Finance Committee on Dec. 6th, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mr. Blaikie.

Monsieur Ste-Marie has a point of order.

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

Yes, I am raising a point of order, Mr. Chair. I would like to point out that the interpreters had difficulty keeping up with my honourable colleague's pace. It might be a good idea if he could speak more slowly, but with the same passion.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

I apologize, Mr. Chair. I was, of course, just trying to be expeditious.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mr. Blaikie and Monsieur Ste-Marie.

Of course, we do have a lot of work. We thank our interpreters for the magnificent work they do, and the analysts and the clerk.

Just before we go to Mr. Poilievre and Mr. Beech, because we've talked a lot about a lot of the work, I want to get some idea from the clerk, Alexandre Roger—thank you, Clerk—of the resources available to us over the next two weeks with the House. Can you give us some kind of understanding?

I'm sure Mr. Beech will also want to speak to this aspect.

[The Clerk]

We have time slots available on Tuesday, from 11:00 to 1:00, and then again from 3:30 to 5:30. On Wednesday afternoon, we have availability from 3:30 to 5:30, and then on Thursday as well. Tuesdays and Thursdays would be at the same times, as well as on Fridays.

It's harder to get the meetings in the morning, just because there are some MPs who might be on Zoom from the west coast. Those times can be flexible as well. We might be able to go a little later in the evening or group them together to have them go longer, but we'd have to check with the services first.

I know that those time slots are given.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Then we do have some opportunities in terms of the days and hours that we're trying to get.

[The Clerk]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Okay, great.

I'm going to go to Mr. Poilievre. You have the floor.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Thank you.

I'd like to move an amendment to Mr. Beech's motion. It would strike paragraph (f), removing the words “That the committee commence clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-2 no later than Friday, December 10th.” By consequence, it would remove paragraph (e) as well, which reads “That all amendments to the bill be submitted to the Clerk of the Committee before 3:00 PM on Thursday, December 9th”.

Can I speak to that?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Yes, Mr. Poilievre.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

I would point out here—just to show how unreasonable the time frame is—that we have the minister here on December 9, according to this motion. Then we're somehow supposed to scramble and write amendments, based on her testimony, by three o'clock on the same day. I don't even know how that's possible. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, the committee is meeting after three o'clock. We might hear things from her at that meeting.

I'm looking at the schedule here. I think we're on at 3:30 on Thursday. Do I have that right?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Mr. Beech, do you have the times in your motion?

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Burnaby North—Seymour, BC]

Yes. Paragraph (e) states—

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

It's (d).

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Burnaby North—Seymour, BC]

Sorry. Paragraph (d) states:

That the committee invite the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance to appear for two hours, in addition to the length of her opening remarks on Thursday, December 9th

It doesn't qualify the time. It would be whatever the minister—

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Either way, even if it's in the morning, to then have us try to turn around amendments to her bill less than a day after we've heard the testimony is very unreasonable. We'd have to go back to our own policy analysts, talk with drafters and consult on how best to rectify any flaws with her implementing legislation that we might find during her testimony on that very same day.

That's just one problem. The obvious other problem is that we're at end of day on Monday. We have three days to figure out how we're going to amend this new legislation. If there's testimony that makes a compelling case on the flaws in the legislation, we could be down to hours to scramble and fix them.

I saw during the pandemic the number of times the government made drafting errors or tried to slip in things that we didn't expect would be there and had nothing to do with the pandemic, things we caught at the last minute. Well, that's difficult if you're rushing legislation through. Let me give you some examples.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Mr. Poilievre, I'm going to interject. The clerk has just made me aware that there are spots through the evening. I understand that the minister would be in the morning.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Right. Again, that's on the same day. Even if we identified mistakes from her that morning, we'd be expected to run off and try to fix them in hours. That's completely unreasonable.

During the pandemic, the Prime Minister said he needed unlimited powers to raise taxes to any level, at any time, for any reason, for two years. Well, that was completely unnecessary, as it turned out, but he tried to sneak it in. We saw, with a rushed Liberal budget, they snuck in an amendment to the Criminal Code, allowing the government to grant immunity to corporate criminals. That led us to the SNC-Lavalin scandal. Then we saw the WE scandal—

[Heath MacDonald, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, is this part of the motion discussion or is this something different?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Mr. Poilievre, we'd ask that you stick to the motion or to your amendment.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Right. I'm building the case for my amendment. We saw, for example, that with the rushed approach the government took to legislation during the pandemic, they gave themselves unlimited powers to spend and grant sums to individual groups. Well, what did we get? We got a half-billion dollars for the WE Charity, money that never should have gone out to a group that had paid the Prime Minister's family a half-million dollars.

I admit that during the pandemic it was necessary to push legislation through with unusual haste, but here we are, a year and a half after the first COVID lockdown and after nearly six months of this government closing Parliament, and they're now all of a sudden saying they're in a big rush and we have to scramble. Well, when you don't show up for work for six months, don't be surprised if you're behind on your projects and don't expect your colleagues to clean up the mess for you.

Our view is this: Let's study this legislation and make sure there's no opportunity for abuse and that we don't waste another $100 million, $200 million, $1 billion on mismanagement or fraud. Let's go through it with a fine-tooth comb and make sure that the legislation actually does what the politicians say it does.

I encourage you to support my amendment to remove paragraphs (e) and (f) from the text of the motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mr. Poilievre.

I have Mr. Beech next, and then Ms. Dzerowicz.

Mr. Beech, will you be speaking to the original motion?

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Burnaby North—Seymour, BC]

I could probably speak to what I need to speak to through the amendment as well.

While I appreciate the comments made by my friend opposite, I will be speaking against this proposed amendment. I think the urgency of this particular legislation is there. Certainly the businesses and the people who are currently without support due to the expiration of particular benefits are counting on us to do this in an expedited manner.

Given what the clerk has just advised us that there are two meetings available on Tuesday, one meeting available on Wednesday, two on Thursday and one on Friday, and citing point (a) from the motion as proposed—that we are willing to have extended meetings—that is the equivalent of more than three weeks of review, although compressed to the time period of a week.

With regard to a question from my colleague on the other side with regard to witnesses, witnesses are determined by this committee, but I can certainly share that I think two witnesses are more than appropriate. Personally, I would be happy to support that, but it's up to the committee.

With regard to the minister of heritage, I do not have access to the schedule of the minister of heritage, but I can check with the Minister of Finance, of course, with regard to the availability of the Minister of Finance. I would suggest, through my previous work on other committees, that there is actually a sincere argument for having departmental officials come in first and for having everyone get on the same page with the witnesses coming in before the minister is here so that committee members can refer to witness testimony and have that opportunity with the minister. If the minister is here right up front, that ability doesn't exist.

I've found that approach quite useful in previous committee interventions in terms of finding ways to improve the bill. I know now for certain that the minister is available on Thursday. I would have to check availability for any other times before that.

Colleagues, I think we have the ability, since we have several sophisticated members around this table, to get through this legislation in the time that we've outlined. I would urge you to vote against this amendment and support the motion as it stands.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mr. Beech.

We have Ms. Dzerowicz, Mr. Baker and Mr. Blaikie.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thanks so much, Mr. Chair.

I appreciate my colleague's motion. I agree with all of the comments that my colleague Mr. Beech made. I was going to make the same comments. Over 12 hours of meetings are being proposed this week to properly take the time to meet with witnesses to ensure that we are going through this legislation in a proper way and that there's nothing being hidden in this legislation.

I also want to remind everyone that this legislation actually was made available on November 24. It has been available, so if there were motions that were going to be proposed or would have been proposed, I think that won't come necessarily when our minister is here, but I think there are probably already some thoughts in the minds of my colleagues on the opposition benches right now.

This draft bill has been made available for a couple of weeks now. Yes, it is quick. It is not meant in any way to fool anyone. We are going to make ourselves available as much as possible this week to make sure that we are properly looking through this bill.

I want to address a number of the comments that my NDP colleague mentioned, but I'm going to wait until we get out of this motion to address them, because I'd like to stay on point on the proposed amendment to the motion at hand.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.