Finance Committee on Nov. 21st, 2012

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

I call this meeting to order.

This is the 94th meeting of the Standing Committee on Finance. Our orders of the day are pursuant to the order of reference of Tuesday, October 30, 2012. This is our study of Bill C-45, a second act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 29, 2012 and other measures.

Colleagues, before we get into the clause-by-clause consideration, we do have a notice of motion from Ms. Nash. I think we should deal with that item first, since we do not know how long we will be dealing with clause-by-clause.

Ms. Nash, I give the floor to you, please.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

I'm sorry this coincidentally comes up today. We have a lot on our plates, but I have a motion that the committee members should have, and the motion reads:

That the Committee invite the Honourable Jim Flaherty, Minister of Finance, to appear before the Committee regarding the Supplementary Estimates (B) 2012-2013 before December, 4, 2012 and that this meeting be televised.

I so move.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much, Ms. Nash.

I have Ms. Glover on the speakers list.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to propose a friendly amendment to the motion.

But as a Métis person, I do want to acknowledge some elders that are here today. I want to welcome them, as well as the chief and some council members.

Having said that, I would like to a propose very small friendly amendment. Because of the charged agenda that we have, and of course the Minister of Finance also has a very charged agenda, I would suggest the committee invite the department officials to appear before the committee who might answer questions with regard to this. I would hope Ms. Nash would support that.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

You're amending it to read that the committee invite officials from the Department of Finance to appear before the committee—

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

As opposed to the Minister of Finance.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

You want to replace “the Honourable Jim Flaherty, Minister of Finance”, with “department officials”.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

That's correct.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay. I'll take that as an amendment. Is there discussion on the amendment?

We have bells. Are they 30-minute bells?

Yes. Can I ask the consent of the committee to continue for, say, another 15 minutes?

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Can I just speak about that?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

About this issue?

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

About your request for consent to go through the bells.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

If I don't have consent, I can't continue. I have to either have consent or not.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

We give consent.

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

No.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

We'll suspend and come back after the vote.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

I call this meeting back to order, the 94th meeting of the Standing Committee on Finance. We were discussing the motion by Ms. Nash and the amendment by Ms. Glover.

I will take speakers for the amendment of Ms. Glover, please.

We'll go to Ms. Nash and then Mr. Brison.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Chair, the amendment is that we have officials come here in place of the minister, and we don't believe that's acceptable. There is such a thing as ministerial accountability. We believe the minister is, of course, responsible for the estimates, and he should be here to answer to the finance committee. We don't accept that officials would replace the minister.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay, thank you.

I have Mr. Brison, and then Mr. Caron.

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

Ms. Glover said it was a friendly amendment. I want to clarify. Was it to have the officials with the minister? In that case it would be a friendly amendment. It would probably be redundant because that would be assumed.

If it's to replace the minister with the officials, that would not be a friendly amendment. It changes the intention I think of the motion. Certainly the Conservatives are confident in their minister's capacity to deliver before committee, or I assume so, and as such they would probably have no problem with hearing from the minister as per Ms. Nash's motion.

Clearly, ministerial accountability is essential to our system, and as such we do not understand any quarrel with the idea and the principle behind having Minister Flaherty appear before the committee, and perhaps Ms. Glover, because she did say it was a friendly amendment...perhaps we misunderstand and maybe it was simply her intention to affirm that the minister would be joined by department officials that day. If, in fact, that's what she was suggesting in her amendment, assuming it was in fact a friendly amendment, then we would have no difficulty with that. But we believe that would be assumed and redundant as such.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

I have Monsieur Caron, and then Ms. Glover, please.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

I am also opposed to the amendment. The excuse we are given is the minister's heavy schedule. We are all familiar with ministers' responsibilities—be it when it comes to this committee or other committees. They are all very busy, but they are required to appear before the committees under whose jurisdiction those departments are, to fulfill their accountability obligation regarding results.

In order for us to be able to study supplementary estimates (B), the minister, pursuant to his obligations, will have to appear before us. The reason put forward—the minister's heavy schedule—does not justify his avoiding the obligation to account to this committee, in my opinion.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

I'll go to Ms. McLeod now.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Certainly, we have the greatest of confidence in the minister, who, of course, has led Canada through tremendously difficult times. Unfortunately, he's not available before the time deadline that has been asked for in the motion.

Therefore, understanding that supplementary estimates are important, we thought the officials could provide the important information needed.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Ms. McLeod.

We have bells again, presumably for a vote.

I have to have consent to continue the meeting, so I either have consent or I don't. Do I have consent to continue the meeting?