Evidence of meeting #21 for Finance in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was veterans.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Is there difficulty with ending later than 6:30? I would say that we could go from 4 to 7 if we can, but if there's difficulty, we can tighten it up. When we're done, we're done.
Liberal
Robert-Falcon Ouellette Liberal Winnipeg Centre, MB
Is that the officials who are coming so that we can ask questions?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Yes. We didn't get through the list of officials last time, and there are a number of divisions that weren't covered.
Conservative
Ron Liepert Conservative Calgary Signal Hill, AB
Can I get confirmation again of when the committee of the whole is scheduled, and for what time frame?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
The committee of the whole is scheduled for the night of May 30, starting at 7.
Liberal
NDP
Guy Caron NDP Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC
When government officials appeared here last time, I asked questions about the repeal of the Federal Balanced Budget Act. The officials were unable to answer my questions. I asked if someone from the Department of Justice could come answer the questions.
Mr. Chair, can we be sure that someone from the department will be here tomorrow?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
They will be. We have already made that request.
The meeting tomorrow will likely be in room 752 at 131 Queen Street. It's not our regular time slot, so we're being moved elsewhere. The clerk will send out the notice.
I have one other point, on the documents from KPMG. Then we'll get to Mr. Caron's motion.
KPMG contacted the clerk yesterday. The documents are expected to be delivered to the clerk at the end of the day today. They're on their way now. There's a large volume of documents, one and a half inches thick, with 25 tabs, and they're in one language, the original language of the document. It's impossible to translate them to meet the motion's timeframe.
The documents would be distributed by messenger on Wednesday morning. We'll be asking for a signature to confirm receipt of the documents. But in order to receive them in one official language, we need a motion to allow the clerk to distribute these documents in one language.
The motion would read:
That, notwithstanding the routine motion adopted by the Committee on February 4, 2016, where all documents distributed to Members must be in both languages, the Clerk be allowed to distribute to all Members the documents received from KPMG pursuant to the Committee's request from May 5, 2016, although these documents are currently only available in one language.
Does somebody want to move that?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Is there any discussion?
(Motion agreed to)
That will be done.
We are on Mr. Caron's motion.
Go ahead.
NDP
Guy Caron NDP Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC
I'm told that the wording of the motion is out of order.
NDP
Guy Caron NDP Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC
I'm told that the wording of the motion is out of order, so I would like to withdraw it. Nevertheless, I want to be clear that I still have concerns about the form of this bill.
We debated at length about whether this is an omnibus bill. I think it is. It has all the features of an omnibus bill. For example, it includes measures that, though they appear in the budget, should be studied by other committees.
One of those measures is Bill C-12 on veterans' compensation. It was introduced and was supposed to have been studied separately not by the Standing Committee on Finance, but by the Veterans Affairs committee. I think that is the clearest indicator that this is an omnibus bill. We would have liked the government to show some good judgment when introducing this bill by separating the parts that would have been better studied by other committees.
It seems that will not happen, and that is a great shame. I hope this government will not make a habit of doing this with future budget bills. Clearly, Parliament and the House of Commons will be at a disadvantage if they cannot study these bills in depth. I will now withdraw my motion.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Thank you, Mr. Caron.
You are withdrawing your motion. I think we get the message that you've stated concerning the omnibus bill. Even as I look at it, there are several section in there that I would honestly question.
Is there any further business?
The meeting is adjourned.