Evidence of meeting #43 for Finance in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A video is available from Parliament.
11:20 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Fonseca
Thank you, Mr. Ste‑Marie.
I have MP Beech and MP Albas on the amendment.
Go ahead, MP Beech.
11:20 a.m.
Liberal
Terry Beech Liberal Burnaby North—Seymour, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I have a quick question for my colleague Gabriel.
You expressed in your initial statement that you're uncomfortable with a deadline, but we are operating in an environment where we have deadlines and parliamentary procedures and constrained House resources.
Would you be open to setting a deadline for the response from committees of, say, May 20, and that those responses be in writing? Is that something that you'd be open to?
11:25 a.m.
Bloc
Gabriel Ste-Marie Bloc Joliette, QC
Mr. Beech, I understand the government's imperatives and I share the government's desire to pass the bill before Parliament breaks for the summer. That said, as I explained earlier, at the moment I am not prepared to set a deadline. We could set one for the other committees, though.
Since the House has still not voted on the bill at second reading, I find it hasty to decide on a cut-off date. In terms of other committees, the date could be late May or early June. I could accept that. Obviously, I prefer that the committee arrive at decisions by consensus.
As I said, I would have preferred to vote on the study limits in another amendment or in another part, but, if Mr. Beech wants to move a subamendment to set a deadline for the studies of other committees, I could support it.
11:25 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Fonseca
Thank you, Mr. Ste‑Marie.
I have on the list here MP Albas, MP Chambers and MP Fast on the amendment.
11:25 a.m.
Conservative
Dan Albas Conservative Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC
Mr. Chair, since MP Ste-Marie did receive MP Beech's counter-proposal and then said he'd like to maybe look at June, perhaps we could have the parliamentary secretary respond to that, please, because that would have some bearing on my intervention here.
11:25 a.m.
Liberal
Terry Beech Liberal Burnaby North—Seymour, BC
How would we respond? We'd still be looking for a May 20 deadline.
11:25 a.m.
Conservative
Dan Albas Conservative Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC
Unfortunately, Mr. Chair, the parliamentary secretary has now gone from trying to tell just this committee what to do to telling multiple House of Commons committees how to do their work.
In fact, Mr. Chair, I think you out of all people would know, having worked so closely with the clerk, that everyone wants to come to finance. We're one of the busiest committees. There are other committees, such as industry, that are extremely seized as well. To suddenly say that you have 11 days to report back on major areas means members would have to stop what they're doing, immediately start a call for witnesses and then immediately start planning sessions. By the time they even got to the first meeting, we probably already would have hit that hard deadline of May 20. That is patently unfair to those other committees.
I totally understand that the member from the Bloc Québécois, MP Ste-Marie, is honourably trying to do his job, Mr. Chair, and trying to work with this and find a way so that he can have his concerns raised in front of those different committees, but you know what? Conservatives have been taking a different approach right from the start. You will know that we've been bringing in shadow ministers who have specific responsibilities to ask questions of the officials specifically on Bill C‑19. We will continue to do that. Unfortunately for my friend from Quebec, MP Ste-Marie, even though his heart and his temperament are 100% in the right place, to have the parliamentary secretary now compound the damage that I think this government is doing to the independence....
Last week, Mr. Chair, as you will remember—you were there in question period—I asked specifically the Minister of National Revenue if she would support a Conservative motion, my colleague MP Stewart's motion, about the concerns of allegations around advance pricing arrangements at CRA. She said, “Oh, well, the member knows that we don't take opinions at all on who comes before committee.” Well, I guess the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance certainly doesn't mind telling the finance committee what to do. Our parliamentary secretary sure doesn't seem to mind telling other committees what to do. I think that's a bit of a shameful process.
Look, I'm not going to make it personal. I know that Mr. Beech as a parliamentary secretary has a job that he is given. I would simply suggest to him to maybe reflect on the points, because it's a long way from when he was elected in 2015, when parliamentary secretaries could come into the room, listen to the debate and maybe have conversations on the sidelines with their other members of Parliament. They would not be voting members.
That changed in 2019. They became voting members.
Now it has changed yet again, Mr. Chair. Now we have the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance dictating not just what the finance committee will do but actually what multiple independent parliamentary committees will do, at the drop of a hat. I think it's not a good faith request that he's made of MP Ste-Marie. Not for one second would I hold it against Mr. Ste-Marie—not in any way, shape or form—that he would be as mad as heck at this government for how they are treating this parliamentary process, and particularly this budget implementation act in this committee, so I would—
11:30 a.m.
Liberal
Julie Dzerowicz Liberal Davenport, ON
I think Mr. Albas is no longer talking about the amendment that Mr. Ste-Marie is proposing. I think he's talking to how Mr. Beech has responded. I wonder if he could get back to speaking to the amendment.
11:30 a.m.
Conservative
Dan Albas Conservative Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC
Mr. Chair, I would ask you to rule on this, because I was clearly speaking to the amendment. It is the amendment that Mr. Ste-Marie put in good faith, only to receive a bad faith counter-offer. I think that is completely within committee business and completely germane to the conversation on the amendment put forward by honourable member MP Ste-Marie.
Maybe you could rule on that, please.
11:30 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Fonseca
MP Albas, I do allow for leeway. I think you were giving us, as I understood it, your historical perspective on what's happened over the last, I don't know, 10 to 15 years, but we'll stick to and focus on the amendment. I don't know—
11:30 a.m.
Conservative
Dan Albas Conservative Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC
Ten to 15 years, Mr. Chair? I don't understand. I was speaking specifically to the motion to amend it—
11:30 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Fonseca
No, MP Albas; you brought up your history here, and the history of parliamentary secretaries, etc.
11:30 a.m.
Conservative
Dan Albas Conservative Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC
In 2015, sir? We have a parliamentary secretary who put forward a motion, and I was speaking—
11:30 a.m.
Conservative
Dan Albas Conservative Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC
Yes. Again, Mr. Chair, I was saying directly that I would not hold it against this member who is trying in his way to work toward having better scrutiny of the bill rather than have a non-good faith response back from the parliamentary secretary. As I said, I'm not holding it personally against MP Beech, but in this case you can tell that it's the minister's office that is pressuring him to do that.
Mr. Chair, I'm going to leave it here and say that Conservatives have a very straightforward approach. We won't necessarily be supporting the motion by my colleague, but I support him. I support him in his desire to see better transparency and better scrutiny of this government's bill.
Thank you.
11:30 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Fonseca
Thank you, MP Albas.
I have MP Chambers, MP Fast, MP Beech and MP Dzerowicz on my list.
MP Chambers, you have the floor.
May 9th, 2022 / 11:30 a.m.
Conservative
Adam Chambers Conservative Simcoe North, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I don't know if it's an appropriate point of order, but since I have the floor, it's more of a question.
In the fall or just before we rose for the winter break, we passed the bill at committee, which was then swiftly passed through Parliament. I guess my question is, what's the latest date on which we could pass the budget implementation bill—finish clause-by-clause study and still pass it? I'm looking at a calendar, and we're supposed to be here until June 23. If we could do what we did in the winter, why are we putting dates like the end of May or May 20 for having individuals or committees report back? That's a week and a bit from now.
Some of these changes to the Competition Act and to others are significant. What's the point of having a committee if we're going to hamstring us when we've shown before that we can study this and get something through right up to the end?
I'm looking at the calendar. I see June 23. It's more of a question for my colleagues, perhaps: What's the last day we can send this from the committee and see it get passed before we rise on June 23?
11:30 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Fonseca
Thank you, MP Chambers.
We are on the amendment and we're going to MP Fast, MP Beech, MP Dzerowicz and then MP Blaikie.
11:35 a.m.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to begin by noting that it was Conservatives on this committee who actually supported efforts to do a prestudy on the budget, so any suggestion that somehow the efforts by us or by the Bloc are to delay the passage of the budget is false and ill-advised.
I note that Mr. Ste-Marie did preface his remarks, when he proposed splitting up elements of this bill and sending those elements to different committees, by saying that what he was opposed to, fundamentally, was putting limits on the bill. I think what I have to draw from that reference is that he opposes limiting the ability of parliamentarians to do their job when it comes to analyzing the budget and its different components, which are manifested in the different parts of the budget implementation legislation.
I note that he is referring to taking section 9 in part 5 and referring it to the trade committee; sections 15 to 17 to the industry committee; sections 26, 27, 29 and 32 to HUMA; section 23 to immigration; and sections 18, 19, 21 and 22 to the justice committee.
I understand why he wants to do that. For example, there is a reference in this bill to the establishment of a Criminal Code offence for activities created on the moon. How is that a money-related issue? That is the case for many pieces of this budget implementation act, and I understand why he would want to refer elements to different committees that are better tasked to consider them.
Because the government has violated its promise not to introduce an omnibus bill, which this is, we now have a situation that is causing this committee significant scheduling problems, which the government is trying to resolve by simply ramming this stuff through without proper oversight. That is irresponsible.
I also note that the government actually promised not to put limitations on debate by not invoking closure, yet we have seen this government do it regularly. You understand why we, as the official opposition, would be incredibly frustrated by the sudden about-turn this government has taken after making these promises to become more transparent and accountable not only to parliamentarians but to Canadians.
I am pleading with the parliamentary secretary, who has already approached me on a number of occasions to see if there's a way of moving this through expeditiously, to come forward with realistic, fair solutions that can allow this legislation to pass in a manner that provides for proper oversight but is still timely in nature. I've not seen that from the parliamentary secretary. So far he's been crafty. He's been trying to propose solutions that he knows very well we as an opposition cannot accept because they interfere with our constitutional right to exercise oversight over what is, at the end of the day, $57 billion of new spending in a budget.
Canadians will understand that this kind of new money being spent by a government should have proper oversight, and for all those reasons—