Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, colleagues. I'd especially like to thank Ms. Dzerowicz for reminding us of the importance of pre-budget consultations. I echo that sentiment completely.
I know I put it on the record last meeting, but I think we have to, as members of Parliament entrusted to carry out the will of constituents, really ask ourselves where we are in the country right now. We are seized with the most significant crisis of our time.
Thankfully, we have Standing Orders that lead us in the right direction, or should lead us in the right direction, Mr. Chair, if members want to acknowledge where we are and what needs to be done.
I asked you in the previous meeting, Mr. Chair—and there was also a question for the clerk—about Standing Order 83.1 and what happens in instances where that Standing Order is not respected. Of course, Standing Order 83.1, as we all know, or should know, relates to pre-budget consultations. It calls specifically for the finance committee to carry out pre-budget consultations by a specified date.
Mr. Chair, it's been a few days since that very lengthy meeting, and my memory is a bit foggy. Could you remind me what happens when a committee does not respect a Standing Order, in this case 83.1? What would be the consequences of that? If you don't have that answer immediately at hand, feel free to interrupt—it's the chair's prerogative to do so—and you can provide it to me and our committee. We would need a reminder on that. I think it's an important thing to know as we engage in discussions around this topic.
There is something else that bears emphasizing. I've talked about the Standing Orders and the need to respect them, but let's also keep in mind that these Standing Orders exist for particular reasons. They didn't fall from the sky. They are the legacy of a long-established Westminster parliamentary tradition that over time, over decades and generations, has been built up. Those Standing Orders, which are the rules or the foundation of Parliament, are the constitution by which we engage one another in parliamentary procedure. We have to follow those rules. It's not as if this rule stands on its own and we can choose to respect it or ignore it. It exists for good reason. There are historic reasons behind the existence of standing orders, and I think that also needs to be put to colleagues.
Furthermore, it is so surprising—well, perhaps not surprising judging by the partisanship of the opposition parties, in particular the Conservatives—that it's much more reasonable to engage with my colleagues Mr. Ste-Marie and Mr. Julian. That's not to take anything away from what the Conservative members add to this committee. When we have seen genuine meetings take place, they have contributed. Fair enough, we will disagree from time to time, perhaps most of the time, but I've seen every single Conservative member in the previous Parliament, and I'm sure I'll see that from the new members of the committee, with Mr. Falk.... I've sat in on other committees where Mr. Falk has served. He made an important contribution on the justice committee. Ms. Jansen is a new member of Parliament. I would expect that she will also make a contribution here, and bring ideas, particularly around issues of the environment. I know that she's worked in that field before, as a small businessperson, if I'm not mistaken.
In any case, it is something that I think we can all look forward to. We all bring our own experiences to these discussions, Mr. Chair. However, I will go back to the point that I began with. You might be wondering where I'm going with this.
I'm wondering, Mr. Chair, where was unanimous consent for pre-budget consultations? We're faced with a crisis. I expected that we would put partisanship completely aside to engage on this very important issue before the committee.
Ms. Dzerowicz is quite right, and her constituents are quite fortunate, because they have a serious member of Parliament who recognizes where the country is and what needs to be done. As I've said throughout, we need to have pre-budget consultations. We need to hear from the close to 800 stakeholders.
Correct me if I'm wrong. Again, you can verify this at your leisure, but I believe that is the highest number of requests we've ever seen at the finance committee, period. That is a new record, so to speak, and one that is not at all unexpected. We see a crisis before us, and of course there's going to be an enormous number of stakeholders from right across the country who want to speak to us, and we have to hear them out. We should have seen tonight a unanimous consent motion pass for this committee to engage immediately, without reservation, towards a pre-budget consultation, but here we are. It's tremendously unfortunate.
I will tell you, Mr. Chair, as someone who has served now for a couple of years on the finance committee, that pre-budget consultations aren't simply an exercise. They really provide the foundation for what the finance committee does, which is to put forward opinions and thoughts in the form of recommendations that go directly to the Minister of Finance and directly to the Prime Minister for review.
Now, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance have, as their prerogative, the ability to ignore those recommendations. I know that was the case in previous governments, for example. I don't mean to pick on the Conservatives, but a good number—most, in fact, from what I've heard from colleagues who worked on previous finance committees—of the recommendations made by finance committees that operated during the time of Stephen Harper were not adhered to. It was the PMO and the Department of Finance, but especially the PMO under Mr. Harper, that was setting the budget direction. I won't say that's fine, but that's in the past, and I won't dwell on that.
This particular government has taken a different approach, whereby members of Parliament can actually, from across the aisles.... I'm in Ottawa right now, Mr. Chair, and just yesterday I saw a member of Parliament on the Conservative side walk right over to the Minister of Health and hand the minister a letter on behalf of a constituent. The minister accepted that letter. It goes to show that there is this engagement, this openness, which one could argue is in fact a characteristic of the Westminster system and which, as we all know, allows for a direct interaction between the opposition, especially Her Majesty's loyal opposition, and the government.
Mr. Chair, in fact, this reminds me of things that you have said in Parliament yourself. I remember you giving a passionate speech—this was a number of months ago—where you spoke about the ability of members of Parliament to engage directly with the executive, whether it's to hand them a letter on behalf of constituents or whether it is, in previous times prior to the pandemic, to sit down with them and talk about an issue of relevance and importance. This speaks to what the Westminster system allows for—that direct engagement—in contrast to the presidential system. I gave a speech in Parliament yesterday, and at the opening, I talked about how in fact one of the ways that I think the Westminster system stands as a positive contrast is that, unlike the presidential system, where there's not that direct engagement between opposition and government, the Westminster system allows that very direct engagement.
Here we have a committee—I'm speaking mostly to the opposition here—in which we can come together and put forward ideas that will be looked at very seriously by the government, because that principle is built into the system itself. It's built into the Westminster system. The government has to look at what this committee puts forward and opines on in the form of recommendations. As I said before, it is these pre-budget consultations that have helped to really structure—I think that was the word I used—my approach in the finance committee, because the most important thing a government can do, apart, certainly, from respecting the physical security of citizens and ensuring it, is to look at a budget that provides for all their other basic needs, all the other basic needs that citizens rightly expect their government to fulfill. Without a budget, there really is no reason for government, one could argue.
Therefore, I think it's the most important work this committee can do. We had an opportunity tonight to proceed immediately to that, but again my colleagues in the opposition have stood in the way, which is so incredibly unfortunate. I say that again. I am just stunned at where we are.
What did we hear instead? Instead we heard Mr. Poilievre who, by the way, Mr. Chair, I have no personal qualm with. I think Mr. Poilievre has a particular approach to his role as an MP. Some can disagree with it; I know his colleagues will agree with it. He's a long-time and experienced member of the House, and I suppose the style he employs, what he brings to the job and how he engages in it, is based on a recognition, on his part at least, that it's something that works for him, so I won't comment on that.
But when Mr. Poilievre puts things on the record that simply are not true, my colleagues will forgive me for my.... I had a few points of order when Mr. Poilievre was speaking. It was not meant as a way to disrespect the member or disrespect the proceedings of the committee. I just thought that it was relevant to introduce a point of order to make sure that the blues reflect fact.
When Mr. Poilievre says things like the government allocated a certain amount of money to the WE Charity, that is simply false. He said that hundreds of millions of dollars went to the WE Charity. The number he used was $500 million. Perhaps the pandemic has been a long one, and we had a long meeting last week, so perhaps all of that has built up and is affecting of Mr. Poilievre's judgment. I'm not sure.
This is just a reminder that the $500-million figure actually relates to the Canada student service grant. There was $500-plus million dollars that was going to go towards the Canada student service grant to allow that program to function. It was not, absolutely not, going to go to WE Charity. There was $43 million that was going to go to WE Charity so that the organization could administer the program, but all of that money was going to be reimbursed. It's my understanding that any monies that were paid to WE Charity by the government have been paid back.
The long of the short of it, Mr. Chair, on that point is that no money is now in the pocket of WE Charity. When the opposition, as we heard here today with Mr. Poilievre.... Yesterday I was in the House and I heard a number of Conservative MPs speaking to the opposition day motion, which in and of itself is a separate matter. I don't think I'll touch on it here, but it depends.
What a ridiculous motion that was. When we're talking about the issues of the day, talking about the wage subsidy, talking about improving rental assistance, talking about the Canada recovery benefit and the need to support young people, these are the things that—