Environment Committee on March 22nd, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Order.

Members of the committee, first of all, I'd like to welcome the minister.

An item has been brought up to me by Mr. McGuinty. It's basically a procedural thing, and I'd like to address it very briefly.

I would just let you know that when we had the initial communiqué to members, we said we were going to deal with main estimates. The reason I put that in was the fact that the supplemental estimates had been reported back on Monday, March 19. Our meeting, of course, was on March 20. So my decision was simply to put that as main estimates. However, I should make it very clear that the minister had said he would talk about absolutely anything. If the members wanted to talk about the supplementary estimates, the main estimates, even the migration of turtles in the Galapagos Islands, he was prepared to talk about that. I did make that very clear.

I should also explain to the committee that I did attempt to talk to Mr. McGuinty about his motion. I sent a message to him in the House on Monday, March 19. I got a reply from Mr. McGuinty saying that he was too busy doing interviews and could not see me that day. At 9 o'clock on Tuesday morning, we contacted his office, and again I was told he was too busy to see me. I arrived at 10:45 for our meeting on Tuesday, and again, Mr. McGuinty was not here until after 11 o'clock. So I did have to do it through Mr. Regan, and did communicate that message. I'd just like to clarify that for members.

As a result of that, I asked the clerk to send out new information after that motion was passed, simply saying that we would deal with the main estimates, the supplementary estimates. But again, and I repeat, the minister has agreed to come back at any future time. We have until the end of May to deal with the main estimates, so today we can talk about the supplementary estimates.

I'm not vetting any opposition member's questions. Obviously you can ask whatever you want about whatever you want, however you want—all goes, because the minister has agreed.

Now, I must say that in my 14 years here, I haven't had the privilege of having a minister who has said he would answer anything about anything in his portfolio. I'm very pleased that he is here prepared to answer any questions you want. If the committee wants to talk about supplementary estimates right from now through the next two hours, I'm sure the minister is happy with that. If you want to talk about the main estimates, then that's what you're going to talk about.

That's just to clarify the air so that everyone understands that this meeting is open and the minister is prepared to answer any questions.

Mr. McGuinty.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

I am reluctant to continue this debate, but having heard your introductory remarks, I'm now in a position where I have no choice.

I'm deeply troubled by what's gone on here. I'm deeply troubled by the agenda before us here today.

And I apologize to the minister that he has to sit through this. I welcome him this morning.

I'm troubled, Mr. Chair, and I know that other members of the committee are as well. Let's try to clear things up, because you have opened this up from the get-go.

Not once, but twice, this committee voted by majority decision to study the fiscal performance of the government for 2006-07. Not once, but twice, the agenda, including for today's meeting, read this instead: “Main Estimates 2007-2008”.

All of us—all of us—believe in accountability, Mr. Chair, but you know that we can't hold the government accountable for what hasn't happened yet. We have until May, as you rightly suggest, to study next year's estimates. My colleagues and I do not want to hear from the minister on that today. This has been brought to your attention several times, and I think now it's only fair that a request be made to you to withdraw the main estimates for 2007-08 from the orders of the day.

I'll take a moment just to recall, for example, the chronology that led to the invitation for the minister to appear in front of this committee today. Before the break, on Thursday, March 1, I put forward a motion in committee that read as follows: “That with regard to a Committee study of the Supplementary Estimates (B) for the fiscal year 2006-2007, the Minister of the Environment be invited to appear.”

During that meeting, the parliamentary secretary, Mr. Warawa, suggested a friendly amendment—I'm sure he recalls doing so—to include the main estimates in the motion, which then would have read as follows: “That with regard to a Committee study of the Supplementary Estimates and Main Estimates for the fiscal year 2006-2007, the Minister of the Environment be invited to appear.”

I refused at that time to allow this amendment. He recalls that. I explained to the committee very clearly at that time that we could and should invite the minister to come a second time to properly address the main estimates.

I said, and I quote, “My thinking was, let us at least have the minister come, in the first instance, before March 26 to talk about supplementary estimates (B).”

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. McGuinty, I apologize for interrupting.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

This is important, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

I would suggest, so we can use the minister's time, why don't you move what you just said—that we go immediately to item two—and then we've solved the problem.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Because that does not solve the problem, Mr. Chair. We've asked for a full two hours, and I think that something very, very troubling has occurred here—very troubling.

When I go back to the first motion we put to this committee, it was passed after Mr. Warawa withdrew his friendly amendment, after I explained that the motion was passed, voted on unanimously by all members of this committee—including the government MPs who sit on this committee—to do precisely what the motion asked for. After that motion was passed, a notice of meeting was sent out, and a unilateral decision was made to change the agenda to not reflect the decision of this committee.

In the wake of that decision to unilaterally change the decision about the agenda, we came back. The will of the committee hadn't been respected, so we came back with yet a second motion, which was debated openly on Tuesday of this week, just two days ago. We had another motion put, 48 hours ago, asking again for the minister to graciously come to be with us here for two hours to talk about last year—the year ending March 31—looking backwards, holding the government to account, as the minister knows. This is his job. Any minister of the Crown comes to do this sort of thing at committee.

Once again, I clearly explained that the motion was to call on the minister to testify exclusively on last year's expenditures, not on next year's predicted main estimates. Here's what I said last Tuesday to this committee before the vote on the motion, and I quote:

I think we're going to have plenty of time, Mr. Chair, until May, I believe, to do a proper review of this year's main estimates and I think the committee will want to follow through with a separate study when the time comes. But I think what we need and what the committee has asked for is a timely review of last year's performance, a reasonable request I think, last year's performance by the government.

The committee had a chance to debate the motion on Tuesday. At the end of the meeting, it was adopted seven to four—seven to four. So imagine my surprise when, an hour and a half later, I receive yet another revised notice of meeting that again mentions the minister will be discussing the main estimates for next year. For a second time, Mr. Chair, the will of the committee was not respected. I would even say that this was perhaps a premeditated act of defiance against the will of the committee.

So here we have a situation. I go to you on Tuesday afternoon after the votes. I explain to you my concern about this issue. I discuss it with you on Tuesday evening, Mr. Chair. You said to me that you were approached by the minister's office or by the minister directly—I can't recall which one in fairness—and that he wanted to discuss instead the main estimates today.

Now, if that's not political interference in the work of this parliamentary committee, Mr. Chair, I don't know what it is. We invited the minister. He graciously accepted to come and testify. I thank him for his time. We want to get to the bottom of what happened in the last 12 months. That's our job. We are elected as members of Parliament to hold government to account, and estimates is the primary vehicle at parliamentary committees.

Now, committees are masters of their own destiny. This is a well-established practice in parliamentary practice. Members decide together which direction the committee will take, what issues will be discussed during meetings. No one but the members of this committee can take those decisions. No minister of the Crown of any department can come to a committee and tell the committee what he or she wishes to discuss. It doesn't work that way.

So before we go any further in this meeting, I need a clear explanation, and I'm asking for a correction. I'd like this order of the day to reflect two consecutive motions that were passed, the first unanimously with government members' support, and a second one on Tuesday that asked the minister to graciously attend and speak to the last fiscal year ending nine days from today, because that is how you conduct an estimates process review, by holding the government accountable for what has happened and not trying to hold the government accountable for what might happen in the future. I am strongly in support of having the minister come back, if he would graciously accept, some time before the end of May so we can review the main estimates.

I have a question for you, Mr. Chair, in closing. Why was the will of this committee simply ignored? Why did you attempt to attach our signatures to this agenda, which in no way reflects two open debates in this committee pursuant to two motions tabled by the official opposition?

Canadians would be forgiven for thinking that the minister doesn't want to be held accountable. I don't know if that's the case. I doubt it very much. I think he wants to be held accountable for the millions of dollars that were spent in the last fiscal year. We need two hours to be able to do this. We need two hours to be able to ask the probative and pertinent questions.

So before we go any further and without wasting any more of the minister's precious time, I'd like a clear explanation. Did you, for example, have any political pressure put on you from the minister's office or from the minister to change this agenda, without informing the members of this committee, without putting it back to a vote, without bringing a subsequent motion to the floor?

How did it come to be that twice in a row what we specifically asked for here in this committee has been changed unilaterally by the chair? This is something Canadians who are watching want to know. This is a subversion of a very well-established democratic process, right here on Parliament Hill: standing committees. I asked you the other day when we spoke, in your 14 years of distinguished service, had you ever seen this happen before, and your answer to me at that time was no, you had never seen an agenda move without the acquiescence and support of the committee members.

So I'm deeply troubled by this.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. McGuinty, first of all, had we been able to have that discussion on Monday when you were too busy to have that discussion, we probably could have solved this problem. I think right now you have a tempest in a teapot argument, because the minister is prepared to talk about anything. He is prepared to go back and talk about those. It was simply in discussion with the clerk that we decided government members want to talk about the main estimates and opposition members want to talk about the supplementary estimates. We put them both on there, and that was strictly a decision we made. There was no discussion. There was no discussion with the minister's office by me or my staff. We did talk to the members, and I didn't think this was a big deal.

Now that you seem to think it's a huge deal, obviously I am concerned we're wasting the minister's time. If you want to spend the next two hours discussing procedural things, we're getting used to that sort of thing and, I must say, getting fairly annoyed by it, because we have business to talk about.

Let's talk for one and three-quarter hours now about the supplementary estimates. Let's get on with it. That, I think, is the decision.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Chair, if you're prepared to remove the main estimates from the agenda, you've got my support.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

You've got them removed.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Great. So let's focus—

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

I said that at the start. We could have saved 20 minutes.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

That's not what you said, Mr. Chair, whatsoever.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

I said we'd go immediately to item two.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

And so you're now saying that the agenda of this meeting has been formally changed to reflect the will of two motions passed by this committee. Is this yes?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

I'm sure the minister agrees with that, and I agree with that, and I think members agree with that.

Mr. Warawa, on a point of order.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

I have a point of order. Thank you, Chair.

The motion that Mr. McGuinty is speaking to had no time limit. You have scheduled one hour to deal specifically with the supplementary estimates, which is the motion that Mr. McGuinty speaks to. There was an additional hour where the minister is willing to speak about anything, and so Mr. McGuinty has used up 15 minutes of his supplementary motion time.

So the motions that he speaks to are appropriately dealt with, with the agenda that we have before us. We just had a committee meeting, Mr. Chair, where the Liberals tried to hijack Bill C-30, and now we see a continuing pattern where they're trying to hijack and delay this government moving forward.

Mr. Chair, we need to listen to the minister. He's here. I don't want the delay happening anymore, and procedurally what you have is accurate. There was one hour allotted to dealing with the supplementary estimates, which is totally in harmony with what the committee approved. But I will not allow, Mr. Chair, that—

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Warawa, we're now in debate.

Mr. McGuinty, I have a suggestion. Would you move that we move directly to item two?

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Regan wants to speak.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Regan, I'm sorry.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Mr. Chairman, with all due respect, this is a big deal. We're talking about the right of democratically elected members of Parliament to determine what this committee does.

The majority of this committee, in fact, this committee twice has passed a motion unanimously—was it unanimous on Tuesday? It was unanimous the first time, the second time by majority, and decided what to do. The members elected by the people of this country have the responsibility and the right in this place to hold the executive to account, to hold ministers to account. That's why Mr. Baird is here. That's why it's up to members to decide the agenda of this committee. It's not up to the minister to come and tell you what the agenda should be. It's not up to you to change the agenda after members of this committee have decided twice what we should discuss at this meeting.

Mr. Chairman, I want to tell you I don't believe this is the kind of thing you want to do. This is not like you, Mr. Chairman, to have subverted the will of the committee. I don't believe for one second that you believe in doing this, and I'm sure you regret the fact that you've taken the will of the committee, which was to have the minister here and discuss the last year, and change it to what he wants instead.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Cullen. I know you've been trying to get in.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Chair, I'm going to suggest a way forward for this so we can get on with today's business in respect for the witnesses and the Canadian public, who are flipping the bill for this.

If Mr. McGuinty has some challenges to decisions that you did or did not make, it's actually available to him in other formats to make them. I respect his concerns, but I'm going to suggest for today, if the minister is in agreement with discussing the estimates, the previous government spending, that we proceed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

We'll proceed on supplementary estimates. We'll skip the main estimates. Let's go right to supplementary estimates. You can ask whatever you want. The members can ask whatever they want. Let's get on with it. We have a witness here. It's time to move on.

Is everyone in agreement with that?

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

The balance of the meeting, Mr. Chair, is the supplementary estimates ending March 31, 2007?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

It's whatever you want to ask, Mr. McGuinty.