Finance Committee on June 9th, 2020

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

I so move.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

That's moved by Peter and seconded by Julie.

We'll go to a recorded vote.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 10; nays 0 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Thank you all.

The floor is yours, Pierre.

I think the motion was sent out to the people. Perhaps you want to go to the motion, read it and then go to discussion.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I think this should be a relatively uncontroversial motion that should achieve unanimous support from committee members today.

As all of you know, the Auditor General has indicated a shortage of funding. This is due to the exceptional volume of government spending in need of auditing and some specific tasks that Parliament has given the office. One is to audit the missing funds in the infrastructure program. The other is to audit the $152 billion of new spending in the last two and a half months in response to COVID-19.

There are also, of course, typically audits that the office is doing of its own accord without any parliamentary direction at all. The office has indicated, though, that this workload cannot happen with the current funding levels.

I'll put it into context here for clarity. This year government spending will be twice what it was a decade ago. It's hard to believe the government has doubled its expenses in just one decade, yet the Auditor General's budget has barely grown at the rate of inflation. The Liberal members—

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

I have a point of order.

I know during your prelude, Pierre, you indicated you hope to get support. I don't know if you were wanting to convince us with the introductory remarks, which you're entitled to, but I expect you'll find support from our side of the table for your motion. If it changes your approach to the sales job, that is information I thought you may want to have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

I don't really believe that was a point of order, but we'll let it go.

Pierre, the floor is yours.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

It was actually a helpful intervention. A wise salesman once told me that when you have the sale just shut the heck up.

If I do have the support of all members of the committee, then I will just put the motion forward. I did take my friend's intervention to mean that the Liberal members would support it. I do have past commitments from the Bloc and the NDP. With that knowledge, I'm going to just assume that everyone is still of the same view and I'll let my motion stand.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

All right, Mr. Clerk, we will have a recorded vote, please.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 10; nays 0 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Is there any other business that anyone wants to bring up?

With that, thank you all. We'll see you on Thursday.

The meeting is adjourned.