Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, MP Beech. I understand you don't like hearing another side of the story that you presented, but the reality is that it's a pattern with this government to try to avoid accountability. That's part of the motion I put forward here. It's the issue of having witnesses on this legislation.
The one that was agreed to in good conscience and with the best of efforts with the government, the government is now shutting down.
There's been lots of time this week and since that motion was passed for the government to work with the clerk. During the constituency week, there were a lot of parliamentary resources available for this committee to do the 20 hours of work that this motion called for, yet the government chose not to do that.
The government has chosen to try to reduce that discussion.
MP Blaikie, in his discussion earlier, said that the most fundamental thing we do as members of Parliament is to discuss and vote. Yes, but voting without the benefit of what expert witness testimony can give us on key aspects of this half-trillion dollar spending bill, which is adding fuel to the inflationary fire in this country, is voting in some form without the knowledge that members of Parliament should have from outside groups.
Yes, there are votes, perhaps, based on instinct and your own knowledge, and I don't dispute the fact that Mr. Blaikie is a very knowledgeable and experienced parliamentarian, has been through many of these budget processes and understands the budget in great detail, but I'm sure even he would admit that having 19 hours of witnesses is not a lot to ask. The government is saying, “No, we don't want that.” The government has said that by not scheduling the full 19 or 20 hours this week to get the work done so that it can be done by the 29th, by next Monday.
There's been a lot of time and parliamentary resources. There was no excuse—for those watching—because we are on the constituency break. I think PROC is the only other committee meeting this week, so very few of the committees have been meeting. Therefore, interpretation and staff and other resources have been available to do the 20 hours of work on the original motion, which the government has chosen not to follow.
I believe it's the government that has not acted in good faith. It's actually acting in bad faith against the motion. It makes it difficult, as the official opposition, to believe that when we negotiate something with the government members in the future, they will live up to those conditions, that they won't just be playing a game, saying, “Okay, we got your agreement and we're going to impose a form of committee closure by shutting it down once we start the process. We can do that in a couple of ways. We can do it through formal programming motions”—which the government has done of late, over the last six months or so—“or we can do it simply by not scheduling the meeting and by not inviting the witnesses to attend to do the work in the week that was set out and agreed to.”
To me, that's obstructionist. To me, that's a form of passive filibuster—stopping the opposition from questioning witnesses on things they don't like to hear.
They heard some very passionate and heartfelt testimony from some of Canada's food banks. The Ottawa Food Bank, right here in Ottawa, in testimony last week.... I'm sure it was hard for the government members to hear it, because it was extremely critical of the government. In fact, most of the testimony in the 10 hours was critical of the government. I can understand from their perspective why they wanted to shut the debate down, because witnesses were not providing them with the government talking points that they were hoping to get at the table. They were actually pushing back.
This is what happens when you have 51 acts of Parliament....
Some have made comments about elvers. This bill does amend the ocean protection act. I know that members don't like to hear members of Parliament on the opposition talking to the details of what was in the bill and what the bill is attempting to amend. Perhaps they're confused themselves by the fact that the ocean protection act would be amended in a budget implementation bill—their omnibus bill.
Everything that was said in that discussion—trying to get the minister to come to committee for two hours, which she didn't do—was done relative to what is in the bill, the 51 acts that are being amended. If the members of the government want the discussion to be only about the budget itself, then they shouldn't bring in these kinds of omnibus bills. They shouldn't bring in issues of amending the Canada Elections Act or the ocean protection act, or amending the royal symbols and titles act. These things are not to do with the budget.
That's why we need to have more witnesses come in. There are witnesses who were on the schedule who aren't going to be here, witnesses like Jack Mintz. We all know Jack Mintz, who is a very important economist in Canada. I don't know why Liberal members wouldn't want to hear from Jack Mintz from the University of Calgary. We all know that former finance minister Bill Morneau has had some interesting things to say about this budget. Again, he's on the witness list but has not been called because the Liberals have shut it down.
Perhaps that's the reason the Liberals are shutting it down and not allowing 19 or 20 hours of debate. They're limiting it to 10 hours of witnesses because they're trying to prevent their former colleague, who not too long ago was the minister of finance and now is just a random Liberal, from appearing. Perhaps that's the real reason, as they were preventing the current Minister of Finance from appearing for two hours. They clearly don't want to have the former minister of finance come to talk about the issues around the incredible record spending of this budget.
By the way, that budget is $3.1 trillion over the next five years, if you can believe the economic projections. MP Morantz went over some of those issues earlier. I won't belabour the fact that the inflation projection is so unrealistic as to make this entire budget projection a joke.
We want to hear from the Edmonton food bank, but apparently the government does not want to hear from the Edmonton food bank. We asked for Feed Nova Scotia, which is a very important organization in my province. It deals with the issue of food insecurity and supplying food and is the umbrella organization to our food banks in Nova Scotia. There is a massive increase across my province, which we've had under this government, of demand on food banks.
No, the Liberals are deciding only 10 hours of debate on half a trillion dollars of spending this year and $3.1 trillion over the next five years is enough time, just as they thought the minister didn't really need to actually come to the meeting, and the only reason she ended up coming was that we embarrassed her into it.
We embarrassed her into coming or she would have blown it off like before, and she wasn't even able to give us a full two hours, which was incredible, really, when you think about it.
How about the Regina Food Bank? They're invited as well.