Agriculture Committee on Feb. 28th, 2013

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

It's not a point of order.

Mr. Richards, complete your comments.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Sure. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

I know that I've had a chance to review—we all have—and as Mr. Hoback said, farmers need to know, going forward. In the case, for example, of the business risk program, lots of consultation and negotiation took place. As we move forward, we need to make sure that farmers have a clear understanding of the direction we're going in.

I certainly have done my homework. I'm prepared to vote. I hope all members will have done the same.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Calkins.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Mr. Chair, without belabouring the issue, any delay we have in passing the estimates does not give the approval of the spending in the supplementaries that is needed to carry out the programs we've already discussed here today, whether it be money for the Wheat Board—which the member who is complaining now and wanting to delay the process was ardently defending when I chaired the special legislative committee on the Wheat Board.... He was an ardent supporter of the Wheat Board, and now we need some transitional funding for the Wheat Board and he wants to delay the passage of those supplementary estimates to provide the funding for that transitional process to make sure that the Canadian Wheat Board is there for those who choose to use it.

All of the changes that are needed here in the supplementary estimates to provide for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, for farmers, for business risk management programming, need to be passed. I see this simply to be a delaying tactic, a stalling tactic by the opposition.

Mr. Chair, I also have a question about Mr. Valeriote's motion. He brought forward a motion to not do something. I would like to find out whether that is actually in order. It seems to me that Mr. Valeriote is just making things up as he goes along and was not prepared in any way, shape, or form for this meeting from the get-go.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Before I acknowledge Mr. Allen, when you bring forward a substantive motion, it does have to be done in a positive. It can't be in the negative, so I'm acknowledging that the motion is debatable. We would structure the words differently, but the implications are the same.

Mr. Allen.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

I think you already answered Mr. Calkins' issue about when we actually need to pass them. I believe you said it was May 31? Is that correct? Is that what I heard?

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

It's the final sitting day before May 31.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

I appreciate that. So government will not come to a grinding halt between now and then, as Mr. Calkins has tried to suggest. As to Mr. Hoback's assertion about your playing politics, last time I checked, I was a politician. We put on our candidate slip that we're members of Parliament. It says occupation or job. It says politician, basically. So yes, we are politicians, and I'm not asking for May 31. I didn't make a big to-do about whether we do them today or don't do them today, but clearly, to pass literally hundreds of millions of dollars, notwithstanding the fact the other side is ready to go.... I would hope you're ready to go. It's your minister. If you're not ready to go, your minister's got a lot of problems, because, to be honest, the cheerleading pompoms come out every time he shows up.

So I'd say that you're always ready to go, and that's your role. That's okay. You're the government side. We're not; he's not my minister. So my role is to hold him to account and to try to get as much information as I can, because the other side constantly says we vote against stuff. It's difficult to say yes to stuff when we can't take the time to find out what we're saying yes to. So the easy default position is to vote no. That's simple, and my friends who were here, when they were in opposition, remember that process very well. In fact, the minister quite ably said that I rail, and he said he railed when he was in this position, and I congratulated him that we were both railing when we were in opposition because that's sometimes what you do in opposition.

But part of the idea is not to rail here but to try to find out. The fundamental tenet that we're supposed to uphold as parliamentarians is to hold the executive to account—that's including the opposition back bench—when it comes to spending. That is our prima facie case that we're supposed to do. That's why we came here, besides all the other things we said we'd do for our constituents.

The estimates process is unfortunate, and I say this as someone who sits on public accounts committee, where folks have come over and over again, including the Auditor General's group, and said that the estimates process isn't helpful, including your minister of the Treasury Board. So not only are we passing motions to pass something that isn't helpful, we don't even study it to see if we can find out if at least there's a little in there somewhere that might be helpful to understand what exactly it is that we ask people to pay for. No offence to the folks at the end; they're just working in the system.

There's a huge debate about whether the system they use to do estimates is of any value to us as parliamentarians to figure out what the heck is going on. But that's a different fight for a different day with the Auditor General and all the rest of the folks, as to how we're going to do accounting.

So, as I've said in the past, one thing Glaswegians like me know how to do is to count. I can look across the way and figure out how many are over there—there are six of them—and how many there are on this side—there are five.

I thank you, Chair, for allowing me to say my piece, but I want to keep it to the least amount of time possible because you're going to continue with the vote, and I recognize the way it's going to come out. But I would just simply ask my friends across the way, with the greatest of sincerity, that we ought to think about how we do this process because at some point, you might be on this side. I don't know when that point will be Somebody else may be in your shoes if you've decided to move on and do something else. I may have retired or done something else. The electorate may have decided something else for me, but someone else will be in our places.

We ought to give them a system that works for them so they can make good decisions, because we are spending someone else's money. Regardless of whether it's a lot or a little, regardless of whether I think we should spend more or the government side thinks they should spend less, it's not our money. We have to know how we're doing it. When we say yes to spending somebody else's money, we ought to be fully aware that we took the time to understand what that was, and not simply throw our hands in the air because we think that's what we should do.

So I'll end it there. I'm sorry that it sounds like a lecture, but I guess that's that happens when you have studied political science as a minor at university. You get caught up in that sometimes, but in all sincerity, we need to think about this process because this estimates process does not serve any of us well, and I say that after listening to the Auditor General and others who have come before the public accounts committee and told us that.

It doesn't serve us as well as parliamentarians. It serves the department well. I'm not debating that piece. I think it's okay for you folks down there. The problem is for us and how to serve us, and it's not doing a good job of serving us.

Ultimately, we are responsible for saying yes or no to the expenditure of all the money that you think you need. It's fair to say that we need to know whether or not that's the right decision to make. You believe it is, based on your work. I take great pleasure in saying that you're working extremely hard through the system that you have in front of you.

It's not an issue of the department trying to do something nefarious. That's absolutely not true at all—let me be abundantly clear about that. I thank you for your hard work inside that system that we've given to you, which is not serving all of us well.

Thanks, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

Just before I recognize Mr. Valeriote, I'll say that P and P review can be done independently whether the mains are passed or not. I did call the vote on vote 1, and it was voted in favour of.

We are now looking at vote 5.

Mr. Valeriote, what I have here is that basically you're asking the committee to defer voting on their main estimates until such time that the report on plans and priorities of the department is tabled in the House. I've tried to differentiate to say that P and P can be done outside of the estimates process.

I'll go to you for comment.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

That is an accurate reflection of what I'm ultimately asking for in that motion. There are three very simple points.

Apart from echoing what Mr. Allen has said, one, there is no urgency. I have not heard anyone say there's an urgency. The role of government, the wheels of government, will not come to a grinding halt if we do not vote on this today. We have until June.

I would ask everyone to sensibly take one step back and let us have a better opportunity to more fully probe these numbers and ask further questions that will arise from that lengthier and more in-depth investigation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

The motion is on the floor. I'll call the vote.

(Motion negatived)

We will move to the votes.

AGRICULTURE AND AGRI-FOOD

Department

Vote 5—Capital expenditures..........$27,872,294

Vote 10—Grants and contributions..........$226,495,111

Canadian Dairy Commission

Vote 15—Program expenditures..........$3,985,810

Canadian Food Inspection Agency

Vote 20—Operating expenditures and contributions..........$534,383,158

Vote 25—Capital expenditures..........$17,815,785

Canadian Grain Commission

Vote 30—Program expenditures..........$21,582,235

(Votes 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30 agreed to)

Shall the Chair report votes 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30 under Agriculture and Agri-Food to the House?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

With that, I'll thank our guests for being here.

I'm going to ask anybody not directly involved with committee business to evacuate the room as quickly as possible. The committee has to go in camera for a minute. We'd appreciate your cooperation. We're going to take a one-minute recess and come back.

[Proceedings continue in camera]