Finance Committee on May 2nd, 2023

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Did they cast that anchor aside?

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

It went from anchors to guardrails, and they blew through the guardrail. It was probably made of papier mâché.

The report from the Australian Journal of Public Administration written by Dr. Brenton on “Ministerial Accountability for Departmental Actions Across Westminster Parliamentary Democracies”—of which we are—talks about the United Kingdom, the mother of all parliaments, on page 475. Why do we call it the “mother of all parliaments”? It's because the first Westminster system was held in the United Kingdom. All other parliamentary systems, as opposed to a republican system, like in the U.S., are different types of electoral systems.

The first Westminster parliamentary system was held over 400 years ago, and all of our commonwealth and some Francophonie countries come from that form of government.

The United Kingdom sets the rules and tone for parliamentary accountability, ministerial accountability and all of those things. It's really important for those watching, and all members of Parliament, to understand what the rules of ministerial accountability are in the United Kingdom, because that's ultimately where all our precedents come from.

This study on ministerial accountability for departmental actions across Westminster parliamentary democracies says this on page 475 about the United Kingdom:

Ministers in the United Kingdom have been subject to a confidential internal circular since at least the Second World War, which was published in 1992 as Questions of procedure for ministers. This became the basis for Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair's Ministerial Code in 1997....

He was probably the most conservative of all the socialists in the history of the mother of all parliaments in London, England. Most people will be familiar with him from his time and some of the movies about him, his special relationship with Bill Clinton and the stories around his term, when Princess Diana died and the reaction. All of those things are appropriate now as we consider the weekend celebration coming up with King Charles, Princess Diana's former husband.

Tony Blair introduced the ministerial code in 1997, which has since been revised during Blair's tenure and by subsequent prime ministers. Conservative prime minister David Cameron issued a new code in 2010, and advised that it should be read alongside the “Coalition Agreement for Stability and Reform”, which outlined the terms of the coalition government with, at that time, the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats.

Regarding the United Kingdom's precedents on ministerial accountability, the study goes on to say that one of the general principles of the ministerial code is that, “Ministers have a duty to Parliament to account, and be held to account, for the policies, decisions and actions of their departments and agencies”. That is section 1.3(b) of the ministerial code.

You're starting to sense, I think, some similarities between these codes—the one of Prime Minister Harper, and the ones from Australia and New Zealand—because that's the tradition of ministerial accountability. The minister, as this says, has a duty to Parliament—not to the public, not to the media, not to the prime minister, not to Klaus Schwab and not to anybody else.

We all know the Minister of Finance sits on the board of the World Economic Forum. Ministers are accountable and have a duty to Parliament to be held to account for the policies, decisions and actions of their departments and agencies. Ministers have to provide accurate and truthful information to Parliament. What a concept.

It's amazing really, when you think about it, that you have to write that down, that you have to write in a code that an honourable member has to.... Let me quote again. For the policies and decisions and actions, ministers have to provide “accurate and truthful information to Parliament”. It's hard to not be accurate to Parliament if your attendance is five days at $100 billion a day, and it's hard to check your accuracy and truthfulness to Parliament if you decline the finance committee's invitations to appear.

The study goes on to say, about this code, that they “should be as open as possible with Parliament and the public”. I don't know how you're open with the public and Parliament on this finding Freeland exercise on attendance records.

When I was in high school, if I had only gone to class five of the days since January, they would have called that “skipping class”. That was the pleasant way of putting it. I may have skipped the occasional class in high school, but it might have been five days in that time period that I might have skipped school because I was on football and other things. When those things weren't in, then I might have skipped a few days, I admit it, but I wouldn't have said my attendance was only five days. I think my parents would have had a bit of a problem with that. Perhaps we should be looking at that as an issue of truancy.

It should be as open as possible with Parliament. This is what it goes on to say, and I'm quoting from the report. This is directly from the United Kingdom's ministerial accountability: “Knowingly misleading parliament is sanctioned with the exception of resignation.” It is sanctioned.

We saw some dramatics in the House of Commons in question period today, and that's because we believe there are issues about truthfulness to Parliament with regard to how some of the responses were given on this issue of China interfering in the ability of a parliamentarian to do their unfettered work to represent their constituents. I would love to see some resignations as a result of this, but I suspect that's not going to happen.

It goes on to say, “Reference is also made to the Civil Service Code and the requirement that civil servants give 'accurate, truthful and full information' to Parliamentary Committees on behalf of ministers”.

We're actually dealing with an issue of this. My friend MP Beech is a former member of the fisheries committee and requested earlier that I perhaps say a few things about the fishery again.

The fisheries committee is dealing with an issue on the Great Lakes water commission. The Great Lakes water commission is a treaty obligation of Canada. For the last seven to eight years, while the budget has allocated $42 million to $44 million from DFO to the Great Lakes water commission to deal with issues like sea lampreys and invasive species in the Great Lakes, for some reason the amount of money that the Department of Finance...and I think the Minister of Finance would probably like to hear this, if the finding Freeland exercise were successful and the minister came.

I'm not sure that she's aware that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, while the Department of Finance gives them $42 million to $44 million, only transfers somewhere between $32 million to $34 million to the commission and skims off the rest for some unknown reason, so much so that we are now $20 million behind in our obligations to the Great Lakes water commission in last year's budget. I don't know if the minister came with the budget implementation bill last year, because last year's budget allocated a 10-year commitment to the Great Lakes water commission on this fee. In fact, the government was so proud of this that the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard went to Lake Erie with the Great Lakes water commission and held a big conference in June 2022 and said, “This is fantastic. Now we have guaranteed funding. Everything is good again and our treaty obligations are met.”

Guess what happened this fall at the fisheries committee. The Great Lakes water commission came to the fisheries committee and said they didn't get all the money. So what? It will keep going. The Americans will keep paying our bills. The Americans will keep spraying to kill the invasive species, the sea lampreys, so we don't lose all our commercial fish in Lake Erie. The Americans aren't going to be our patsy anymore, because they've withdrawn from the meetings of the Great Lakes water commission in the budget discussions because of this.

However, in the fisheries committee, the DFO official who's responsible for this came to the committee and said we've paid in full all our bills. The next witness after that was the head of the Great Lakes water commission for Canada, who said, no, they hadn't. We've been dealing with it in three meetings now in DFO—it's not a filibuster; it's a collegial discussion—arguing how best to try to get to the bottom of this. I think we've agreed to two meetings, but we're trying to have the Great Lakes water commission and the American side of the commission appear at the same time with DFO officials to see if we can get it sorted out and see who is telling the truth. We're in a he-said-she-said.

As this code says, ministers can't be responsible for every micro little thing they have, but the fact is that I think the minister would like to probably ask this of her own colleague in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans: Why, over all these years, has the amount of money not gone there? What did DFO do with it, since it was a treaty obligation?

I digress. For the sake of our translators, I will go back to page 475 under the United Kingdom report. The next sentence says, “Ultimately, 'Ministers only remain in office for so long as they retain the confidence of the Prime Minister.'” Apparently if you do the Prime Minister's bidding, no matter what level of truthfulness the answer has, you're in good favour and can stay in.

Do you remember the trucker convoy and the Emergencies Act that was asked for by the police forces? It turned out, in a public inquiry, that not one of them asked. We're still waiting for an answer, even though the Minister of Public Safety, who seems to always be caught in these things, said it was only invoked because police forces did that. He said that to Parliament. I'm not sure why in the ministerial accountability rules.... Even in their own rules, which we'll get to shortly, the minister should be held accountable for truthfulness and open and clear answers. The system should be as open as possible with the public, and their ministers should provide accurate and truthful information to Parliament in Britain. I'm sure that happens in Britain. I'm not so sure here.

The Great Britain thing says here, about its Prime Minister, “He is the ultimate judge of the standards of behaviour expected of a Minister and the appropriate consequences of a breach of those standards”. What the boss sets as a standard the employees follow, so we know why some of these ministers are refusing to be held to account and occasionally are infrequently familiar with the truth. The Prime Minister has set that standard for himself by breaching the ethics laws and being convicted of them three times. I'm sure a fourth one will be coming up on this latest Jamaican $9,000-a-night family friend vacation.

Boy oh boy, do you know what my wife asked me after that story broke? My wife asked me how come I don't have any family friends like that, who can give us a $9,000-a-night holiday. Apparently, by the Prime Minister 's standards in interpreting his open and accountable government rules of 2015, having friends trumps.... I'm sorry. Some may be offended by that word. Having friends alleviates or excuses. It means I don't have to pay attention to any rules of conflict of interest or taking gifts. By the way, it's $200. That's the limit. Everything over that has to be reported. He took a $9,000-a-night vacation. I'm sorry, but I had to apologize to my wife for not having friends with $9,000-a-night resorts that we could stay in for free, because that obviously is allowable under this Prime Minister.

It continues: “One of the most important and unique roles of departmental heads”—that would be a minister—“is that of the Accounting Officer”. I guess that would be a minister of finance or the accounting officer in the department, but the U.K. term is perhaps a little different.

Here's what that says:

...the Accounting Officer, which is specified under point 5.3 of the Code:

Heads of departments and chief executives of executive agencies are appointed as Accounting Officers.

There you go. There's the definition. It goes on:

This is a personal responsibility for the propriety and regularity of the public finances for which he or she is responsible; for keeping proper accounts; for the avoidance of waste and extravagance; and for the efficient and effective use of resources. Accounting Officers answer personally to the Committee of Public Accounts [in the British Parliament] on these matters, within the framework of Ministerial accountability to Parliament for the policies, actions and conduct of their departments.

Accountable for your spending.... I don't know. Pretty much every department has missed the budget set out for them, in both the budget and, I assume, the estimates. They seem to always go over, or we wouldn't have this growing deficit problem. I don't know why we don't hold our heads of departments and agencies more accountable for their financial performance, but in the United Kingdom—the mother of all parliaments—apparently they do. I know the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, in their strategic and business plan last year, only met 52% of their objectives. They handed out almost $20 million in bonuses. Imagine what they would have got if they had actually met their objectives. Maybe it would be a $9,000-a-night vacation in Jamaica.

[A voice]

Maybe.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Maybe.

Page 475 continues, here, on the United Kingdom: “While the Coalition Agreement” between Prime Minister David Cameron and the Liberal Democrats.... That's not unlike the costly coalition agreement we have now between the NDP and Liberals that is further exasperating this. I'm sorry. Sometimes I get corrected by the Liberals, as they prefer their name to go first. Here, for the sake of congeniality, I'll say “the costly Liberal-NDP coalition”. It's very similar to what Prime Minister Cameron was having to deal with.

It says:

While the Coalition Agreement does not directly address individual ministerial responsibility, it does introduce a few possible variations. For example, it is stipulated that Liberal Democrat ministers—

They had a mixed cabinet.

—cannot be removed by the prime minister without consulting the Liberal Democrat deputy prime minister.

Wow. You know, the leader of the NDP should have read this before he signed his costly coalition agreement. He could have been a more powerful deputy prime minister. Since the current Deputy Prime Minister has an attendance record of five days in the House of Commons since January, we know the effective deputy prime minister of this costly coalition is the leader of the NDP.

Let me read again what the leader of the NDP should have put in his agreement for the costly coalition: “It is stipulated that the Liberal Democrat ministers”—the version of the NDP here—“cannot be removed by the prime minister without consulting the Liberal Democrat deputy prime minister.” I actually called him “the Liberal Deputy Prime Minister”. There's no reason why the leader of the NDP couldn't have had that title. I think he should be pretty offended by the fact that it was not offered to him.

It continues:

Positions within individual departments have been shared between the coalition parties, with the suggestion that junior ministers can act as a “watchdog” over their coalition partners and potential veto points, which contrasts Westminster ideas of a dominant executive.

Veto.... I suspect some of that happens in the Wednesday morning NDP-Liberal caucus meetings.

On page 476, it goes on to say:

However, in emphasising unity, point 3.2 stresses that:

Consistent with the civil service code, all civil servants have a duty to support the Government as a whole. Special advisors may support an individual Minister in relation to their Government activities, but must at all times act in the interests of the Government as a whole.

While that's essentially in the costly coalition agreement, the NDP is required to report any shenanigans going on in committee that are against the government agenda, and so they have this sort of snoop policy in their costly coalition agreement. For a functioning opposition, it's a little hard sometimes in these committees to understand whether the NDP is actually operating as the opposition or operating as an arm of the costly coalition.

I think in this committee MP Blaikie is a fairly independent fellow, I suspect, like the colleague I share the fisheries committee with, Lisa Marie Barron. She is a fairly independent NDP member and I think she operates in a collegial way and probably isn't betraying any discussions on opposition tactics, but who knows here in this Westminster system, which is where all these things can come from.

“Ministerial Accountability for Departmental Actions Across Westminster Parliamentary Democracies”, an article by Dr. Brenton in the Australian Journal of Public Administration—for those who are just joining us, it's volume 73, number 4, and it's actually found on pages 467 to 481—says the following:

The United Kingdom has recently embraced—

Recently would be 2015.

—the idea of a Cabinet Manual, with the first edition published in 2011. It provides limited guidance on or insight into the scope of individual ministerial responsibility. For example, point 7.9 recognizes that: “Each permanent secretary supports the government minister who heads the department and who is accountable to Parliament for the department's actions and performance.”

It goes on to say:

Permanent secretaries—

I think those are the equivalent in Britain of deputy ministers.

—are responsible to the Cabinet Secretary—

That is the equivalent of our head of the Privy Council Office.

—or the Head of the Civil Service for the effective day-to-day management of the relevant department.

When you understand ministerial accountability and organizational behaviour, whether you're a business or you're in government, there's a limit to how much you can legislate or put in policy about people's own personal morals and ethics. You can't do everything. It's important to know that the tone is always set from the top in an organization, so this paper goes on to discuss, on page 476, the importance of the tone from the top in a section called Prime Ministerial Responsibility.

This paper, I think, will be insightful for those trying to understand why the “searching for Freeland” issue is happening with the five days' attendance in the House and her rejection of three invitations from this committee, because it comes also obviously from her direction—perhaps not her personal direction but the example set by the Prime Minister.

Here's what this academic paper says about this on page 476, for those reading from home:

While these codes and manuals are open and even vague in parts, they better capture the complexity of executive accountability than the NPM—

That was an acronym referred to in this paper earlier on, which I mentioned this morning.

—reforms and better reflect the political realities. They provide a basis for improving understandings of accountability in practice, if not actual accountability, and the role of the Prime Minister is appropriately emphasised.

While legislation underpinning the public service has often been used to drive or consolidate reforms, and public service codes of conduct articulate high standards and aspirations, ministerial codes are unsurprisingly less detailed and carefully worded. However they have effectively captured how the convention has evolved and is understood by significant political actors, and while they remain unenforceable—

That's because most of them aren't in law.

—they do debunk the myth that resignation, or even sanction, is at the heart of accountability. In many ways the codes have responded to, and arguably even reversed, some of the more radical elements of the NPM reform and accountability agenda by bringing the minister and the department closer together. Yet the ministerial codes and cabinet manuals do not strengthen accountability but rather recognise the current practice, which is still significant given misunderstandings of the convention.

It goes on to further state on page 476:

Returning to the initial questions, Bovens et al. (2008) public accountability assessment tool is presented in Table 3—

I spared everyone from my reading that in order to keep the journey alive.

—and the following key issues are addressed: why there has been a trend towards codification; how the trend developed and whether it is likely to continue; whether codification—

Codification is of open and accountable government, such as the one done by this government in 2015. That's codification.

—has transformed conventions to a more binding status—

“More binding”, perhaps, in some cases would be law.

—and whether accountability has improved.

As we know, there have been more ministerial resignations in the past. The more we impose these codes without teeth, the less we seem, in my mind, to get of ministerial accountability and resignations.

The paper goes on on page 476 to say:

Firstly, the trend towards codification can be mapped onto the public accountability assessment tool. As can be seen in the table, codification is a response to perceived failures of both ‘democratic’ and ‘constitutional’ perspectives of accountability, and a limited embrace of learning.

It is a shame and a condemnation, really, of our parliamentary system, that we've had to get to this extent to try to put in code ethical behaviour. You would think that people would naturally have it in their own set of moral standards, but this is the life we live now.

It goes on:

The original convention is so often misinterpreted and yet politically damaging. Oppositions seek ministerial ‘scalps’—

When we get in government and the opposition seeks my scalp, it won't be very robust. That's what God gave me.

—in the form of resignation, and promise to improve accountability through codes. While ministers appear much more likely to resist resignation—

That's true.

—this is actually not inconsistent with the convention, NPM reforms or the codes. What has changed is the issue of blame and the preparedness to accept blame.

That's an interesting statement. It goes on:

While NPM could be interpreted as a way to shift blame, at least for day‐to‐day operational matters, the codes are less definitive (although the New Zealand Cabinet Manual refers to this distinction). Politically, a further separation of the minister from the department in the codes would be intuitively reasonable. Yet there are other political risks, which explain the reversal of this strict separation in most codes. As Hood and Lodge [in 2006] argue, if civil servants are fired for government mistakes, they will be less likely to assist ministers during political controversies and more likely to act defensively and ensure that the minister can be blamed.

In a little while, I will go through Library of Parliament examples of some of those. With one of them, I have some familiarity from when I worked for Canada's foreign minister.

I'll go on on page 476. It says in the final paragraph of this page:

Secondly, the trend towards codification has generally developed through ‘official’ executive guidance (i.e. codes of conduct, guides, manuals, handbooks) more so than legislated, enforceable codes. Yet with each new iteration of a code, the application of the convention becomes less precise and more aspirational.

These codes and the ministers' responsibility to Parliament are at the heart of the amendment by Mr. Blaikie to try to get the minister here for at least two hours. I can understand the frustration of the committee in that she has not responded to three of the previous invitations to appear in this finding Freeland mystery.

At the top of page 478, the study continues:

Codification also appears to be leading to convergence as the parliamentary committees and the drafters of codes and legislation actively look and refer to the approaches of each other in attempting to establish a model. The difficulty, as with any convention, has been to codify a principle with enough detail, yet be flexible enough to be applied to different situations. Thus the common approach has been increased recognition of prime ministerial power, albeit not always in those explicit terms in every country. However, the fact that the codes are often authored or at least authorised by the prime minister further demonstrates the pre-eminence of the head of government in upholding individual ministerial responsibility.

This code of this government, from 2015, is referred to in all the mandate letters of the ministers—obviously, signed by the Prime Minister. In concurrence with this assertion in this study, it's even become more so now because it's built into a mandate letter signed by the Prime Minister, so it does come from the top.

To reiterate, it says:

Thus the common approach has been increased recognition of prime ministerial power, albeit not always in those explicit terms in every country. However, the fact that the codes are often authored or at least authorised by the prime minister—

This is the case in Canada.

—further demonstrates the pre-eminence of the head of government in upholding individual ministerial responsibility.

It appears that a trend has been established that each new government revises and updates, or endorses, an existing code, and this is likely to continue as it has become recognised practice—perhaps even a new convention.

There are similarities in this 2015 code by the newly elected Prime Minister of the day that, obviously, built on the excellent code of 2011 by one of Canada's greatest prime ministers, Stephen Harper, which was referred to in this study. Not that he.... To be fair to the academic who wrote this, the academic did not say that Stephen Harper is one of Canada's greatest prime ministers, but we, as Canadians, all know that to be true because I can't tell you how many times I hear from constituents how much they long for the days of Stephen Harper, given the performance of this government.

Page 478 of this report goes on—and I know everyone's finding this fascinating because it is an important issue in our basic parliamentary democracy. It says:

Thirdly, the legislated codes have come closest to transforming conventions into more rigid ‘C’onstitutional requirements. Again, the degree of recognised separation between the minister and the department provides the crucial evidence. What can be seen through both the NPM reforms and codification and legislation is the legal separation of the minister and the department, which is a significant evolution from the original convention, and consistent with the expansion of departments and changing modes of governance. However, while the NPM reforms sought to clearly and definitively separate the roles and responsibilities of ministers and agencies—at least theoretically— subsequent codes and legislation seem to recognise the practical difficulties of such a separation by not specifying such divisions. Instead the minister is effectively accountable for everything, but in providing an account to parliament, does not have to accept responsibility.

Are those not words that this government lives by? Let me read that again, just so you know that I think it could be changed into this government's motto. Actually, perhaps it will be their campaign slogan in the coming election:

Instead the minister is effectively accountable for everything, but in providing an account to parliament, does not have to accept responsibility.

We see that every day in question period, obviously, with the responses, not answers. I quite often have constituents who pose questions about why the government doesn't answer questions but just responds, and I basically say, “You'll have to ask the PMO that.”

This paper says:

The exception is New Zealand, which has retained its NPM-inspired legislation with only minor amendments, despite (or perhaps in spite of) radical changes to its electoral system that has further complicated the Westminster chain of accountability. New Zealand has also pioneered changes to the convention of collective accountability, with minor party ministers often sitting outside of cabinet and some parties pursuing policy objectives through power sharing agreements rather than ministries. There are other notable cross-country differences, including where conventions have remained largely intact rather than weakened by contemporary political changes. The convention of Accounting Officers (Permanent Secretaries and agency heads) appearing before parliament’s Public Accounts Committee in the United Kingdom developed before the convention of individual ministerial responsibility, and remains to this day. This convention has not been adopted in either Australia or New Zealand, although it could be argued that public servants perform a similar role in practice before estimates or similar committees in other countries. Accounting Officers have a much more limited role in Canada....

I referenced that earlier. Let me repeat that again: “Accounting Officers have a much more limited role in Canada, however there are frequent calls to emulate the Westminster model.”

In some instances we fall short there. We obviously fall short in the ministerial willingness to actually appear and answer questions, whether in the House or in this committee. There is a truancy of only five appearances by the minister since January in the House in question period. The costly wage that it generates with the half-trillion dollar projected budget in four years is that it's a $100 billion a day fee. That's what we get. Maybe it's a good thing she doesn't show up, or it might cost us more, at $100 billion a day.

According to this, not me, it says:

Finally, the most important question is whether changes to conventions surrounding ministerial responsibility have actually improved accountability. There is no straightforward answer. Bovens et al.’s (2008) public accountability assessment tool provides evaluation criteria and questions, which are addressed in Table 3.

Again, I didn't read table 3. Maybe I should go back, since it's referenced so many times. It's hard sometimes to translate a table into words. It continues:

As can be seen, the evidence is mixed. Firstly, it must be acknowledged that many important conventions have not been covered here and have not changed. For example, public service advice to ministers remains privileged in all countries, as does cabinet discussions and advice to the Queen or Queen’s representative.

I guess we are now saying the King, or the King's representative.

Breaching these conventions could arguably increase public accountability in one sense, but would affect other aspects of public accountability, possibly detrimentally. Of the conventions that have changed, it can be broadly argued that the virtue of accountability has weakened while accountability mechanisms have somewhat surprisingly improved.

The improvement is surprising given the usual ‘headline’ claims that ministers have become less accountable in contemporary politics, and ‘no longer’ accept responsibility of departmental actions.

I haven't seen much of that in our Parliament—accepting responsibility. It goes on:

Against the backdrop of an apparently increase in scandals involving ministers—

Of course, this was before 2015, so the number of ethics breaches and scandals aren't included in this paper.

On the top of page 479, the academic goes on to say:

—the main issue is often whether the minister had knowledge or direct involvement in departmental maladaminstration.

I would argue in Canada when a minister sole-sources contracts to friends, confidants, former co-workers and campaign workers without public scrutiny, gets caught in it not once but twice, and all that minister does is say “sorry”, that is not the appropriate responsibility for that minister in the departmental maladministration, as this paper calls those issues.

On page 479, it continues:

Generally, this is the basis of media and opposition pursuits for the ‘smoking gun’, and this is not detailed in any of the codes. However, ministers still have to account and may still be responsible for matters that they did not know about. Similarly, knowledge or direct involvement does not equate to blame. Rather, parliament has the right to ask about a minister’s knowledge or involvement, and the minister must not knowingly mislead the parliament.

According to these authors, that's “quite a low bar when viewed against historical precedent”.

If this author had witnessed what we've seen in the last few years, I would say that is actually quite a high bar compared to what we've seen in performance in Parliament.

He continues:

Yet the chain of ministerial responsibility could be said to have strengthened with inclusion of central commissions or a cabinet secretary (or the Treasury Board in the case of Canada), mediating between the public sector and the prime minister and cabinet. This is a significant improvement. Yet the diminution of public service tenure and the involvement of the prime minister and ministers in appointing and dismissing agency heads could also be seen as increasing control, and while theoretically increasing ministerial responsibility, it also increases politicisation.

You can say that again. It continues:

In terms of Parliament, its committees here generally become more empowered—

I guess they haven't spent much time here lately.

—and increased in prominence as a chief accountability mechanism, given that public servants appear before them. Voting trends away from the two major parties—

Well, that hasn't been an issue here for a long time.

—and the rise of new political actors in all key Westminster democracies has assisted in strengthening these accountability mechanisms, particularly as internal accountability with the major parties has arguably weakened. The roles, powers and investigations of Auditors-General and ombudsmen have also increased in many jurisdictions. However codes and legislation are yet to adequately ‘account’ for a range of other non-government and private sector actors or party political actors within this chain. Increasingly attention is being paid to other blurred politicised relationships, particularly the role of ministerial advisers (who are subject to different codes and legislation to public servants)....

Well, in Canada they're all subject to the code for public office holders. They're not that much different.

On page 479, the author continues:

Entwined in all of these changes are the role of the prime minister and the ‘presidentialisation’ of this role—which is in itself a significant change to the convention. Fundamentally, the prime minister is the most important link in the chain of accountability. Most of codes explicitly recognise that it is effectively the head of government rather than the parliament that ultimately adjudicates issues of accountability, and if appropriate, imposes sanctions.

We know sanctions have been few and far between for the Prime Minister, except when the person refused to interfere in an ongoing criminal charge activity for SNC-Lavalin. Then he felt the need to fire his Attorney General for not being willing intervene in a court case and to fire the Minister of Health, who also had the temerity to have the integrity to say that what the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada said was true. Apparently, truth to power in this government means the ability or the absolute likelihood of being fired from your job.

The author continues, “However, prime ministers are arguably less secure in their positions and the agenda is increasingly being set by actors with stronger accountability agendas.”

I don't know where he gets that from. It must be from Britain, where the parties have the ability to change their leaders, pick new leaders and hold them accountable.

Here in our Parliament, the only party with the courage to take advantage of the Federal Accountability Act is the Conservative Party of Canada, which is the only one that has given itself the power that's required after an election has voted to hold its leader accountable to caucus. Apparently, the Liberals, the NDP and the Bloc chose not the have the leader accountable to caucus, and you see the result. We know that, as a result of that accountability, we have an amazing new leader in the member for Carleton, who will be the next Prime Minister of Canada.

Now, the conclusion of this report, but a long way from the conclusion of my dissertation on ministerial accountability, is the following on page 479:

The convention of individual ministerial responsibility still exists as a convention, and in practice is commonly interpreted as answering genuine parliamentary questions without knowingly misleading.

We can't know whether, in our finding Freeland exercise, the Minister of Finance will be answering genuine parliamentary questions without knowingly misleading, because we can't pose the questions to her because she has refused the three requests from this committee to appear, which is what has led us to this terrible position of having to have this motion. It's insane, quite frankly.

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

On a point of order, Mr. Chair.

I think the member opposite has forgotten the amendment we are currently dealing with.

Could we have the amendment that we're currently debating read into the record just so everybody knows what we are debating?

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Thanks, Terry. I'll take a breather.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

We are debating MP Blaikie's amendment, and that is:

That the Minister of Finance be invited to be here for two hours on the bill and that this appearance be scheduled on or before May 18, 2023.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

I appreciate that, MP Beech. That was very helpful. The water helped. Thankfully I got some lemon before I came down here.

I believe this study has spoken quite specifically to why we want her to do that in terms of ministerial accountability, which is what that amendment by MP Blaikie is about.

I should say, before I finish this side of the report, that I do take requests and, if you would like, I do have some things I could say about the enforcement of the elver fishery and some genuine letters from constituents concerned about their property, but I'll finish this report first. It says:

There is less emphasis on being responsible for internal aspects of one's actions (or inactions) and strict codes are generally applied to the public service rather than ministers.

In other words, public servants are held to a higher accounting than, apparently, ministers are in some Westminster systems. I wonder who they are talking about there. It continues:

Accountability is socially contingent, and while ministerial codes can be ambiguous, ministers know they will have to at least justify their judgements, actions and decisions to cabinet, party....

Well, I'm sure they've done that.

We know that the Liberal Party has a convention this weekend, and we know that the Minister of Finance will be there, because they've advertised that she is going to have a nice fireside chat on election success with Hillary Clinton, who has had so much electoral success. I'm sure there will be a lot for the Liberal Party to learn from that, but that is the party in the finding Freeland issue. Perhaps the finance committee should set itself up at the convention centre of the Liberal Party this weekend and see if the minister could spare two hours away from her schmoozing with the former senator and first lady to be accountable for her $400-billion budget.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

It's $490 billion.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

I'm sorry. I stand corrected. It's $490 billion. I'm sorry. I underestimated her again.

The article continues:

The ambiguity at least captures the complexity of executive accountability and better reflects the original convention, while emphasising the pre-eminent role of the prime minister in upholding individual ministerial responsibility.

I could go on, as I have, about this Prime Minister setting the low-bar standard on ministerial accountability. However, I'll keep reading:

Furthermore, whatever codes say or do not say, there is media—

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

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

On a point of order, I have MP Ste-Marie.

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

I am genuinely sorry to interrupt Mr. Perkins just as he's getting started. His comments are certainly fascinating, but the interpreter is indicating that they don't have what comes after page 479. Is it possible to get them the document to make things a bit easier? Thank you very much.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

I apologize to the interpreters.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mr. Ste‑Marie.

MP Perkins, do you have some help there for the interpreters?

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

This is the problem when you leave it to MPs to do their photocopying. I probably should have asked my staff to do it. While the fireworks were going off in question period, I was trying to sort this out in the opposition lobby.

If you bear with me, this is almost done, and we can move on to one of the other documents that the interpreters have copies of.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

If you could speak more slowly, maybe that would....

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Perfect. That's a good idea. I have no problem speaking more slowly.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

It would help us all out.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

If I'm going too quickly again, please let me know. I'm more than willing to slow down.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Keep it slow for the interpreters and for all of our sakes.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

I'll have to go back, because I've lost my place.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Can you start from the beginning? I missed the first part anyway.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

I did say I'd take requests and I've been asked if I would start from the beginning on this important document. I think repetition is probably not part of the rules in terms of speaking to a motion. As much as I'd love to go back for those who have just joined us and go through this in the Finding Freeland exercise, I will finish this document, as it is in the interest of helping the translators and moving on to the next points I'd like to make on ministerial accountability.

For the interpreters, I'm sorry I can't refer you to this. You don't have page 479, so I will go more slowly. It reads:

Accountability is socially contingent, and while ministerial codes can be ambiguous, ministers know that they will have to at least justify their judgements, actions and decisions to cabinet, party—

At this stage, previously, just in case interpreters didn't get it, there is a Liberal Party convention this weekend here in Ottawa. I suggested that perhaps it might be efficient for the committee to relocate to the Ottawa convention centre, now called the Shaw Centre, in order to find Freeland and see if attendance would be more convenient for her there, perhaps before or after her fireside chat with the former first lady and senator Hillary Clinton.

She has found time for that, but apparently hasn't found time to be accountable here at the committee for her budget of—I was corrected earlier—$490 billion, as my colleague MP Lawrence said. I was underestimating her spending capability and I apologize for that.

The article continues:

—and parliamentary colleagues, as well as the prime minister. The ambiguity at least captures the complexity of executive accountability and better reflects the original convention, while emphasising the pre-eminent role of the prime minister in upholding individual ministerial responsibility.

Furthermore, whatever codes say or do not say, there is media and political pressure for ministers to have to provide some account of departmental actions. Often that account will be to blame the department or to claim 'plausible deniability'....

We saw that today, by the way, in the House, where all the evidence and leaked documents from security show that the government was informed two years ago about the attempts by China to interfere in the voting ability of a member of Parliament. We learned today from the Minister of Public Safety that he claims now to have only known about it on Monday. That may be true. It seems to me that it's a claim of plausible deniability. It could be incompetence or it could be that perhaps he's just not a player in the cabinet. While the Prime Minister's Office knew and was briefed—as we know, since his chief of staff said he reads all security documents—the Prime Minister may have kept him in the dark, as he appears to have kept other ministers like Jody Wilson-Raybould in the dark.

The article continues, saying, “but holding the department to account and instituting corrective action is part of a minister's role”, so I assume the Minister of Public Safety is somehow correcting the department's failure to inform him, as he claims. These CSIS agencies all report to him, yet apparently they told The Globe and Mail before they told him. I think it might take, as this author says, the minister to hold the department to account and institute corrective action, as is part of his role.

I'm surprised, actually, that he has time to come to question period now, because of this revelation. He obviously needs to be meeting with the institutions that report to him to find out what's going on there. He needs to be asking how come The Globe and Mail learned about this before he did—or before the Prime Minister, for that matter.

On page 479, towards the end of this study, it says:

The codes at least are an acknowledgement of the importance and existence of individual ministerial responsibility, which counters populist criticisms that it has become so weak as to effectively no longer exist. Stricter codes risk transforming ministerial responsibility from convention and removing prime ministerial discretion, which would have significant implications in these four countries...

I'll remind you that these four countries are Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United Kingdom. The report says, and I'll repeat:

...significant implications in these four countries as so many of the “rules” of the game are adaptable in order to accommodate changing political circumstances. Accountability has become more complicated so the convention has had to adapt, and while weakening in parts, is stronger in terms of being recognised as integral to parliamentary accountability.

That's the end of the paper. There are a long series of acknowledgements. Would you like me to go through some of those?

The author thanks “Jenny Lewis for organising and convening the Accountability workshop where this paper was first presented". I think these people deserve recognition, because it's an important paper.

The author continues his thanks:

...Janine O’Flynn for coordinating this special issue with Jenny and Helen Sullivan. Special mention to Jenny Menzies and the two anonymous reviewers who both engaged with the paper and helped me to draw out some new insights. Finally, the University of Melbourne provided funding for a larger project through an Early Career Researcher grant, and this paper is one of a series of articles and book chapters.

I'd like to read some of those books and book chapters. I'm wondering, though; in Canada we have a lot of issues around some of the academic funding structures, such as, mainly, our granting councils and the actual amount of co-sponsored Chinese government research, but I won't go there because I want to stay on the same issue of ministerial accountability.

The Library of Parliament, which is an institution I know we all depend on quite a bit, wrote a background paper entitled—I appreciate my colleague helping me—"Ministerial Staff: Issues of Accountability and Ethics".

It was first published in 2006, then revised in 2008 and reviewed again in 2012 by an author named Alex Smith. I don't know if he's still with the library.

I won't go through it all. I'm sure you'll be happy that I won't go through it all. Perhaps, though, some of the ministerial and other assistants there would like me to go through it all, because it deals with their responsibilities in accountability to Parliament. I will spare them that. Perhaps I'll make copies for them later.

I draw attention, for the interpreters, to page 2, section 3, called “Accountability”.

Mr. Chair, I will just go through this piece of research by our much-lauded—and deservedly so—Library of Parliament.

It says:

By legislation and convention—

There we go; we heard that in the academic study.

—ministers are accountable to Parliament for the operation of their departments.

Again there are similarities.

It goes on:

The senior public servant of the department, the deputy minister, is accountable to the minister, and in turn, public servants within the department are accountable through the bureaucratic hierarchy to the deputy minister. Similarly, ministerial staff—

That's for those around, and I used to be one of those.

—are accountable to their minister.

On behalf of the prime minister, the Privy Council Office provides general advice to ministers in a guide entitled “Accountable Government: A Guide for Ministers and Ministers of State”....

I think that document has now been revised under this government and has a new title, because they like to brand things with new titles but not really change anything. “Open and accountable government" was released in 2015.

I noticed that after eight years, it hasn't been revised. I don't blame them for not wanting to revise it, given the performance of some of the ministers in terms of ethics, because when these get revised, they become more difficult. Had this government revised this document, I think that they probably would have taken out some of these guidelines so that they're not in breach of their own rules and can continue to operate. Maybe it doesn't matter, since there are no sanctions for breaching these rules.

Page 2 of the library's report says in the last paragraph:

On behalf of the prime minister, the Privy Council Office provides general advice to ministers in a guide entitled “Accountable Government: A Guide to Ministers and Ministers of State”, which includes a section regarding ministerial staff. According to the guide, “Ministers and Ministers of State are personally responsible for the conduct and operation of their office.” While ministerial staff regularly interact with departments within the minister's responsibility, “[e]xempt staff—

That's what we call them here, because they're exempt from the rules of the public service.

—do not have the authority to give direction to public servants, but they can ask for information or transmit the Minister's instructions, normally through the deputy minister.”

I did that job for eight years. I'd say it's a little different than what happens practically. I rose up through special assistant to legislative assistant to policy adviser to executive assistant to chief of staff in the Mulroney government.

I know most of the staff who are here. Maybe their parents weren't even born when that happened; I don't know, but sometimes you can feel old in this job. I know that the job hasn't changed that much and that I often interacted. A good political staffer has good relationships with people at all levels in the department if they want to get things done and work well with the officials to develop policy for the betterment of our country. I could talk about that role and how important it is, and maybe I will later.

If I go back to this page 2, the last sentence of the last paragraph:

“Good working relations between the Minister's or Minister of State's office and the department...are essential in assisting the Minister and deputy minister in managing their departmental work.”

I will skip down now. For the translators, it's at the bottom of page 3 under section 4 of this report, in the section called “Controversy”. These are some examples that Mr. Alex Smith from the Library of Parliament wrote about in 2006. It was revised in several editions, but the last time was in 2012. It's about the role of ministers and accountability.

I'll give you advance warning. The first example—