Finance Committee on May 2nd, 2023

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Mr. Chair, may I speak to that point of order?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Let me just speak to the point of order by MP Baker regarding MP Perkins.

Yes, MP Perkins, we're not at the fisheries committee. We're at the finance committee. MP Perkins, it's about sticking to the amendment to the motion, the amendment by MP Blaikie, which speaks to the Minister of Finance. It is not speaking about fisheries or about eels here.

On the point of order—

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Mr. Chair, I've asked to be recognized—

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Yes. I'm recognizing you.

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

—to speak to the point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Yes, on a point of order, I'm recognizing you.

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

No, I'm not making a point of order. I wish to speak to the point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

The point of order...yes.

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Thank you.

I've been listening very carefully to my colleague. He has been talking about fisheries, but he was talking about fisheries in the context of ministerial responsibility and the common purpose of cabinet deciding together on issues of ministerial responsibility.

He also spoke to the questions he would put to the Minister of Finance if she ever deems it...that she would come to a committee that is in fact here to study the finances, economics and budget of our government, of which she is the prime minister responsible. Fisheries are part of that. My colleague was talking about the kinds of questions he would put to the minister if she came here—the kinds of questions she should be accountable for.

I have been a minister. I have come to committee to defend my ministerial budgets and I always took that very seriously. I took ministerial responsibilities seriously. Any minister should do so. Even the thought that a minister of finance would put forward a budget—in other words, the budget for all of Canada on how Canada's government will run and administer the workings of the nation—then not make herself available to answer questions on that budget is, frankly, unbelievable and a dereliction of that duty and responsibility.

The fact that this speaker, my colleague, is talking about what he would ask her if she came seems to me to be quite appropriate. He happens to be in fisheries. He might be talking about something else, because budgets go to all ministries. Budgets of the nation go to all industries and all activities of the nation, and the minister should be here to respond.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

There's a point of order.

Go ahead, MP Dzerowicz.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'm not sure whether my colleague who just spoke realizes that there is no question that the Minister of Finance will be coming before this committee, as she has for all other legislation that comes from Finance. That's not a question. She will be coming before this committee. She's very happy to respond to this budget. I think we're very proud of federal budget 2023.

I would hope that the questions that will be put forward to our Minister of Finance, when she does come to here to be responsive on the federal budget 2023, will not—

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Mr. Chair, please, you cannot “point of order” a point of order. This is out of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

MPs, no cross-speaking....

MP Dzerowicz has the floor. Then we will go to your point of order on the point of order.

Again, to refocus the members, we are talking about the amendment before us: “That the Minister of Finance be invited to appear for two hours on the bill and that this appearance be scheduled on or before May 18th, 2023.”

MP Perkins should be speaking to that amendment. He hasn't said whether he's for or against this amendment. We'd like to hear that.

MP Dzerowicz, you have the floor right now.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

I have a point of order, if I could, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

The point of order is this: MP Dzerowicz has the floor.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Just to be fair, Mr. Chair, we Liberals have had very little time over the last few hours...hearing about eels and fisheries for a while.

My point of order is the following: There's no question—it is in the amendment Mr. Chair just read out—that our Minister of Finance would like to come before this committee to respond to federal budget 2023. That's not in question. I would hope the questions she will be asked when she does indeed come before this committee are not about eels, since I don't believe there's anything about eels in federal budget 2023.

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Dzerowicz.

Go ahead, MP Findlay.

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

I do not know what just happened here, Mr. Chair.

You have someone point of ordering a point of order. I've never seen that before. That's not appropriate. My understanding is that the member broke into my comments on a point of order to say that the minister is coming. Well, then, what's the date? When is it happening? How does this committee know it's going to happen?

The reason why we're trying to find Minister Freeland is that she can't be found at this committee. She hasn't been found here in six months and she's barely in Parliament either, but she can speak at a Liberal convention tonight.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

This is debate.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Dzerowicz.

MP Findlay, you asked about the dates. It's in the amendment, MP Findlay, that it's scheduled on or before May 18, 2023, if you needed a date.

We are now back to MP Perkins.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That was entertaining, as I hope I've been entertaining.

As you can tell, I appreciate—and I assume all of my colleagues can appreciate—that I do this with the best intentions. I'm passionate about the people I represent. I represent 7,000 fishermen, and they need their voice heard because this government isn't....

Out of respect for my colleagues around the table, I will go.... I believe, as MP Findlay said, I was speaking to the motion, but I'll go directly back in a more direct route to the amendment of MP Blaikie that is at hand.

What I'd like to bring to the attention of this elongated meeting is a Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat document—and I'll refer to this for the translators—entitled “Meeting the Expectations of Canadians: Review of the Responsibilities and Accountabilities of Ministers and Senior Officials”.

I think you'll find this enlightening in the context of ministerial accountability to Parliament. If you want to grab a coffee, it might be a good time.

On page one, in the introduction, it reads:

Accountability in the Government of Canada is framed by our system of responsible government. This system is based on the Westminster model, the cornerstone of which is the doctrine of ministerial responsibility.

This is a Treasury Board of Canada document:

Parliament has a responsibility to hold the government to account. Ministers are accountable to Parliament for the exercise of authority assigned to the Crown under the constitution and under statutory law.

This is a Treasury Board document. It's not just the nice words of the government when they came in on open and transparent government in 2015, which seems to have been lost in the archives.

This document is from the Treasury Board, which is the controller of where all money goes. If you want to know the relevance of the Treasury Board to a budget, it decides how the budget spending gets done after the budget's been delivered.

My colleague MP Findlay sat on the Treasury Board. As I'm sure all those listening will be shocked to know, in my time as a ministerial assistant, I briefed my minister for the Treasury Board for seven years, so I know all about the considered cases and the appendix cases, and that details of the problems are in the appendix cases, where officials all agree and think the government doesn't need to look, but I digress.

Let's go back to the Treasury Board document, “Meeting the Expectations of Canadians: Review of the Responsibilities and Accountabilities of Ministers and Senior Officials”. In paragraph two, it reads:

This review of the doctrine and practice of ministerial responsibility was conducted in response to direction from the Prime Minister to the President of the Treasury Board following the tabling of the Auditor General of Canada’s November 2003 report. The report’s investigation of the sponsorship program and advertising activities—

Some members of the Liberal Party will remember that.

—drew the attention of Parliament and the public to the issue of accountability.

The Library of Parliament, as you heard earlier, has also written on the issue of that incident. The document continues:

A number of other measures were taken at the time to address concerns about mismanagement of the sponsorship and advertising program, including the creation of an independent commission of inquiry led by Mr. Justice John Gomery to examine past behaviour in the sponsorship and advertising programs and to formulate recommendations in order to prevent mismanagement in the future.

Since December 2003—

This is a Treasury Board document.

—action has been taken on many fronts to strengthen accountability—

Here are some of the things that they said have happened in this document:

Management expectations have been clarified, and the capacity to meet them is being enhanced.

Wow, does that sound like bureaucratese.

It continues, “Improvements have been made in transparency and reporting to Parliament.” This must be an old document because it doesn't seem to be that way now. It goes on to say, “Measures have been taken to enhance financial management.”

Untendered contracts to McKinsey and to personal friends.... Wow, something has happened. It's the old Pomp & Circumstance.

[An hon. member]

That's Mary Ng's friend, Amanda Alvaro.

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

What an absurd name for a company, by the way—to talk about pomp and circumstance in your name. Only a Liberal would call their company Pomp & Circumstance. That's who gets to do media training.

The fourth point is, “Greater attention is being paid to carrying out audits of departments and agencies, and audit capacity is being increased.”

I'll tell you what. I don't think that's actually happened because I've made an OPQ—order paper question—through the House of Commons on one of the biggest subsidies that this budget has for business. They're called SR and ED. They're scientific research tax credits.

I asked the simple question when speaking of accountability: How many of the companies that receive SR and ED tax credits in Canada—and you have to be an incorporated company in Canada to receive them—actually produce intellectual property or tax? Who owns those patents and who is the beneficial owner of that Canadian company that received the tax credit?

This is $3 billion to $4 billion a year of tax credits. The policy is set out by the industry committee, but administered by the Canada Revenue Agency. In the area of accountability, the government has to respond to order paper questions within 45 day. Within 45 days, I got a response.

You would think that with that question, with $4 billion a year of tax credits and with the list of those companies and the IP, I would get an overwhelming amount of information about all the great success that our largest business tax credit creates. You'd think it would've created all kinds of inventions of patents and that we would know who owns those patents and inventions and how it has benefited Canada.

I got one paragraph back. Do you know what that paragraph said? It said, in essence, that they don't know. It said that they don't track it. They don't know if there's any intellectual property that results from that and if there is, they don't know who owns it. By the way, it's a Canadian company that got the credit, but they actually don't know who owns the company.

Now that's government accountability at its finest.

This Treasury Board has fine words like the open and transparent thing, but apparently it doesn't work. That's $4 billion a year. It's no wonder we have more debt added. It's $1.1 trillion of the Trudeaus' debt. That's “Trudeaus” multiple; the two of them together. The inputs have impressive numbers, but on the outputs, we don't know.

To continue on page 2:

The focus of the report is on the role of Parliament, the ministry, and Treasury Board

—now this is at the essence of what we're talking about here with ministerial accountability, the role of Parliament and the ministry—

in the accountability regime. It deals specifically with matters of financial administration

—hey, what's a budget other than financial administration—

rather than the policy, as that is where the current concern about responsibility lies.

It seems like that stills exists today. It goes on to say:

Financial administration covers matters relating to administrative policy, financial management, expenditure plans, programs and policies of departments, personnel management, and other matters related to the prudent and effective use of public resources.

This report complements the review of the government's framework of Canada's crown corporations

—it has a footnote here that says, “Tabled in Parliament on February 17, 2005”—

and The Financial Administration Act: Responding to Non-compliance.

As we know, the Financial Administration Act is the act that governs all financial legalities and technicalities of spending money and raising money through taxes and spending it or borrowing it by the Government of Canada.

It goes on to say:

Mr. Justice Gomery has been mandated to take into account issues raised and commitments made in this review as he develops recommendations.

This report follows from an in-depth review of existing documents on the doctrine of ministerial responsibility and from consultations with noted experts and practitioners in the field.

I'll bet they looked at that paper I read in from Australia, that excellent paper that I think most members found enlightening.

Consultations on the accountability regime were held through a series of round tables with distinguished academics, current and former ministers and deputy ministers, and other stakeholders.

Footnote 4 adds:

See the list of those consulted in Section 6. Their valued insight and input helped shape the review’s major findings....

We'll get to reading that list eventually about who was consulted so that we're informed about who gave these views.

This report follows from an in-depth review of existing documents on the doctrine of ministerial responsibility and from consultations with noted experts and practitioners in the field.

We went through that.

These consultations were also greatly aided by a discussion paper drafted by Professor Donald Savoie—

He's a great New Brunswick professor and a constant author of the mechanics and machinery of government, as it's called, and the roles of ministerial responsibility, political staff responsibility and prime ministerial responsibility, being quite a learned fellow on this and a proud Atlantic Canadian.

—who served as the Simon Reisman Fellow at the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat in 2004, and were supported by other eminent observers of Canadian government: Denis Desautels, former Auditor General of Canada; Robert Marleau, former Clerk of the House of Commons; and Camille Montpetit, former Deputy Clerk of the House of Commons.

Just in case you don't know who Simon Reisman was, he was an eminent public servant in the Government of Canada. He was the lead negotiator on the original free trade agreement with the United States in the late 1980s. Simon Reisman was a pretty irascible fellow but a guy I would want on my side in negotiating, because the Americans found him, even, one of the toughest negotiators. Donald Savoie serving as the chair in his name is quite an honour.

1.1 Structure of this report

This report explains in some detail the practice of ministerial responsibility in Canada, focussing in particular on how:

responsibilities are assigned;

the people with those responsibilities are held to account; and

consequences are delivered when performance is found to be wanting.

That's an interesting point. I'm sure the structure of this report will be enlightening for everyone.

I'm now turning to the next page. That's for the translators so that they can follow along and provide us with the excellent service that they do. We thank them very much for their long hours and dedication.

Given the centrality and complexity of the accountability regime, the government believes that it is important to begin with a sound understanding of the existing principles and practices in Parliament and in government itself. Canadians, in judging the best way ahead, will want to know what mechanisms are currently in place, how they relate to each other, and how they have evolved. As will be shown in the report, a robust accountability regime is in place, and it has deep traditions and well-developed roles.

I know I gave a shout-out to the translators, but at this stage I want to give a shout-out to my new legislative assistant, Graham O'Brien, a fine fellow who helped find some of these documents for me.

[An hon. member]

Good job, Graham.