Finance Committee on May 26th, 2023

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

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

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

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

Oh, he has another point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Yes, he has another point of order.

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

Given that I introduced the motion, do I not have the floor to speak to it?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Yes, you may speak to your motion.

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

Thank you very much.

Mr. Chair—

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

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

I'm sorry, MP Morantz.

Mr. Chair, could I be added to the list, please?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Yes. I have you on after PS Beech.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We have a situation here that is very concerning. That's why we're bringing forward this motion. I want to speak to the motion itself.

The budget that was presented at the end of March calls for 490 billion dollars' worth of spending—essentially, almost 500 billion dollars' worth of spending—for which we have had only 10 hours of witness testimony.

We can go back and forth as to how we got to this point, but I want to point out to the committee that this budget is approaching, in spending, 25% of the GDP of this country. It is a massive expansion of government into the economy, and I think it is well deserving of more than only 10 hours of witness testimony.

The fact of the matter is that there are many things. The budget document itself is well over 400 pages. It speaks to not just financial matters, which I know Canadians would normally assume.... If you were to ask them what a budget was, they'd say, “Well, it's about spending. It's about revenue.” However, this budget actually amends 51 different acts, many of which actually have nothing to do with budgets.

We saw the government get into trouble over this just a few years ago, when a very simple bill—an omnibus budget implementation bill—was implemented that had a clause buried in it that would give the Minister of Justice and Attorney General the power to provide a deferred prosecution agreement to a single company.

I'm not convinced at this point—because I asked the public service this question—whether any similar clause might exist within this bill that would give a single company the ability to benefit in some way. It is impossible, really, for this committee to review all of these provisions, and that's why I was disappointed to see that the committee did not proceed with at least referring some of these clauses to the relevant committees. I don't think this committee is equipped to review matters of sanctions under the Magnitsky act, for example. Now we're not even doing that.

We can wrangle over how we got here. The fact of the matter is that the finance minister would not agree in advance to tell us that she was coming here for two hours. In fact, the day she showed up at committee, we didn't know how long she was staying, which made it very difficult for us to prepare our questions on such a massive bill, Mr. Chair. She came, and she was not co-operative. I'll put this into context.

We have had the Governor of the Bank of Canada here several times. We've asked the governor a lot of tough questions, a lot of very difficult questions, for example, why the bank is losing money for the first time in its history, and why Canadian taxpayers are now subsidizing the Bank of Canada. We were pretty tough on him, but he, in every instance, professionally and respectfully responded to the inquiries of this committee, no matter how difficult those questions were.

I want to say the same about the Parliamentary Budget Officer, who also received very difficult questions from members of this committee on matters pertaining to the budget. In all aspects and all situations, Mr. Giroux responded respectfully and professionally.

We had, in fact, the Minister of National Revenue here. She too responded without insulting members of the committee and without calling members of the committee bullies. By the way, she also told us exactly, in advance, how long she would be appearing before the committee.

I guess we can go back and forth as to how we got here, but that doesn't mean that the citizens of this country don't deserve a fulsome review of this budget and don't deserve to hear from a broad spectrum of witnesses.

I want to talk about why those witnesses are so important, Mr. Chair. As I said, the budget implementation bill is over 400 pages long and is $500 billion in spending.

For example, I was able to question the executive director of the Ottawa Food Bank last week, who gave us some very stunning testimony. I asked her about what Mr. Hetherington said. He said, “Let me be very clear—we are in a crisis,” and, “The Daily Bread Food Bank and food banks...across the city are at a breaking point”. Ms. Wilson said she absolutely agreed with that statement.

I asked her if there was an increase in first-time users. They are at an all-time high, which is what Mr. Hetherington also said. Ms. Wilson said, “We continue to see people using food banks who haven't had to use them in many years, as well as newcomers to Canada and new people who are accessing food banks.”

I asked her about what Mr. Hetherington said about the fact that before the pandemic, which was in 2019, there were 65,000 food bank users a month in Toronto. Now there are 270,000 users a month. This is absolutely stunning testimony.

Now, I want to put this part in context, Mr. Chair.

The government has spent more in deficit financing since 2015 than all other prime ministers before. From 1867 to 2015, the federal accumulated debt was $625 billion. From 2015 to today, the federal debt has doubled, approaching $1.2 trillion.

I have to say, never before has a government spent so much money to achieve so little in terms of results. The proof is in Mr. Hetherington's testimony. Why, when members of the Liberal Party have described as their government as being such an activist government, are 270,000 people a month using food banks in Toronto alone, let alone in the rest of the country? In my home of Winnipeg, in Vancouver and all across the country, millions of people are using food banks; food bank usage has quadrupled.

What the Liberal government has taught us in the last eight years is that you can't judge success by how much money you've spent. You have to look at the results, and the results are not good. In fact, they are dismal. Tax revenues have ballooned, yet the people of this country are in worse shape than ever before.

We haven't had, for example, people from the real estate industry come in and talk about why housing starts are so low. Where are those witnesses? We haven't had people from the health care profession come and talk about the dire circumstances in Canada's health care system across the country.

So much money has been spent, and there have been such dismal results. It demands special consideration, with more than just 10 hours of witnesses.

Ms. Wilson said that she saw an increase in users of about 30% over last year, but 86% over her 2019 numbers. This is not success when Canadians are going hungry.

By the way, the number of people who are employed and using food banks has spiked dramatically. That's a terrifying statistic. These are people who are working and doing their best to make ends meet, and they cannot afford to put food on their table. Those numbers in Ms. Wilson's food bank have gone up 86% over 2019.

We had the food bank director from Mississauga here. He said 5% of Mississaugans are going to food banks. One in 20 Mississaugans is going to a food bank. It's absolutely appalling, yet the government members will try to defend their record, because they like to say, “Well, we sent out a cheque for this and cheque for that.”

By the way, with regard to the cheque that just went out for the grocery rebate, both the Mississauga Food Bank and Mr. Hetherington's food bank said that it will not help. They were very clear that it is not the solution. Conservatives have said that the solution is to let people keep more of their paycheques. Let them have more powerful paycheques, so that they can actually afford to pay for groceries. It's not rocket science. It's very clear that Canadians are struggling, and they're struggling because of the nickel-and-diming by this government, tax increase after tax increase, eroding the spending power of their paycheques.

Speaking of eroding the spending power of paycheques, we haven't had witnesses in, other than Mr. Cross, to talk about the cause of inflation in this country. For two years, government members have said that this is an international problem that has come to our shores, and that it's not their fault. Nothing is ever the government's fault, but we need witnesses to come and talk about this. We need witnesses to come and talk about how profligate government spending directly causes inflation.

Mr. Cross said that the issue of inflation is international, but this is two years later. We've had the Governor of the Bank of Canada confirm in testimony—in questioning I, myself, did with him—that if government spending had been less, inflation would have been less. We've had the bank governor say that the GST has caused about 10% of the current 4.5% inflation that we currently have. Now the government puts on a clean fuel standard, a second carbon tax, and it's going to increase the carbon tax again next year. Where does it end? How many more people in this country, Mr. Chair, have to go to food banks?

Ms. Wilson, as I said, said that usage of her food bank spiked 86% over 2019. If that trend were to continue.... Her numbers are 400,000 a year. In three years, if it goes up by another 80%, her food bank will be servicing close to 700,000 people a year. It is simply not sustainable. We need witnesses to come here to explain to the government why its profligate, massive spending habit is making it impossible to buy groceries. Sending people a cheque and standing up in the House to say that it has solved this problem now that it's sent everyone a cheque for groceries.... Do you know what? Canadians don't really want a cheque to buy groceries. Canadians want to feel like they are accomplishing something in their lives. They want to feel good about the work they're doing, and they want to support their families. The last thing they want is for the government to say, “Oh, here are some alms for you to go and buy some groceries. We've solved the problem.” This problem is endemic to the fiscal policy approach of this government.

Another thing is that the Governor of the Bank of Canada, to his credit, is trying to get inflation under control. He's been selling off the bonds, what he calls quantitative tightening. He has increased interest rates to try to wrestle inflation to the ground, and inflation has come down somewhat.

However, experts say—and if members are interested, Mr. Cross has written extensively about this—that fiscal policy and monetary policy need to work together. We need witnesses to come—which is the point of this motion, Mr. Chair—to explain to the government that fiscal policy....

I know the Prime Minister doesn't like to think about monetary policy and is very clear about that, but someone has to. If he won't, I would suggest that members of this committee need to think about it. It's well established that fiscal policy and monetary policy need to work hand in hand, Mr. Chair. They need to co-operate with one another. It doesn't work when the bank is trying to wrestle inflation to the ground and the government pours deficit-spending fuel on the fire, which is what has happened. The government has said that it is going to spend $60 billion in debt through to 2027-28.

I have to say, Mr. Chair, that that's assuming no new measures. I think we can safely assume that there will be new measures. I have been here since 2019, and there are always new measures. In fact, sometimes they come just minutes after these budget documents are adopted.

Last fall, the finance minister introduced the fall economic statement, which said we'd have a $4.5-billion surplus in 2028, but 142 days later she tabled the budget, which shows a $14-billion deficit in that year. That is an $18.5-billion swing in the forecast in just 142 days. I don't know how we can rely on anything this government tables in any budget document. It's very, very concerning, Mr. Chair.

We need witnesses to come to explain to the government why its fiscal policy needs to be in line with the bank's approach in terms of wrestling inflation to the ground. You know, we now have tangible evidence that fiscal policy is actually making things worse. Although inflation had been going down, just this month inflation went up.

It will be very interesting when the Governor of the Bank of Canada comes back, because I know members—Conservative members of this committee, at least—will want to ask him this: Has fiscal policy made his job more difficult? If the government had been more restrained in its spending, would the inflation rate be going down even further instead of going up? Is he concerned at all with the fact that the government plans to go at least another $60 billion into deficit over the next five years? Most importantly, is this uptick in inflation going to cause him to reconsider the pause?

The pause was interesting. It's something I had never heard a bank governor say before, but fair enough, he wanted to be careful, so he raised the bank rate to 4.5% and then said that we were going to have a pause to see how things go. In fact, he said at committee that inflation was going to be 3% by the summer. It went up.

The government's own budget document says that the inflation rate for 2023 will be 3.5%. However, inflation would actually have to fall to 2% or 2.5% by midsummer for the inflation rate for 2023 to average 3.5%. Again, it's another example of.... No matter what the government puts in these budget documents, how could we possibly rely on them? How could Canadians rely on them?

Again, there are the food banks. This testimony is very, very disturbing to me. I wish we could hear from more food banks across the country. However, again, just like the government cut off debate in the House on the budget, just as it cut off witness testimony at this committee, just as the finance minister refused to tell us how long she would come to committee for and then, by the way, showed up and after an hour said she felt like she was being bullied but that Mr. Blaikie had convinced her that she should be kind and should deign to give the committee another 20 minutes.... It was very kind of her to do that, but the fact of the matter is that we are not bullies. We do not work for her. We do not work for the government. We work for our constituents who elected us, and we have very serious questions about the direction this government has taken.

For the finance minister to refuse invitations to this committee over and over again when the bank governor comes and the Parliamentary Budget Officer is happy to come.... The Minister of National Revenue seems happy to come and at least respectfully answer our questions.

To have the finance minister come here and say that we're bullies and to call members of our party political “hacks” in the House of Commons is just not productive.

I think what would be productive is for us to actually—

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

Since I was on the other end of the political “hack” comment, I appreciated it because it gave me credibility with some of my colleagues who think I'm too moderate. I just want to make sure that Mr. Morantz knows that my feelings weren't hurt.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Chambers. You had made that clear earlier too.

We will go back to MP Morantz.

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

I think Mr. Chambers could wear this as a badge of honour and that he has probably been called worse things by better people. In any event, that's not productive.

I really think that what would be productive is that we have witnesses come to talk about a half a trillion dollars in government spending. That's what we're arguing for here, Mr. Chair, and it's very important.

I want to get into some of the substance, though, of what we need these witnesses here for. For example, the department actually provided a document. There is one thing I want to mention, by the way. When we had Ms. Gwyer here a while ago, I asked her what the issue was with CRA not accepting cheques over $10,000. I'm paraphrasing, but she essentially said that, if someone can't do it, and if they can't figure out how to transfer electronically, CRA will try to help them. I just saw a news report that she testified in front of the Senate committee about how CRA is going to be accepting these cheques. That's just one example of something we need to get clarification on.

The overview report the department provided is close to 90 pages long. It's massive. There is electronic filing and certification of tax information and electronic payments. We need more time to discuss those types of things.

We did get to speak about the doubling of the expense credit for tools of the trades, although it would actually have been nice to get testimony from my colleague Mr. Lewis about his bill on this matter.

We have not heard from the real estate industry, when housing—affordable housing and housing in general—is a major crisis in this country. This country is growing and it's going to be much bigger over the next 10 years. We have a massive shortage of housing and housing starts have gone down, yet at this committee we have not heard from experts on housing and what government can do to create the environment that home builders need to get houses built in this country. That's a major hole in witness testimony, and those voices are not being heard.

We have new rules on house flipping, on which we have not heard external witness testimony to find out how those might affect the market. I'm not saying that maybe this isn't a good thing. I just don't know, because we haven't had a chance to hear from people representing co-ops, people in the real estate industry or people in the banking industry what this type of change to the rules of our real estate markets might mean. It's a huge gap in our witness testimony.

Regarding taxation of veterans' and active members' benefits, again, we all have great respect for our veterans yet we haven't heard from any veterans. They haven't appeared before committee on this budget, yet their benefits are being directly affected by this budget. Why haven't we heard from veterans organizations?

All we've said is that we want another 10 hours of testimony—which could really have been done by now—before we get to clause-by-clause. It's not as though we're asking for the moon. It wasn't as though we were asking the finance minister to do a lot either, other than to come to the committee for two hours.

At every step of the way, this government seems to want to cut off debate on the budget in the House and to cut off witness testimony. Maybe it's because they didn't like the 10 hours of witness testimony we had. It was pretty bad for the government. There weren't a lot of good things—or any that I can recall—said about this budget.

Maybe they wanted to stop the bleeding. It's really hard to say. I can't get into their minds. I can really only speculate. Nevertheless, that's the point of having these meetings, of having an opposition to the government that can point out flaws. We know that having an effective opposition is fundamental to good governance. We know that because all we have to do is look around the world and look at countries that don't have an effective opposition.

Do you know what happens in those countries? Bad things happen. We can see that right now in Russia, in China, in Sudan and in many other places around the world.

Getting back to the issue of witness testimony, there's a provision here, in part 1, dealing with technical changes to the Gottfriedson class settlement agreement, a class action proceeding on behalf of 325 Indian Act bands. We haven't heard from those bands about what this settlement means. We've heard no indigenous testimony, in fact, about this budget. If I were a member of the indigenous communities across this country, I would be aghast at the short shrift this government is giving to indigenous communities, especially when their legal status has been affected by this budget, yet there's been no indigenous testimony.

We talked about the grocery rebate already, so I'll move on from that one.

There's also the automatic advance for the Canada workers benefit. It might be a good thing, but, again, we haven't heard from workers. We haven't had unions speak to what this means for their members.

Registered education savings plans is another area that we have not had witnesses on. There have been no witnesses on the RESPs. This is a very important program. I had those for my kids. I'm sure many members of this committee had them. Millions of Canadians have these RESPs, and there are changes being made to the RESPs. We haven't been able to hear from parent groups. We haven't been able to hear from schools. There's been just a complete absence of testimony on a policy that will affect millions and millions of Canadians. There's been zero testimony.

There's the registered disability savings plan. This one is actually near and dear to my heart. Probably many committee members don't know but my son Nathan was born in 1999. When he was two, he was diagnosed with autism. He was actually among the most severe. When Mr. Flaherty brought in this particular program, we were among the first to sign up for it. The registered disability savings plan is an extremely important program for families in this country who have a loved one with a disability. We have not heard from disability groups. I would love to hear from disability groups about what we could do to improve the effectiveness of the registered disability savings plan. For Mr. Flaherty, may he rest in peace, this was a signature accomplishment of his career. He was an excellent finance minister for this country. I can guarantee he would never do what this government is doing now in terms of their spending.

Where are the special needs groups? Why isn't the St.Amant centre in Winnipeg here testifying about the importance of the registered disability savings plan? There are so many. The Autism Society of Manitoba, my home province, could be here testifying about the registered disability savings plan. In fact, there's been no testimony from any family, group or individual on special needs issues even though there are major changes being made in this budget that will affect millions of Canadians who have children.

It's just appalling that the dearth of witness testimony being enforced by the costly coalition of the Liberals and the NDP on this committee is really doing a massive disservice to Canadians.

On fixing contribution errors in defined contribution plans, there's no witness testimony on that.

There are technical tax changes to the dental program and taxpayer information sharing for the Canada dental care program. These are very important things. We're talking about having CRA share confidential information. We've seen problems. There's a bill before the House right now to try to deal with privacy issues around leaking personal data. CRA has been hacked already. There are a lot of issues around protection of personal data. Again, it would be interesting to hear, for example, from the dental profession about this issue, but, no, we haven't had those witnesses either.

For hedging and short selling by financial institutions, we haven't had testimony on that one. That sounds like a very important subject that we should really be talking about at the finance committee, which is where we talk about the finances of this country, yet major changes to banking laws are being made without any testimony.

I'm not going to go through every single one of these, but there are a few more that I want to touch on. Just bear with me here.

There's treatment of mining of crypto assets. That's in terms of the GST/HST. We did have some testimony on that. I'm no expert on that, but that strikes me as an area that needs to be further examined. We did hear testimony from, I think, a couple of lawyers here from Toronto, who said that this is of serious concern, this particular change, and that it needs further examination. Other countries are going to eat our lunch on this type of technology in the future if we don't start treating entrepreneurs in this area with a little bit of respect.

The credit card services we heard.... I have to say in my testimony, Mr. Chair, that I've never seen a government actually make a promise and break that promise in the same budget. That was a new one. They've broken many promises. I won't go through the whole list here. I'm sure my colleagues would like to speak about those later, but we have a situation in which the government has said they want to bring down credit card fees and that they've made agreements with the banks now to bring down the charges that people pay when they go shopping and use their credit cards, but at the same time they change the GST rules to make it more expensive. They giveth and they taketh away, not a few months apart or years apart but actually in the same moment, in the same document. It's quite stunning.

We have the pension limitation period rebate fix. We've had no testimony on that.

For freight transportation of money, we've had no testimony on that one either.

On alcohol excise duties, we have had some testimony. I suppose it was good to see the government at least freeze the excise tax increase at 2% instead of inflation. I know I had asked the Minister of Finance to freeze this back when the fall economic statement was released, when she was actually in committee that one time. She said something about this advice being akin to crypto or something. It was a weird response. I didn't expect the government to actually move on this, but I guess the finance minister must have thought about it, thought about my question and my arguments, and agreed with me. I suppose that's one good thing, because when the budget came out, I would have liked instead to see zero.

Frankly, the undemocratic nature of the escalator tax is clear. Taxes should not be increased unless Parliament actually votes for them, not by order in council or any other way, but that's not what the excise tax does.

On a fair external complaints handling system for banking, again, we have not had the banks in to talk about what this means. It may be a good thing. I'm not arguing for or against it, but the point of this motion isn't to argue for or against these measures. The point of this motion is to argue for the fact that 10 hours of witness testimony for a half-trillion dollar budget is simply not sufficient. That's painfully obvious.

On strengthening the pension and federal pension framework and the Pension Benefits Standards Act, 1985, again there was no testimony.

By the way, I just want to spend a few moments talking about the Canada growth fund. I think this is very important. This is a $12-billion project the government wants to stand up really quickly. My experience in my prior life as a lawyer has been that, when clients rush to do things, often mistakes are made.

They want to stand it up really quickly, so instead of doing what they did with the Canada Infrastructure Bank—which is a whole other issue that I will get to later—and going out and hiring people to run the Canada Infrastructure Bank, what did they do? They decided to approach an independent pension fund management firm, the PSPIB, the Public Sector Pension Investment Board, and ask them to stand up the Canada growth fund as soon as possible. In fact, the departmental briefing notes say that a team has been seconded to stand up the growth fund.

We did have officials here on this in the prestudy of the budget, and one of the things I asked the officials was whether or not a request for proposals was made and how the PSPIB was selected. They are independent. They are not a branch of the government. They stand alone. How is it that all of a sudden the PSPIB is managing the Canada growth fund?

When I asked whether or not there was an RFP, the official said she would have to get back to me, which is fine, Mr. Chair, but the problem is that this is now approaching the end of May and I've not heard back. I don't know why the PSPIB was selected without having to go through a request for proposals. In fact, the Government of Canada's own website on procurement says that for the public service to retain services of any company for over $100,000, it must go to an RFP. I would like an answer to that question. I asked the clerk to follow up on that for me last week. He did, and I still do not have an answer. That is fundamental, and we need to have an answer as to how the PSPIB was selected. Who made that decision? Was that a cabinet decision?

We've seen so many things happen with this government and how these decisions are made. People get appointed because of their connections. I'm not saying that the PSPIB isn't a worthy organization or a qualified organization. I just don't know, because no RFP was conducted. We haven't heard from witnesses. We could call other witnesses who might be able to testify and who might be able to do that as well, but somehow, out of the blue, the PSPIB gets to manage $12 billion, with no request for proposals. This is terrible practice, Mr. Chair. We saw what happened with the WE Charity when this happened. It's like this government has never seen a conflict it didn't want to embrace.

I look at the intergovernmental affairs minister's sister-in-law being tapped to be the interim director of ethics and members of the Trudeau society being appointed to provide reports that are supposed to be independent and potentially critical of the government.

Of course we've seen what happens when this government appoints people—its friends—and says they're independent. It's just a farce. This government seems to have a blind spot frankly when it comes to these types of conflicts. It is a huge concern. Why don't we have witnesses? It's a $12-billion project. Certainly you would think a request to hear from witnesses on the $12-billion Canada growth fund would be reasonable, yet, no, we're stymied. This committee wants only 10 hours of witnesses. We're not going hear about the RDSP. We're not going to hear about RRSPs. We're not going to hear about CRA sharing private information. We're not going to hear about the Canada growth fund. It's appalling, but again I do hope...and I want to relay to the clerk that perhaps he could follow up again to get me that answer. I would very much appreciate having answers as to why on a $12-billion project—$12 billion of taxpayers' money that is being rushed out the door—no request for proposals was done to find absolutely the best management for this project, this program, in the country.

Who decided it should be the PSPIB? Was it someone in the public service? Was it a minister? Was it the Prime Minister? It's a mystery, and I don't like mysteries, especially when it comes to taxpayers' dollars, especially from a government that said it would be open by default, from a government that pretended to be the most transparent government in Canadian history. That was another important promise that was broken.

We have not heard from any witnesses about the important issue of money laundering in this country. Canada has become a safe haven for money launderers. In fact we have our own nickname now for it in Canada. It's called snow washing. It's not a badge of honour, yet there's been not a single witness on money laundering, which is a major issue. I know my colleague Mr. Chambers cares very much about this issue. In fact he presented an important bill, a very simple bill that would have helped get this situation under control, and the government rejected it. They rejected a common-sense bill that would reduce money laundering in this country. Why? Is that responsible government? No, it's not responsible government. That's why we should be hearing witnesses on why Canada has the nickname “snow washing” of all things. Again, it's not a badge of honour.

There's supporting the economic growth of developing countries and preferential tariff programs for developing countries. This is division 4 of Bill C-47. This may also be a very laudable goal, but we have no explanation on this. We have no witness testimony. It would be interesting to hear from developing countries, in fact, as witnesses on this matter. I know that in my time on the foreign affairs committee, we spent a lot of time talking about how we could help civil society organizations around the world improve the standards of living of people living in poverty around the world. Canada is in many respects a leader in that type of thinking. Again that's another very important part of this budget, but there's been nothing, no witnesses and no testimony.

There's the indefinite withdrawal of most-favoured-nation status from Russia and Belarus. By the way, this is in the budget bill. The indefinite withdrawal of most-favoured-nation status from Russia and Belarus—I ask all the people who are watching this committee meeting now what that has to do with a budget. Send me your emails. It has nothing to do with the budget. It again gets back to this issue of the dangers of omnibus bills.

I may get back to some of these provisions in a few minutes, Mr. Chair, but I want to say that I think we also need to have witnesses on omnibus bills. This practice has gotten out of control.

I have an academic article written by Louis Massicotte. I won't read the whole thing, but there is one passage here that I think needs to be read into the record. It's not a recent document. It refers to an older bill, Bill C-38.

Bill C-38 has been widely condemned, and criticisms came from unexpected sources. Why are so many people concerned about omnibus bills? The reasons are in many ways the exact reverse of the previous ones. From the point of view of the opposition, omnibus bills are as attractive as the closure, time allocation, supply guillotines and so on. They create quandaries for opposition parties and oblige them to object to some popular measures delicately hidden in a less attractive package.

The real question, however, beyond the convenience of the government or of the opposition parties, may well be: is the public interest well served by omnibus bills? Take for example the clause-by-clause study in committee. When a bill deals with topics as varied as fisheries, unemployment insurance and environment, it is unlikely to be examined properly if the whole bill goes to the Standing Committee on Finance. The opposition parties complain legitimately that their critics on many topics covered by an omnibus bill have already been assigned to other committees. The public has every interest in a legislation being examined by the appropriate bodies.

We know that Speakers have consistently refused to act as referees on such issues, while at times hinting that the House might provide for some special procedures. One of them, Lucien Lamoureux, came up with what is probably the best question: is there any end?

This is the point of this article: Where does this go?

Could a government wrap up half of its legislative programme into a single measure dealing with the improvement of the life of Canadians or ensuring prosperity for all?

We often hear that omnibus bills are like closure and time allocation: “all governments do it”, which.... This is why some of the most eloquent pleas against the practice of omnibus bills have been made in the past by the present Prime Minister, and were no less eloquently refuted by then Cabinet ministers now sitting in opposition. But in recent years, the logic behind omnibus bills has been pushed to extremes never seen before. It has been computed that between 1994 and 2005, budget implementation bills averaged 73.6 pages, while since 2006 they averaged 308.9—four times longer. But the increase is even more huge than it looks. While during the first period a single budget implementation bill was presented each year (there were none in 2002 and two in 2004), bills of that nature have since then been presented twice a year except in 2008, when there was a single one. The yearly average of budget implementation legislation in recent years is therefore closer to 550 pages—this is seven times longer! Another contrast is that during the first period, budget implementation bills tended to be slimmed down markedly between first reading and Royal Assent, while in recent years they kept their initial size throughout.

The debate on Bill C-38 reminds us that omnibus bills have become a slippery slope now generating high controversy. In my view, they do little to improve the already low esteem in which legislators are held by the Canadian public. My colleague Ned Franks wrote three years ago that omnibus budget implementation bills “subvert and evade the normal principles of parliamentary review of legislation”. I fully concur with his assessment.

I couldn't have put it better, Mr. Chair.

With that, I think I am going to give up the floor for the moment. I would ask the clerk to put me back on the list, though.

I do hope that some of the things I've said have some influence on the other members of this committee.

It is vitally important. The Liberals need to put their partisanship aside and look out for the best interests of all Canadians. With a half-trillion dollar budget, reaching almost 25% of this country's GDP, Canadians deserve no less.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Morantz.

On my list, I have MP Blaikie and then PS Beech, MP Perkins and MP Morantz.

MP Blaikie, you are next, please.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I am glad for the opportunity to weigh in on what has been going on at committee. It's hard to know exactly where to start, so forgive me if I seem a little ponderous at the outset.

I think the story of how we got here matters, because I've heard a lot about how desperately Conservative members want to hear from witnesses. I would point out that when we first embarked upon the study of the bill, there was lots of time to hear from witnesses—lots of time.

I share the frustration of Conservative members with the minister, who I think should have committed to come to committee far earlier and should have committed for the two hours. I've been very clear about that. Nothing has changed in that regard. I still think that's true.

I don't think it was helpful that the minister first of all refused to say that she would come for two hours and then decided to stay longer but didn't give anybody any notice. Frankly, I don't think it's what you do in a professional workplace.

I also know, and this is part of my frustration as somebody who is neither a Liberal nor a Conservative, that I came prepared to do the work of clause-by-clause. Members around this table will know that there's a fair amount of work that goes into preparing for amendments. There are lots of folks to talk to about different kinds of decisions. There's usually short notice on when amendments come, so it's a rush to talk to folks about what the amendments represent, what they mean, to talk to other members about their own amendments, and then talk to folks in our respective parties and many Canadians outside of the political system who are experts in those fields.

We do our homework and then we come prepared to work, as I did yesterday. I was and still am frustrated, to put it mildly, that having come prepared to work, I haven't been able to do that work and instead have been subjected to the same filibuster, largely, that we had before the minister came.

The Liberals say from time to time, “What's the point of giving the Conservatives anything they want because, at the end of the day, they're just going to keep filibustering anyway; they're first and foremost committed to obstruction, for no other reason than obstruction itself.” I would say to my Conservative colleagues, this spectacle that we're witnessing sure doesn't help any of us who would like to argue back to the Liberals, as I often have in defence of Conservatives, “Look, despite my own frustration with what they're doing, there's a legitimate point there. It's not just endless dysfunction.”

What we're doing here is endless dysfunction, except that's not exactly true, because there is an end date to this. The end date to this is Monday at four o'clock, as agreed to by the Conservatives. This is a filibuster that accomplishes nothing. They are building no leverage for anything. Monday, at four o'clock, we're going to start voting on clause-by-clause. We will go through every clause of this bill, with no debate, offering members of Parliament no opportunity to put on the record why they're voting for or against certain amendments. No useful purpose is served by that. That means Canadians won't get the reasons for why MPs are voting in any particular way. It means that we won't have any debate around this table.

All that the Conservatives are doing right now is pissing away the time we have to do that democratic work, both for now and for posterity. Later, if anybody can get through all of the many hours of ridiculous filibuster that we've been subjected to, they might care to find some of the reasons for why certain provisions that are in this act passed or didn't pass. However, the idea that somehow this filibuster is accomplishing anything, when the Conservatives have already agreed, apparently at the time in good faith, to an end to clause-by-clause is just ridiculous. It's complete fabrication.

Now I get that they want to hear more witnesses. I wanted to hear more witnesses. In fact, I said so while they ate up 23 hours of the committee's time. What the heck is going on here? Why should anyone watching this be impressed. I'm beyond the blame game. This is pathetic. It's just pathetic. Shame on all of us for not finding a way out.

What's going on doesn't help anybody, and it's certainly not in the spirit of freedom or democracy or accountability or any of it. What we're watching are the Conservatives talking the clock out to the deadline that they themselves set.

Now, why am I not prepared to extend the deadline? I think all that means is that I'm going to be subjected to more hours of Conservative filibuster and we're going to keep doing this until a majority of the committee has the ability to finally have a vote.

What is the point of Parliament? The point of Parliament and members of Parliament, first and foremost, is to vote on things. That's the one thing we can do that nobody else gets to do. That's it. That's what we're here to do. That fundamental purpose and right of parliamentarians is being hijacked by people who won't let votes happen.

The Conservatives know full well that the committee is prepared to move on and consider this legislation, and we should do it while we still have time to debate. But no, we're not going to, are we, guys?

What is up with that? I'm getting really tired of listening to people talk about how much they want to hear from witnesses after burning up all that time.

We have a problem. There isn't enough trust and good faith around this table. The Conservatives will say it's the Liberals' fault and the Liberals will say it's the Conservatives' fault. I don't care whose fault it is. We've got to do better, guys. We really do. This is not acceptable.

There are members of the committee who aren't permanent members of this committee and, of course, many Conservatives have changed. I think they're on their second leader or third leader of Parliament. They're on their eighth finance critic. I don't know. Those aren't real numbers—don't quote me. It's been a lot, though, so some of the folks around the table may not know that we did this on the fall economic statement or that we did that on the last budget bill.

This is like some kind of parliamentary Groundhog Day film. I watched this movie, and the ending is dumb and Canadians don't win.

What we should be doing is spending this time actually doing clause-by-clause. That's where we're at.

We had 10 hours of witness testimony. I agree that's not enough, but I'm not prepared to extend this circus. Do I actually believe we're going to hear more from witnesses? At this point, no I don't. I think the Conservatives are going to find something else that they want to complain about and then they're going to filibuster on that. I could be wrong, but I'm not interested in finding out that I'm right.

I thought we were done with this. I thought we were going to do some real work. This is the second day now that I've come prepared to do some real work on clause-by-clause and I'm not getting the opportunity. I'm glad that I at least got the floor to talk a bit about that.

Mr. Morantz earlier quoted somebody who said that omnibus bills are terrible. One reason for that is that the finance committee members are expected to be subject matter experts on everything.

I would remind Mr. Morantz and other members of the committee of the original study motion that we had. Had we got to a vote when we should have got to a vote, after some debate, within the context of a two-hour meeting....

A two-hour debate is still a fair amount of debate for 12 people sitting around a table discussing how to study a bill. It was not the content of the bill that we were discussing at that time—if we were actually on topic. You may recall that was the debate where we heard a lot about eels and the fishery on the east coast. Again, it's a fascinating topic, but we should have been able to get to a vote on that. Had we got to a vote, the very thing that Mr. Morantz was just quoting, which he said he wanted to have happen, would have happened. We would have sent the sections of the bill that properly belong with our critics who are experts in other areas to those committees. We would have benefited from their wisdom. We would have multiplied the ability to hear witness testimony, because there would have been other committees providing time slots to hear witnesses on the content of the bill.

That was the whole point of breaking up the bill. I think that's a better process, given that omnibus bills, not just by this government—in spite of a promise not to do omnibus bills—but by the previous government, which made an art form of them, the Harper government....

If they're going to become a fact of parliamentary life, then we need to find a better way, as parliamentarians, to study them and push back against the government's effort to effectively impose closure by putting a whole bunch of things in one bill. We don't appear to be able to stop them from doing that. What we can do is change the way we study the bill so that there is more time and there is the ability to hear witnesses.

I thought that was a good thing that our committee was on to, but we have failed to set a precedent for that yet again. Instead, we've had to listen to a filibuster. If we take Parliament seriously and we take our role and our job.... If we don't think our job is a joke, then we could actually take the time to do the work, and we could set interesting precedents for how you go about studying a budget bill given the fact that government seemed pretty committed to doing omnibus legislation. We could set a new standard. We could raise the bar for accountability in terms of Parliament hearing witnesses and having subject matter experts examine legislation.

I actually thought we were on the cusp of that. What a fool I was. I'm sitting around feeling like I've been had, because I thought we were having some good conversations through the winter, trying to figure out how we weren't going to repeat last year's gong show, yet here we are right back where we started, except even more futile. At least last year, once the Conservatives were done their filibuster and agreed to a timeline to do clause-by-clause, we actually did clause-by-clause. Now we're not.

I'll say to you, it is a real problem if we get to Monday at four o'clock and we start voting on this stuff without any of us having put our reasons on the record. I think that will be a bloody shame. I think anyone who is really committed to accountability and democracy in Parliament would not allow that to happen.

I am not prepared to extend the deadline. From what I've seen, extending the deadline just means more of this. This is the problem. You can't negotiate a process to get to the outcomes that everyone, through the filibusters, says they want to achieve, because you think you have, and then they eat up all the time to accomplish that other purpose with more filibuster. Eventually, you need a deadline.

I participated in a filibuster in the 42nd Parliament, when the government was contemplating making unilateral changes to the Standing Orders. I thought they needed at least one other party to agree. I thought that was a filibuster with some principle. I thought it was worth getting animated about and worth showing up for, so I did it.

I also respect that there will be filibusters. I've seen those, too, believe me. It's not just here. At the procedure and House affairs committee in the last Parliament, it was Liberals tying up the committee because they didn't want the committee to invite the Prime Minister. There are going to be filibusters that I don't agree with, and I'm okay with that. I have to say, for what's being held up, and for the amount of work we haven't been able to do, the goal of this filibuster is pretty light. It wasn't worth losing all the good work we could have done.

The minister is intransigent, and I'm mad about that. Parliament doesn't have the ability to compel the minister to appear. We have the ability to do our own work, but we don't seem to be able to get that done. Let's not throw stones in glass houses. I think the minister should be held to account for not having been clear that she was willing to show up for an hour or two hours. I think, in the end, it was an hour and 40 minutes, or whatever. Sure, but are you really going to let the attitude of that minister derail the entire work of the finance committee for months? We deserve better than that. Canadians deserve better than that.

This work deserves to get done, and we're not going to agree on all the outcomes, guys. I'm not looking for a Kumbaya moment. All I'm looking for is for everyone on this committee to say their piece and then allow us to vote on things so that we can make decisions and move things along. If Parliament can't do that, we have a big problem. That's where the feeling that some people are just committed to endless dysfunction gets harder and harder to shake.

I'm not going to go on and on. There are a number of claims I think are worth responding to, except it's hard to feel that they really are, because this whole thing feels, in an important way, fundamentally unserious. I have to say, we're talking around a lot of serious things, but I don't feel like we're doing it in a serious way anymore, and I'm disappointed by that. I think we could do a lot better. As somebody who believes in making decisions based on evidence and experience—my experience on this committee and the evidence that any Canadian is welcome to look at not just from this budget bill process but also from the many we've done before—I am finding it harder and harder to believe that I'm sitting around a table with serious people who are honestly committed to getting a job done.

That's my point of view. I get that we're all going to have different points of view about this. I just feel that if Canadians are sitting at home wondering what the heck is going on, somebody should have the decency to call out what I think is really happening and the only way you can make sense of what's going on here.

The clock is running. The time will not be extended, because I am tired of these shenanigans. Let's think about what we do with the time we have and how we do the best job, instead of asking for permission to continue this charade.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Blaikie. Just on those remarks, I do my job at the will of the committee, and in good faith I hear from members and we move forward, especially when there is a vote and when it is with unanimous consent, and it was with unanimous consent in terms of what we would do with PS Beech's motion and that we would get to clause-by-clause yesterday and look to complete that by Monday. I crossed my fingers that we could have done it even earlier. And this has come up a number of times. It came up with the FES. It came up with our pre-budget consultations. Members from all parties have spoken to me about the pre-budget consultations, even when we get into those, and being able to do them in a more methodical way and being able to have a report that will go to the minister to have more impact. I've heard from all of you, and as I said, I take you at your word and in good faith.

On that, I'm going to pass the floor over now to PS Beech, and then I have MP Perkins and then MP Morantz.

PS Beech, go ahead.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our colleague from the NDP, Daniel Blaikie, for those comments.

The sentiment is shared, I'm sure, by a lot of people sitting around this table. We all work very hard throughout our ridings to gain the respect of our constituents. We knock on doors, have conversations, attend events and do a lot of hard work. Everybody does—the Conservatives, NDP, Bloc and Liberal members—in order to have the privilege of sitting at this table. What struck me from Daniel's comments, which I think is apt for what is currently going on and what has been going on for a long time, is the lack of seriousness. You can trace that lack of seriousness all the way back to the first critic I worked with here at the finance committee, who was Pierre Poilievre. That was the first time I ever, in all the time I've been at Parliament—and I've served seven ministers before serving at Finance.... I've been subject to arbitrary filibuster, which is what we're facing today and which is what has my colleague Daniel so upset.

There's a track record on this. You can draw a straight line from Pierre Poilievre as finance critic and acting in that way directly to his becoming leader and then forcing his members to act in that way, which is exactly what we're witnessing today.

We could go back to May 9, 2022, and the aforementioned Budget Implementation Act. Was it filibustered by the Conservatives? Absolutely.

We could go back to the fall economic statement, which was filibustered by the Conservatives between November 2 and 16.

We go to this budget implementation act, which has been filibustered thus far, I believe, for something like 25 hours over witness time and now—

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

It's 27.

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

Thank you. I wouldn't want to be incorrect.

It's been 27 hours over witness time, and now, including the first hour and a half today, another six or so hours during clause-by-clause time. I have in front of me the original motion that I drafted. I want to talk a bit about how this motion was drafted.

I got a call from the Conservative Party. They were saying, hey, can we figure out how to work on the BIA...? I was very excited because I thought that if we could avoid a filibuster like we had at the last budget implementation act, and if we could avoid a filibuster like we had at the last fall economic statement, it would actually allow us to do the work that my colleague Daniel Blaikie just described.

I had phone calls. We had meetings. We did some of that in person. We did some of that online. Then, a very familiar play began to play out: It had happened before, so I wasn't surprised by it. Basically, we had come to what I thought was a general agreement on the way we could handle this and, then, all of a sudden, the negotiator changed and the terms changed. As we looked for ways to come to terms on those terms, those terms changed again.

When my colleague MP Lawrence talks about negotiating in good faith, I would dispute that. Now, fool me once, shame on you, and fool me twice.... It's as the saying goes. Adam Chambers tried to get it before, and I'm using it now, but really, I felt that it was going to be shame on me again, because I don't want anybody to be in a filibuster. I've been very clear about that with my members. I've been very clear about that with the Conservatives and with all opposition members: that I negotiate in good faith every single day so that we can do the good work at this table and avoid at all costs filibusters or needlessly wasting people's time.

An example of that is very clear here today. Mr. Morantz, in his speech, talked about the great testimony from Ms. Lindsay Gwyer. Well, he's not in the room and so he probably doesn't know, but that person, as well as a number of very articulate and hard-working professionals from the Department of Finance, are here to work on clause-by-clause and to answer some of those specific questions that were included in Mr. Morantz's filibuster. His very act is preventing those officials from doing their jobs and making sure we're passing the best budget implementation act possible.

Mr. Lawrence complained yesterday.... I think he logged a good four or four and a half hours yesterday. It was quite the show. When we talk about a lack of seriousness, that comes from a couple of different places. Sometimes it's the content that we're actually discussing versus what we should be discussing. Sometimes it's members serving wine in the committee room instead of having the good discussion that we should be having on the budget that's supposed to be helping Canadians. In this particular case, he spent a lot of time talking about the good faith of getting at least 20 hours of study prior to being able to begin clause-by-clause.

I agree that we should get at least 20 hours. That's certainly what we said in the previous BIA. That's what we did in the fall economic statement. We want witnesses to come in. Heck, if we weren't subject to filibuster, we could do well beyond 20 hours. We've proven that, right? It's not as if the members here aren't willing to work. We've shown up.... I think it has to be 40-some hours now of doing nothing except listening to the Conservatives talk about fish and elvers and doing whatever they can to fill the time—reading handbooks, etc. That's what we've been listening to.

Today, we have officials here. Previously we had food banks. We had chambers of commerce. All the people Mr. Morantz talked about—veterans, people who could have talked about money laundering, chambers of commerce, indigenous individuals, people who could talk about the RESPs, people who represented disability groups—could have been slated to appear. They were all denied their ability to contribute to the budget process because of Mr. Morantz and his act to filibuster. I wish I could take Mr. Morantz's testimony of today and travel it back in time to the start of this month. He could talk to himself about the impact of his actions and those of his party: about what happens when you filibuster needlessly and not for any real point.

The point was quite clear. The point was to obstruct the bill and to prevent it from passing, or to at least delay it for as long as possible. Mr. Lawrence talked about that yesterday. Certainly I think our colleagues in the Bloc and the NDP realize that through various negotiation processes.

The outcome the Conservatives are looking for is very clear. Witness testimony is not part of their objectives. You can tell that based on their actions. I've already talked about three specific filibusters around the three most significant fiscal documents that the government has put forward, the last two BIAs and the fall economic statement. It goes well beyond that.

For two years in a row, the Conservative Party has prevented us from having pre-budget consultations in any meaningful way. In fact, last year they arbitrarily moved those, as part of their negotiations, for no real reason, from August back until October, simply so Canadians couldn't have their say at the start of the pre-budget process.

How did those pre-budget processes used to happen, Mr. Chair?

They used to happen with this committee going across Canada to be at the doorsteps of Canadians to hear what they had to say, so they could substantially contribute to this process. For the last two years, that has been banned. That ban continues under the current leader, Mr. Pierre Poilievre. His entire goal as a leader is to try to convince Canadians that the country is broken on one hand, while he is actively trying to break it on the other hand.

Mr. Chambers said today, as a point of order, that he was scared that his colleagues might think he's too moderate. He supports a leader who is actively trying to fire an independent officer, the Governor of the Bank of Canada. That is an independent institution that has been in place for more than a generation, that has served Canadians so well and put us in the position that we're in to be able to outperform our peers in other economies. The current Leader of the Opposition, if he ever gets into the prime minister's chair, wants to fire that individual, not for good reason but because doing so is part of his strategy. That is the strategy that Mr. Adam Chambers is supporting.

Fear not, good sir—nobody is ever going to suggest that you're a moderate as long as you support a leader who uses these types of undemocratic tactics, not as a measure of last resort but as the first thing he goes to when acting. It's what he's learned since he's been here.

Going back to my interaction with Mr. Lawrence and this original motion, I have the original copy. It's dated May 1, 2023. This was a consensus document that was written after having conversations with members of the Conservative Party, members of the Bloc and members of the NDP and as well as members of our Liberal caucus. Unlike the case with the previous BIA and the previous FES, when I thought I could take the Conservatives at their word, every time they made an offer this time, I made sure that offer was shared with the Bloc and the NDP. That way, if the goalposts moved, they would understand that somebody was trying to pull the wool over our eyes and that they were in fact not negotiating in good faith.

Later on, when we finally resolved this, this is how it got resolved. We had this exact motion, as well as the unanimous consent wording that we had read into the record. Mr. Lawrence sat next to me and went line by line to make sure he agreed with every single point that was in here, asking questions along the way. In fact, he asked me specifically about the 20 hours of study and whether we could change the language to guarantee that 20 hours of study before we moved to clause-by-clause, to which I definitively said, “No, I can't do that, because how many hours of study we get depends on how much time the whips can get together for committee resources.” However, it was our essential “like” that we could get over 20 hours, because that's what we originally said back in April, over a month ago. He read this passage—he might have read it a couple of times—and agreed that this actually substantially does what we want. Then we added Gabriel's clause, which made sure that we did 10 hours before the end of the week.

That particular passage is item (d), and it reads:

(d) Subject to the approval of the recognized parties' whips, and the availability of meeting slots from the House of Commons, the committee hold as many additional meetings as possible with the goal of accomplishing at least 20 hours of study prior to the beginning of clause-by-clause consideration of the bill;

I am not in charge of getting committee time or of understanding the resources and how they are, but my understanding is that we cancelled a large number of other committees. The Conservatives not only obstructed here by filibustering and continuing to filibuster, but also obstructed the PROC committee. I don't know the full list, but many committee meetings have been cancelled while we've listened to the Conservatives talk about nothing.

I would agree, finally, with Daniel's last point, which was that all the Conservatives are doing by continuing this filibuster is proving the fact that they intend to do nothing except obstruct for obstruction's sake. There is no interest to hear from Canadians. They were here. The Conservatives kicked them out. There is no interest to hear from officials. They are here. They have been here for six or seven hours. They've gone through two clauses. Otherwise, we've been listening to whatever the Conservatives could think of to fill the time.

You don't have to take my word for it. That's the great thing about parliamentary democracy and the systems we have set up in Canada. You can go to review the tapes. Everything I talk about has been on video.

Then they came on Wednesday. They didn't talk to our chair about how they wanted more witness testimony on Friday, when we dismissed our last witnesses. They didn't talk to the parliamentary secretary of finance on Saturday or on Sunday about how they want more witnesses. They didn't send a text message or say anything on Monday or Tuesday. No. They sent a tweet on Wednesday—the day before we were supposed to start clause-by-clause and the day they knew we couldn't have more witnesses, because it would be impossible for the clerk to schedule them—to complain specifically about not getting witnesses.

It doesn't take a Ph.D. student doing a four-year study to figure out what's going on here. It takes a rudimentary analysis to understand that every permanent Conservative member of the finance committee supports the philosophy of their leader, Pierre Poilievre, which is to obstruct for obstruction's sake. That's not to the benefit of the true role of the opposition, which is to take a look at government legislation and help us make it better. Show up here with actual problems; we work through it, through debate, and we actually get it changed to make it better.

This budget implementation act will not be as good as it should be, simply because we could not incorporate the good ideas of the Conservative Party, because they decided that they did not want to contribute their ideas.

All that being said, Mr. Chair, I expect that after we dismiss this motion, which is very similar to the previous motion we adjourned on yesterday, which was very similar to the motion that we voted against at the start of yesterday, there will be another one, and another one after that. Maybe Mr. Blaikie was convincing enough, because I think he is more convincing than I am. Maybe the members of Parliament from the Conservative Party will look inside themselves and will decide that parliamentary democracy is worth more than getting a gold star from their obstructionist leader, who has no interest in contributing positively to this committee.

With that, Mr. Chair, I would suggest that we get to work. The officials are here and ready to work. The Liberal members are here and ready to work. The NDP is here and ready to work. The Bloc is here and ready to work. With that, I would move that we adjourn debate on this motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, PS Beech.

Clerk, we will have a recorded vote.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 7; nays 4 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Now members, we will move back to clause-by-clause consideration.

Shall clause 4 carry?

(Clauses 4 and 5 agreed to on division)

Shall clause 6 carry?

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Chair, can we get a recorded vote?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

We will have a recorded vote for clause 6.

(Clause 6 agreed to: yeas 7; nays 4 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

We will move on to clause 7.

Shall clause 7 carry, members?

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

Mr. Chair, could I have the floor?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

We are in a vote. We just called the vote.

Are you looking to speak to clause 7?

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

Yes, but I had my hand raised.