party and hence, potentially, to be the prime minister of the country, was deemed to be a detriment.
We have some work to do, and I'm looking for leadership from you, Mr. Chair, so we can become the premier committee of the Parliament of Canada.
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
John Williams Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
There's hope. There may be hope for us yet.
So accountability is fundamental, and I've defined accountability many times as a force beyond the control that causes you to think and act in a certain way.
Now, what kind of force should we be? We are a political body within the Parliament of Canada. We're a political institution. We have political accountability. The sponsorship situation was the best example. The Gomery inquiry was there to elicit the facts, and witnesses were in front of the Gomery inquiry until the lawyers were happy that they had elicited all the information they could squeeze out of the witness before they would move on to somebody else. Here, of course, we have our four minutes or eight minutes, and then we move onto something else. But we have political accountability.
The witnesses are here, not in any way, shape or form to make them feel good—and I am not into exit strategies to find out how good they feel when they leave, because I don't think that is our job—but we're here to hold them accountable. They may go back to their departments and have a little bit of shell shock and be afraid to take the initiative by virtue of the fact that they're held publicly accountable, but this public accountability in a democracy is fundamental. It is fundamental to the minister and the ministry and the deputy minister, and so on.
If they know that they're going to show up here and have to answer for failures in a report by the Auditor General that is clear, concise, and non-partisan, and just puts the facts on the table and allows us as a political accountability committee to deal with them, it can be a daunting challenge. I did hear of one deputy minister who, upon returning to her office after having been here at the public accounts committee, said to her staff, “Never let that happen to me again.” Of course, the way it would never happen again is if you get a complimentary report from the Auditor General, that all is well. It's a motivator.
Our job is to inform the Canadian public on what our bureaucracy and our government are doing. If they're coming up short, our people need to know about it and we exact political accountability--not judicial accountability, because that's for the courts, and again the sponsorship inquiry actually ended up in the courts for some people. We deal with political accountability, and that's a different concept. Governments in a democratic society, where the media is open and transparent, don't like to be embarrassed. It costs them votes. We saw what happened before: when it costs you votes, you lose seats, you lose power, and that's deemed to be a detrimental thing. It's accountability, and the public accounts committee has to be that force beyond the control of government that exacts this accountability. That's why it's important that we act in a unified fashion, so we don't just break down into partisan party positions, because then the committee becomes ineffective.
Tenure, I think, is always important, not just in this committee but in every committee. Tenure, or longevity, allows people to develop not only the expertise but the reputation that they, as a member of Parliament, sit on this committee and have become a spokesperson and an expert on whichever committee they sit on. The longer they do that, the more they're recognized for their expertise and the more they develop expertise. It's a training ground for potential cabinet ministers, if the party ever wins power, and so on. So I think committee tenure is important.
Ministers as members, which we have in some jurisdictions, I find anathema. In fact, at the very first Canadian Council of Public Accounts Committees that I went to, many years ago--and I was naive in those days, Mr. Chair, but maybe not quite so naive today--in one particular jurisdiction the Minister of Finance was the vice-chair of the public accounts committee and set the agenda. If you ever saw a conflict of interest, there is a conflict of interest: the Minister of Finance setting the agenda for the public accounts committee. It cannot be.
Remember, Parliament's job is to hold the government accountable, government being the executive--the Prime Minister or the Premier, and the cabinet. That's the government, not the governing party but the government. Our job as a PAC is to hold them accountable. If a member of the executive says, “No, you're not going to take a look at that, that's where all the scandals and skeletons are hiding”, then how effective can we be as a public accounts committee? So get ministers off public accounts committees everywhere.
We're also not going to rate ourselves, but I think we are between our provincial counterparts and some of our counterparts in other countries. But at one point, there are some countries and perhaps even some provinces where actually the public accounts committee meets in private. I've actually had the privilege of attending some public accounts committees in other jurisdictions, and I remember a particular one where the auditor general was presenting a problem about their paying to rebuild a road, but the road had only been repaved, resurfaced. The committee was in private and the members said, “Oh, shucks, isn't that awful. Next subject, please.” They would never have gotten away with that if they had met in public and if they had been broadcast on television so that the public who elected us could understand and could hold us accountable for our effectiveness on the committee.
It's this whole concept of our being accountable to the electorate and holding the government accountable, and so on.
I can see I could wax eloquent for some time, Mr. Chair, but I see the signs that time moves on and I'll leave it there.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
We may get back to you, Mr. Williams. I want to thank you very much for those comments. I think I speak for all members in saying they are extremely helpful.
Mrs. Black, you have eight minutes.
4:15 p.m.
Director, Capacity Development, Canadian Comprehensive Auditing Foundation
Can I respond?
4:15 p.m.
Some hon. members
Oh, oh!
4:15 p.m.
Director, Capacity Development, Canadian Comprehensive Auditing Foundation
I do have some comments.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
Perhaps you can take a minute to respond to Mr. Williams' points. Then we'll go to Mrs. Black.
