Evidence of meeting #46 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was witnesses.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
No. I want people to have a chance to think about this. We're going to come back in 10 minutes. We'll come back at four o'clock and resume.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
We're resuming now.
Colleagues, I indicated to you at the last meeting that I would come forward with a budget. I want to deal with that right now. I think it's fairly straightforward. I don't want to give any personal details, but we have a couple of witnesses who would like prompt reimbursement of the expenses they incurred to appear before us, and they would like to leave this account with us today. It can't be processed without a budget.
Circulated before you is a best-effort budget that I had asked the clerks to come forward with, based on our best expectation of witnesses who would appear and would have travel costs.
The total travel expenses were estimated at approximately $39,900. To the extent that the committee decides to have any further meetings with further witnesses, a further budget would have to be submitted to the committee for its approval.
Unless there are any questions, I would like to simply ask the committee this: does the committee approve the budget as circulated?
Do you have a question, Mr. Del Mastro? Okay, and then it's Mr. Tilson and Mr. Wallace.
Mr. Del Mastro, please.
Conservative
Dean Del Mastro Conservative Peterborough, ON
I'd simply like to point out for the record that the committee is authorizing virtually the entire amount that it can authorize, on its own volition, for expenses for this procedure. The most the membership here could authorize is $39,999. We are authorizing $39,900. I request that all of you take time to consider whether this is a good use of $40,000 of taxpayers' money.
Thank you.
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
In the witnesses' expenses portion, which lists off the $39,000, I wonder whether you could explain to me.... That's 20 witnesses, at least on this proposed budget. What happens to all the other witnesses? Do they not get anything?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
Mr. Tilson, a number of the witnesses are local in Ottawa, so there wouldn't be travel costs, and based on statements that persons have made about declining to appear who cannot be summoned, I was not going to provide for them.
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
Mr. Chairman, I've taken the position from the very beginning that these proceedings are discriminatory. Many of the proceedings taking place—with all respect to you, sir—are out of order. The entire proceedings are out of order, as I think the committee will probably find to their embarrassment when it comes before the House, if it ever does come before the House. When I feel that way, I don't know how I can possibly support a motion to pay $40,000 for witness fees.
I have to tell you, I'm genuine about this. I really think these entire proceedings have become incredibly political. The timing of what goes on is obvious. In my heart, there's just no way in a million years I'm going to support paying $40,000 to witnesses to appear at proceedings that shouldn't be taking place in the first place. It's a complete waste of taxpayers' money.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I fundamentally disagree with you on the public office-holder piece. You ruled me out of order about a thousand times when I tried to go over what a public-officer holder was during the last.... But it's in the motion.
We have people who have come just today, and I think we should reimburse the people who came today. First of all, I think this budget should have been passed at the last set of meetings before you invited people, but it's here today, so I'm willing to support a budget for this.
Even though half the witnesses—and I've counted up—were not involved in the regional ad buy, I would like to know, of the witnesses who are listed here, because you must have an idea who they are, how many actually were involved in the regional ad buy. If they weren't involved in the regional ad buy—and whether you agree or disagree with this, I don't care—they really should not be witnesses. They're wasting our time and, in this case, public tax money. I don't mind inviting people who have been involved in the 2006 election and involved in the regional ad buy, but concerning others who were not, I think we should revisit the list and disqualify those candidates.
My question to you, sir, is do you know, of the people here—what is it, about 20 people here?—whether all 20 were involved in the regional ad buy?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
Well, as you know, the proposed witness list was submitted by the parties. They have determined that they have questions for these people that they believe are relevant to the motion before us.
I have not been given the details, but I can tell you that obviously the people from Elections Canada are witnesses; they are not involved in the regional buy, but they have been called. The public prosecutor, the experts we had proposed—there were three there—none of those are, obviously. There are some people on the list who refused to participate in the buy.
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
I assume you're telling me that if they were in the election and refused to participate in the retail buy, they're not relevant witnesses.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
What I'm asking is, if they were involved, if they've agreed to come—you have them down here as agreeing to come, I'm assuming—if they've indicated that they're coming and they were involved in the regional ad buy, I think we should have public money pay for them to come here and be witnesses.
Conservative
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
That was the point. So if they're not coming, they're not budgeted for. That was one point.
Secondly, you don't know whether they are involved in the regional ad buy or not.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
Okay, and then my third question is this. This is for the approved list. My understanding is that there was a list of witnesses provided, you ruled a whole bunch of them out of order because you thought they were irrelevant, and then it went to a vote. There's no flexibility in here for us to bring, after we've seen a set of witnesses, some other witnesses from that list who may in actual fact be relevant after we've heard some things. That is not included in this number. Is that correct?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
No. As I had indicated to you, if the committee decides to hold additional hearings and call additional witnesses, we would have to bring forward a further amendment to the budget, obviously, to deal with decisions that have not yet been made.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
My final point—because I don't want to belabour this—is that I'm happy to support the budget for those who were here today. Could we delay this until tomorrow, and could you find out, on these 20 witnesses? We pay for the ones who came today, because we had no choice, but for the other ones, could you let the committee know which ones of this number were involved in the regional ad buy or not?
That would be my preference, and then we could vote on it tomorrow, since you're not getting any witnesses tomorrow morning anyway.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
I understand your opinion. That's up to the committee to decide in terms of the budget.
Mr. Goodyear, Mr. Martin, and then Mr. Lemieux.
