Finance Committee on Nov. 26th, 2014

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Again, this would add language on page 391, line 14, ensuring that “the same freedom from interference in the performance of his or her powers, duties or functions”, and “in particular the determination of evidence-based public health priorities for the Agency, the provision of health advice to the public and unfettered access to the public and media, as is conferred to the President by section 5.4”. The goal then is to make sure the CPHO has not only this independence and freedom from interference, but a specific statutory authority to make information public.

Now, of course, under the bill there's no such power. Information can be provided to the minister, but the government believes the clarity is already there; it's implicit that this officer has independence and can make information public. If that's the case, then they would probably welcome the clarity this would provide.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay, thank you, Mr. Rankin.

On this, Mr. Adler, please.

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I'm a little surprised that Mr. Cullen would be proposing such a motion. As the most knowledgeable of all MPs, I think he would know a little better.

But in any event, the proposal will not diminish the influence or public health advice of the chief public health officer. The CPHO will continue to provide the best possible public health advice to the minister and to Canadians. He or she will continue to speak to Canadians about public health risks and will continue to provide an annual report to the minister on the state of public health in Canada for tabling in Parliament. The changes proposed in this bill will allow the chief public health officer to focus on public health matters that are of critical importance to Canadians.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Mr. Adler.

We'll go, then, to the vote on amendment NDP-5.

(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

(Clause 255 agreed to)

(On clause 256)

We have Green Party amendment PV-13, so we'll go to Elizabeth May, please.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I sense our arguments are wearing you down and you're ready to vote for something now. I'm excited. As we approach my Green Party amendment—I know, I'm getting excited about this—we would replace line 18 on page 391, so that we would have the chief public health officer will “provide the Minister with” public health advice. In other words leaving this senior bureaucratic president out of the loop to ensure that at least the public health officer can provide the minister directly with advice.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay.

I have one question, because I did discuss this during our committee hearings, that I want to ask Mr. Segard. There was a question raised during the hearings—not necessarily by a member but by people before the committee—intimating that if this passes the chief public health officer would provide advice to the president and then the president would provide the advice to the minister. The chief public health officer would be subordinate to the president in that role. Can you clarify this to me? The legislation is quite explicit:

The Chief Public Health Officer shall provide the Minister and the President with public health advice that is developed on a scientific basis.

Can you address that for me?

[Sylvain Segard, Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy, Planning and International Affairs Branch, Public Health Agency of Canada]

Certainly, I'd be happy to, Mr. Chair.

The reality is that currently, or under this provision, the chief public health officer would be able to provide direct advice to the minister—at any time, under any circumstances, at her request or his request, or on his own volition—and to forward advice to the minister on any matter of public health.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Any matter at all...?

[Sylvain Segard]

Correct.

The chief public health officer will also provide public health advice to his colleagues, whether they be the president of the agency under this proposal or another deputy minister elsewhere in government. Currently, for example, under the Ebola outbreak, the chief public health officer dispenses advice and information to the deputy minister of foreign affairs and a number of other portfolios because that advice is required in order for the government to act on the best information possible.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay, I appreciate that very much.

We will move to the vote on PV-13. All those in favour?

(Amendment negatived)

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

On clause 256, all those in favour?

(Clause 256 agreed to)

(On clause 257)

We will then move to clause 257, and we have one amendment. We have PV-14. I will let Ms. May speak. I will hint to her that the chair has a ruling, but she will have the opportunity to speak for one minute.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

This is deleting the clause of the bill that will remove the chief public health officer's rank status as deputy head of department. It flows with amendments that I proposed in 11 through 13 so that the chief public health officer would retain the status of deputy head.

I'll just say one of the practical reasons that this makes sense is that departmental heads, deputy ministers exchange information at that level a lot and all the time. Many public health experts believe it's important to have the chief public health officer in that loop with other deputy ministers to be able to share and assess information at that level, peer to peer. We believe it's very important to ensure that the chief public health officer remain with the status of deputy head of the department.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay, thank you very much, Ms. May.

The chair has a ruling. The ruling is as such: this amendment seeks to delete the clause. As House of Commons Procedure and Practice, second edition, states on page 768:

An amendment that attempts to delete an entire clause is out of order, since voting against the adoption of the clause in question would have the same effect.

As members are aware, parliamentary practice does not permit to be done indirectly what cannot be done directly. This amendment is therefore inadmissible.

We will move to the vote on clause 257.

(Clause 257 agreed to)

(On clause 258)

We'll go to clause 258. We have PV-15, one amendment.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

I will hint to Ms. May I have another ruling, which I know will not surprise her.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

I'll just say that, of course, not being allowed to vote on the committee, I have to do indirectly that which I can't do directly.

Thank you for your ruling, Mr. Chair.

This is an attempt to reinstate the travel budget of the chief public health officer so that our senior medical officer for Canada's public health agency be allowed to travel. This was also recommended by Professor Hoffman in committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much, Ms. May.

The ruling is as such: Bill C-43 amends the Public Health Agency of Canada Act by repealing subsection 10(2) of the act. This amendment seeks to reinstate subsection 10(2).

As House of Commons Procedure and Practice, second edition, states on page 768:

An amendment that attempts to delete an entire clause is out of order, since voting against the adoption of the clause in question would have the same effect.

As members are aware, parliamentary practice does not permit to be done indirectly what cannot be done directly. Members who do not agree with the repealing of subsection 10(2) are to vote against the clause. The amendment is therefore inadmissible

We will then move to the vote on clause 258.

Shall clause 258 carry?

(Clause 258 agreed to)

(Clauses 259 and 260 agreed to)

I want to thank Mr. Segard for being here with us this evening. I appreciate that very much.

(On clauses 261 to 265 inclusive)

Colleagues, we'll go to division 21, Economic Action Plan 2013 Act, No. 2. We have clauses 261 to 265. I do not have any amendments for these clauses. Do we want discussion on this? We'll allow the officials to come to the table.

Do you have a very brief comment, Mr. Cullen?

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

I have a very brief comment, Chair.

I'm happy to see the government is mopping up from the last omnibus bill again. This is a correction to the previous piece of legislation. We keep a running tally of all the mistakes that get corrected in the next omnibus bill. We try to point the mistakes out as we're going along. As long as they get corrected at some point, I suppose.... It's a strange way to run a country, but there you have it. I just want to circle it a little.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

Shall clauses 261 to 265 carry?

(Clauses 261 to 265 inclusive agreed to)

Thank you so much for being with us here this evening.

Colleagues, the next division is division 22, central cooperate credit societies and federal credit unions. I do not have amendments.

(Clauses 266 to 303 inclusive agreed to on division)

Thank you.

Colleagues, are there comments on division 23? If not, we can deal with it now.

(Clauses 304 and 305 agreed to)

We will take a 10- to 15-minute break and we'll deal with division 24 when we come back.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

I call back to order meeting 62 of the Standing Committee on Finance dealing with the budget implementation act, clause by clause. I want to welcome our officials here to deal with division 24, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

(On clauses 306 and 307)

We have clauses 306 and 307 without amendments. Can I group those two clauses?

Mr. Rankin, do you want to address both, or each separately?

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

I think I can address them together.

This, of course, has to do with the temporary foreign workers issue. I think there's an acknowledgement implicit in both provisions that the program is broken, but it doesn't seem that we're doing a heck of a lot to fix it. We think there needs to be more transparency so that we know what's happening here. That's the main thrust of this. The measures seem to be half measures.

I think the main part is the lack of transparency. What we would hope for, and it's not here, is an independent review of the temporary foreign worker program so that we can fix it once and for all.

That's essentially the issue.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Mr. Rankin.

I have Mr. Hsu, on clauses 306 and 307.

[Ted Hsu, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Perhaps I will make some general remarks about division 24, if that's okay, at the beginning here.

The Liberal Party generally supports the measures in division 24, except that Bill C-43, a second act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 11, 2014 and other measures, includes some new fees to pay for this new compliance regime, and it exempts these fees from the accountability measures in the User Fees Act.

We don't think that exemption is justified. In fact, given the Conservative record, we need to strengthen accountability measures for user fees, not weaken them. Under the Conservative government, processing times for economic immigrants has gone up between 19% and 113% since 2007, depending on the different streams of federal skilled workers. We're concerned that the same thing could happen with processing times under the new temporary foreign worker regime. The government needs strong accountability measures to ensure that it provides timely service in exchange for charging the fee.

In the words of the Canadian Bar Association, “Exempting these fees from the User Fees Act invites the imposition of fees without accountability.”

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay, thank you for that.

All those in favour of clauses 306 and 307?

(Clauses 306 and 307 agreed to)

(On clause 308)

We'll move to clause 308, and we have amendments NDP-6 and NDP-7.

Mr. Rankin, you can address them together or separately, however you wish to proceed.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Yes, the objective is really quite straightforward. In proposed section 30.1, it would read:

The Minister or the Minister of Employment and Social Development shall,

Then it would continue.

That's the objective, to make that mandatory. That's the thrust of NDP-6.

Should I speak to the second one as well?