Finance Committee on May 2nd, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

MP Morantz, you're back on.

No. It's MP Perkins and then MP Morantz.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I was in the midst of reading a fascinating document about ministerial accountability before we entered all these procedural issues, which are about the issue of finding Freeland. I know that MP Blaikie in particular is excited to hear the remainder of the article.

Just as a reminder, because we've had some visitors in the room as well, on what I was speaking about and what it was from, it's an article by Dr. Scott Brenton, and it was published in the Australian Journal of Public Administration, volume 73, issue 4. I won't begin from the beginning again, but it's about “Ministerial Accountability for Departmental Actions Across [the] Westminster Parliamentary Democracies”. It looked at four countries in particular: Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

As we know, the United Kingdom is considered the mother of all parliaments that sets all the precedents and all the rules that flow from us. We all have our individual elements that are unique to our parliamentary and Westminster systems.

I was reading the second section of this academic study on this issue. I'll just remind the members and those watching that the section was called “NPN”, which is an acronym. It was earlier in my presentation of this, but I'll spare you the search for that.

It's called “NPN: Clarifying or Complicating the Convention?”, the convention being ministerial responsibility to Parliament. I won't begin that section from the beginning, but I will go back a sentence or two so you can get the context. I was about midway through a paragraph when we entered into the last round of procedural issues on this discussion about the motion by MP Blaikie to try to ensure that the Minister of Finance, who has not responded in a positive way to a number of invitations by this committee. It is the minister's prerogative to come or not to come, and she has not responded to some of those invitations.

We're concerned that on the most important element of her job, which is the budget and the budget implementation act, the thing for which she's most accountable to Parliament—not to the Prime Minister, but to the people who Canadians elect to come here.... There is nothing more fundamental than a budget bill, which is about the spending of your tax dollars: how they're spent and what the plan of this government is going forward.

This is a record-sized budget and spending. Over the fiscal framework—that's what we call the five years of planning—and this budget and budget implementation act, it's proposed to spend $3.1 trillion: an incredible—an unfathomable—amount of money. The budget today for the government as proposed in this year is actually almost twice as large as it was in 2015 when they came to office, as are the taxes from Canadians that they are increasing. They will have gone up 96% by the end of this fiscal framework.

That's why it's so important that the minister show this record level of spending. It's essential that the minister come and be accountable to her colleagues. That's why this finding Freeland exercise of what we're embarking on is important. It's not parliamentary games or silliness. It's about the fundamental tenet. That's why these bills are called confidence motions. We get a lot of emails, all of us as members of Parliament, about wanting to see confidence motions in this government. Obviously, we feel, as do many, that we would like to see the government defeated on one of these.

Every spending bill of taxpayer money is, by Westminster parliamentary tradition, a confidence vote. That's why this is so important. In order to obtain the confidence of the House, the minister needs to be accountable to Parliament and to this committee.

On the sentence where I left off on the study, I'll just reread it before I go onto the new part. It was talking specifically about the United Kingdom.

Ministers were able to blame them—

The “them” means officials.

— for 'operational' failures as they were no longer able to issue orders of the day. In both the United Kingdom and New Zealand separation between policy and implementation was unclear in practice, while ministers were accused of interference and bureaucratic 'silos' developed.

This is about where I stopped.

It goes on to say:

Australia and Canada opted for more managerial autonomy within larger multipurpose departments and closer ministerial control but with a more informal political separation that ministers describe as an 'arm's length' distance from administrative activities. The use of 'contracts' has become politically popular, whether contracting out to the private sector, establishing purchaser-provider relationships within the public sector, or claiming that a contract exists with service users or citizens.

We know—and this is an editorial comment—that this government has made record numbers of contract-out provisions. We've had the McKinsey controversy. An excessive amount of the thinking, the policy development and idea development that officials used to make, this government has chosen to contract out to friends and, in some cases, family. “The use of 'contracts' has become politically popular”, as this says, in Canada, and that's certainly true.

While the latter two conceptions lack the legal force of a contract, all require greater specification as to day-to-day control that often shifts away from the executive, therefore supposedly increasing accountability.... Written contractual terms, specified outputs and outcomes, and agreements outlining exceptions and responsibilities in the administrative sphere have been mirrored in the political sphere with increased codification of unwritten conventions. Codification has often appeared to be a response to a series of scandals or controversies and has increased in recent years.

That's certainly true with the government. We've seen scandals increase, both ethical and others, including the failure of this government to inform a member of Parliament that his family in China was being intimidated by the Chinese government. The government won't seem to admit what date—although the briefing notes are from two years ago—it actually learned of it. I suspect that means it learned of it two years ago, did nothing, as we know, is embarrassed and, in fact, doesn't want to be held accountable for its actions, as the Minister of Public Safety or the Prime Minister did not act on one of those most fundamental parliamentary principles of accountability to Parliament in protecting the rights of members of Parliament to represent the people who sent them there without intimidation.

This report contains many tables. I won't read those tables because it's difficult to do, but it goes on to say:

Table [1] summarises the legislative and codified accountability roles and responsibilities of senior public and civil servants in relation to the convention of individual ministerial responsibility. Australia and New Zealand have some of the most extensive legislation, with the Australian Public Service's Code of Conduct also legislated.

I'll skip over the very lengthy chart they're referring to here, which goes on to the next page, as well. I'm sure members will be happy that I've moved on past reading those charts.

The United Kingdom has relied on convention more than the other countries, but the reform movement is pursuing further legislation. The next section more closely examines codification within the political sphere, which has thus far resisted and likely will continue to resist entrenchment in legislation

We know—as my colleague, MP Morantz, referred to earlier—that this current government has this document called “Open and Accountable Government” from 2015. I think it's something that the Minister of Finance should actually read. I suspect that, because finding Freeland has been so difficult, we wouldn't be facing these issues in finding Freeland if she had not only read it a few times but actually committed the spirit of it to memory.

The next section says: “Codification of Ministerial Responsibility and Accountability”. It's that issue of whether a document like this code would actually get legislated, which it has in other jurisdictions. Codification of accountability in law would make it more difficult, I believe, for this government to escape its ministerial accountability and responsibilities, which we have seen often happen. It's “Oh, well, I apologize for giving contracts to my best friend and former colleague in the Prime Minster's Office”, said the Minister of International Trade in the House. She apologized for giving her untendered contracts even though she worked on her campaign. She said she apologized, and that's all the accountability that should happen.

That's the problem, to some extent, of just having a piece of paper that's not in legislation but is just guidelines. It's not really anything I have to advise or even read, perhaps, as a minister. But what this says is various codes of conduct, guides, manuals, handbooks and legislation have attempted to codify and clarify politico-bureaucratic relationships. This codification of conventions has been relatively superficial:

in the sense that general principles have been captured in written form, but lack the legitimacy and authority of written constitutions.

That's what I was referring to a moment ago.

The most legitimate and authoritative codes are legislative.

I'm going digress again.

We know that in the legislative world we have an ethics law in Canada that tries to legislate some of this codification on ministerial accountability and behaviour. Obviously, it has no teeth when a minister can get up and say, “Oops, I ignored procurement rules and gave a contract directly to my friend. Oops, I apologized. Wait, I did it a second time. Oops, I apologize and that's okay.” That's why this lacks teeth, even if one minister did or did not read it.

Again, it says:

The most legitimate and authoritative codes are legislative, yet these tend to be the most limited in scope.

That's shocking, I think, to most people, that government would make them limited in scope. The paper says “Each of the codes do attempt to address each of the four key accountability dimensions” that this paper is outlining.

The paper goes on to remind us from the beginning of what those four accountability dimensions are. The first is “who is accountable and to whom”. The second is “for what are they accountable”. The third is “how are they accountable and by which standards”. The fourth is “why are they accountable”.

Those are four critical examinations and questions that we are facing here with MP Blaikie's motion about trying to make the Minister of Finance accountable for the budget by actually showing up to the invitation from the committee. It would be a change, because we have been trying to find Freeland in many instances, both here and in the House. It's incredible, really, to think that.

In preparation for this I actually did a count of the times since January that the Minister of Finance has been in the House to be held accountable, under minister accountability. I don't know if the government members have done this. I'm sure they've noticed that the appearances have been stark, in this effort to find Freeland. If they haven't counted them, it's not hard to do. You only need one hand: one, two, three, four, five. That's it.

You just need one hand to count the number of times the Minister of Finance has been in the House since January to be held accountable for a half-a-trillion dollar budget that she's proposing. At the end of the five years it's over half a trillion annual budget. That's $500 billion.

That's one appearance for every $100 billion that the minister is proposing.

I think that's probably inadequate from my view, and that's why this committee is so intent on trying to compel— which is really incredible—the Minister of Finance to be accountable for this budget in committee. The finding Freeland effort goes on, but apparently it takes $100 billion of spending for each appearance to get her to show.

The paper goes on to talk about Australia and codification. “After a series of scandals in the latter years of Paul Keating's labour government..”. Well there's a surprise: a labour government had a number of scandals. Paul Keating was Labour prime minister of Australia.

You know that the Labour Party is part of the Liberal international organization where all the Liberal parties get together across the world. That's not the Australian Liberal Party. The Australian Liberal Party, confusingly, is actually the conservative party in Australia. The Labour Party in Australia is the Liberal left-wing socialist government. They are the partner in Liberal International, with both the Liberal Party of Canada, which is a long way from conservative, and the Democratic Party in the U.S., which has become more socialist.

Their lead socialist spokesman is speaking this weekend at the Liberal Party of Canada's convention. They believe in and love Americans, to the point that the democratic party wants Hillary Clinton to provide them with advice on how to win elections.

It's an odd sort of thing that you would turn to Hillary Clinton on how to win elections.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Mr. Fisher, welcome to our committee.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

I just want to let the member know that we don't need anyone's help to learn how to win elections.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Fisher, for that.

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

I appreciate that. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

MP Perkins.

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

My colleague from Nova Scotia may find that a little different in the next election. You can talk to your former colleague about how that worked out.

This paper on ministerial accountability states, “Australia: After a series of scandals in the latter [days] of Paul Keating's Labor government”—the sister party to the scandal-ridden Trudeau Liberal government—“Liberal leader John Howard effectively appropriated the issue of ministerial propriety as a central campaign theme”—huh, that might be a good idea—“and promised higher standards of ministerial conduct when he [came to power as] prime minister in 1996. He became the first Australian prime minister to institute a publicly available ministerial code of conduct”—leave it to a conservative to bring in an actual code, something that the Liberals try to avoid—“entitled A Guide on Key Elements of Ministerial Responsibility.”

It continues, “This practice has endured with each subsequent prime minister revising the code, and each version becoming less extensive.” Hmm: “This is unsurprising as the code provided ammunition for the opposition and the media”—it sure does—“and critics contended that it became meaningless after Howard’s initial enforcement of breaches by asking ministers to resign began to waver after the loss of seven ministers in...two years.”

Well, at least there was a conservative government that believed in holding their own ministers to account for their performance and that actually held them accountable for their performance. Boy, have we been missing that here. Even the Chrétien government made ministers resign. Not far from here, there's a riding called Glengarry—Prescott—Russell. The minister of the Crown then was a fellow named Don Boudria. I can remember him resigning because he took a free night at the Château Montebello—a free night at the Château Montebello for a couple of hundred bucks—and yet the Minister of International Trade here gives tens of thousands of dollars to a best friend, untendered, and she just apologizes.

[An hon. member]

The Prime Minister...?

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

Oh, right, it's the Prime Minister as well. He hasn't admitted to it, I don't think, but everybody else on the trip to London for the Queen's funeral denied, including the Governor General, that they spent $6,000 on a hotel room with a chef and a butler. There was only one butler. I'm sure that was a hardship for the Prime Minister. But it wouldn't have been a hardship for the “finding Freeland” future prime minister, who maybe is out campaigning for his job now and not staying in $6,000-a-night hotel rooms. That might be the inspiration for her campaign.

The paper continues, “Predictably Labor pledged to improve ministerial standards upon returning to government in 2007, and under Prime Ministers Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard committed to a more compact set of Standards of Ministerial Ethics. This has largely remained intact, although renamed as the Statement of Ministerial Standards by new Liberal Prime Minister Tony Abbott in 2013.” So there were new ministerial standards and there was an open and accountable government.

I'm not sure we're getting open and accountable government when the Prime Minister and the public safety minister were briefed about Chinese interference in our elections and threats to an MP and yet did nothing for two years. That's not very open or accountable, in my mind.

In section 1 of Prime Minister Tony Abbott's updated code, under “Principles”, a couple of references are made to individual ministerial responsibility, particularly in carrying out their duties. Paragraph 1.3(iii) of the code states, “Ministers must accept [accountability] for the exercise of the powers and functions of their office...and the conduct, representations and decisions of those who act as their delegates or on their behalf—are open to public scrutiny and explanation.”

Furthermore, “Ministers must accept the full implications of the principle of ministerial responsibility. They will be required to answer for the consequences of their decisions and actions”.

That's paragraph 1.3(iv). What a concept, actually being answerable for the consequences of your decisions and actions.

When there's a decision to spend $3.1 trillion over the next five years, I think it's not a very high threshold to say that the Minister of Finance, in this “finding Freeland” exercise, needs to be held accountable by the duly elected members of Parliament who are scrutinizing this record level of spending.

Section 5 of that updated Australian ministerial accountability policy is called “Accountability” and it goes on to say, “Ministers are required to provide an honest and comprehensive account of their exercise of public office”. What a concept. I'll repeat that one because that's really apropos of what's happening in the House of Commons these days.

Ministers are required to provide an honest and comprehensive account of their exercise of public office, and of the activities of the agencies within their portfolios, in response to any reasonable and bona fide enquiry by a member of the Parliament or a Parliamentary Committee.

I think I should repeat that because I'm not sure everyone was paying attention. So let me repeat that. Section 5 of the Australian code, called “Accountability”, says:

Ministers are required to provide an honest and comprehensive account of their exercise of public office, and of the activities of the agencies within their portfolios, in response to any reasonable and bona fide inquiry by a member of the Parliament or a Parliamentary Committee.

So let's just apply that to the current situation of whether or not we have ministerial accountability in this government. We don't have it, clearly, given the difficulty that the House of Commons finance committee has been having in getting the Minister of Finance—the “finding Freeland” exercise—to committee to be held accountable. How can you, when the total number of appearances in the House of Commons since January is five, each worth $100 billion, as I said earlier?

The current Minister of Public Safety—and I know we were dealing with a subamendment on public safety—refuses to answer a simple question. On what date was he briefed on China interference?

Oh, did he? I'm told he did answer about the date.

What was the date? Was it Monday? It was Monday.

So the Minister of Public Safety was kept in the dark on the issue of China's interference with the member of Parliament, but as we know from the appearance of the Prime Minister's chief of staff, Ms. Telford, before a parliamentary committee—and she would never mislead a parliamentary committee, I'm sure—the Prime Minister reads everything, and in particular national security briefs.

So it's unbelievable that the Prime Minister wouldn't have known about this two years ago when the note came up. If he had, there's something wrong about Ms. Telford's testimony, and it says a lot about the Prime Minister's leadership that if he was briefed on this important public safety issue two years ago, he didn't inform his Minister of Public Safety about it—the person, and I'll quote from the Australian document, who is responsible for “the activities of the agencies within their portfolio”.

Why would the Prime Minister and the Privy Council Office not ensure that the Minister of Public Safety knew? Why would he know only on Monday, two years after the fact? That's incredible.

Ministerial accountability seems to be something very odd here, or maybe it's just a pattern, since apparently the Prime Minister rarely spoke to the former minister of justice about anything until the time he wanted to interfere in the charges against SNC-Lavalin, again, trying to override ministerial accountability. The Attorney General of Canada and independent head of lawmaking had integrity that we don't often see in this government and said no. She told the Prime Minister she wasn't going to interfere.

Now that's accountability, under the Australian position on ministerial accountability, that we don't seem to be getting from the Minister of Finance in her five $100-billion appearances in the House and her desire to avoid being accountable for a budget that plans to spend $3.1 trillion in the next five years.

While Australia also has a cabinet handbook, which was publicly available for the first time in 1984 and which has existed in some form since 1926, its focus is on internal operations of cabinet and ministerial codes, and the conduct more explicitly addresses individual ministerial responsibility.

It's much like the open and transparent 2015 Liberal government guide that guides all of cabinet, which primarily dictates how you conduct yourself in cabinet and that kind of thing. It has a very thin section on ministerial accountability and the role of Parliament. This is from a government that said, in 2015, that it would restore integrity to parliamentary committees, restore openness and transparency, return ministerial accountability and remove parliamentary secretaries from driving the agenda in parliamentary committees.

I sit on two other committees, and I've seen the parliamentary secretaries drive those. Certainly last year, on Bill C-11, I sat in and saw the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage whipping everybody and driving every single issue of debate. It was yet another promise broken.

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

Mr. Chair, I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Yes, Mr. Blaikie.

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

It's more of a request, Mr. Chair, because I'm quite enjoying the exposition that we're getting on ministerial accountability. I share a lot of the concerns that the member expressed in respect of interference with the rule of law. I know he made reference to Jody Wilson-Raybould. I think there's a more contemporary example now. It's certainly a relevant one, and it's worth talking about. I wonder how he feels about.... He's talking about Australia, and it matters because, obviously, various Westminster parliamentary systems are instructive for the Canadian context.

I know that the Premier of Alberta has reached out to the Attorney General to talk about specific cases, and there seems to be a question of interference there. I'm wondering if he could expand his exposition on the principles of ministerial accountability and speak a little to how that example reinforces some of the points he's making here today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Blaikie.

MP Perkins, I don't know if you want to take that up.

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

That's a very interesting question. As MP Blaikie knows, I'm a member of Parliament from Nova Scotia. I've actually never met the Premier of Alberta, so I cannot speak to the media reports, which, of course, some may feel are always accurate. I'm not sure I do, but I'll let the voters of Alberta decide that. I believe the election was called this week, and they can make a judgment on whether the Premier of Alberta acted appropriately or not. I always put my future into the hands of voters, as I did the last time when I defeated the Liberal minister of fisheries.

Back to the paper, the paper says Canada is next, so let's talk about Canada and our issue or history of codification or not, or pamphlets and legislation in these areas. This academic paper says:

Written guidance in the form of official documents or legislation is comparatively less extensive in Canada, with calls for a Cabinet Manual or something similar (see Russell 2010).

This was dated 2015. This thick-looking document, with a very thin section on accountability, was published by the new Liberal government. This paper says “calls for a Cabinet Manual or something similar”, and the academic reference is Russell 2010.

The next sentence goes on to say:

Accountable Government: A Guide for Ministers and Ministers of State “sets out core principles regarding the roles and responsibilities of Ministers…[including] the central tenet of ministerial responsibility, both individual and collective, as well as Ministers’ relations with the Prime Minister and Cabinet, their portfolios and Parliament”. The current edition was issued in 2011 by the Privy Council Office under Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

He was one of the best prime ministers this country has seen. That was my editorializing. It does not say that in the paper, just to be clear, although I'm sure the author felt the same way.

Under Section I.1., “Individual Ministerial Responsibility” is firstly defined in terms of accountability to the prime minister, with the prime minister able to ask for a ministerial resignation. “Ministers are also accountable to Parliament...for all areas of responsibility, whether they are assigned by statute or otherwise”....

The most detailed section is I.3. ‘Ministerial Accountability’. Ministers are required to be in parliament to answer questions on the discharge of their responsibilities and use of public monies, with political judgement resting with parliament.

The paragraph goes on, but I am just going to stop there and read the most important sentence in that section again: “Ministers are required to be in parliament to answer questions on the discharge of their responsibilities and use of public monies, with political judgement resting with parliament.” This is Stephen Harper's code for ministerial accountability.

That is really what this discussion is about here at committee. It's not some esoteric or sort of odd thing that others may have said. Even some members of the government made some spurious accusations before question period yesterday about what this was about. The essence of this discussion is questioning whether ministers in this government are required to be in Parliament to answer questions about “the discharge of their responsibilities and use of public monies”.

There were five appearances that appeared through the “finding Freeland” search I did through Hansard. There were five appearances in Parliament since January, at a cost of $100 billion an appearance. I would like the cost of those appearances to be less. The way we can lessen the cost would be by having more appearances. That is what this is about. It's to conclude the exercise of “finding Freeland” and have the minister show up here for two hours and not ignore the requests of this committee to appear, when she is choosing to spend $3.1 trillion of your money.

The next sentence in this “Canada” section says:

However, the prime minister can reaffirm support or ask for a resignation. Consistent with the principle of responsible government, it is said that ministers are accountable to parliament for all organisations within their portfolio and the “proper functioning” of their department (3).

That's why we had that long discussion at the beginning of the last meeting and this meeting when we were discussing Mr. Genuis's subamendment on the appearance of the Minister of Public Safety, because he is responsible for at least four agencies that this spending authorizes, including the RCMP and its performance as our community and national police force.

The paper goes on to say:

However, reference is also made to “appropriate ministerial oversight”. Therefore, in relation to arm’s-length bodies, “the Minister’s engagement will be at a systemic level”. Most importantly:

The following is a direct quote in this paper from Prime Minister Harper's guide for ministerial accountability:

Ministerial accountability to Parliament does not mean that a Minister is presumed to have knowledge of every matter that occurs within his or her department or portfolio

I'm just going to stop there, because I think many ministers of this government have shown that they don't have knowledge of every matter or any of the matters in their portfolio. It goes on to say:

nor that the Minister is necessarily required to accept blame for every matter.

I suppose that since the Minister of Public Safety only found out about something on Monday that national security agencies briefed the Prime Minister on two years ago, whether or not he should accept blame for the incompetence of the Prime Minister's Office for not informing him is a matter we should discuss at some point in Parliament or have before a parliamentary committee, if we could.

It goes on to say, quoting from Prime Minister Harper's guide for ministerial accountability:

It does require that the Minister attend to all matters in Parliament that concern any organizations for which he or she is responsible, including responding to questions.

Wow, what a thought, that a minister would respond. Well, I guess we allow responses to questions in question period, but there is a difference between responses and answers; they are quite different. We get a lot of responses from ministers in committee and in the House of Commons, but we don't get a lot of answers.

The paper goes on, quoting from Prime Minister Harper's guide for ministers:

It further requires that the Minister take appropriate corrective action to address any problems that may have arisen, consistent with the Minister’s role with respect to the organization in question (3).

That's the end of the quote from the Harper guide.

Given that the Minister of Public Safety only found out on Monday about Chinese interference and threats against a member of Parliament and that this was kept from him presumably by the Prime Minister's Office and the Prime Minister, who said he voraciously reads about national security issues, I would expect that the Minister of Public Safety is addressing that with the Prime Minister's chief of staff now as to why he was left out of the loop. Maybe we should get him a coffee mug: “I'm out of the loop, and that's the way I like it.”

The next section is called “New Zealand”. New Zealand is one of the four countries in this study.

While lacking a formal written constitution, the Cabinet Manual is self-described as “an authoritative guide to central government decision making for Ministers, their offices, and those working within government”, as well as “a primary source of information on New Zealand’s constitutional arrangements”. It is endorsed by each new government, with the current version updated in 2008.

Remember that this was in 2015, so the “current version” in 2015 in New Zealand had been updated in 2008. Section 3 of that 2008 version of New Zealand's manual for ministers and public office holders says the following—

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Mr. Perkins, could you just hold that thought?

We're going to suspend now, and we'll be back after QP.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

We're back.

We left off with MP Perkins, and then we'll go on to MP Morantz after that.

Go ahead, MP Perkins.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for the break—well, question period, anyway.

Just to let you know, Mr. Chair, out of courtesy and assistance to our translators, I've given them some copies of the study and a few other things that I may be referring to, in order to make the translation easier. Bear with me. As I go through it, I will make sure I refer to the documents and the occasional pages to make it easier on the translators.

For those who have not been part of the discussion but are watching now, what we are doing in the finance committee is this: The government has proposed a budget implementation bill, as it's called. It amends a great many acts of Parliament, a number of which have nothing to do with the budget. Nonetheless, this is an omnibus budget bill. The government promised they would not bring in omnibus bills, and we are dealing with one.

What we have is a motion before us, and an amendment. The amendment to the main motion is what we're dealing with. The amendment to the main motion is MP Blaikie's amendment, which I think had a revision from MP Lawrence. It is asking that the Minister of Finance appear for two hours to defend the budget implementation bill. It's not unreasonable, but apparently it's a bit of a stretch for this committee, since the minister has frequently not responded to the committee's request to appear on various things.

Indeed, by my calculation, the minister has appeared in the House of Commons, as I mentioned earlier, five times since January. This budget bill, the budget implementation act, has a fiscal framework that spends $3.1 trillion over the next five years. In fact, the annual budget for the government will have almost doubled since it took office. In year five of this fiscal framework, it will be over half a trillion dollars. By my calculation, at five appearances, that's—let me get my math right—$100 billion per appearance by the minister. That's an hourly wage charged to the government taxpayers of Canada that is obviously something McKinsey would envy. I'm sure she's setting a new standard for them in the many new contracts they will get from this government.

For the sake of the translators, what we're talking about here is ministerial accountability and the parliamentary tradition in our Westminster system of parliamentary accountability. I've been enlightening the committee and those watching about an important academic study done on this issue, and I was citing the text of it before we went on break to go to question period. Just so the translators and the people watching know what document I'm referring to, it's the Australian Journal of Public Administration, volume 73, number 4.

Its summary reads:

This study examines the convention of individual ministerial responsibility for departmental actions in the four key Westminster countries of Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. The chain of ministerial responsibility traditionally began in the bureaucratic hierarchy of the public sector up to the minister, who is responsible to the parliament, which is responsible to the people. Many New Public Management reforms changed the roles and responsibilities of senior public servants, which arguably weakened the first link in the chain, despite being premised on increased public sector accountability. Various codes of conduct, guides, manuals, handbooks and legislation—

What they're referring to there, for example, in the current Liberal government, is a handbook—not law—that was issued when this government was elected, called “Open and Accountable Government 2015”. I'm not sure many of the ministers have actually read it, given their performance in the House and what it requires in parliamentary accountability.

The summary of this paper goes on to say:

—have attempted to codify and clarify politico-bureaucratic relationships. They have generally captured the complexity of executive accountability and better reflect the original convention, while emphasising the preeminent role of the prime minister in upholding individual ministerial responsibility.

When we left off, I had just finished the section on Canada, where it gets into the detailed analysis. Like every academic paper, it spends pages and pages outlining the academic process of doing the study. It first examines Australia, and then Canada. I had finished that off, but, just to give you a sense, New Zealand and the United Kingdom come next. I have to go through those. I think it's important for us to refresh, because we may have people watching who weren't privy to this insightful piece before we broke for question period. Perhaps I could begin with the section on Canada, at page 474.

By the way, it is written by Dr. Brenton and is entitled “Ministerial Accountability for Departmental Actions Across Westminster Parliamentary Democracies”. That section of this academic study begins like this:

Written guidance in the form of official documents or legislation is comparatively less extensive in Canada [that's relative, I guess, to Australia], with calls for a Cabinet Manual or something similar (see Russell 2010).

We should remember that this paper was written in 2015, just before the current government's “Open and Accountable Government” document came out. It goes on to say:

Accountable Government: A Guide for Ministers and Ministers of State “sets out core principles regarding the roles and responsibilities of Ministers...[including] the central tenet of ministerial responsibility, both individual and collective, as well as Ministers' relations with the Prime Minister and Cabinet, their portfolios and Parliament”. The current edition was issued in 2011 by the Privy Council Office, under Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

I know we can all agree he is one of Canada's greatest prime ministers.

Just to make sure we're clear, part of what we're trying to do is find Freeland. It's the “finding Freeland” effort. With only five appearances, this is as rare, I guess, as the dodo bird, or perhaps as rare as a DFO fisheries enforcement officer arresting poachers of elvers in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

This is about the code set out by one of Canada's best prime ministers, Stephen Harper:

Under Section I.1., “Individual Ministerial Responsibility” is firstly defined in terms of accountability to the prime minister, with the prime minister able to ask for a ministerial resignation.

That's something I don't think this Prime Minister has ever done. I don't think so. We've even had many instances of breaches of Canada's ethics act by ministers, but that apparently isn't good enough for a resignation. The report goes on to say, “Ministers are also accountable to Parliament”. That's why we're here today. We're talking about the Minister of Finance's accountability to Parliament, which seems to be a challenge in our “finding Freeland” effort. The paper goes on to say, “Ministers are also accountable to Parliament...for all areas of responsibility, whether they are assigned by statute or otherwise”. That's in section I.1 of Prime Minister Harper's guide for ministers.

According to this study:

The most detailed section is I.3. “Ministerial Accountability”. Ministers are required to be in parliament to answer questions on the discharge of their responsibilities and use of public monies, with political judgement resting with parliament.

That's our role: the political judgment that parliamentarians play in deciding whether or not what the government, the executive of our governing structure, puts forward in legislation and spending is acceptable to the people we represent. That's why ministers have to be held to account, not only in Parliament but also in committees.

The idea of answering questions, either in Parliament or in the committee, seems to be a challenge for the Minister of Finance, having not been here in the House more than five times since January, at $100 billion a day. I'm not sure where the Minister of Finance is in her outside time, but she is not answering questions there and has refused on at least three occasions when this committee asked her to come before the committee to answer questions.

I've actually never encountered that. I'm on the fisheries and industry committees, and I have encountered the Minister of Fisheries agreeing to appear before for two hours and then showing up at the meeting and saying, “I'm only going to show up for one.” I know we can't compel ministers to appear before a committee, but a courtesy to Parliament and parliamentarians, of which they are a part, would dictate that. The odd hour here and there from these very busy ministers could be spared for their accountability to democracy.

The study goes on to say:

However, the prime minister can reaffirm support or ask for a resignation. Consistent with the principle of responsible government, it is said that ministers are accountable to parliament for all organisations within their portfolio and the “proper functioning” of their department.

We've seen a lot of those issues in obfuscation and answers in question period. I misspoke. We don't get answers in question period. We get responses.

Even today, there was the issue of the public safety minister not informing the House of when the Prime Minister was informed that a member of Parliament was threatened by a foreign government because of his vote in Parliament. This government has known about this for two years, according to the leaked security memos that apparently went to the Privy Council Office. The chief of staff to the Prime Minister, as we know, said the Prime Minister reads everything he gets and he certainly reads everything from security.

While the Minister of Public Safety may not have known, perhaps he should ask the Prime Minister why the Prime Minister didn't inform him two years ago that this was going on. It's hard for the minister to be accountable to Parliament if the Prime Minister isn't sharing with him such critical information that goes to the root of our democracy.

The academic study here goes on to say this with regard to Canada:

However, reference is also made to “appropriate ministerial oversight”. Therefore, in relation to arm's-length bodies—

This is the RCMP or CSIS, in the case of the Minister of Public Safety, and the CDIC or, perhaps, the Bank of Canada, in reference to the Minister of Finance.

—“the Minister's engagement will be at a systemic level”.

Then it goes to quote directly from “A Guide for Ministers and Ministers of State” by Prime Minister Harper:

Ministerial accountability to Parliament does not mean that a Minister is presumed to have knowledge of every matter that occurs within his or her department or portfolio—

The executive makes it clear every day that they do not know everything that is going on within their department or portfolio.

—nor that the Minister is necessarily required to accept blame for every matter.

We certainly know they won't accept blame even for their own actions of giving friends and family direct contracts untendered, like the Minister of International Trade, or taking personal vacations at $9,000-a-night resorts in Jamaica, as the Prime Minister has done, or a $6,000-a-night hotel in London.

The Prime Minister, I believe, has gone off to London for the very important event of the swearing in of the king and his investiture as our sovereign. I wonder if he's staying in the Holiday Inn in London, or whether he's gone back to having a requirement to have a butler and a chef in his suite, and a piano so he can sign Bohemian Rhapsody again.

The report goes on to quote directly from Prime Minister Harper's guide for ministers on ministerial accountability, which is what this motion is about. It says:

It does require that the Minister attend to all matters in Parliament—

That's a revelation. Other ministers have clearly done it in the past, but it's a little tough when you show up five days since January, as the “finding Freeland” effort continues.

—that concern any organizations for which he or she is responsible, including responding to questions.

What a unique idea, in our Westminster system, that a minister would have to respond to questions from the opposition to be held accountable in Parliament to the people who are elected to represent our communities across the country. But it's pretty hard to do that when the minister has refused to come on three occasions to the finance committee to answer and be accountable for the financial things that she is responsible for. This baffles me.

This is a friendly group. I don't see it as an acrimonious committee. I have been on some committees.... I can think of the heritage committee last year, where I went on Bill C-11. That wasn't exactly a collegial committee at the time, but this one seems very.... I don't know why the Minister of Finance would be so intimidated by the members of this committee as to not be willing to come and answer questions—but she can only answer that if she comes.

The report continues to quote from the Harper guide:

It further requires that the Minister take appropriate corrective action to address any problems that may have arisen, consistent with the Minister's role with respect to the organization in question (3).

It's very clear that for a long time, at least during Conservative governments, we held them accountable. We even had ministers resign for their expenses. But apparently that doesn't happen in this government, because it comes from the top. The Prime Minister sets the tone on accountability. When the Prime Minister is found guilty three times of ethics violations and doesn't resign or recognize that he has caused a problem and is entitled to his entitlements, he sets the tone for his management team, the cabinet; all they have to do is make mistakes and apologize and everything's okay. That's not in the traditions of the Westminster system, as we'll find out here in the next section of this report, which talks about New Zealand.

It says here “While lacking a formal written constitution”. Some members and people watching may not know that New Zealand doesn't have a constitution. As a parliamentary democracy, it is like Britain. It doesn't have a constitution. It relies on case law and common law and goes back to the Magna Carta for its precedents and how it does things.

The article says about New Zealand:

While lacking a formal written constitution, the Cabinet Manual is self-described as “an authoritative guide to central government decision making for Ministers, their offices and those working within government”, as well as “a primary source of information on New Zealand's constitutional arrangements”. It is endorsed by each new government, with the current version updated in 2008.

This was in 2015.

Section 3 of the Manual deals with “Ministers of the Crown and the State Sector”. In terms of roles and responsibilities:

They quote directly from this manual:

Ministers decide both the direction and the priorities for their departments. They should not be involved in their departments' day-to-day operations. In general terms, Ministers are responsible for determining and promoting policy, defending policy decisions, and answering in the House on both policy and operational matters (3.5).

You see, New Zealand has it right. They have it right, as the Harper government did—it's part of accountability and ministerial responsibility to answer in Parliament. In our country, Parliament means the House of Commons, the Senate of Canada, and all parliamentary committees in both Houses, to be held accountable. To not come at the courteous and very friendly invitation of this committee—three times by the minister for $100-billion-a day work—Minister Freeland, in the “finding Freeland” effort here, is not even following the traditions in other Westminster parliamentary systems.

Point 3.21 refers to “Individual ministerial responsibility for departmental actions”:

It quotes again directly from the manual from New Zealand:

Ministers are accountable to the House for ensuring that the departments for which they are responsible carry out their functions properly and efficiently. On occasion, a Minister may be required to account for the actions of a department when errors are made—

That's quite a bit by this government.

—even when the Minister had no knowledge of, or involvement in, those actions. The question of subsequent action in relation to individual public servants may be a matter for the State Services Commissioner—

Obviously, this is a title or role that's different in New Zealand as we have no such role.

—(in the case of chief executives), or for chief executives if any action to be taken involves members of their staff.

The study goes on to say, on page 475:

A series of “Accountability documents” help to monitor departmental performance, including one-year performance information, statements of intent for at least the next three years, an output plan—

There's a novel idea. An output plan is required in New Zealand for ministers and their accountability. I think all we get is input plans. There are input plans of spending, input plans of intent, input plans of good wishes and fairy dust, but not much in the way of output. The measurement of success of this government is how much you spend, not how much you produce.

I don't think many of these ministers would survive very well in the private sector, except maybe Navdeep Bains, who left. He's done well for himself. Navdeep Bains was the minister of industry responsible for bringing down cellphone prices. When he left, we had the highest cellphone prices in the world. In fact, you'll be shocked to learn that when the minister of industry, Navdeep Bains, who was responsible for cellphone rates when we had the highest rates.... Every minister in Canada has a two-year cooling off period. Before the ink was dry on his cooling off period in January of this year, Navdeep Bains decided to negotiate with Rogers Communications to be in charge of their government relations. Can you believe that? Minister Bains, in his accountability, who feather-bedded the telecoms to have the highest prices in the world, went to work for Rogers.

Let me tell you about Rogers. They have the highest cellphone rates in the world. It's not just in Canada, but in the world. It's not shocking to me that the minister in charge of the highest cellphone prices in the world, after his two-year cooling off period, would be rewarded by Rogers with a cushy job in charge of government relations. It's the very same company he was responsible for regulating and allowed to become the most expensive cellphone company in the world.

Where was I? The study continues: “Crucially, responsibility for financial performance is vested solely in the minister”. Financial performance? Why, just in the fall, this minister, in her economic statement on the budget of the finances of this country, projected—this is something they hadn't said in quite a while; in fact, they hadn't said it since the 2015 election—a balanced budget. I think it was by 2027-28, a four- or five-year mandate. That was just in the fall. If the minister had shown up here at the finance committee subsequent to that, she could have been questioned, as Westminster parliamentary tradition requires, on the financial performance of that.

We know the financial performance of that. In this document, in the budget implementation act that we're talking about, there is no balanced budget projected in the next five years. In fact, it goes a long way out before it's even considered. In fact, this budget, in the five-year framework, adds $130 billion to Canada's national debt.

I know that people watching and the members of Parliament here were all listening intently when I led off the debate for the official opposition in the House of Commons on this bill, the budget implementation act. You'll recall that I went through the sins of the father and now the sins of the son. When you take the combined financial performance of the father, former prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, and the son, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the total addition to Canada's national debt between those two members of the same family is $1.1 trillion.

It would be enormously helpful for the Minister of Finance, in this “finding Freeland” exercise, to be able to come here and explain to us why she thinks that a balanced budget in the fall no longer can be balanced, and why it is a prudent fiscal thing—for all of us and all of Canada—for the Trudeau tradition to continue adding $1.1 trillion. This government has never met a target that it has set, financially. It's blown the doors off, financially, with bigger debts than it ever has before.

One of the most interesting things is that, in order to meet that $1.1 trillion or to add only $130 billion to the national debt in the next five years, this government has to not introduce or spend one dollar more on anything new in the rest of its mandate. I don't think the odds of that are very strong. We see a lot of betting commercials now during the NHL playoffs, and I'd like to see some of those companies place a bet on the likelihood.... Vegas will do bets on anything. I'd like to see Vegas do the odds on this government's meeting any of the targets in this budget plan. I wouldn't take that bet. I'll tell you, though, that if you put $1 down, it would probably make you a gazillionaire if the government actually did it once, by the odds that you would get. Maybe that's what's going on here. Maybe the Minister of Finance, in trying to understand this, is trying to understand her own numbers and figure out how this government put Canada in such a mess.

On New Zealand—and we're coming up to the United Kingdom, the mother of all Parliaments—the report goes on to say, “Crucially, responsibility for financial performance is vested solely in the minister”. Well, it's hard to do that if you're mysteriously not attending committee. I wish we could compel her more. I know we can subpoena witnesses in committees, but I doubt that...although it would be great if MP Blaikie and the other opposition parties would agree, because I suspect that's the only way you're going to get the Minister of Finance here for two precious hours.

What does that work out to, two precious hours of her time? Let's see. Well, it's five days at $100 billion a day to show up in Parliament on her spending. What does that work out to? My colleague, Marty Morantz, could work on that.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

It's $250 billion an hour.

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

As I said, McKinsey would dream of that.

So, for the minister to be here for one hour, that's a $250-billion expenditure. For her to be here for two hours, that's a $500-billion expenditure.

Now, I don't know. Maybe we should reconsider because that's quite an expense and quite an hourly rate, but I suspect that money will get spent whether she's here or not.

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

It's $8 billion a minute, too.

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

It's $8 billion a minute. Wow. How many minutes have I been talking? I'm underpaid.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

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

The article continues:

with point 2.24 of the Manual stipulating that: “Under the Public Finance Act 1989, 'Responsible Ministers'—

That's in quotes, and I would put that in quotes with regard to this government.

—are responsible to Parliament for the financial performance of the departments within their portfolios and for protecting the Crown’s interest in those departments”.

I don't know that they're protecting the Crown's interests very well when they're saddling generations with now up to $1.4 trillion of national debt going forward because apparently budgets don't balance themselves. I haven't heard that in a while, but apparently they don't balance themselves. In 2015, it was just a small deficit, just a little stimulus deficit for an economy that was booming. They said, “Don't worry; in 2019 it will be balanced.” Guess what? I believe it was a $20-billion deficit in 2019; it wasn't balanced. Budgets don't balance themselves, and the government has given up any pretense of even.... Then it became a fiscal anchor. Well, this fiscal anchor is dropping us down quite deep. They do use anchors in securing illegal elver nets. I'll come back to that in a minute.