Thank you, Chair.
I did say off-mic that since I offered some criticisms of your chairing approach, I want to balance that criticism with some affirmation. I think it was a legitimate use of the chair's discretion to call a suspension when you did, so I do want to commend you for using your powers in ways that accord with the parameters established by the history of this institution and the Standing Orders.
We are discussing a subamendment to a programming motion. The programming motion is about a 600-page budget bill that will be coming before the committee, the budget implementation act, which implements the budget and makes various changes to a substantial number of other statutes. I recall how the current Prime Minister, before he was in office, promised that there would be no more omnibus bills and that he would do away with the practice of omnibus bills. I'm not sure, and my colleagues can correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like this may be one of the longest budget implementation acts that has ever existed in the history of this great nation. It is the biggest budget bill for the biggest debt for the biggest government that we have ever seen.
Of course, Conservatives prefer a small government and big citizenship, a big society characterized by the kinds of non-material values I was speaking about before, but also by the freedom for individuals to engage in productive commerce, to make good ideas go and to test their ideas against the choice of their fellow citizens.
We have this large budget bill that has just been delivered to this committee, but prior to the presentation of that budget bill, our dear friends across the way put forward a programming motion. The nature of that programming motion is to prescribe specific time parameters around when, how and for how long this committee will hear from various people over the course of its study and to provide a kind of cliff cut-off that, after a certain point in time, not only will there be no more discussion but even no more reading out of amendments and the rapid disposal of the aspects of this legislation will occur.
As I said earlier, it's doubtful that such a programming motion is necessary at all. I think that if we were to adjourn this meeting and the chair were to proceed to invite witnesses to appear on the budget bill, the committee could quite easily proceed with its work.
In that context, by making proposals and raising objections to various aspects of this programming motion, the Conservatives are not in any way whatsoever impacting on or impeding what could be the work of the committee. It would be a simple matter for the committee to say, “Okay, we're ready to adjourn.” We're ready to then have the chair put out notices of meetings for subsequent meetings that involve witnesses appearing.
The usual manner of witnesses appearing is that we start with ministers, ideally for two hours, providing testimony on the bill that is before the committee. Subsequently, various witnesses will be called, and those witnesses will be identified through the submission of witness lists from parties. Those witnesses will be scheduled in accordance with their availability in a manner that is fair to all parties. That is the normal way committees undertake their work. The committee has the flexibility as that work proceeds to understand the appropriate timelines that should be associated with that work and, as that unfolds, to then decide that they've heard enough and are ready to proceed to clause-by-clause or that perhaps they haven't heard enough and maybe they want to hear from additional witnesses. These are normal ways that committees operate.
We're seeing this government continue to operate in a draconian and, I think, dangerously undemocratic fashion by putting forward very long budget bills that are designed in a way to minimize the public scrutiny that they're subject to. Also, in the process of putting these long budget bills, they put them forward relatively late in the budget cycle, as my colleague Mr. Chambers spoke about, and then try to prescribe a narrow and rapid timeline for these processes to unfold. I think the committee could do its work well if it simply did its work in the normal fashion.
That is the kind of general context of the debate we're having.
Conservatives have made a number of proposals that relate to at least cleaning up aspects of this programming motion to take out the worst and most draconian parts of it.
Our original amendment still involves establishing a date on which clause-by-clause consideration would begin, but it allows that clause-by-clause consideration to unfold without a kind of cliff provision, such that after a point in time had passed there would be no more reading of the questions and no more debate whatsoever.
Following that, we have also put forward a subamendment that establishes the following:
That the week of the 28th and future meetings be dedicated to hearing from witnesses for no fewer than 12 hours and the clerk invite Mr. Mark Carney as a witness to testify with respect to the Budget 2024, the economy and the environment for no fewer than two hours.
I was talking a little bit about Mr. Carney's philosophy that he's been advancing recently and what he's been talking about in the context of his recent book. I was quoting from various places that describe it.
It may be logical for me to identify his core argument in a more summative way and then talk about it.
Before I do, I want to observe that the other element of this subamendment is to state that we will hear from witnesses for “no fewer than 12 hours”. I'm not sure the exact page number, but with a budget bill of at least 600 pages—perhaps more than that—12 hours of witness testimony is 50 pages of the budget bill per hour. That doesn't seem like a lot of witness testimony in proportion to the number of hours for the content and the detail of a budget bill.
In context, that means roughly one minute of witness testimony would correspond to one page of the budget. That is a very limited amount of time, given the way each page of this budget bill goes through specific legislative changes that repeal or add certain legislative provisions. That is just overwhelmingly minimal, actually, in terms of what's been put forward. I think it's hard to argue that we're not being reasonable in terms of prescribing the amount of time.
I've been at other committees where you might have a relatively short private member's bill that's one line or a few pages, that is the subject of multiple hours of witness testimony, of very detailed negotiations among parties. We're in a minority Parliament, so you would hope aspects of this legislation could be the subject of debate around what amendments might be considered and supported. It is the normal thing. It should be the normal thing for those aspects of the legislation to be subject to consideration and negotiation in a reasonable process and over a reasonable amount of time. Also, the committee might be able to hear in the course of its witness testimony from different witnesses with expertise on different aspects of the proposed changes.
I know the budget bill contains some specific provisions that relate to my portfolio, international development, that make some technical changes with regard to how changes are made.
As I said, the failure to provide the appropriate rural top-up to the people of York—Simcoe is a primary grievance of members of our caucus. We have been fighting persistently, at the prompting of the member for York—Simcoe, for that rural top-up to be provided.
By sheer coincidence, just as I was raising that issue, the member for York—Simcoe has joined us today. I think members will affirm that I have spoken of nothing else but the top-up for the residents of York—Simcoe—