Finance Committee on Feb. 10th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

We could go to Mr. McLean, and then we'll get an answer from you and the analysts.

Thank you, Monsieur Ste-Marie.

Go ahead, Mr. McLean.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to my colleagues at the table.

In the spirit of goodwill, we've listened to the motion, but the motion was just received at the end of this meeting and the schedule on it is very tight, including the calling of witnesses for our next meeting. I am going to propose that we deal with this at the next meeting on Monday and that we set the schedule at that point in time, but on Monday we should continue with the pre-budget consultations. We'll have witnesses to call and that is going to take more than a day, ready for the weekend, so I think it is a little too tight, and it also is out of order.

I haven't called a point of order because I wanted to hear exactly what the motion was. I think we've discussed it, but it is, as you will note, out of order, so if we can deal with it Monday—

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Actually, it is in order. I said that we would be discussing the legislation at the end of this meeting and that is what we're doing, so it is in order.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

It's discussing legislation, but this is a motion on the table. We're supposed to have 48 hours' notice on it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

If it is what we are discussing on the floor, it is in order.

Mr. Clerk...?

It is in order, yes. Okay.

Mr. Clerk, do you have the answer for Monsieur Ste-Marie?

[The Clerk]

I don't have a specific answer for Monsieur Ste-Marie.

I don't know when the government would like to receive the recommendations.

In fact, procedurally, there is nothing in the Standing Orders that imposes any obligation on the committee in this respect. The only thing the Standing Orders say is that it must be done before the December adjournment, which is long past.

So it's up to the committee. Normally, the government should be able to tell us when the recommendations should be submitted so that it can draw up the federal budget. However, I haven't received that information. I don't know if Mr. Beech has received it.

Perhaps our analyst Mr. Capwell can add something about this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Can we hear from the analysts?

Mr. Beech, I do know that we did look at how many meetings we had in the past. Last year, I think there were about 13 hours of meetings.

Clerk, can you inform me if that's correct or not?

Now we're at about eight hours that we've completed, but in terms of the submissions, we can hear from the analysts.

[Brett Capwell, Committee Researcher]

The clerk is correct. Without knowing what the tabling date of the report is, we can't really provide a timeline of when the last meeting on the PBCs should take place, but at any point up until that date, we can continue to receive evidence, written or oral, with respect to the PBCs. It will be considered in the report.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Okay.

Does that answer the question, Monsieur Ste-Marie?

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

Ideally, I'd like the government to give us a date so that the report can be considered. We know that it's time consuming to write.

I think last year we had until the end of February to submit it. Obviously, if we knew when the budget would be tabled, that might help us set an end date for our consultations. Otherwise, we would need a response from the government.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

It would help. I think only one person knows that date, but what we'll do is try to find a kind of end date for the submissions or anything still being brought forward that would make it into the report.

I see that MP Chambers' is hand up.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, for recognizing me.

Perhaps before I consider moving an amendment, could the clerk provide an update on whether he received an answer from the Governor of the Bank of Canada to the invite that we had provided him?

[The Clerk]

I've been instructed by the chair to continue on pre-budget consultations at least for the next couple of weeks, so I've been instructed not to ask the governor for a time at this moment, taking into account that the motion for the inflation study talked about a report at the end of May, and it was thought that we would have more time in the coming months to invite the governor.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

But, Clerk, we did invite the governor for that study?

[The Clerk]

We invited him at the beginning, before we started the pre-budget consultations, but we have not invited him since we've started.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Okay.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

I'm somewhat concerned that the message we received from the governor was that he's unavailable. I'm tempted to request, and to amend this motion to request, that the governor appear in front of this committee, because, one, when we ask an individual like the Governor of the Bank of Canada to appear as a witness for a study, I think we would expect that an individual who holds the office that the governor holds would respect the request of parliamentarians.

I wonder how my colleagues feel about this. This is an important issue, and the governor goes into blackout periods very frequently before all interest rate announcements. We had asked him to appear for three hours. Saying you're not available and then not giving any other dates is...I was quite disappointed there.

Since we don't have him scheduled, I'll move to amend that we invite the governor to appear along with [Technical difficulty—Editor]

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Okay. There's an amendment to the motion.

MP Beech's hand is up, although, just on the governor, like I said, an invitation did go out to the governor. That was on the inflation study. On that, we had Pierre at that time, who had said that he wanted it that the governor would only appear alone, without officials, and the governor at this time was not able to do that and would not do that at this time without officials.

I have MP Beech, and then MP Blaikie.

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

I'll try to address multiple points.

First, to the amendment, and for my colleague, Mr. Chambers, I am also very much hoping to hear from the Governor of the Bank of Canada, but of course with regard to our study on inflation, housing and affordability, so I would recommend that perhaps you could rescind this amendment and we could figure out some way to appease that desire, because we share that desire, I think. I don't necessarily think that we should be dealing with it with regard to Bill C-8.

In terms of Mr. Ste-Marie, I have the same questions that you do around timing and everything else, so I don't know how helpful I could be on that, necessarily. I don't know how much time we would need for officials on Monday if we were to pass this motion as is, and perhaps—I'd have to ask the clerk if there's time to extend it—we could have another round of pre-budget consultations on Monday as well. I'd also ask the question of whether there would be some extra time available on Monday if possible. That might meet your needs in the immediate term. In terms of exact timing on the budget, I don't have an answer for you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Beech.

Go ahead, MP Blaikie.

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

Thank you very much.

I think partly I just wanted to confirm with Mr. Chambers that he's proposing to invite the Governor of the Bank of Canada on Bill C-8. I think that would be the effect of his amendment. I'm not sure whether that's the intention or not. I'm just looking for a little bit of clarity there.

To reinforce what Monsieur Ste-Marie was saying, I think it is an important question: What is the window for government to consider the work that's coming out of this committee? For the government to offer a deadline for the completion of this committee's work in the pre-budget period is not to reveal a budget date. All it says is that if they gave us a date of February 28, it would just be to say that the budget's not coming before February 28. I don't think that would be a particularly incredible commitment for them to make or be any kind of sensitive information. It would just give this committee and all of the people who want to submit briefs and provide information a reasonable expectation that it's not in vain.

I would be satisfied if Mr. Beech would undertake to get a date from the government, or if you would, Mr. Chair. If we need to do something more formal and have the committee write a letter to the government in order to get that information, so be it. I really do think it's a reasonable expectation and in keeping with the budget process in normal times, at least. As we are all concerned about getting back to normal, I think this is one small way in which we could begin that long road.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Definitely, Mr. Blaikie.

I know that we want some clarity from MP Chambers. I'm also going to ask the analysts about this, because it's their work. They do the heavy lifting on all of this. They're also going to need that period of time. I don't know how long it takes them to get their report ready. Then we'll hear from MP Beech.

MP Chambers, did you have something to add on the clarity?

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Yes, Chair.

Thank you to MP Blaikie. I am interested in hearing from the governor within at least the next three weeks. I'm open to suggestions, but I would propose that we add an “h” that says that the governor appear within the next three weeks and address the inflation study—or, I would also be open to having the governor speak about Bill C-8 and inviting him back to speak about the inflation study at the appropriate time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mr. Chambers.

I want to hear from the analysts. Maybe they can tell us about the end date and the time that they need.

[Brett Capwell]

I suppose to start, we can be flexible with how long it takes to produce the report, depending on, effectively, the amount of time we're given. If we only have a week, we can make a report work in that week, but it would be very small relative to other years' reports.

In general, it takes about a month between drafting, translation, recommendations, the review of those recommendations, and then the review of the report itself. As I said, the format of the report is up to the committee. We will make whatever we have to work.