Finance Committee on Dec. 16th, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 10 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance. The committee is meeting today to discuss committee business.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format pursuant to the House order of November 25, 2021. Members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. So you are aware, the webcast will always show the person speaking rather than the entirety of the committee.

Today's meeting is also taking place in a webinar format. Webinars are for public committee meetings and are available only to members, their staff and witnesses. Members enter immediately as active participants. All functionalities for the active participants remain the same. Staff will be non-active participants and can therefore view the meeting only in gallery view.

I will take this opportunity to remind all participants in this meeting that screenshots or taking photos of your screen is not permitted.

Given the ongoing pandemic situation and in light of the recommendations from health authorities, as well as the directive of the Board of Internal Economy on October 19, 2021, to remain healthy and safe, all those attending the meeting in person are to maintain two-metre physical distancing and must wear a non-medical mask when circulating in the room. It is highly recommended that the mask be worn at all times, including when seated. Participants must maintain proper hand hygiene by using the provided hand sanitizer at the room entrance.

As the chair, I will be enforcing these measures for the duration of the meeting and I thank members in advance for their co-operation.

To ensure an orderly meeting, I'll outline just a few things.

Interpretation is available at the bottom of your screen in English or French, and as a reminder, all comments should be addressed through the chair.

With regard to speaking lists, the committee clerk and I will do our very best to maintain a consolidated order of speaking for all members, whether they are participating virtually or in person.

I see Mr. Beech's hand up, and then I guess Mr. Poilievre is next on the list.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Yes, actually I had just informed the clerk before Mr. Beech. Therefore, the order seems to have been reversed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Well, Mr. Poilievre, I had seen Mr. Beech's hand up already.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

You just saw it now, though.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

No, I had seen Mr. Beech's hand up.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

That is quite an achievement that you managed to do so. You must have a time machine.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

I did see Mr. Beech's hand up, so it will be Mr. Beech and then Mr. Poilievre.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I've had my hand up for 40 minutes. It has been quite exhausting, so thank you for recognizing me. I'll put it down, now that I have the floor.

I would like to move the following motion with regard to—

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Mr. Chair, on a point of order, I just want to talk about the confusion that you caused at previous meetings and that seems to have spilled over into this one regarding the order of exchanges in committee, where you mistakenly came under the impression that the way questions and answers work is that the member asks a question and the witness then gives an interminable speech for the rest of the time left.

That is not how the rules work, and as a result, today we see more confusion where you're recognizing a member who was behind me on the list and he is now claiming he had his hand up for 40 minutes. Of course, we haven't been meeting for 40 minutes, so that's impossible.

These kinds of games are going to cause more and more disorder as the meeting goes on and potentially make it impossible for any of Mr. Beech's or anyone else's motions to get adopted.

That unfortunately is the case and it is unfortunate that you are obstructing the committee's work in this way. We obviously have important work and planning to do for Canadians, but that can't be done if you continue to play these kinds of games.

I've been on this committee since 2017. We did not have these problems under the previous chair. He was a Liberal, a proud, long-standing Liberal, a former cabinet minister with whom I had many disagreements, but he did not play games in the manner that we're now seeing. It is causing is a distraction from the work we need to do today and the work we need to do going forward.

I suspect that it will continue to cause these same problems if we don't get them solved, and that will prevent us from getting programming motions passed or achieving anything else that we desperately need to achieve in these times.

As you know, we have a lot of issues to address. We are the finance committee in a time where inflation is at a generational high, when housing prices have increased more than at any time in recorded history, and when our economy sits on the precipice of the debt crisis—

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

I'll address your point of order, Mr. Poilievre—

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

What we need to do, frankly, is get back to the way committee functions. Unfortunately, you don't seem to want to do that—

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Madame Chatel.

[Sophie Chatel, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

I'm not sure this is a point of order.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

It's causing a lot of disruption here when we could be doing valuable work. I would ask that you begin—

[Sophie Chatel, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

I'm challenging Mr. Poilievre to explain how this is a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Mr. Poilievre, I'll speak with the members and I'll speak to your point of order—

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

No, but I'm not—

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Mr. Poilievre, you're done.

Mr. Poilievre, listen. In our first meeting, the committee adopted routine motions. I would request that you go and read through those routine motions again. In those routine motions, we set up question and answer time. There was an allotment, which was the six minutes or five minutes, or however it was broken down. I've been more than fair, actually, in terms of allowing for extra time beyond that time with members.

If members would like to change those routine motions and change how we do it in terms of allowing for questions and answers, that could be done.That's up to the members of the committee, but routine motions were passed, Mr. Poilievre, so we're going to move on.

Mr. Beech's hand was up from the get-go of this meeting. I've recognized that you've stated you want to speak also, and you're up right after Mr. Beech.

We'll hear now from Mr. Beech.

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

I agree with the member opposite in that—

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Sorry, Mr. Chair, I thought Madame Chatel had a point of order.

[Sophie Chatel, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

I was questioning whether that was a point of order. That was my point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Madame Chatel and Mr. McLean.

Mr. Beech.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We all want there to be fairness and we all want to get on with the good work that we're here to do for Canadians. I agree with that point from Mr. Poilievre.

I have a motion I'd like to introduce, Mr. Chair. I'm going to read it now, as follows: That the committee hold pre-budget consultations for the 2022 budget, and that it commence hearing from witnesses the week of January 31st, 2021; the Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister and departmental officials be invited to appear before the committee; each party submit a prioritized witness list no later than 6:00 p.m. on Friday, January 21, 2022; that all submissions for the 2022 pre-budget consultations be published on the digital binder site of the committee.

I'm sending a copy to the chair for distribution.

I so move, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Send it to the clerk, please, so the clerk can distribute it, Mr. Beech.

Mr. Blaikie.

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

I have just a quick point of clarification on that.

I'm confident it was an error, but I think he said January 31, 2021. I'm sure he meant 2022.