Evidence of meeting #4 for Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) in the 39th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was first.
Auditor General, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
Not really. What I'm saying is that Parliament will decide what powers they wish to give us. We are really telling you how we expect to use them. There obviously could be things that change in the future, but at this point in time, this is how we would expect to implement that.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
Is there any area where you believe your mandate should be expanded in the Accountability Act or in previous legislation?
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
So you really believe your office has the powers it needs to do a good job for the Canadian people.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
Good. That's good to know, because if there were additional powers that you needed, that's something the committee could examine in the amendment stage.
Finally, I'd just make a point on the aboriginal issue. I have found since we started working on the Accountability Act that we've met with all sorts of stakeholders and have consistently gotten the same message from most of them: we love the Accountability Act; we just don't want it to apply to us. We've gotten that from all sorts of groups, both with regard to the ATI provisions and to expanding the scope of the Auditor General's authority.
I think we have to be consistent. Any group that is getting significant public funds—this is taxpayers' money, after all—should be subject to the same degree of accountability. You've been an exemplary tool of accountability on behalf of the Canadian people, and I would like to see you empowered as much as possible.
That's where we're coming from with that particular provision to follow the money. I think you should take the “follow the money” provisions as the supreme compliment that we have trust and faith in your work.
Auditor General, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
I do. I thank you very much. I appreciate the confidence that is displayed by this bill. We look forward to continuing to work for Parliament. If there are areas of particular concern that parliamentarians have, we would obviously be very interested in hearing that and in being able to assist you in any way we can.
Conservative
Bloc
Benoît Sauvageau Bloc Repentigny, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I had not asked to speak, but if you are giving me the opportunity, I will take it. I apologize for my surprise.
How would you react if the budget official position created in the Library of Parliament were to be included in your duties?
I am sorry if my question is not clear. A budget official has been appointed to the Library of Parliament.
Auditor General, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
Mr. Chairman, as I explained previously, we believe that the mandates of those who prepare the budgets are very different from those of the Auditor General. However, if there is a willingness to share certain administrative or other systems...
Auditor General, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
Currently, all officers of Parliament are studying this question in order to determine whether it would be possible to share systems in order to make efficiency gains all round.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Tilson
That appears to be it, Ms. Fraser.
You'll be interested to know we've spent twice as much time with you as we have with any other witness.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Tilson
I want to thank you and your colleagues for coming this afternoon and sharing your wisdom with us. Thank you very much.
We're going to recess just for a couple of minutes.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Tilson
We're going to call the meeting to order, please, ladies and gentlemen. I'd like some order.
Folks, this meeting is televised. We have photo ops going on here.
Subject to the wishes of the committee, we're going to return to this subcommittee report. The only item we haven't dealt with is item number 4, and we were in the middle of debate.
Does anyone else have anything to say?
Mr. Owen.
Liberal
Stephen Owen Liberal Vancouver Quadra, BC
In our last discussion, we had addressed the idea of treating them separately, so that there might be different considerations for each of these.
With respect to the first part, where we say “each witness or group of witnesses”, I worry about the situation, for instance, in which we're talking about the Director of Public Prosecutions, and it's most efficient to organize a panel that includes the Canadian Bar Association, the society of law societies, and whatever—people who are logically grouped together in a panel for efficient consideration of the issue—yet they bring forward different positions.
In order to give them the opportunity to express different opinions, I suggest an amendment that for such a situation we say “that each witness or group of witnesses presenting a common position”, and then continue with “have a total of ten minutes”.
Liberal
Stephen Owen Liberal Vancouver Quadra, BC
To anticipate that...for instance, this morning we had representatives generally referred to as the machinery of government—PCO, the Treasury Board, and such—and it was very logical to restrict these, but if they were divergent organizations.... There have been lots of statements in public, and I can imagine situations in which groups have different points of view but it's very efficient for us to deal with them as a panel. I wouldn't want us to then leave them in the position of having to scrap over ten minutes to express different points of view.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Tilson
Conceivably you could have four 10-minute sessions, which causes a problem if the time limit is 40 minutes. I don't want to be part of this debate, but I'm anticipating what you're going to be asking me to do and I can see I'll have a problem.
Liberal
Stephen Owen Liberal Vancouver Quadra, BC
My point is that we should have a longer session or have them in separate sessions, but not put divergent witnesses in the situation of having to debate with each other.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
This debate was thoroughly exhausted in yesterday's subcommittee, which produced this result, and now we're getting an extensive debate again today with a different position.
The reality is that we have entrusted the clerk to group witnesses, based on a reasonable, logistical approach that will allow each witness to make a short presentation and be questioned thereafter. It's impossible for us to define which witnesses share common views precisely, and if we accept this amendment, we're going to be engaged in a constant debate as to which groupings of people share a common view.
If I invite FAIR, which supports whistle-blower protection, and we invite Allan Cutler, they both support whistle-blower protection. They also have very different ideas on what that protection would look like. Are they viewed as having a common or a different view? It's entirely subjective.
The decision of the subcommittee yesterday was that the clerk would look at the witnesses and find a logistically doable way of putting them into groups, so they could make their presentation in a reasonable timeframe. That was the decision we supported yesterday. To drag out a further procedural debate today is duplicative and wasteful. We had a good decision yesterday. Let's move forward and trust our clerk to put together witness groupings that can function.