Evidence of meeting #199 for Finance in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Pierre had his hand up for a point of order as well.
Pierre, what is your point of order?
NDP
Pierre-Luc Dusseault NDP Sherbrooke, QC
Mr. Chair, I just want to clarify what's happened in the past few days or weeks.
The committee asked for the Minister of National Revenue to appear. I had hoped she would. That doesn't mean the witnesses before us are any less worthy, but the custom and practice are that the Minister of Revenue comes and explains her plan and estimates. She has to justify them so we as parliamentarians can then approve them. I'd like to know what's happened. The minister has almost always come and defended her estimates. However, she hasn't deigned to give us a few minutes this morning to defend her estimates.
Since we invited her, how did she answer? Why doesn't she think it's important to appear before parliamentarians?
Banff—Airdrie, CPC
I have my own point of order, but I will speak to this one at this point.
I concur that it would have been expected that the minister should be here. That would be my understanding: that we should have been requesting that as well.
I would like to also have an update on what was done to try to get the minister here and what the reasons were that the minister did not appear not only at the last meeting but now at this one as well.
Furthermore, to add to this, the parliamentary secretary was here at the last meeting, so the expectation would have been that, if we were going to continue on the same thing, we would have all the rest of the same people here, I believe, yet we do not have the parliamentary secretary either. We should be having the minister, and now we don't even have a parliamentary secretary.
Nobody from the government seems to want to be accountable for their decisions. We could get into the whole situation that we're seeing here with a prime minister who refuses to be accountable for what he's doing, really breaking the laws of this country—
Banff—Airdrie, CPC
—but as per the same kind of situation, we have now a situation in which we don't have a minister here and don't even have a parliamentary secretary here to be questioned on the actions of this government.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
I can tell you that we sent a request for the minister to attend, and the minister in her decision thought it appropriate to send officials. I can't give the background of the reason why, but I can tell you that, anticipating there would be some questions in this area, I looked back at the record over the last number of years. Often for estimates, in fact, in the previous Parliament, the minister never appeared for estimates. Whether that's right or wrong I'm not going to say. It is usually officials from both Finance and CRA who appear with respect to estimates.
I can't give you an answer other than to say that the clerk sent out the request as per what the committee requested. And with an agency, we have the head of agency here; that's pretty important as well.
What is the second point of order?
Banff—Airdrie, CPC
No, just to clarify what you're saying, a request was sent to the minister, but was no response ever received that he was refusing to appear? Did he just not have the courtesy to even bother to respond to this committee to say that he wouldn't appear?
The Clerk of the Committee Mr. David Gagnon
The response from the minister says, “I've been advised that unfortunately the minister's schedule precludes her from attending on either of the proposed dates. However, the Commissioner of Revenue and senior officials would be pleased to appear before the committee.”
Banff—Airdrie, CPC
I do, Mr. Chair.
It's in regard to the last meeting we held. I want to get some clarification and a ruling on this.
The way I saw the meeting play out, I think you suspended the meeting at 11:30 a.m. I will read a little from House of Commons Procedure and Practice in just a second, but if you look at the blues it shows that's what happened, that you suspended the meeting at 11:30 a.m.
The meeting was never recommenced. You did say while we were suspended—I was present; I did see you indicate that you were adjourning the meeting—but it's my belief the meeting cannot be adjourned while it's suspended, and it was suspended. I don't believe the meeting was ever properly adjourned; therefore, I don't believe this meeting is in order, as we stand now, because we never adjourned the last meeting.
I just want to read a couple of points from House of Commons Procedure and Practice, and I would ask for a ruling on this because I do think it's an important point.
I want to point out, Mr. Chair, that this is not in any way intended to be any kind of an attack on you, but I want to make sure we're following proper procedure. I wanted to get a ruling so we can make sure that in the future, we don't run across anything of the same nature.
In regard to suspensions, it indicates:
Committees frequently suspend their meetings for various reasons, with the intention to resume later in the day. Suspensions may last a few seconds, several hours, or span even more than one day, depending on the circumstances,—
Just as a parenthesis here, Mr. Chair, I can recall when the government was looking to try to make changes to have the Prime Minister only be held accountable one day a week, to have an extra day off for themselves every week, and all of these things where they wouldn't be held accountable to Parliament. In the procedure and House affairs committee, this was used quite a lot during that time. That meeting of the procedure and House affairs committee, I think, went on for a number of weeks and it was suspended many times over the course of days even. It appears as though we have the same thing in this case, where that meeting is possibly still properly suspended.
I'll continue:
—and a meeting may be suspended more than once.
Again, that happened in that case, as I'm aware, and I'm sure it has happened in many others.
Then it continues:
The committee Chair must clearly announce the suspension—
—which I'll note that you did—
—so that recording ceases until the meeting resumes.
Which never did happen. It continues:
Meetings are suspended, for example, to change from public to in camera mode, or the reverse; to enable witnesses to be seated or to hear witnesses by video conference; to put an end to disorder; to resolve a problem with the simultaneous interpretation system; or to move from one item on the agenda to the next. Pursuant to the Standing Orders, the Chair of a standing, special, legislative or joint committee is required to suspend the meeting when the bells are sounded—
—and it goes on from there. I won't continue reading that. It's not really relevant to that situation.
Then on adjournment, it states:
Committees most often adjourn to the call of the Chair; that is, the decision as to the exact time of the next meeting is left to the discretion of the Chair. This is done even when the committee has adopted a work plan that lays out a detailed schedule of meetings. In this way, the Chair is given the flexibility to respond effectively to changing events and to the availability of potential witnesses. Committees may also adjourn to a specific time, as they usually do when the next meeting is scheduled for the immediate future, for example, the next day or later the same day. Committees, on occasion, may adjourn without making any provision for a future meeting, that is, to adjourn sine die (indefinitely).
Probably the most relevant part is here:
A committee meeting may be adjourned by the adoption of a motion to that effect. However, most meetings are adjourned more informally, when the Chair receives the implied consent of members to adjourn. The committee Chair cannot adjourn the meeting without the consent of a majority of the members, unless the Chair decides that a case of disorder or misconduct is so serious as to prevent the committee from continuing its work.
You may have made that determination at that time, but again, I don't believe we were properly constituted at that point because we had been suspended. I certainly don't believe there was the consent asked for or received.
Again, you may have made the decision, as chair, to use your prerogative under the point that says that a case of disorder and misconduct is so serious as to prevent the committee from continuing its work. I'll leave that to you to determine whether that's what you believe to be the case.
I will point out that I don't believe the meeting was properly adjourned because we were, in fact, suspended at the time. Certainly, I know I had a number of questions, and maybe we'll get the chance, but obviously for me, I would have preferred to have been able to question an elected member of the government because they are the ones who are supposed to be accountable for the decisions they make. We did have a parliamentary secretary here at that time. It should have been the minister, as I've indicated already. We have neither of those here now, which I think is something that I find of great concern.
Having said that, I do believe this meeting is not actually properly constituted because we actually have never adjourned the previous meeting.
I would actually ask for you to give us a ruling on that, Mr. Chair.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Standing Order 117, and you mentioned it, deals with in the event of disorder, and this is what House of Commons Procedure and Practice states:
In the event of disorder, the Chair may suspend the meeting until order can be restored or, if the situation is considered to be so serious as to prevent the committee from continuing with its work, the meeting may be adjourned. In addition, the Chair may, at his or her discretion, interrupt a member whose observations and questions are repetitive or are unrelated to the matter before the committee. If the member in question persists in making repetitive or off-topic comments, the Chair can give the floor to another member. If the member refuses to yield the floor and continues talking, the Chair may suspend or adjourn the meeting.
So, I did adjourn the meeting. On your point about the meeting being in suspension, I don't think either of us here has an answer to that at the moment, but I will render a decision on that at a coming meeting. It is a point. I, too, know when you have the deputy minister here and a parliamentary secretary, a lot of members have questions.
But, if the member for Carleton persists, as he has been doing, when a point of order is raised on the other side, and persists when the microphone is switched off, and pushes the button to override it and yell into the mike, that is absolutely inappropriate. I'll tell you that as chair, I'm not going to put up with that kind of performance any longer. If we have to suspend the meeting 10 times during a meeting, that'll be where we'll go, because I'm not going to put up with that performance anymore where a member constantly pushes the button to override the order that the chair is trying to impose.
We can have a debate whether the question should have been allowed; I'll grant him and you that. But when there's a point of order on the other side, which there was, and the member for Carleton wouldn't allow that point of order because he consistently pushed the microphone button, I said, “That's it, meeting adjourned.” But we will render a decision on that at a future date, because we'll have to check with some procedural people to see whether I was wrong or whether I was right.
February 28th, 2019 / 11:15 a.m.
Banff—Airdrie, CPC
Not to try to continue the debate, Mr. Chair, but I think it is important as well because should that decision be that the meeting was not actually properly adjourned, the implication of course then is that obviously now we're—
Liberal
Banff—Airdrie, CPC
—and so the bottom line is that if the last meeting, number 198, was not actually properly adjourned, that means it's still actually in session. Is that correct?
Liberal
Banff—Airdrie, CPC
But you're indicating that you're going to have to verify that and come back with a ruling on it. I want to point out that this is not in any way intended to try to prevent today's meeting from occurring, but my concern is this: If we never adjourned the last meeting, how can we begin a new meeting?
Do you see where the problem is here?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
I was sitting in my chair when we adjourned the meeting. The mike was on and the meeting was adjourned. I'm going to operate on the principle that it was adjourned, but I will seek further clarification.
With that, we have two sessions in today's meeting.
From now until around 11 o'clock, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), this is a study of the subject matter of interim estimates 2019-20, votes 1 and 5 under Canada Revenue Agency.
We have with us, from the Canada Revenue Agency, Mr.Hamilton, Commissioner of Revenue and Chief Executive Officer; Ms. Ramcharan, Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner; Mr. Gallivan, Assistant Commissioner, International, Large Business and Investigations Branch; and Mr. Trueman, Assistant Commissioner.
Ms. Pranke, you weren't on the notice. Could you give us your title?
Gillian Pranke Deputy Assistant Commissioner, Assessment, Benefit, and Service Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
I am Gillian Pranke, Deputy Assistant Commissioner, Assessment, Benefit, and Service Branch.