Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) Committee on June 14th, 2006

[Stephen Owen, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Why, when we're voting on--

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Mr. Chair, I'll take that.

I would first ask the technical panel to make comment on that.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Mr. Wild.

[Joe Wild]

Mr. Chairman, the committee has been approving a vast number of amendments to all these various crown corporations. They have been approving amendments that extend the GIC's discretion to make appointments from a maximum of three years to a maximum of four years.

There were two inadvertent inclusions. One is the CBC, under the Broadcasting Act, where people were already at a five-year maximum. We accidentally included them, reducing theirs to four years. So that's why that one was ultimately defeated. We have the exact same situation with Telefilm Canada. It's currently a five-year maximum. They were accidentally included, which would reduce them to four years. This was not the policy intent.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

If I could follow up, that's the rationale, Mr. Chair, as to why we would be voting against clause 302.

(Clause 302 negatived)

(Clause 303 agreed to)

(On clause 304)

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Clause 304 relates to procurement in the Auditor General Act. There are a number of other clauses related to this particular clause, so we'll deal with all the amendments pertaining to clause 304 before we put the question. So we'll first deal with the amendments to this clause and to clause 305 and clause 307, and then we will put the vote on clause 304, which is consequential to clauses 305 to 307.

So the first amendment is G-55 on page 184.

Mr. Poilievre.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

I so move.

(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

(On clause 305)

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

The amendment to clause 305 is another government amendment, G-56.

Mr. Poilievre.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

I so move.

(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

(On clause 307)

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

We have amendment G-57 to clause 307.

It is moved by Mr. Poilievre.

(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

(Clauses 304 and 305 as amended agreed to)

(Clause 306 agreed to)

(Clause 307 as amended agreed to)

(On clause 308)

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

We go to clause 308, and there's an amendment, G-58.

Mr. Poilievre.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

I so move.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Ms. Jennings would like to make some comments.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

I'd just like an explanation from our technical advisers on what G-58 does.

[Joe Wild]

Well, I'm going to be sheepish again. It fixes some gaps in the drafting.

The Auditor General derives powers, duties, and functions from two places. As you'll note, in Bill C-2 the proposed subsection 18.2(1), the last line--the easiest reference to find—says, “powers, duties or functions under this Act”. That's a reference to the Auditor General Act. The Auditor General also obtains powers, duties, and functions to conduct audits under part 10 of the Financial Administration Act, which pertains to crown corporations; thus the amendment suggests referring to “powers, duties or functions under this or any other Act of Parliament”.

So the amendments proposed in G-58 are simply to bring the bill in line with where she actually derives her sources of authorities from.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

You don't need to be sheepish, sir. You and your staff are doing an outstanding job.

(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

(Clause 308 as amended agreed to)

(On clause 309)

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

We have an amendment to clause 309, a New Democratic Party amendment, NDP-24.

Mr. Dewar.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It is my pleasure to table NDP-24. In fact, one of the key components of accountability is the fact that we need to keep an eye on the money, so to speak. And we need to make sure the public is going to be able to make it known when there are concerns. When they have information they want to bring forward to the government, they can do so in light of the fact that we now will have a procurement auditor when this is passed. What we intend to do with this amendment is to change the language so that can happen.

We see this in other jurisdictions, where to hold the government to account it should allow all people to be able to do that. So the intent of the amendment is to broaden who can make a complaint to the procurement auditor. If indeed we want to shine a light on accountability and use all tools we have available, I think it's important we not limit who can do that.

When we look at recent events, we've seen there were concerns about how money was spent. We've seen how, for people who might have had information, often the only thing they had available to them was going to the media or making it known to people who didn't have authority. Now we have an office that has authority, in a procurement auditor. We want to make sure that for good governance this would be available to all.

So to change and have the amendment read “to any person,” that's what this amendment would do. That's why I think it's really important. It's a small change, but an important change.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

We have a list. Mr. Sauvageau.

[Benoît Sauvageau, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

My question is for Mr. Wild.

If we say “any person may file a complaint”, would that not cause the problem that we have already discussed? Would that include students? Or, to go further, would oversea suppliers or other countries be able to challenge a decision made by the Canadian government?

I am opposed to this for several reasons.

[Joe Wild]

The amendment as proposed would open up the complaint to any person. Given that there are no consequences or protection really being afforded to the person who is making the complaint, it doesn't necessarily raise the same issues that were raised under the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act.

It is certainly correct that it would open the door to foreign suppliers making complaints to the procurement auditor. Just on that point, I think it's important for the committee to understand what types of complaints the procurement auditor can address. They're really complaints that are only going to be made by suppliers, because the complaints that a person can make or that the procurement auditor can actually deal with are outlined in proposed section 22.1, paragraphs (3)(b) and (c) on page 190. So we're talking about complaints with respect to compliance with the government contracts regulations, if the value of the contract is under the thresholds that are set out in the Agreement on Internal Trade, because over those thresholds the complaint mechanism would be to the Canadian International Trade Tribunal.

The other is complaints respecting the administration of the contract. If someone's not getting paid in a timely fashion, for example, they could go to the procurement auditor to attempt to get payment under their contract. For that reason, and given that scope of complaint mechanism that's contemplated, proposed section 22.2 works hand in glove with that in restricting the complaints to Canadian suppliers. The emphasis on Canadian suppliers was meant to, from a policy perspective, prevent foreign suppliers from using the procurement auditor to make complaints instead of going through appropriate trade agreement channels.

(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[Benoît Sauvageau, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

We are voting on clause 309, and I might add it is consequential to clause 310, so it will apply to clause 310.

(Clauses 309 and 310 agreed to)

I know members of the committee think we're close to finishing this. The chair doesn't think we're close, and I'm going to suggest...I'll do whatever the committee wishes. I'm going to suggest we have a break. We're not close.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

I think we're closer to dinner.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

We're going to adjourn.