While I empathize with my Bloc colleague, who I think expressed a genuine attempt to move this forward, I'm finding myself a little bit concerned that I'm not really seeing a way forward. The Conservatives are filibustering and talking endlessly about all sorts of issues in an attempt to delay, without offering constructive proposals on how we move forward.
I will repeat that there seems to be either a misunderstanding or an attempt to misdescribe, I guess, what happened last week.
When we had our subcommittee meeting on the agenda, these are the exact issues we discussed. What we're trying to do here is schedule the finance committee's meetings for May and June. That's what we're trying to do, if Canadians are watching this. I haven't counted up the meetings, but it looks like we have about another 10 or 12 meetings. We're trying to use that time efficiently.
I heard references from Mr. Morantz that it was as if I was doing something nefarious by discussing with my Liberal colleagues, following that meeting last week, how we could come together and make a proposal at this committee in lieu of the fact that the Conservatives wouldn't come to an agreement last week. We put forward exactly these proposals about how we could schedule the budget meetings for the next three weeks, and then how we could move ahead on studies on green financing, on house financialization, and on inflation—studies that all three parties really want.
When we couldn't reach an agreement last week, you wouldn't have to be a parliamentarian to know that the other parties would talk to each other about how we could come to this meeting today, in lieu of no agreement, and put a motion forward to deal with it. The Conservatives can't not come to an agreement in subcommittee last week and then come here and complain when the other parties try to work productively to come up with an agenda. The agenda is not going to magically appear. It's going to take all of us working together and speaking to the issues at hand, not filibustering and not talking about the political fortunes of Mark Carney or the political ambitions or future of Mr. Trudeau or what's going on in Fort McMurray or any of the other issues that may be important in their own right but really don't have anything to do with how we schedule the budget matter before us.
There was a reference to how moving the motion to schedule the remaining meetings for May and June was “to blow up the committee”. That was a quote from my Conservative colleague. That's just nonsensical. We need to have a motion adopted by this committee to determine how we're going to move forward. I will tell you that one of the biggest difficulties of working on committee—I think we've all experienced this, if we're honest—is moving ad hoc, meeting to meeting. It's very difficult to prepare. It's very hard on the analysts. It's very hard on the clerk. It's unfair to the witnesses.
Mr. Morantz went through a number of the questions he would like to have put to the witnesses who were here today. Well, that's exactly how I felt when the Conservatives were filibustering during the fall economic statement. One of the witnesses who was testifying here about water in this country ended up leaving without any questions being asked of him. He actually wrote a letter to this committee, asking to come back, because of the time that was wasted. The Conservatives claim to want to get to the issues, but then they continue to filibuster. That's an oxymoron that I just don't think can be squared.
There have been references to this being an omnibus bill. The Harper government was the king of the creators of omnibus bills. That's all they brought in for budget bills. They were omnibus bills. In fact, they were the first major government to regularly use omnibus bills as a routine matter. I remember how they changed the way riverways and waterways in this country were regulated in a budget bill, as an example. There were hundreds and hundreds of pages that went way too far in amending legislation.
I agree that the Liberal government has brought in omnibus bills. I don't think that's appropriate either. I know that there's some reason to go a little wider in budget bills, but for the record, I agree that we should resist the temptation to use budget bills as mega bills that make all sorts of changes to legislation. I remember that in the last budget bill, there was a change to the way pharmaceuticals were regulated in this country. That didn't even come to the health committee. That's a problem, I think, because as parliamentarians, our first job is to scrutinize government bills.
While I do agree with that, I don't think it lies in the mouths of Conservatives to appear pure on objecting to omnibus bills when the last Conservative government used them every year for 10 years. I hope it will be different if and when the Conservatives are in government again.
We'll see. I think there was a reference to the Harper government being pure. I remember Senate scandals, Nigel Wright secretly writing a $90,000 cheque to pay for Mike Duffy's legal bills. I remember the G8 Muskoka scandal: Tony Clement was overspending for the—