Finance Committee on May 29th, 2014

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

It's not in your nature.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

Yes, it's not in my nature, and I do have some sympathy for this amendment. I think all of us do. But it really doesn't belong here. That's the difficulty with it.

I know my honourable colleagues across the way have been complaining vociferously about the fact that this is an omnibus bill and there's a lot of information in it, and this would actually put more information in it, quite frankly.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

But here's the difficulty. We have Bill C-31 that allowed for individuals' importation of intoxicating liquors across provincial borders. That was for the individual. It wasn't for a business entity. I think, really, this needs to be rethought, not brought in as an amendment but brought in as a private member's bill or an idea that committee could study at some other point, but not here.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay, thank you.

I have Mr. McKay, then, next, please.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Just watching the back and forth here, given that you still would have a regulatory hammer, shall we say, is the passage of this amendment any great harm?

[Brian McCauley]

In fairness, given that I think we just learned about it on Friday, I don't know that we've really been able to fully assess it. I'm not being evasive, but because it gets us into the world of commercial, which was not a world that was considered over the last year when we were dealing purely with personal, we just really haven't been able to make that assessment.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Mr. Keddy, please.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

To Mr. McKay's statement, what we'd end up doing is putting in legislation. We've not had a chance to speak to the provinces, to producers, to the provincial liquor authorities. They've not had an opportunity to look at any ramifications of this change. I mean it's just.... We can't do it.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

(Clause 163 agreed to)

I thank Mr. McCauley for his appearance here.

Colleagues, we have division 5, two clauses, 164 and 165.

I welcome our official, Patrick Xavier. Welcome to the committee.

Can we deal with these two clauses together then? Is there any discussion?

Mr. Cullen.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

May I make a suggestion to group 164 through 174?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay.

(Clauses 164 to 174 inclusive agreed to)

Thank you, Patrick. You should stay and help us pass the rest of it.

So we are up to division 9, Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. We have clauses 175 to 178. We have an amendment for clause 177.

Do members wish to speak to the two previous clauses 175 and 176?

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I'd like to speak to 175 please, Chair.

(On clause 175)

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Mr. Cullen.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I know this is dealing with ACOA and some of the significant challenges that have been going on there. One of our concerns is that the thing that needs to be done with ACOA is to increase the accountability. I know it was maybe the practice of previous governments to treat some of these regional economic development agencies as patronage dumping grounds. Unfortunately the government learned that lesson too well and too closely. Our concern is that there's even less accountability now being offered in these provisions. There is the eliminating of the president of ACOA to table a report to Parliament every five years. There have obviously been negative impacts on some very controversial decisions. Through ECBC this is the attempt to wash it all clean and bury the bodies.

Putting ECBC into ACOA is the attempt to do that but it's not going to fix the problem. There are other ways. The budget of ACOA itself has been cut by nearly one-third since 2006 under the government. So it's dealing with less money and less accountability. I'm not exactly sure how this is going to work out for people in maritime provinces, particularly Cape Breton. So I'm very much opposed to the changes. It has just been a mess and a continual mess. We see the firings, and the dismissals and then hiring friends of the justice minister is not a way to run anything, certainly not something so important as the ECBC or ACOA itself.

Here was an opportunity for the government to do something, even if it's in an omnibus bill, and they chose to run in the other direction. The accountability act seems like so long ago and so far away when you start to look at what the government's been doing since that time. So we'll be opposing, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Recorded vote...?

(Clause 175 agreed to yeas 5; nays 4)

(Clause 176 agreed to on division)

(On clause 177)

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

We have NDP-14 and just a hint, I do have a ruling on this one. We will ask Mr. Cullen to speak to it briefly and then we can address clause 177.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I'm sorry I expressed surprise there, Chair.

All this clause seeks to do is this. ACOA is meant to report every five years on how they've impacted regional disparity, that's the point of the organization. So we're moving an amendment to have it up to four years so that it falls typically within election cycles. If that's the mandate and the nature of the organization, I would have assumed that more reporting would be beneficial. Perhaps we've crafted this amendment in such a way as to not fall within the order, but that's all that we're seeking to do here. ACOA is an agency that needs more transparency and this is a way to offer that transparency up.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

My ruling is as follows. Bill C-31 seeks to amend the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency Act by removing the requirement that a comprehensive report be submitted by the agency president to the responsible minister. The amendment aims to re-establish the requirement for a report, and that it be submitted to the minister every four years.

House of Commons Procedure and Practice, second edition, states on page 766, “An amendment to a bill that was referred to committee after second reading is out of order if it is beyond the scope and principle of the bill.” In the opinion of the chair, the amendment seeks to maintain the report requirement, which is contrary to the principle of the bill. Therefore, I rule the amendment inadmissible.

That deals with NDP-14.

Is there any discussion on clause 177?

Mr. Cullen.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I appreciate the ruling, Chair. This is obviously not a criticism of that but a criticism of the government's move to eliminate the reporting requirement.

To the official in front of us—thank you for being here and for waiting so long—I'm trying to find out if this reporting was onerous, or expensive, or difficult. I don't understand why we're getting rid of this. Is there some other mechanism that's being offered up to show the accountability of the organization?

Can you perhaps illuminate me on why this is being done?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Welcome to the committee, Ms. Frenette, and please proceed.

[Denise Frenette, Vice-President, Finance and Corporate Services, Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency]

Thank you.

I'll start by going back to the origin of why the requirement was put in place. When ACOA was first created, it was time-limited for five years. At that time there was a need to report on activities and results to Canadians every five years, and report to Parliament.

Two key things have changed since then. The government has confirmed ongoing funding for ACOA, and there are also new, more rigorous, effective means of reporting and making sure there's transparency, accountability, and oversight of federal government operations. The legislative requirement of the five-year report predates the new reporting mechanisms that are now being required of all government departments, such as the departmental performance reports to Parliament. We do that on an annual basis, as every other government department does, and we publish reports on our website in terms of quarterly financial statements. We do evaluations of all of our programs.

Under the evaluation policy and also the requirements of the FAA, there is a requirement to cover all of our programs on a four-year cycle and do program evaluations of all of our programs. Those results of the evaluations are also posted on the agency's website.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you for that.

On the first point you made, because of “ongoing funding”, I'm not sure how that.... I understand the second part of what you said. You're suggesting the reporting is done in more enhanced ways since ACOA was first created or first stipulated to do this. Why would the ongoing funding matter one way or the other?

[Denise Frenette]

It's just that when we were created, we were created for five years, basically. So it's really important for the government to have mechanisms for us to come back and report on our activity on a five-year cycle to justify our ongoing existence.