Finance Committee on Oct. 21st, 2020

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

I'm trying to expose those roots.

Mr. Chair, what is the government trying to hide in all this? Why would they go to such great lengths if there was nothing here? One can only imagine that the Prime Minister is waking up at two in the morning in cold sweats thinking about what might come out in this scandal, and that's why he has sent his MPs into this committee to filibuster for 20 hours when we should be talking about pre-budget consultations.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Mr. Chair, I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Go ahead, Mr. Fragiskatos.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Yes. In correcting the record, the member talked about the deficit.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

That's not a point of order.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

He forgot to mention that Canada has provided as much fiscal support for the economic recovery—

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Mr. Chair, this isn't a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

That's not a point of order, Mr. Fragiskatos.

Mr. Poilievre—

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

No country has done more. I'm just quoting directly from where the member took his point.

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

I have a point of order.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Get control.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

That's not a point of order, Mr. Fragiskatos.

Who else had a point of order? Was it Mr. Julian?

Go ahead.

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

Yes.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

I have a point of order, as well.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I ask all members to respect members who are speaking. I don't think these interruptions at the finance committee are helpful or dignified.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you, Mr. Julian.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

I have a point of order, as well.

I'm here in the room with the interpreters, who are doing a wonderful job. When a ruckus like that breaks out, it's impossible for them to do their job, and those of us who speak only French can't follow the discussion. I would call on members to show a little more decorum, please.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you, Mr. Ste-Marie.

I'll go back to Mr. Poilievre, and a couple of points have been noted by Mr. Julian and Mr. Ste-Marie.

Go ahead, Mr. Poilievre.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

This is a scandal in which the Prime Minister's family accepted half a million dollars, and then the Prime Minister turned around and gave the group that provided those funds half a billion dollars. That's a major Canadian scandal, and let me speak directly to him when I say Conservatives will not relent until the truth comes out in this scandal. He can threaten, he can bully, he can shut things down, but at the end of the day we will continue to do our jobs until we expose the truth, so let's get busy and pass this motion so we can see the unredacted documents, the unvarnished truth, and let Canadians judge accordingly.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you.

I'll go on to Mr. Julian. The floor is yours. Mr. Poilievre has finished.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm not going to speak for long because I believe we need to go immediately to the votes on the subamendment and the amendment and stop the filibuster, but I am profoundly disturbed that the Prime Minister has basically done away with pre-budget hearings. He threatened an election, and of course that meant no pre-budget hearings at all.

I think to re-establish our responsibility we need to vote now on the subamendment on the amendment and on the motion of privilege and move on from there. That's our responsibility as a finance committee. Then we can have discussions around committee business.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

You're done, Peter? Good. Thank you.

Mr. Fraser is next on my list. Go ahead, Mr. Fraser.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll take a different view from my colleagues. One of the things that everyone seems to be saying is that they do want to get on with the work of the committee with respect to pre-budget consultations. If that were true, we would be doing them. I think it was made clear at the outset of this meeting when I think you made the eminently reasonable suggestion that we should seek unanimous consent to deal with Ms. Dzerowicz's motion.

One of the important factors behind this initiative is that the Standing Orders have a time limit within which this committee, should we choose to move forward with pre-budget consultations, has to make recommendations and table an associated report on the floor of the House of Commons. This is going to require significant effort by the staff of this committee after the work is done by committee members to hear from witnesses.

I think the sensible thing to do would be to jump right to the pre-budget consultation motion, and when we sort that out, return to issues that continue to be disputed by members of this committee.

One of the things that I take issue with, frankly, in both the motion that was debated yesterday and voted on just moments ago in the House of Commons and the motion and amendment that were put forward by the Conservatives at this committee is that they're saying they're willing to move ahead with the work of Parliament and allow the government to govern only if they first admit that they're all corrupt or if they're all willing to admit that the government and the independent public service have violated privileges of members of this committee.

I don't think it's a reasonable place to start. Frankly, I still maintain that this matter should never have been brought before this committee as a point of privilege, because I think the ordinary way to deal with this, particularly when we have the government saying we'd work in good faith, is to ask for co-operation from the government. Jumping straight to a point of privilege seems, in my view, to be premature.

Perhaps, before I get into my remarks—I know you surveyed the crowd informally—I would formally ask for unanimous consent so that this committee can immediately move to Ms. Dzerowicz's motion and determine whether we have the willingness of committee members to attend to that so we may return to it.

I expect I know where this is going, but we may as well make it official.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

I have a friendly amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

All right, does Mr. Fraser have unanimous consent?