Finance Committee on May 2nd, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

It's what I saw as the chair, MP Morantz. I have PS Beech and then I have MP Dzerowicz.

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

I'm happy to continue.

At the end of the day, all we're asking is for the minister to come to the committee to answer some questions about her budget. The budget is the major legislative initiative of this government.

As I've said many times already in this committee, what I find unfortunate about the budget implementation bill is that most of it isn't really about the budget at all. There's something like 50 different pieces of legislation. Many of them have nothing at all to do with budgeting. The document itself is well over 400 pages long.

To deal with the fact that...the government is essentially admitting that the budget implementation bill has little to do with the budget, because in its motion it wants to refer massive portions of the budget off to various committees that are not the finance committee. I don't blame all the people who are watching us right now and wondering why it is we're talking about a subamendment to an amendment to a motion on reviewing the budget implementation bill that in and of itself refers the vast majority of the budget implementation bill off to committees that have nothing to do with budgeting.

For example, the motion calls for part 3, division 2, and part 4, divisions 21, 22, 23 and 24 to go to the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities. That's not a committee I associate with reviewing the finance minister's budget in the time that I've been here. The motion goes on to say that with regard to part 4 divisions 13, 14, 15, 35 and 38...those are going to go to the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

I'm sure many of these are important initiatives, but I really don't understand what they're doing in a budget bill. It seems to me that this is circumventing the ability of Parliament to properly scrutinize major legislative initiatives that should be tabled, introduced and debated, and go through the proper readings and committee stages that any bill would go through. Instead, in order to fast-track or, essentially, short-circuit the process, members of the government decided they're going to throw these in here.

We learned a valuable lesson about this practice just a few years ago, Mr. Chair, when in a very similar bill, there was a seemingly innocuous provision. It was an amendment to the Criminal Code that would allow the Attorney General and Minister of Justice to grant something that had not been available to that point in Canadian law before. It was something called a prosecution deferral agreement. At the time, the committee was kept in the dark. I think some committee members, even including Liberal members, raised concern about that provision at the time.

Why is this here? Why are we doing this? Why are we giving this additional power?

The government of the day, which is the current government we have now, didn't tell the committee. It's possible some committee members knew the actual intent. I don't know. I'm not going to assume that. I can't get into their minds and know what they knew or what they were thinking. The fact of the matter is that the provision was put there intentionally, so pardon me for being a bit suspicious, Mr. Chair, when I see a budget bill that has literally dozens and dozens of provisions that have nothing to do with the budget.

I can go on. Here's another one, regarding part 4, divisions 16, 17, 18 and 19 of the bill. Those are being referred to the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.

I can go on and on and on, Mr. Chair. I have grave concerns about the lack of accountability.

All we're asking for with this massive, 400-page document is that the finance minister appear for two hours. She hasn't been here since November. It's not a lot to ask. I think Canadians expect it. If the committee members don't want to listen to the will of this committee, then listen to the will of Canadians, who would like to hear from the finance minister of this country...to answer questions about her budget. That's the impasse we have here, right now.

I could go on and on. I'm going to ask the clerk to recycle me back on the list. I will give up the floor to the next speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Morantz.

We have PS Beech, then MP Dzerowicz, then MP Lawrence.

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Burnaby North—Seymour, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[A voice]

Then it's MP Perkins, Mr. Chair.

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

You keep forgetting me on the list.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

No, it's MP Morantz, then—

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Burnaby North—Seymour, BC]

I want to make sure Mr. Perkins is on the list. Do we have that?

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

Thank you. I appreciate that.

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Burnaby North—Seymour, BC]

That's excellent. If there's one person who isn't getting enough time at this committee and who we all want to hear from, it's Mr. Perkins.

I'm happy to speak to this subamendment.

Mr. Morantz just talked about the government not wanting to listen to the will of the committee. Just to be clear for everyone listening.... I wish I had the editing capacity to go back in time and grab some clips from various points in this Conservative filibuster and the time before. The will of this committee is the consensus of the majority of its members. There has been a resolution on the table for just over 14 hours, which has the support of the majority of the members. The reason why we're in a filibuster, by definition, is because the Conservatives are trying to subvert the democratic will of this committee.

If people want to know where that comes from, it actually didn't start 14 hours of committee time ago. It started almost a month ago, when the Conservatives started talking about the kinds of things they'd like to see in order to have a reasonable study on the Budget Implementation Act. There were various iterations of how.... The goalposts on what they actually wanted were moved until we got to this particular point.

In terms of properly scrutinizing the BIA.... Mr. Morantz just spoke against part of the resolution on the table, not directly to this subamendment, which sends pieces of the BIA to different committees. That reflects the practice we did last year. There was a sense of disappointment then, because there was another Conservative filibuster last year. This meant that, by the time we sent out items to the committees, it was far too late. It was Conservative members who said, “Hey, it would be really great if we could do this again this year, but we could send it out earlier.” Then they filibustered and stopped the ability for us to send them out.

In fact, the way this worked was, we went out to all parties and said, “Hey, which sections would you like to send to which committees?” Then we included all of that in the consensus motion supported by the majority of this committee.

I want to take this opportunity, while I have the microphone—then I'll end it here—to clarify something else I heard Mr. Perkins say. He can address this, because I'm sure he will have the mike sometime in the near future, perhaps for some length. He asked the question, “How could the minister possibly have been responding to an invitation that wasn't sent?” That, I think, is a good question. The resolution on the table didn't originally have an invitation to the minister. Why is that? The reason why it didn't have an invitation to the minister was because the prestudy motion, which was passed by all parties sitting around this table, already invited the minister. She responded to that. She says she will be here next Tuesday on the 16th, which is before the 18th. That is something I verbalized over 14 hours of concerted filibuster ago. She responded to that request. She has.

The Conservatives might complain, “Wait a second. We want her to come for two hours and she hasn't clarified how long she's coming for.” Unfortunately, the committee has had an amendment on the floor for 14 hours. It's an amendment by Daniel Blaikie, who is the NDP member of this committee. It moves to send an invitation to the minister to appear at this committee for two hours. That is the very amendment the Conservatives have been filibustering. When they say they want the minister to appear.... Well, I would say their actions speak much louder than their words. If somebody who is better at editing than I am wants to go back and collect all of those data points and put them all together, I imagine it would not be that flattering for the Conservatives.

Speaking directly to the subamendment, this is trying to do a similar thing done in their first subamendment, which was voted down by the members of this committee. It was ruled out of order by the chair on the third subamendment to this motion on the floor.

Therefore, we will be voting against it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, PS Beech.

I have MP Dzerowicz next.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

I agree with my colleague that this amendment to the amendment is basically a different way of doing the same thing that a previous motion had done and that we voted down on this committee.

At the very heart of what I think the opposition would like to see is to ensure that our Minister of Finance comes before us to speak to federal budget 2023. Our clerk has indicated, and updated our committee this morning to indicate, that she has agreed to attend on May 16.

As well, in case the opposition doesn't know this, we are also very much in agreement with the amendment that Mr. Blaikie had put forward, that the Minister of Finance be invited to appear for two hours on the bill and that this appearance be scheduled before May 18. There's no question that the minister is coming. There's no question that she's going to be answering questions about federal budget 2023. There's no question that she has to be here to answer questions about an extraordinarily important budget.

I'll also say to you that there seems to be some question about why we're sending out sections of federal budget 2023 to various committees. Well, I know it was something that was asked for by I believe Mr. Chambers. I think it was asked for by Gabriel Ste-Marie. I think it was asked for by Mr. Blaikie. This is very typical practice. I've been blessed to be on this committee for a number of years. We do this almost every single year. This is typical. You send out portions to get feedback from other committees that are already looking at these topics.

To Mr. Morantz's comments about the relevance of a number of items that are in federal budget 2023, that they are put in with no rhyme or reason, I would say that this is absolutely not true. Every single thing that is in federal budget 2023 is relevant to...either we've mentioned a budget in a BIA, in a past budget; it is directly relevant to what we have talked about in terms of our budgets. This was not the practice of the Conservative government before we came into power. They would throw things in that had no mentions ever in previous budgets.

I'll say to you, Mr. Chair, that I'm disappointed. I think if we had not had the filibuster, which is being led by the Conservatives, then we would have heard from a list of witnesses who had to be cancelled today. We would have heard from the Canada Infrastructure Bank. We would have heard from the Centre for Future Work. We would have heard from the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. We would have heard from Canada’s Building Trades Unions, the Smart Prosperity Institute, the Canadian Health Coalition, the Canadian Medical Association, the Daily Bread Food Bank and the Mississauga Food Bank.

These are all people we would have benefited from hearing from. I think they would have given us very some good thoughts about the budget, and would maybe have posed some questions that we might want to be considering as we move forward, instead of us debating a subamendment to an amendment that we had already, in different words, voted down before.

This is just wasting time, Mr. Chair, and I feel sad about that. I think we had a lot of witnesses who would have given us a lot of really excellent information today. I think we could have moved on to truly talking about federal budget 2023. We could have moved on to preparing to have our Minister of Finance come before us to answer questions about federal budget 2023.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Dzerowicz.

You have a point of order, MP Chambers.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Yes. On a point of order, what is the chair's ruling with respect to the admissibility of the subamendment?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

This subamendment?

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

We are debating it.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

So the chair's ruling is that it is in good order and it is admissible. Is that correct?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

This subamendment is admissible, yes.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Okay. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Next on the list is MP Lawrence. Then I have MP Morantz and MP Perkins.

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

Thank you very much.

Although we certainly have had differences, I respect Mr. Beech and our continued negotiation both in public and off camera. I'll be really bold here and say—I'm hoping my whip is listening as I'm saying this—that if Mr. Beech is willing to go on record, right now, and guarantee that the Minister of Finance will appear at this committee for two hours, Conservatives would be in a very good place to move forward.

I know that this isn't part of the normal procedure, but I'm wondering, Mr. Chair, if we might have unanimous consent, if required, for Mr. Beech to answer my question.

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Burnaby North—Seymour, BC]

We don't have unanimous consent.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

We do not have unanimous consent.

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

Conservatives believe, as Mr. Perkins said, that Mr. Blaikie's amendment was a good start. In fact, I might even say it was a great start, as it would give the Canadian public the ability to hear the Finance minister appear before a finance committee about the $490 billion that she wants to spend; however, our challenge and why we believe that the amendment needs a subamendment is that the Minister of Finance has at least three times refused invitations to this committee, so we as Conservatives and more importantly as Canadians are left without recourse.

Lord Denning, the famous British jurist, once said that where there is no consequence, there is no law.

I'd just like to ask the clerk—if necessary, we'll go through you, Mr. Chair—what recourse this committee has if the Minister of Finance decides.... She's a very busy person, and she has many other commitments. If she decides, for whatever reason, to not attend despite her acceptance of our invitation, what recourse does the committee have if she rescinds that acceptance and decides not to attend the meeting?