Finance Committee on Feb. 5th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

Mr. Pacetti.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Mr. Chair, perhaps it's more a question of clarification. I don't seem to disagree with either Mr. Wallace or Mr. Mulcair, but we have estimates that relate to more than one department, and some of them are, for lack of a better word, slightly dry, so some of them we probably can do in an hour. We could perhaps review them in an hour, but there are some departments that require a little bit more time. If I'm not mistaken, we have the Department of Finance, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, Revenue Canada.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Jean-François Pagé]

We have not yet received the main estimates.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

That is what I am asking you. I do not know how much we have received.

[The Clerk]

Two.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Do you mean those from the Department of Finance and from the Canada Revenue Agency? Usually, they are the two main players.

[The Clerk]

I know that there is the one from the Department of Finance.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

For some of them, one hour will be amply sufficient.

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Mr. Chairman, shall we debate the motion?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Let me make a proposal here. The proposal is that after Mr. Carney, we do an hour on infrastructure. At the Thursday meeting, we do two hours on infrastructure. The following week we move to employment insurance. Then the Budget Implementation Act would receive priority from the committee, and employment insurance and infrastructure, if those are the two areas that are important to this committee, would lead into the Budget Implementation Act study.

The motion proposed by Mr. Laforest would be the highest priority item in terms of studies. The estimates will be slotted in as best I can as chair, but I do need some guidance, whether you want to give it to me now or whether you want to indicate in an e-mail to the clerk how many meetings, for how long, and what areas of interest you have. You can say we want finance department officials, or you can ask about a specific department, or a specific area you want more focus on.

That's the proposal I'm putting before the committee.

Mr. Wallace.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I just want to clarify for the members that the supplementary estimates B normally are approved in the fall. We did not have an opportunity to approve them in the fall because of the election and so on. The supplementaries B are for spending that cannot take place until they're approved, so the departments are waiting for estimates to get through before they can move on these items that they have.

Now, I have issues with the way the process works, but that's not the case. I have been on committees, Mr. Chair, where they--including the New Democratic members--didn't want to deal with supplementaries at all. They didn't want to have a meeting on them; they just wanted to deem them as passed. That has been my experience, and I have been hard pressed to get an actual meeting on them. I think in this case, for the finance department, we should.

I don't disagree with Mr. McCallum's approach on having a fulsome study on infrastructure, but you're trying to squeeze supplementaries in. You didn't even mention them in that round, other than to say we'll find a spot for them. I don't think that meets the intent, for me as a member of Parliament, of reviewing the actual spending that's happening and helping those departments that need the money to get approval to see it happen.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Let me just make something clear, as the chair. I don't determine the agenda. As best I can, I ascertain what members would like to study, try to form a consensus, and move forward. If there's a consensus on how to deal with the supplementary estimates, I am more than happy to adopt that as a process. In fact, Mr. Wallace, if you'd like to have an off-line discussion with Mr. Mulcair, and perhaps have an agreement and come back to the committee and say this is how we agree on dealing with supplementary estimates, I would be the happiest man in this room.

I'm not here to determine the agenda. I'm here to try to see what the committee would like to do.

I have Mr. Kramp, Mr. Mulcair, and then Mr. Laforest.

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

Mr. Chairman, as opposed to our colleague Mr. Wallace, I do not believe that the elections were the reason why the analysis of the supplementary estimates did not get done. Elections were held last October 14^th, and you must be aware that there was a prorogation of the House. This Parliament's work, which mainly consists in ensuring that public funds are spent properly, was suspended by its government for more than two months. This is the reason why the study has not yet been done.

As far as we are concerned, we do not belong to the new coalition between Conservatives and Liberals. We will work line by line to ensure that the public's interest is defended. In fact, somebody has to do this. One hour is clearly not enough for this committee. We estimate that it would take a minimum of six hours to do the work correctly, all the more so as I tasted some of your medicine this morning when I learned about the number of times I will be allowed to intervene. The Liberals get three opportunities to speak and the NDP gets one. We get the message. We know that from here on in, things will take longer.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Mr. Mulcair, do you have a proposal as to when you would like to study the supplementary estimates?

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

We could begin next week, after the series that you announced earlier. However, instead of one hour, we feel that it will take at least six hours.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

And when would these six hours take place?

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

Next week, after the series that you enumerated, when you mentioned expenditures on infrastructure, insurance and so forth.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

So we'd do that instead of infrastructure and then we'd have to add in another meeting, perhaps on the Wednesday.

Okay, the proposal then is to do the second hour on Tuesday on supplementary estimates, to add a meeting on the Wednesday--so that would be five hours--then to do the Thursday meeting on supplementary estimates.

Mr. Pacetti.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Mr. Chairman, it's a proposal from one member to ask for six hours of estimates. Again, I think the estimates are important. In the history of this committee, I don't think we've even spent an hour, because some committee members have not been interested in asking questions, not because the subject matter has been important or not important. Let's be reasonable here. I would suggest that perhaps we put the second hour aside. We'll see how that goes. Perhaps we put an hour and a half aside and see how that goes, and if we need to, we'll set up another meeting. But we don't even know which departments we're going to be looking at.

Perhaps Mr. Mulcair could provide us the ones with which he wants to spend six hours, but the Revenue Canada estimates are not worth six hours of our time, whether Mr. Mulcair believes that or not. I don't believe we've ever spent six hours on all the estimates that we've looked at. In Finance, there is not even material in all the appropriations that get out there. Let's be reasonable in this.

My suggestion would be we take the second hour and maybe take the second hour and a half. So perhaps we could have a meeting for two and a half hours, from 9 to 11:30, and spend an hour or an hour and a quarter with Mr. Carney so we can have a third round, and then have the estimates for another hour and a half or an hour and a quarter. Then we see how that goes, and at the same time have the infrastructure people here for Thursday so they have time to prepare. And if we need to have a meeting, we'll have one on Wednesday.

You have to use some discretion, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Mr. Carrier.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

A point of order, Mr. Chairman. We were studying the priorities of notices of motion, but there is a second motion on the table.

Regarding priority, I believe it is important for us to debate the second motion, so that it could be a part of the priorities that we wanted to establish. If we pass the second motion, it would also have to be a part of the debate. At the rate at which things are progressing, we will only be able to study the second motion in three months, because we are dealing with different priorities which are separate from this one.

If you agree, I would like to put the second notice of motion to a vote. Afterward, we can discuss the overall order of priorities.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

We have agreement for the first motion--a strong agreement of the committee. We are running short on time. I would like to get agreement, though, from the committee as to what we're going to do next week. We have the Governor of the Bank of Canada for the first hour. There's one proposal by Mr. McCallum to have the second hour on infrastructure and the Thursday meeting on infrastructure. Mr. Pacetti is recommending we have an hour and a half on the Tuesday meeting on estimates and then determine whether we need further meetings on the estimates. I'm open to what the committee would like to do.

Monsieur Laforest.

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Carrier is right. You said that we agreed on the first motion. Therefore, I would like to put it to a vote, unless it is unanimously adopted. It is important for us to settle this matter, because we are in a public session.

Secondly, it is important for us to discuss our future business. At the same time as we were debating the notice of motion, we also discussed future business. I would have preferred doing one thing at a time. There was a second notice of motion and if we are short of time, I hope that we can at least, some time next week, debate this motion because we had intended to debate it today.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

You're okay with dealing with the second motion next week, then.

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

I agree with regard to the second motion, but are we unanimous about the first one?