Finance Committee on Sept. 29th, 2011

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

We could just amend the first one to include the wording of the second one. Would it be possible, while we discuss the first one, to have the second one...?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

The mover has to move his motion.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

I understand.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

I think members have it, but why don't we pass this motion out?

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

But if we pass it, isn't it the case that we can't amend it? Do you want him to move it, discuss it, amend it, and then pass it?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

The issue here is that the second motion almost has 48 hours--I think it has 45 hours. I thought members of the government were going to talk to members of the opposition and ask if they could deal with both motions today because they're on the same subject. That's the way we should proceed. We ask the opposition, since it's 45 hours.... Is that correct? So it's two sleeps, and it's dealing with the same topic. I can address the second motion as well, because I've talked to Kevin Page about it.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

That was my suggestion--that we talk about it together and possibly amend it.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Let's deal with the arguments on the first one and see if we can deal with the second one.

I'll come back to you if necessary, Mr. Jean.

Mr. Giguère, your turn.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

I understood Mr. Hoback's notice of motion perfectly. It is nice and may provide some useful information.

The problem is whether the Parliamentary Budget Officer has the resources to comply fully with the request. Here is my problem: I don't want the Parliamentary Budget Officer's attention to these requests to compromise his ability to carry out all the duties that will be asked of him.

Can you guarantee that he has and will continue to have the resources necessary to carry out these extra duties? I would like Mr. Hoback to answer.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Mr. Hoback, I'll let you respond to that.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Again, thank you for your question.

When it comes to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, he has to schedule his budget accordingly. He has a budget, just like any other department in the House of Commons.

I guess when I look at the type of work he's doing and the priority he puts on it, I would probably put this at a higher priority because it has such an impact on the treasury, possibly, in a private member's bill. I would put that into a higher priority than a forecast that he may or may not do, depending on his free time.

I suspect that he would have the ability to do it. Again, not every bill would need extensive analysis. If you had a simple bill, such as we had come forward on the flag, that's not going to have a huge analysis attached to it. But if you had a bill that was going to, let's say, extend unemployment insurance for another year or two years, then there's some dire--not dire, but serious financial consequences to a private member's bill such as that. As a member, I would then like to know what it would cost, versus the benefit, versus what's in the bill. I need to have all that information in front of me so that when I vote on that private member's bill, which again is not a whipped vote--it's a private member's bill, so the members vote independently--I'd like to have that information. I'd like to make sure all my colleagues have that information too.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Mr. Giguère.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Chair, this has nothing to do with the importance of being well-informed. On the contrary, everyone quite enjoys having all the information on what they will be voting on and what it's going to cost.

What we are looking for is an absolute guarantee from the government that the Parliamentary Budget Officer will always have the resources he needs to do his job, and not just to respond to requests of this nature.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

When I tabled this motion.... No, I have not talked to the Parliamentary Budget Officer because I didn't think it would be appropriate to talk to him before I talked to my colleagues on the finance committee. Can I do guarantees based on a private member's motion? No, I don't have that for you, Alain. I'm sorry, I don't.

Again, he has a budget; he has finances at his disposal to use as he sees fit. All we're asking of him is to put a priority on this type of legislation and put his resources toward that. I think that is a good use of his time and a very good use of his resources, and it would be very beneficial for every member of Parliament for him to use his resources accordingly in something like this. It simply formalizes that process.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

I have Mr. Marston, Mr. Brison, Mr. Jean, Mr. Nicholls, and Monsieur Mai.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

There are a couple of things that have come up, and in fact I'm working from some notes. We just went back and forth very quickly with Peggy.

What's important to us, if we're expecting the PVO to do this work, is that they have the input of the necessary information from the government departments that might be involved. We may be in a position in a moment to propose some amendments to this to be helpful.

The other thing we're concerned with--and Mr. Hoback came over and spoke to us for a moment and I raised this with him--is that there are 12 to 14 people who work in the PVO. What is this going to do to them as far as staffing? Will there be need for more staffing, or would there be room for a budget increase to allow for that?

One of the things that was mentioned was that the “45 days” in the motion might be changed to “as quickly as possible”. This kind of leaves a little bit of flexibility for the work.

We certainly will consider this. If you could take a look at those, perhaps Mr. Mai might move them as amendments when his turn to speak comes. I can't, because I just spoke.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Mr. Marston.

Mr. Brison.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

I don't think there's anybody at committee who is averse to the costing of legislation. In fact, in the last Parliament, there were members of the House of Commons finance committee who sought information on the cost of government legislation that was not forthcoming. In fact, the Parliamentary Budget Officer in the last Parliament was not provided with information on the cost of government legislation, on the crime bills, on the F-35s. He was not provided with adequate information to actually cost those bills, which represented billions of dollars of tax expenditures.

So if the principle is that we want all legislation costed, I would propose a friendly amendment, in fact two amendments. One would be after “Private Members' Business Order of Precedence”, I would add, “and within 30 calendar days of a government bill appearing on the order paper”.

Further, I would add at the end of Mr. Hoback's motion:

The committee also requests that all relevant departments and agencies provide the PBO with the information required for the PBO to carry out this analysis, or provide a detailed response to the committee explaining why the required information either does not exist or cannot be shared with the committee under Canadian law.

That would be consistent with Mr. Hoback's motion that members of Parliament ought to have the costing of legislation, and it would broaden it so that not simply private members' business but also government legislation would be costed by the Parliamentary Budget Officer. I'm certain that this friendly amendment will be received warmly by members of this committee seeking full transparency of government and private members' legislation.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Can you read your amendment again, Mr. Brison?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Certainly. I'll start again.

After “Order of Precedence”, add “and within 30 calendar days of a government bill appearing on the order paper”, and at the end I would add:

The committee also requests that all relevant departments and agencies provide the PBO with the information required for the PBO to carry out this analysis or provide a detailed response to the committee explaining why the required information either does not exist or cannot be shared with the committee under Canadian law.

Mr. Chair, I assume this will be embraced by the committee, because it would certainly be inexplicable to Canadians if this committee believed that the private members' business should be costed by the PBO but government legislation ought not to be.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

I have six speakers who want to speak to Mr. Hoback's motion, and I have an amendment now. Does someone want to speak to the amendment?

I have Mr. Jean, Monsieur Nicholls, Monsieur Mai, Mr. Albas, and Mr. Marston on the motion. Now because you're on first, does any one of you want to speak to the amendment?

We can certainly start with Mr. Hoback and Mr. Jean on the amendment, and then I'll come to you.

Mr. Hoback on the amendment.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Thank you.

No, I do have some problems. First of all, I have problems with the context in which the amendment was made, around Mr. Brison's reference to last year. Those numbers were given. He just wouldn't accept them. He wouldn't accept the fact that those were the actual numbers, and he kept driving in further and further trying to get different numbers that didn't exist.

So again, I'm not sure where he's going with that, but that's just pure politics. The reality is, too, when it comes to government bills--the opposition members do know this, or if they don't, I'll tell them--they have the ability on government bills to ask the government for the costing. They have that ability right now, whereas they don't on private members' bills. With most government bills, the costing is already figured into it. So you'll see the costing on a government bill when it's introduced in the House, and if it's not there, then you can request that the government provide a costing or the department provide a costing on a government bill.

So you do have that process in place right now. Unfortunately, when it comes to private members' bills, you have no ability to do that, and that's why it would be important to have the Parliamentary Budget Officer do that work for you. Thus, your amendment is not really necessary, Mr. Brison, because you already have that ability through the use of government resources that are available to you right now. So I don't think that amendment is necessary at this point in time.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay. We can add you to the list.

We're now at 1:25. We probably could go back and forth on this issue all day, so if we can just have people make very succinct points, then we'll vote on the amendment.

We'll go now to Mr. Jean.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

This is not on the amendment suggested by Mr. Brison.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay, then, I'll come back to you.

Monsieur Mai, on the amendment.