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.
4:40 p.m.
Conservative
John Williams Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
When I say access to cabinet documents, I mean if this committee—or any parliamentary committee, for that matter—asks for cabinet documents, we've proved at the public accounts committee that government must comply. They did comply.
4:40 p.m.
Conservative
John Williams Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
It was the first time, as far as I'm aware, but it proved the point. There was no debate; the government coughed up and therefore reaffirmed—and created the precedent—that when a Parliament asks for cabinet documents, the government has to supply them.
Remember, government reports to Parliament in a democracy. That is the fundamental concept of what I call my hourglass theory, Mr. Chair, if I can indulge the members for a minute to explain why I call it my hourglass theory. It is that in a democracy the people are served at the bottom by bureaucracy, which takes its direction from cabinet, who are appointed by the Prime Minister. That's what I call the service triangle—the standard triangle of any organization.
But there's an inverted governance triangle above, where the Prime Minister and cabinet report to Parliament, and through the media we're held accountable by the people at the top in the governance triangle. The people are in command in a democracy: they hold us accountable, and we hold the executive accountable, who work through the bureaucracy to deliver services to the people.
That is the model, but we forget that, and in many cases we're not even aware of it, Mr. Chair. That's why, at the public accounts committee in the sponsorship investigation, we did three things: one, we affirmed Parliament's right to ask for and receive cabinet documents; we affirmed again something that was almost lapsing, the power of subpoena—I think 1912 was the last time it had been used—and the third point we reaffirmed, Mr. Chair, and you were part of those discussions, was the independence of Parliament and the Bill of Rights of 1689 to assure the independence of Parliament.
The sponsorship inquiry reaffirmed these three very fundamental tenets of democracy and should be required reading for all parliamentarians. I'm sure they'd just love to take it to bed at night.
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
We're pretty well out of time, members. I had one interjection myself with Mr. Williams on the cabinet confidence issue. I think that's probably something we have to debate further. I agree with everything you said, except that point.
Mr. Dubrow, you may have one last comment, very briefly, please, and then we're going to adjourn.
4:45 p.m.
Director, Capacity Development, Canadian Comprehensive Auditing Foundation
Thank you, Mr. Williams, for your kind words about the CCAF.
Mr. Chairman, just to get back to your question about some of the concrete suggestions that were enclosed, I want to draw you back to the householder idea. That was one of them, and the other was an idea—and it's not mine, but an idea that has been discussed before—about the committee, prior to a hearing, deciding which members of the committee or which parties will pursue which lines of questioning. Those were the two concrete ideas.
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
Thank you very much, Mr. Dubrow, and I want to thank your colleagues and your foundation.
Right now, colleagues, we're going to suspend for two minutes to re-establish in camera.
[Proceedings continue in camera]