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.