Finance Committee on May 9th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Dzerowicz.

I now have MP Albas and MP Lawrence.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to say that I know how difficult these conversations can sometimes be, and I do like the tenor, the tone, that we have all embraced as members of Parliament. We are all sent here to try to work together.

I will disagree with some of the things my honourable colleague MP Dzerowicz said earlier, but I'll save that for a moment other than to say that I appreciate that these meetings are not only important to our constituents, but they can be long because you can't put a price on democracy. There are rules that have been enshrined in this place to allow committees to function as independently as possible, as MP Chambers said earlier.

There are obviously other tools the government can use such as a House order. It, in fact, directed the study of Bill C-19 to this committee. Ultimately this committee was created to serve the House, but without having further instructions, we have a responsibility to set our own sail.

While the original programming motion that was put forward by MP Beech as the parliamentary secretary was received in good faith by MP Ste-Marie, who I admire very much for his passion for his constituents, for the questioning he's had and the lack of answers he's been able to receive when it comes to the luxury tax and the occasional intervention by my honourable colleague from the NDP, what has happened is that he put that forward, and now we've had a further subamendment to his amendment, which was to try to make sure that there was a proper process.

The government—let's be mindful, Mr. Chair—at the very beginning tried to apply its direction to what is supposed to be an independent committee. Right off the bat, I believe I made it known that it was an issue. I believe I made some arguments about how there were promises by this government to not have parliamentary secretaries on committee. They would occasionally sit down in the corner and listen in thoughtfully so that they could report back to their ministers the goings of this committee, which is a very august body, and I've always enjoyed being on it.

Again, this is a bill, 468 pages, I believe, because when I put it to the minister when she came in for the hour, I said 421. Again, Mr. Chair, you might be mindful that there are a number of pages we did not know about. The government didn't even give us the courtesy in their courtesy copies to say that there's more on the website, even just a note to go along with it, so there are missing pages, which I raised earlier.

As I open my comments today, I go back to the tone that Mr. Chambers presented earlier. In fact, he made a little bit of a joke saying someone had to listen to him, and when he said thank you for staying, they said, “No, I'm the next speaker.” That was very funny. It reminds me of a very similar joke I used to give when I first set out in politics. I said that my goal in any speech or presentation was three things: to be bold, to be brief and then to be gone. Actually, I think it wasn't to be bold. I think it was to be brilliant.

I'm going to let everyone now know that I used to joke that at least you'll get two out of three. I have become a little bit more of a realist, so I'm going to let everyone know not to expect any of the three today.

I'd like to start with why we should be concerned about the programming motion put forward by the parliamentary secretary, and I have already touched on it. Governments are tethered to this institution. They are not the ones who tell us as members of Parliament to have confidence. They're the ones who have to put forward bills that show confidence. In this case, we have a motion that is directly telling us how many presentations we can have. I guess it just gives us a time limit, and it also puts in when we should have clause-by-clause.

The very thoughtful motion by MP Ste-Marie does actually propose that we divide this up, because in those 460-odd pages there are many clauses that pertain to areas of expertise in other committees, and committees like international trade, industry and technology, the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, and the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights—all very important bodies.

When we send something to them, the very premise should be that we are in good faith seeking their responses. Now if you harken back to our last meeting, Mr. Chair, I believe it was confirmed that clause-by-clause would be done only by this committee. Regardless of what those members on those other committees think, ultimately they will not be able to substantially do what we do, which is to put forward amendments and to debate them. I don't think that is fair.

I should also point out that there is going to be a bit of a challenge, because I don't think independent members are being taken into account under this particular motion by the parliamentary secretary, or even in his amendment. Don't worry, though. I'll save that for closer to the end.

What I think is important to note is that when you offer someone something in good faith, the idea is that it's a legitimate offer. Now for those committees to suddenly decide whether or not they can meet at the time that has been listed here by the parliamentary secretary...and let's note that it is today, Thursday, May 12. When this was first tabled, obviously it was earlier in the week. Already days have slipped by, and while I do understand that MP Baker and MP Dzerowicz had both raised the idea that politics is the art of compromise, compromise means thoughtful discussion and give and take. It does not necessarily mean overriding other members without having some sort of thoughtful process.

As you can see, Mr. Chair, that leaves the Conservatives with very few options other than to say that we do not believe that this particular motion or its amendment.... Actually, I should say that the amendment seems to improve upon it, but the subamendment by the parliamentary secretary is not being done in good faith. Why? Because time has already been whittled away.

We already had to say no to those witnesses who came here on Monday ready to present. I presented a motion to try to see if we could speed that up. The importance of having witnesses cannot be overstated. Why? It's because obviously this is a very large omnibus bill and I find it lamentable that the Minister of Finance, the deputy prime minister, spent only an hour with the committee. I would have preferred a second hour, because I would have asked several other questions that pertained directly to Bill C-19.

I don't see any provision here in the subamendment for having the minister come back. In fact MP Chambers had expressed his desire to have the Minister of Industry come and speak to the competition components, the Competition Act amendments. I do enjoy Minister Champagne. I think he's a very thoughtful individual. If it is the will of the committee to have him come in for an hour, I would certainly make the time in my schedule for that. I think this particular subamendment that Mr. Beech has put forward has neither the Minister of Industry nor the Minister of Finance.

What worries me as time cuts away at this is that ultimately we're going to have less and less time, because the Liberals have not tried to work co-operatively with all members. I think that's really at the heart of this. I don't blame the Bloc or the NDP for playing ball because maybe their preferences have been met.

Maybe they see a different reality from the one I do, but this particular subamendment of Mr. Beech does not necessarily meet those needs from our perspective. Again, while we know the saying that politics is all about compromise, it's usually referred to as the art of the possible.

Do you know what, Mr. Chair? What's possible isn't always probable.

What's probable is where you make.... You don't think you should speak to other members and try to get them on board. Instead, we have motions, amendments and subamendments that do not have the consent of each and every party or member. Obviously, there's a way to have a democratic debate about this and, eventually, a vote, but I am not going to be keen to give that until we have had a thorough venting of some of the issues with this particular motion.

Let me go into some of my concerns.

In the last Parliament—I'm going to give a personal example—I was on the environment and sustainable development committee. It's a very good committee. Much like in this body, I got a chance to work within a group where we may have had distinct views on policy. I felt that the people around the table were generally respectful and understood that we were all here to represent our constituents and to have an exchange of views. Where we might have disagreements, we would talk them out until either we found some consensus or compromise, or we put it to a democratic vote.

We went to a bill called C-12, and there's something very similar between Bill C-12, the net-zero bill presented by the minister of the environment—at that time, it was MP Wilkinson of North Vancouver, a fellow British Columbian.... Similarly, in that particular bill and study, the parliamentary secretary put forward a programming motion. Unfortunately, the member of Parliament for the NDP at the time decided that they would opt into that programming motion. Again, I don't want to prejudice or call into question anyone's character, including the previous member of Parliament or the current NDP representative at this table, who I'm sure is here in good faith.

What ended up happening was, in my mind, remarkable. We had witnesses come forward and we listened to the testimony. All parties, the Bloc, even the Green individual.... My colleague MP May from Saanich—Gulf Islands brought amendments, as did the Liberals, the New Democrats and the Conservatives. We brought forward a number of meaningful amendments that we felt would have improved the bill, even though we opposed the bill in the House due to some issues over the net-zero advisory committee. I will not get into that discussion of what happened in the House. I will say it was rather unfortunate how that shut down.

What ended up happening was that they jammed through such a tight process that we were literally hearing witnesses when the period for submitting amendments to the bill had already expired.

Think of this. You get a call from the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development. You have dedicated your professional career or your voluntary hours and expertise to writing up a brief. In fact, one witness told me that the moment he got the letter, he started furiously typing up his presentation, but by the time he got on the schedule, all of the suggestions that he had presented in his report and in his remarks were moot.

Why were they moot? It certainly wasn't because of bad faith by that individual, but because of the way the committee had jump-started the process and programmed in that there was only going to be a certain amount of time to get amendments in. That person was deeply disappointed, as were others.

The government probably never heard from those individuals in person, but I can say that MP May attested at committee that she heard the same thing. Why? Many groups want to be invited back and they want to keep the government, at least, in a somewhat neutral, positive state.

In that case, I have to say that the environment committee process—a committee ably chaired by one of your colleagues, MP Scarpaleggia—was so bad that we ended up jamming through witnesses after the period for amendments had already closed. People felt that process was not in good faith. I see many of the same hallmarks—many of the same markers—in this process, in fact, and I will say that I did speak up at the time. I did very much what I'm doing today. I said to other members, “If we adopt this process, we are jamming witnesses.” We are going to end up with a process that does not lead to a better outcome than Bill C-12 did.

Unfortunately, that's exactly what transpired. In fact, when we look at the amendments, it was such a bad process. Some amendments were supported by certain witnesses, but others, effectively.... The NDP joined up with the Liberal members and voted down pretty much every single amendment, except for a Bloc Québécois motion that established a five-year review. There are some real parallels that I'm starting to see between that process and now. Where did we end up? We ended up where committee members were at each other's throat. It wasn't very good. Witnesses felt bad and, at the end of the day, the government got what it wanted. I see many of the same things happening here.

I would say that it probably wasn't a lot of fun for Mr. Scarpaleggia, but let me tell you what was even worse. Your former colleague, Mr. Scott Simms, said publicly.... He was on Michael Geist's podcast, Law Bytes, where he talked about what was known as Bill C-10 and the shenanigans that ended up happening there.

Why? Well, there is a direct connection with what has happened here with MP Beech's subamendment. The process and timelines were so tight in the original programming motion that, at one point, during clause-by-clause, because of a programming motion, the committee members, in many cases, did not know what they were voting on. In order to meet the programming motion set out by the government, which happens to be the same government here, they ended up voting on amendments without even knowing what they were voting on. The chair would call out a number, and what's even worse, for the people.... There were stakeholders there, obviously, from industry and cultural groups—artists, etc.—who all had a real concern about this. These were people who study the Internet and freedom of expression—those kinds of legal constitutional concerns. All of them were horrified because they didn't even know what the members were voting on. They just heard numbers being shouted out, and that brought the whole committee process into disrepute.

What's even worse is that Conservatives had to appeal to the Speaker in the chamber regarding such a bad process. Do you know what ended up happening? The Speaker said that was not how Parliament was intended to work and ordered the committee to restart the process. The government did end up getting its way, but, for the people who were following along, the parliamentary committee process was in question.

I would say to all members here that the same issues the environment and sustainable development committee had, and the standing committee on heritage had with Bill C-10.... There are certainly parallels with what we have here today—a large omnibus bill, where the witness time is being dictated by the government.

Again, this particular bill is much larger than traditional ones, Mr. Chair.

On one of the things that MP Chambers pointed out—because there will be some arguments that say, if the Conservatives are so serious about not proceeding on this side, there are tax measures that can affect Canadians and that they will not be able to take advantage of—was that for the ways and means process, actually, the government can table ways and means motion tax measures and the CRA will treat those as having been passed, even if that is not the case. Many Canadians, as I was explaining to one of my constituents the other day on Bill C-8, would be quite surprised.

Now, obviously, during a minority, I would surely hope that they would be very careful around those measures. I know, for example, that Bill C-208 in the last Parliament, Larry Maguire's bill, was a change in law. That was actually passed by Parliament, and they still have not put out the regulations. Most people would say, wait a second, when Parliament passes an actual law that allows that if you're a farmer or you have a fish operation, you could transfer that intergenerationally to your family without having to pay extra costs associated with it.... If CRA and the Department of Finance can hold back on those provisions, how in heck...? Pardon the language. I'll repeat: How on earth, Mr. Chair, can it be that CRA can take a proposed law and start acting like it is a law?

[An hon. member]

I don't know.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

In the 41st Parliament, of which I was a part, we actually had a miscellaneous tax amendment bill. It encompassed all of the tax changes that had happened under, I believe, the Chrétien government, into the Martin government and into some of the minority times with the Harper government, and wrapped it up. It was around 800 pages. Do you know what? The NDP, as the official opposition, wanted to study the bill because they knew there was a process whereby they wanted to see it all done. They knew already that these particular tax measures were already being treated as bona fide and that they were already in place.

For anyone to say that somehow, by demanding that this parliamentary committee complete its functions, complete its duties.... Again, this was reiterated to me in the House by the Minister of National Revenue. She didn't care which witnesses we have—committees are independent. I should say, Mr. Chair, that maybe she meant committees are independent when it comes to Conservative motions to have the CRA commissioner.... They're not independent when it comes to getting what they want on their omnibus legislation, as we see in this subamendment.

Now, on the issue of the subamendment and the timing, it is I think very interesting that the Senate, through its banking committee and through other various committees, adopted on May 4 a motion allowing for a pre-committee study, and spreading it all around. They're giving senators until May 10—

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

It's June 10.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

I'm sorry, Mr. Chair. I'm glad that Mr. Chambers is here to keep some of us in line. They're giving themselves until June 10.

Why? It's because as independent and regionally or conservatively minded senators, they have decided among themselves that the best way for them to balance between presenting legislation promised by an elected government to properly scrutinizing bills.... I'd be really interested to see how many ministers and how many hours ministers are required for in the other place versus the simple one hour that we got here.

By the way, I do think we can improve that process. If a minister is going to come for one hour, we should only be giving them a five-minute introduction, because that really did cut down the amount of time the rest of us had to really do what our focus is, which is holding the government to account.

I know you'll take that, Mr. Chair, and you and the clerk will try to work on that, or at least I'm hoping.

I'm looking to see, Mr. Chair, that you're listening. Okay, there's a dutiful nod. Anyway, I'll take what I can get. Mr. Chair, thank you for giving me that nod so I know that I'm not just speaking into the ether.

I've talked a little bit so far about previous experiences, whether it be the miscellaneous tax amendment bill of close to 700 or maybe 800 pages that in the 41st Parliament the NDP wanted to look through, even though most of those laws had already been through the ways and means motion process or acted like it was....

I've talked a little bit about Bill C-12 and how that really strained what was really a well-functioning committee, and the absolute gong show that happened. Again, if you listened to Michael Geist interview the former heritage chair, Liberal member Scott Simms, you'd know that the process did not do anyone right.

I would like us to avoid those issues, Mr. Chair. I would like us to actually see better communication and for the government to start saying, maybe we have to make the committee process work for everyone and not just simply for a few members here and there. They should actually say, perhaps...and if they don't want to agree with me, then they can maybe agree with Mr. Chambers. I can understand not wanting to say that they agree with the member of Parliament for Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola because that might be publicly frowned upon, but at least I would hope they would say that they would agree with MP Chambers.

Again, I have talked about how this process could be improved. I've been speaking with some of my Conservative colleagues. We're not at a stage where we can talk about that because right now we're discussing a subamendment to MP Ste-Marie's amendment, but I just have to say again that the process the government is pursuing here is not the right way to do it.

I would hope that the government is getting the drift of where Conservatives are coming from. I think that a reasonable timeline would allow us to get back on track. Unfortunately, the unreasonable timeline that we have, the programming in the original motion and the subamendment that we have here have created a sense of bad faith among members of the committee.

What we've seen with the passage of just the short time between our Monday meeting and today is that this schedule, again, which looked ambitious then, right now is just looking like Bill C-10 or Bill C-12 from the last Parliament waiting to happen.

We pitched over 46 witnesses, from right across this great country, and we want to hear from them. That's where I think the government members need to just simply back off of the process we have ahead, table the motion, get committee witnesses in and let's go through them all. They can always come back with a motion.

We actually have some ideas about a much more reasonable timeline, but unfortunately at this stage of debate we can't do that.

Let's be mindful that we didn't really have to put out a call for witnesses. They were coming to us. I'm sure that MP Ste-Marie's phone is going off the hook with people wanting to speak with him and wanting to come here. In fact, I saw that the clerk had sent out, to all committee members, other witnesses who have suggested that they want to appear before the committee outside of the usual process of speaking to individual members. Why? It is because they want to be heard by this government.

I'm not going to claim that all of our witnesses are the right ones. There might be others who other members might have heard from who right now we can't hear from because this government has chosen to start with a programming motion rather than letting a process evolve.

There is always a time, Mr. Chair, when either the compromises that MP Dzerowicz spoke of need to come together or there needs to be a democratic vote, but we are not at that time right now.

I would also say that one thing that is missing from Mr. Beech's subamendment is any reference to our being able to hear from the Parliamentary Budget Officer in addition to hearing from the Minister of Industry or having the Minister of Finance come back. I know the PBO pays particularly close attention to the tax-related measures and financial figures put out by the government. I think that would be a much better improvement to the subamendment that MP Beech has put out here.

Again, I should disassociate that. It's not fair to MP Beech to always make this program motion his, because really at the end of the day he's a parliamentary secretary, and this was written by someone else. At least I hope he would clarify if I'm mistaken on that point, Mr. Chair.

I say that because the Minister of Finance is a busy minister. In fact I think she's too busy.

I'm just going to talk quickly about this, because I think that is the direct reason she's not here in the subamendment by MP Beech. I think she'd be cross with him if she were in here, but I think it's worth pointing out that the job of being finance minister is busy enough as it is. A deputy prime minister, Mr. Chair, I can only imagine is so much more, and again it's not up to the Deputy Prime Minister in her function as that, or as the Minister of Finance, to decide what her job is. That is the Prime Minister's job.

The Prime Minister by putting those two roles together, despite the talents of any individual, Mr. Chair.... I think this is a point that needs to made: She doesn't have the time. She doesn't have the time to stay more than an hour at this committee. She doesn't have the time to answer conclusively questions by members. In fact, again, the process of giving her 10 minutes.... Look, I'd love to give every minister 20 minutes if we had three hours. To me that would be fair, but, again, for a minister to have only 50 minutes spread among all these members here, I just don't think that is a very good process.

I do think that the Prime Minister should be looking into that, because if the Prime Minister wants to have a finance minister who is on top of her file, who is able to come and spend the time with the finance committee to defend her bill, to be able to spend the time, it obviously is not here.

From what I've heard from member of Parliament Mr. Ste-Marie, the luxury tax is not properly designed. We have heard that there wasn't even an economic impact study. There were no jobs and whatnot, and that may reflect that the Department of Finance is not getting enough attention. I do know from speaking to people who worked with former finance minister Jim Flaherty, who is no longer with us, that when you had someone who was completely concentrating on that file, they would ask every question of every proposal that came forward.

Then they would have to bear the scrutiny of members of Parliament whether in the minority years or later in the Harper majority from 2011 to 2015. Not having a finance minister who is also the deputy prime minister would probably also improve this process. Again, this particular motion doesn't include having her come back. I would simply suggest that is something we should all consider. I'm not satisfied with the amount of time that's there.

I saw that president for the wine growers was here on Monday. I'm sure he wanted to give an earful because, when I asked the Minister of Finance about some of the provisions in regard to this government's treatment of their industry, I was deeply disappointed that they were just surface answers when there are so many issues going on here.

To members of the government, if this is a serious discussion we're having and you're truly saying that politics should be about compromise, I do hope that right now you're taking the time to text, to message or to email one another. Again, you don't have to say that you agree with Dan Albas, but you could certainly say that you agree with MP Chambers that we could make a much better process.

I know they've already done that for MP Ste-Marie because he put forward the amendment that they said they, in essence, support.

Time is incredibly important in this place. We have until June 23 where we could actually be discussing legislation. The government has a lot of time, especially now with motion 11 that was passed with the NDP, which gives them the opportunity to extend midnight sittings. Those sittings certainly can have more debate. I'm really upset that I wasn't able to speak to C-19 in the House. I think there are a lot of provisions in here that Canadians largely need to know about.

That's not your fault, Mr. Chair, because a lot of people, believe it or not, don't actually watch the committee work. In fact, I get more responses from people on speeches in the House of Commons because they watch CPAC. They see the chamber functioning, but they don't always get a chance to see us here at committee.

This is really the only place I'm going to get a chance to talk about C-19. I can't talk about C-19 until we have a process that will work for this committee. I will not allow this committee.... At least, I will do my utmost to make sure that this committee fully understands that if we go along with this programming motion—even if it's slightly improved by MP Ste-Marie—to where suddenly we have “recommendations in relation to the provisions considered by them, in a letter to the Chair of the Standing Committee on Finance, in both official languages, no later than 4:00 p.m. on Friday May 20, 2022”, those other committees won't have a chance. That is literally eight days from now and we're still talking about this because that's an unreasonable time frame.

The parliamentary secretary, even though he didn't write this motion that someone in the minister's office.... Maybe it was the minister, but probably it wasn't. Why? You're right, Mr. Chair. She's too busy with too many things. For us to be considering these, I have to say that I don't believe the government has given this committee adequate time. It's certainly not giving other committees adequate time when it comes to consideration of C-19.

Do you know what, Mr. Chair?

If a standing committee listed in (a) chooses not to consider the subject matter of the provisions, it advise the Chair of the Standing Committee on Finance by letter, in both official languages, no later than 4:00 p.m. on Friday, May 13, 2022.

May 13 seems to me a bit of a problem. Why? May 13 is tomorrow. If a committee chooses to say that it's too busy, it's supposed to let you know in formal writing that it is not possible. They won't even have the opportunity to do that, so either we're forcing them to do that or we're forcing them to not respond.

To me, Mr. Chair, as I said, it's time, time, time. This government is too short with the time of others, and rather than letting the parliamentary calendar settle this, and to have all reasonable parties come together by the 23rd, they are pushing not just this committee into a terrible process but other committees into a worse one.

On my point on that, Mr. Chair, if they can't write to you under this motion by tomorrow, what then? Are they obliged to now study it? Are we going to have, because of the M-11 motion, extended sittings where some committees are being cancelled? How are they supposed to get the resources? Is the government going to give us more translators, along with Mr. Beech's motion, or I should say the Minister of Finance's office's motion...?

These are things that they are not commenting on. Again, if they don't reply to you in writing by tomorrow, then they're obliged. When do they call their meetings? Are they supposed to attach committee business? I guess there are just so many unanswered questions here that, obviously, it comes back to my original premise that this is not really a good-faith process. Do you know what? We can simply sit back and be told by a government, by its parliamentary secretary on committee, what we're going to do and what other committees are going to do. It's just not healthy.

It's not what the Liberals promised in 2015. They promised many things. Omnibus legislation, that was out. It didn't happen. Parliamentary secretaries would be non-voting members. That's out. They've always said that the committees are independent. That's out.

I say there needs to be a few things in. One of them is that you have to get Conservatives in a process that we feel is fair. It doesn't mean that we agree with everything in that process, but that we believe the process is fair.

The second thing is that we want to see those witnesses. We want to have them here. We want to ask them questions. We want to see the PBO. We want to see the Minister of Industry. We want to see the Minister of Finance come back and actually show some ministerial accountability for what was, I think.... This is how bad inflation is now. I thought at the start of this it was a 423-page bill. Actually, it's 468. That's the inflation under this government.

I kid, but I would much rather that we be studying that bill and having the Minister of Finance come for a second hour, or having her come here and talk for three hours as was set out by the previous motion on the inflation study. I even think that my colleague, MP Stewart, put forward a very good motion on studying advance pricing arrangements. The decisions made by CRA that have been in the news of late.... We haven't even been able to get to that, because this government is again putting forward a programming motion that has been amended by a Bloc member, or at least may be amended by a Bloc member. That is now being further amended, because the government ultimately wants to control the process. The process itself is not connected to a proper process, the proper scrutiny of it.

I have sat on the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights—one of the best committees we have, very important. I would hate to put that committee in a position where they do not have proper process. Because for goodness' sake, if we can't have that at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights so that they can look over some of the issues that are in this bill....

The judges' quadrennial pay review is in this bill. There are Criminal Code amendments, ones even relating to the moon and extending Canada's Criminal Code jurisdiction outside of its waters. In fact, I hear there is water on the moon, so maybe we can argue that there is Canadian water on the moon somehow. I don't know how that will work. I don't think we can apply maritime law to that.

Pardon me, Mr. Chair. I have to read that into the record, because one of our members said specifically that he should be asking former astronaut Marc Garneau, our former transport minister. Do you know what? I wish this government consulted a bit more widely with members of Parliament, even its former ministers. Bring him as a witness, someone says.

That's the thing. There could be other witnesses who have similar experiences. We can ask MPs to come. We can't summon them. It would be quite a meeting to hear about that at the justice and human rights committee.

Again, whether they can schedule all of the hearings to talk about many of these matters.... They can't. I don't think it's feasible. I don't think it's reasonable. I don't think it's possible at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, because what are they studying? They're studying Bill C-5, which is making major changes to our Criminal Code.

The government is essentially saying, yes, we will send these things, but they won't be able to do clause-by-clause and we won't give them any time, and then somehow.... I don't understand how the government thought it would be. Again, I don't blame MP Beech, because I don't think he wrote this, unless he wants to make that point clearer, but May 13 is not doable.

That is a big issue. Other committees will have other things that they are studying. Given that M-11 and the late-night sittings won't allow for many of these committees to happen, they can't possibly meet, or if they do, they can't do clause-by-clause. I guess they could do what the member of Parliament for Saanich—Gulf Islands has to do and come here as an independent member and table those amendments that way, but they are going to have get started very quickly. Right now, many of them, like the justice committee, are studying Bill C-5.

I don't understand why the government is so firm on these timelines. Why not let us start having witnesses? Do you know what? We have lots of time between June 23 and today. With the right spirit, the spirit that this member here—MP Chambers, an eternal optimist—has had, maybe we can reward some of those people who believe that reasonable minds can set aside some divisions and that we can start moving forward.

Do you know what, Mr. Chair? After this particular subamendment is debated by other members, perhaps we can have a vote and it will get defeated. We will then have another motion come forward that is more in line with what MP Chambers was discussing in his intervention. I hope so, because the world needs optimism. We have so many things that are not going well.

I know that the government wants what it wants, but it should also want to have members of Parliament feel that they are doing their jobs. The government should try to empower MPs, because that is what many members of Parliament came here to do. They came here to get a sense that they could ask questions, they could move amendments and they could have a process where they feel that they are part of something. I'm sorry to say that the programming motion and the subsequent subamendment by MP Beech, which may not be from MP Beech himself, doesn't allow for that. It doesn't make us feel like we are in and part of that process.

Again, there are so many things we could be doing here. I would like for us to again be bringing in the CRA commissioner. I would like for us to be talking about competition when it comes to open banking. I would like for us to be talking about.... MP Dzerowicz has talked a bit about the effects that getting rid of trade barriers would have, but, no, we're stuck here because MP Beech and the person who wrote this felt this was the best thing to come forward right now.

To try to somehow jerry-rig a committee, as dignified as the finance committee, is not in the best interests of this committee, and I will not be going forward with my support.

I've mentioned a few things that might have my support. I really do hope that other members have listened to my intervention and that perhaps they are moved. Perhaps they are moved and will move at the appropriate time an amendment. Maybe we could just say, “No, cancel it. This is over. We're not doing this motion.” Maybe MP Beech, himself, realizes now that having a program motion that literally says, “No later than 4 p.m. on Friday, May 13”...I don't even know.

Mr. Chair, can I ask you, through the clerk, how fast could you get a letter out if you needed to? Do you have these letters already prepared? Do you have the letters ready?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

They're on standby. It's been done in the past. I guess there's a formatted letter.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Chair, I'm not going to put you on the spot because obviously you didn't know that at first there, because you seemed a little shocked. It does speak, though, to the professionalism of the House of Commons staff, including our clerk, because clearly they need to be able to read the will of Parliament and parliamentarians. If they can type it up on a screen in black and white, then they might be able to see that.... Again, as the former clerk of the Privy Council said, when the Prime Minister gets in a mood, he gets what he wants.

If certain members feel in a mood, I guess the clerk would want to be ready to do his job so that we can invite other committee members to participate. That, to me, again stems.... While the clerk may be ready to send out those letters, maybe I'll just simply ask again, Mr. Chair, to the clerk: Have other committees...? Are they aware that this request will be coming to them? Have we, through any means, informed them? No, so we will be hitting them on a Friday, most likely. They'll probably open their mail tomorrow, because I assume we'll use internal mail, maybe email, maybe late tonight. Then, suddenly, their chair is expected to write back.

Mr. Chair, I would look to you, because I have not had the good favour of the support of my colleagues to ever be a chair of anything. Do you know what? After listening to myself, I understand exactly why. Despite that shortcoming, Mr. Chair, would you, if you received an email from a fellow chair outlining a parameter similar to this late Thursday night that said, “Oh, by the way, you have to let us know by four o'clock tomorrow”.

I have a sense that most chairs would immediately say back, “Do you know what? This can't be done.” If it can't be done, why would we put on the show for the people who are here and pretend that this is proper due process? I reject that because, do you know what? Politics.... This is really what gets to me sometimes. People say that politicians are too concerned about image. They're right.

If this was a business environment, you wouldn't hit a colleague from another department with a request that you know they can't meet. You don't do that, yet somehow, because they want to be able to support or have the image that they're supporting MP Ste-Marie's amendment, which I think was made in good faith, they are basically saying, “Okay, we don't want to look bad, so we'll make it look like it's a real bona fide attempt.”

Now, just from reading the motion, we know that it's not. I know that, if I was a chair of the committee, I would immediately say, “Are you joking? I can't consult my members today. Many of them are travelling.” Perhaps many of them are going to be sitting late tomorrow night, if the government wants to, because of that early extended session.

There are so many things here, but I go back to MP Chambers. I go back to his consistency in that he would like to see cooler heads prevail, that he would like to see a little bit more optimism and that he's an eternal optimist. Do you know what? I think he's changing even me by his presence here today. Maybe we can have...or MP Beech would be texting with whoever wrote this motion. I hope he's not berating that individual because, obviously, maybe, the chief of staff or deputy chief of staff said to get something out there. Maybe he's texting that individual and saying, “Perhaps we need a rethink of this, because this isn't looking good for us, and it's not working well for Parliament.”

I don't know. I don't have that insight. I would just hope in good faith that is exactly what is happening right now. As it stands, this particular amendment....

That reminds me, Mr. Chair. I mentioned that we had some witnesses coming, some in person and some online. Most of them took it really well.

I go back to some of the concerns that I'm hearing. The members of Parliament for North Okanagan—Shuswap, Kelowna—Lake Country, and those in Ontario have significant manufacturing issues around the luxury tax. They want those witnesses to come here. They told me that. Industry should not be punished because we were unable to come to a proper process here.

Mr. Chambers has said that he's an eternal optimist. I certainly want to be one. I certainly hope that my interventions today have had some effect on some of the other members here, and that they recognize that we have to go back to the drawing board. As much as I'd like to have the Minister of Finance for another hour, maybe that's not up there, but they should be trying to do something.

First of all, it should not be the subamendment. The subamendment itself, Mr. Chair.... The programming motion is terrible. I'd love to scrap all of that. Maybe we should at least look at the subamendment, and maybe decide to withdraw it, because it's just unworkable.

Maybe what I should do, Mr. Chair, is just finish up with a few more thoughts here for other members who have had time to digest what I've had to say, some who are possibly chewing on it right now. There are many counting on us. There are many people right now seeing gas prices, home prices...and uncertainty on the world stage. They just want to see us do something.

The finger can be pointed at me, Mr. Chair. They could say, “You're part of the problem; you're holding back.” Well, no, Mr. Chair, what I'm doing is actually holding on. I'm holding on to a process that, if we can all get around this, this committee will be better off. This bill might actually be properly studied, and then we can send it over to the other place. If the other place can define for itself that June 10 is when all its committees should reply back, why are we not telling committees until this particular subamendment gets passed? Why are we waiting until the last moment and saying, “Oh, by the way, Friday, May 13”, when other committees in the other place have until June 10?

I probably stood on my high horse too much today, but it concerns me. Why? Because I've grown to love this place. There's no greater compliment to members of Parliament, when they are considered a House of Commons woman or a House of Commons man, where they believe in the institution regardless of their position. I met ministers who show reverence for this place and understand that.

Your predecessor, Mr. Chair, the honourable Wayne Easter, he was a House of Commons man. He knew that in this place ministers needed to be accountable. He was critical of his own government when it would try to play games that excluded Parliament or diminished Parliament's light.

Do you know what, Mr. Chair? I've heard many Liberals cite over the past x number of years, populism this, democracy dies in darkness, and all that stuff. Well, guess what. Here we are. Should we actually start doing things together and listening to one another? This is a great opportunity to start. I would really hope that government members can appreciate that. I really hope my colleagues in the Bloc and the NDP don't feel that I have taken my time here inappropriately, because I'm here to defend their rights, and I would hope the government members would say the same of mine.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the time and, again, I thank everyone for listening. Perhaps we can have some more discussion about the withdrawal of this particular motion.

MP Beech, please, give us back our committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Albas.

Next, we have MP Lawrence.

[Philip Lawrence]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

While I certainly did appreciate the commentary of my colleagues, I must apologize. I do not have their same gift of brevity.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Philip Lawrence]

I'm going to focus a lot of my remarks on direction and control, because I think it's an incredibly important topic in terms of how it's holding back Canadian charities. I want to start with the text of the subamendment that is in front of us. A couple of dates really stood out to me. As you know, I'm not a regular member of this committee, so I came to this a little bit later, but I was just shocked at some of the dates contained in here.

Look at Friday, May 20, to have all of these other committees report back to us. I think it's almost unfair, and certainly undemocratic, to give them a little bit more than a week to report. Then, on whether they want to participate or not, the Friday, May 13 date is just not workable or doable. Then, to be pushing us into clause-by-clause within an incredibly short period of time...which I hopefully will demonstrate.

I'm going to talk about one small section of this omnibus bill. I might add, as my colleague's pointed out, that the Prime Minister did say, and actually campaigned heavily on back in 2015, back in the “sunny ways” days, that these wouldn't exist underneath his government. I think it's fair to say that he has backslid on this as well as several other commitments to democracy. I certainly do not want to be in any way part of or party to declining democracy here in Canada.

Just so the committee can fully understand the relevance of what I want to talk about, this is just one small section of the legislation, which is a huge, massive, 400-plus page omnibus bill. I was enlightened by my colleague that evidently inflation is actually increasing the size of this bill, initially at 423 pages and I believe now at over 450 pages.

One small section, I think less than five pages of amendments, is with respect to direction and control and own activities. Let me sort of explain and understand this. Our Income Tax Act is now at well over 3,000 pages. One thing it governs in those 3,000 pages is in fact charities. I might mention that this committee has called for a review of the Income Tax Act for many years. Our Income Tax Act now is a competitive disadvantage for us. Many countries have completed white papers in the last decade to bring their income tax acts up to modernity.

As the Income Tax Act has an incredible impact on our society, I think as government we owe it to Canadians to keep it at least current and modern, and to reflect the preferences of Canadians. The fact that we haven't done that and that this government hasn't responded to the finance committee's multiple calls through multiple years is disappointing. Unfortunately, it is of course hurting Canadians.

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

I am sorry to interrupt.

On a quick point of order, Mr. Chair, I had my hand up at one point to get on the speakers list. I was hoping to respond to Mr. Chambers' opening remarks. I wasn't sure if I caught your eye at that time or not.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

I did not catch your hand.

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

Perhaps you could put me on the list.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

I have MP Lawrence, MP McLean and then I have MP Blaikie.

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

Very well.

[Philip Lawrence]

I'm happy to have Mr. Blaikie take some of my time, if I can come back after he speaks. If he would like to do that, it's okay with me.

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

I'm happy to do that, Mr. Chair, if that's acceptable to the committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Members...?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Okay.

Go ahead, MP Blaikie.

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

I certainly appreciate Mr. Chambers' spirit of compromise and have been trying to think how we might split the difference. What I wanted to propose was that we might find our way, if we could, to agreeing unanimously that we change some of the dates that are in the motions here, and if we could agree to those date changes and to pass these motions, we might be able to get on with our study as early as Monday.

You'll see in the subamendment, in item (b)(i), it was proposing a date of May 20, 2022. I would propose that we change that to May 27, and in item (b)(ii), there's a date of May 13 that was referenced earlier by Mr. Albas. I would propose changing that to May 20, and then I don't believe there are any dates in the amendment that was moved by Monsieur Ste-Marie, but in the main motion there are some dates that I think we would need to change in order to make this work.

I propose changing the date in item (b)(i) from May 20, 2022, to May 30, 2022, and the date in item (b)(iii) from May 30, 2022, to June 3, 2022. I respect that it doesn't quite get us to the June 10 date that Mr. Chambers was talking about, but I also think that, given that the Senate will hopefully be ready by June 10 to debate the bill, we might expect that the House would pass the bill out of the House and deliver it to the Senate so that it's ready to go by its June 10 date.

I hope in the spirit of compromise that's been offered up at the table that this might work and allow us to recapture some of the time that's already been lost and still devote ourselves to a thorough study of the bill, leaving enough time to get it to the Senate in time for when they have determined they would like to do their own study.

I'm happy to repeat those dates one more time if folks would like.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Chair, I have a point of order, and I refer to O'Brien and Bosc, page 1067, which says:

In most cases, there is no limit on the number of amendments that can be moved; however, only one amendment and one subamendment may be considered by a committee at one time.

While I totally understand the good-faith presence here of my colleague, we actually have our own suggestion. Perhaps either MP Beech can remove the discussion altogether by withdrawing the motion or—

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

It can be done as a unanimous consent friendly amendment, just for clarification.