Could we go that way?
Evidence of meeting #197 for Finance in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was information.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #197 for Finance in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was information.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:15 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
That would get us to where you're trying to get to, I think, and do it properly—
11:15 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
—and get it in order. The first step would be just to withdraw the whole thing as a subamendment and move the bottom paragraphs as a subamendment to the amendment. We'll deal with that, and then we'll deal with the amendment as is or as amended.
11:15 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
And then we will come back and make your (a), (d), (e) and down the line as an amendment to that centre section of the motion that's already in place.
11:15 a.m.
Conservative
Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB
Just so I understand correctly, you're saying the bottom part, where it starts, “that the committee dedicate”, would be a subamendment to Mr. Fergus' amendment.
11:15 a.m.
Conservative
Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB
Okay, and then I could propose the content (a) to (j) as a separate amendment instead, after we've debated—
11:15 a.m.
Conservative
Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB
—the subamendment and the amendment, then back to the main motion, a new amendment for the content between a), just adding after c), I guess, to add further content to the motion.
11:15 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Adding after (c), so your (a) would be become (d), (e), (f), (g), (h), (i), (j), (k), (l), (m).
Are we agreeable to that?
11:15 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Can you withdraw your subamendment and propose a new subamendment, “that the committee dedicate up to three meetings...?" Then we can debate that and the amendment.
11:15 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
What is on the floor is a subamendment to the amendment, which is in black on your original paper you have before you:
That the Committee dedicate up to three meetings to the hearing of witnesses in Ottawa; that the Committee not travel outside of Ottawa for the purposes of this study, but welcome experts and stakeholders from outside of Ottawa to appear before the Committee through teleconference; and that the Committee report its findings to the House no later than Monday, April 1, 2019.
That's a subamendment to the reading:
That the Committee dedicate up to four meetings to the hearings of witnesses in Ottawa; that the Committee examine opportunities to travel to jurisdictions that have implemented a framework for open banking, including the United Kingdom; and that the Committee report its findings to the House no later than Friday, June 7, 2019.
The subamendment is proposed to that amendment.
It's open for discussion. Do you want to start, Tom?
11:15 a.m.
Conservative
Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB
Okay. I'll start.
Probably a few people will be concerned about the fact that we're trying to move up the date from June 7 to April 1, but we all know that in June we'll be doing the BIA. Typically, the process for this committee has been that we do the BIA for nearly that entire month. Typically, although maybe it won't happen this year, the government caucus has moved a programming motion that kind of constrains how many days we spend debating it.
With that in mind, I know that the month of May will be consumed by that. I'm not complaining about it. It's fine. We should spend time on the BIA. But that's why moving it up to Monday, April 1, seems reasonable. It would leave a few days in April, perhaps, for a study to look at some other things I've mentioned before, such as the mortgage stress test study, B-20. Many members have heard me talk about that, either here in the House or in quiet hallway conversations that I've had with some of you.
I think it's important that we manage the committee's time as best as we can. I know we don't have that many meetings in March, but just because we have one sitting week doesn't mean we cannot schedule meetings during constituency breaks or schedule more meetings, as this committee has done with other opportunities. For the BIA, for example, we had meetings every single day, Monday to Thursday, to consider and hear from officials and hear from experts as well as witnesses from outside of the precinct, such as stakeholder groups, which I think is important to do.
That's why, if there are any concerns about the timeline of April 1, I think it's a better timeline than leaving it out to June 7. In any case, we wouldn't be able to go back and look at the open banking issue until then. We wouldn't be able to report back, because we have the BIA to consider in May. April 1 leaves aside a few committee dates. Just so that the committee knows, April 2, April 4, April 9 and April 11 are empty days right now. Nothing has been scheduled in terms of a study, estimates or anything else. We have an estimates meeting coming up. We do have April 30 already booked for a report of the Bank of Canada on monetary policy, which I see is tentative right now. That leaves us four open dates. As I've said in the past, I think we could fill it with other, shorter-term studies where we at least hear from stakeholders and expert witnesses. That is why April 1, to me, is an important date for us to report back our findings.
You'll note that in here I don't have a request for recommendations. It's staying true to what we had discussed at the last meeting and what appears in Mr. Fergus' motion, which is that we just report back findings on open banking and nothing more. That could be much simpler than writing a fulsome report with recommendations in it. I know that takes more time to consider as committee members, with amendments being proposed by all sides.
The other part of this subamendment is about no travel. I know that in the original, there's mention of us looking at other jurisdictions, which is fine, but there's also examining “opportunities to travel to jurisdictions that have implemented a framework for open banking, including the United Kingdom”. With regard to that specific mention of the United Kingdom in there, it worries me that we would spend quite a bit time travelling in the next two months to another jurisdiction, with all the costs associated with the committee travelling. There's also the time consumption involved in flying back and forth, especially “over the pond”, as it's called, which would consume additional days of travel.
I think it's far more reasonable, more cost-effective and better stewardship of taxpayer dollars for us to welcome experts and stakeholders from outside the Ottawa region to appear before the committee by teleconference. I think it works really well when technology is on our side and we have no technological disruptions. At every committee I've been at, including this one, teleconference has worked just fine.
It works pretty well for those witnesses who speak in a language that requires our interpreters to make the interpretation. I think most times it's been pretty good. They can keep up with witnesses who are appearing. I also think it's more effective for the witnesses, who don't then have to travel here. They don't have to make travel arrangements. I know those are covered by the House of Commons and by the committee, but in this way, we could ensure that more people could appear as witnesses before the committee. There would be fewer scheduling conflicts, I would assume. It would allow them an opportunity to provide their expert testimony to the committee without our having to incur the additional costs of travel. The logistical costs associated with moving us around are also of concern to me.
You'll notice also that I have limited it to three meetings. That's because in looking at the calendar, I think three meetings on open banking would be sufficient. I'll remind the committee that the open banking provisions are in the budget document. I did mention that one paragraph in the budget document and the page in it. As I understand it, it is not in the minister's mandate letter, but other things in there reference open banking.
I'm concerned that we may spend quite a bit of time looking at open banking without giving ourselves an opportunity to take up other issues that may come up. With everything that's going on on the floor of the House of Commons right now, we could take a look at DPAs one more time. I know this came before the committee, but that could require a few more committee meetings for us to consider if what happened in the last BIA document was reasonable, how have they been used and their financial impact, because they were in the omnibus budget bill, and why not. We could call the officials before the committee one more time to see if it's been used in any way or if there have been conversations about its usage.
Looking at the calendar in April, we have four meetings where we could schedule a study of different issues. I'm hoping we can agree what those issues would be without open banking taking them up entirely. The original motion says there would be up to four meetings to hear witnesses in Ottawa, but because of the way it was worded, it does not allow us the opportunity for additional meetings on a travel schedule outside Ottawa. That's the way I read the original amendment, which is why I'm offering this amendment here to make sure that we don't travel outside Ottawa to another jurisdiction because that's what we had said at the time that we would do.
I really think it would be better stewardship of taxpayers' dollars but also allow a maximum number of witnesses to come in on open banking through teleconferencing to provide their testimony. Often I've found that we also want to go back and forth between what a witness says and what officials have to say. Officials are in Ottawa. I know we have a few regulators based out of Toronto. Again they could do this via teleconference. It would be a far simpler, more efficient way for us to schedule them. In my experience I found there's no interruption. We have pretty free-flowing conversations with our witnesses.
I think it's a better use of our time. We could structure our meetings in such a way as to ensure that we provide for enough time. If it requires a two-hour meeting versus a three- or four-hour meeting. We could have these witnesses in blocks from regulator to stakeholders and maybe back to officials so we can compare the answers among them. Again, as I said, often I've found that after speaking to an official, we have a witness contradict or provide more detail. It brings up new questions that we would prefer asking the officials. We have officials who return.
I think that's an opportunity for us to ensure that we can do so. Then again, I think it all goes back to the calendar and 60-some-odd sitting days or just about 60 sitting days. It's the great opportunity now—before session ends in June—to ensure that we don't just look at open banking and the BIA and estimates and this monetary report. I'm worried about what else might drop onto us from others.
I would like to see us seriously consider again a study of B-20. If there are other things that other members believe would be worthy of the committee's time, now is the time to share them because we have a calendar and those dates will fill up, which is again why I want us to report our findings no later than April 1 so we can use those four meetings as a constituency-week break.
We return in April, and I assume that's when the government will send the BIA here for us to consider and debate. Maybe the government caucus members won't do it this year but perhaps they will. There will be a programming motion to make sure we can report the budget in time for the government to be able to pass it and appropriations on time before June arrives.
Again, the amendment talked about Friday, June 7, which would be the earliest opportunity without using additional weeks. The government House leader may wish to exercise her right to have us sit a bit longer to pass government legislation.
Even then, it's questionable whether we would be able to leave a report of any findings that late if the decision of the committee was to extend a study on a different subject to that point, which is why moving the timeline forward makes sense because we'll have those additional meetings. We'll be able to consider other motions to study. It will make sense because we'll be judiciously using our time to allow for witnesses in other fields to appear before the committee.
I'd be fine for those two to be done exclusively in Ottawa via teleconference. I really don't believe we need to travel all that much at this point with teleconferencing facilities broadly available to most communities, not all. I agree that this is probably a point we have to consider, whether smaller communities would be able to present if there were expert witnesses, or just witnesses in a community who would wish to come before the committee, and the briefs that they could provide, as well.
It's a mindful use of the time that we have before the committee. I want to be sure that we are judicious with it.
11:30 a.m.
Liberal
11:30 a.m.
Liberal
Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to thank the member from Calgary for his comments and subamendment to my amendment to the original motion put forward by my fellow member Mr. Sorbara.
I'm not in favour of his subamendment, and here's why.
Last year, when we were studying money laundering, we saw how significant it was to hear from witnesses in other jurisdictions in person. We learned a lot from them, information we wouldn't have known had they appeared via teleconference. There was an undefinable advantage to actually being there, and we experienced it a few times, especially in London and New York, even in Washington. It was very insightful.
It's unfortunate you weren't there, Mr. Kmiec. Initially, your fellow member Dan Albas wasn't very keen on the idea of going. He said so more than once on the record. Afterwards, though, he said how useful it had been and how important it was for us to have gone. As I see it, this is a similar situation, so I don't want to rule out the travel, as you suggest.
Also, it's clear to me that this is a pretty important issue, especially considering your subamendment, which, I must say, has some merit. You're proposing that we limit the study to three meetings. I think that's a bit tight to do a study that's worth the effort.
For those reasons, I hope you will withdraw the subamendment on the table.
Thank you.
11:30 a.m.
Banff—Airdrie, CPC
I'd like to speak in favour of the subamendment.
I, too, have a concern about this idea of the need to travel outside of Ottawa for the purpose of this study. We're talking about.... What are we at now here with the amendments being made? There were four meetings being scheduled, according to the amendment.