I was hoping maybe MP Dzerowicz had some more insights on the Beatles for us.
The song concludes, “my advice for those who die/Declare the pennies on your eyes/'Cause I'm the taxman...And you're working for no one, but me.”
I know that's the way Canadians feel when they read this bill or hear what the minister wants to do, because it's clear that the carbon tax is not only a tax on the car and the street; it's a tax on your seat; it's a tax on the heat, and it's a tax on your feet, as the Beatles said. It almost sounds "Dr. Seuss-ish". Dr. Seuss would probably be appalled by the impact of this bill on the cost of the carbon tax on the production of pulp and paper for the printing of his books.
In the end, back to what MP Chambers said, this is not some sort of theoretical thing; it can all be solved by the minister agreeing—and I'm sure the PMO has told her, wherever she is travelling to, that the committee is asking for two hours. I'm sure they've informed her of that. There was some implication that she would not know until a motion was passed here. The parliamentary secretary Mr. Beech, I'm sure, in his many conversations with the minister, will have informed her about what's going on in the committee and what it would take to solve this, to address the issues, that Mr. Blaikie so rightly raises, that we want to hear about from Canadians.
It appears that the government doesn't want to hear from them, because we've been given notice of essentially a closure motion to try to keep Canadians from hearing about the budget, or to try to keep us from hearing from the minister. I know it's on notice, so we'll deal with that when it comes. We may have a few things to say about a closure motion and may perhaps quote the Liberals on their past practices and promises around closure.
If you'll recall, Mr. Chair, the document that was very insightful, which I'm sure all ministers have read, was this Treasury Board document called “Meeting the Expectations of Canadians: Review of the Responsibilities and Accountabilities of Ministers and Senior Officials”. For those who have not been watching or who have just joined us, I won't start from the beginning—because there are 55 pages, and I have about 30 or 40 pages left to read—but I will mention to you, just as a reminder, as a great summary, what this requires. It says in here that, “Parliament is sovereign”, and also states that “the House of Commons is a central feature of [our Westminster] system, and its efficacy depends heavily on the will and capacity of the House to hold ministers accountable.”
That's how our democracy works. That is why some may find this process frustrating, but that's all we're trying to do. Even the Treasury Board of Canada said that an essential and fundamental part of our democracy is for Parliament to be able to hold ministers to account. That's what we're talking about here. We're not talking about having her appear before the committee five or six times, even though she has been invited; we're asking her to give us one more hour. “Brother, can you spare a dime?” was sort of a saying in the dirty thirties and what happened in that global depression.
Finance Minister, can you spare us an hour or two, please?”
One more hour is not a lot to ask for on a $3.1-trillion spending package. In fact, I think if I were putting forward a motion—and I might actually put forward a subamendment at some time—asking the minister to appear for as long as this discussion has gone on so that we could get to the root of all of these budgets, and so MP Blaikie could pose all the questions he wants to, because I'm sure the five-minute and two-and-a-half-minute spots he'll get in a one-hour thing would be totally inadequate for the NDP to ask the questions they want to ask the minister, and that's all the NDP would be allocated in a one-hour hearing with the minister on this budget.
I don't think the dental plan and the pharmacare plan that are part of the supply agreement with the Liberals could adequately be questioned as to, one, whether one is adequate, and, two, why the other one isn't in the budget. I don't think it could be done in that short a time.
By the way, for those of you who don't know parliamentary rules, the five minutes that MP Blaikie will get and that two and a half minutes on a subsequent round are not just for his questions. It's for the answers. The NDP will get a total of about seven and a half minutes to question the minister on a $3.1-trillion spending bill and on why the things they have put in their supply agreement with the Liberals have not been addressed, presumably to their satisfaction. I'm presuming that.
If we stay for two hours—if she grants us another hour—all that does is double the amount of time Mr. Blaikie gets, roughly—