Evidence of meeting #6 for Finance in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was budget.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Massimo Pacetti Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
That is why I asked the question. Thank you very much.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
Merci, Monsieur Pacetti.
Thank you all for coming in today, for your presentations, for your responses to our questions.
Members, we will suspend for a couple of minutes. You can say goodbye to the witnesses, and then we will go to some committee business immediately thereafter. We do have to approve the budget, and we have a motion by Mr. Mulcair.
I will suspend for about a minute.
Thank you.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
Members, we have a motion by Mr. Mulcair.
First of all, I just want to deal with the operational budget. We have an operational budget request. I hope all members have a copy of this. The amount requested is $20,900. Will someone move this?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
Mr. McKay moves that we adopt the budget.
Mr. Pacetti, do you have a question on the budget?
Liberal
Massimo Pacetti Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
I think it's the same question I always have. It's just basically where do we get the amounts from, the $1,500 for Toronto, the $1,700 for Quebec, and the $300 for Montreal? I think the $300 is reasonable, because you can cycle here or you can even cross-country ski here, but I'm not sure why the Toronto rate is at $1,500 and Quebec is at $1,700. I'd hate to see people coming from out west or up north and how much they're allocated.
How much of this do we expect to be spent for the hearings?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
We don't have any witnesses coming from outside of these three centres or from Ottawa. In terms of why they chose the number $1,500 for Toronto, I'm not sure.
Do you want to address that?
The Clerk of the Committee Mr. Jean-François Pagé
It could be less than that. They pay their own expenses and we reimburse them. So we don't know how much it's going to cost. That's the usual practice.
Liberal
Massimo Pacetti Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
How much are the other committees approving for Toronto and Quebec? Is this the House, or is this a figure that has come up between the chairman and the clerk?
Liberal
Massimo Pacetti Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
So this is what the other committees are approving as well. How much of this are we expecting to spend?
Liberal
Liberal
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
Thank you.
Are there any further questions or discussion on the budget?
Mr. Menzies.
Conservative
Ted Menzies Conservative Macleod, AB
Just as long as this is standard practice.... But I do need to remind the chair that when I was a private citizen and I used to travel here from Alberta, I did so at my own expense because I felt it was important.
Conservative
Ted Menzies Conservative Macleod, AB
No, I paid for air fare, because it would take many days to get here by cross-country skis.
How long has this been a standing practice?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
We have a routine motion--as does, I assume, every single committee before the House--to cover the expenses of witnesses. The motion the committee voted for---
