Well, she could talk out the five minutes. That's the other option. If Mr. Blaikie is excessively polite, which I know he is, he might ask one question and the minister could fill up the five minutes, unless he does as MP Erskine-Smith does quite artfully and did brilliantly against the CEOs of the telecom companies in saying: “That's not my question. You're not answering my question. Please focus on my question.”
At the end, of course, after dealing for two hours with the CEOs, much like the experience we have with government ministers, I found it interesting that MP Erskine-Smith condemned the three CEOs for not answering questions and for going from talking points. Talking points...that's something that apparently happens quite a bit, as we see in the House.
You'll know that I'm not using any talking points here, but I am using some very important documents that are put out by the government to explain the minister's role in being accountable to Parliament.
On page 16 of the Treasury Board document that I've shared.... That's to help the translators, folks, just so they can follow along. I am conscious of my pacing, because I know that if you speak too fast it makes it hard for the translators to follow. Also, I know the members on the government side don't want me to slow it down too much for the agony of perhaps prolonging it, from their perspective, but I will take the occasion, just in case I haven't articulated well, to spell some of the words here, particularly those words “ministerial accountability” and feel groovy. Slow down and feel groovy. That's another great line from a Beatles song. I think everyone is blessed that I didn't quote any songs from The Monkees.
On page 16, we were talking about something called the main estimates and the minister's accountability for main estimates. They contain the spending proposals.
This Treasury Board document says:
In the Main Estimates, the government presents Parliament with spending proposals for a fiscal year and provides details on individual programs and on the plans and performance of departments and agencies. It indicates the areas in which it will spend funds and defines the limits to what the government may legally spend on a program without returning to Parliament to request more funds—
That is critical to do. We will recall that at the beginning of COVID this government wanted to actually not have to go back to Parliament for two years, to just have blanket authority to spend whatever they wanted, something that you find quite frequently in the supposed legislature dominated by the Communist Party of China in Beijing.
—which is done through a supply bill or an appropriations act. If called, ministers must appear before a committee of the House of Commons to answer questions....
It doesn't say “may appear” or maybe “at will, if they're not out travelling the world”. I don't know why the Minister of Finance would be attending NATO meetings, but apparently she's been spending a lot of time there. It doesn't have “will”. This committee invited, very politely, the minister to appear on estimates this year. She ignored the Treasury Board guidelines for ministerial responsibility and did not come. It says right here in this Government of Canada Treasury Board guidelines that the minister will appear on estimates.
The final sentence is even more direct. If you didn't get to that sentence, the final sentence of this paragraph is “If called, ministers must appear before a committee of the House of Commons to answer questions on spending”—that's a “must”. Why is it this minister doesn't feel that she must appear for two hours—two hours—on this bill?
It goes on about several other committees and their roles, such as the Standing Committee on Government Operations. In the interest of brevity, I will skip that paragraph. Actually, I'll skip the next one too, because it is about the public accounts committee. We're in the finance committee here. I know everyone is impressed with my brevity.