Thank you.
The attendance call reminds me of school. I see Mr. Chambers waving at the Liberal members to make sure that they know he is present as well.
As I was saying, I think we've had a number of attempts to try to find a path forward to get us to the original 20 hours or something close to that, which is again not a lot to ask on a bill that amends 51 acts of Parliament and on which we have witnesses. I know some of those meetings that happened last week were robust but still challenging, because with six, seven, eight witnesses at the table at a time, it was tough to get all the breadth of viewpoints across adequately in the time. I think the witnesses provided compelling testimony as to why there are challenges and provided members of Parliament with lots of good insight to enable thoughtful amendments to this important bill.
Every finance bill is vitally important. No matter which government puts it forward, it's important. It's the most fundamental element, I think, of our duty as parliamentarians—to go to MP Blaikie's thoughts earlier.
One of the most important elements of what we do in any parliamentary tradition is to let witnesses testify on proposed government spending and to make educated judgments on how a member of Parliament should support and vote for that. It's fairly fundamental and goes back to the creation of our Westminster parliamentary system—the role and authority of members of Parliament—and back in those days, the Crown, which had spending authority. We have that responsibility here, which I think everyone takes seriously.
For those who want to know, as MP Blaikie said, what the heck is going on, it is that we're trying to ask for these modest things as the opposition, which is the attendance of the Minister of Finance for two hours—which she still hasn't done—or a modest 20 hours of testimony. To give those watching an idea, that's only 10 meetings. It's not very much on a bill that is so fundamental to our responsibility as parliamentarians to scrutinize and review and understand and ensure that the value that taxpayers expect is being delivered. It is part of the plan.
Yes, part of that role is to question when we think that spending isn't being done properly and when budget planning isn't being done properly. It's pretty hard to sort through all of the budget promises that were made every six months in the last eight years by this government when they've not met a single target. It's like the climate plan. They've never met a target on the climate plan. Now, I guess, the Minister of Environment must take the lead from Finance, which has basically made promises every six months in the last eight years with budget documents and economic statements, promising certain economic performance of this government, and has missed every single target.
I know those watching will be very shocked to know that they never undershot their projection, that they never underspent their projection, that they produced less debt than the government thought they would. They were terribly conservative, as Paul Martin used to be when he was finance minister in the Chrétien government. He was terribly conservative. He actually always underspent his budget.
This Liberal government has not prudently done that. In fact, when the minister was before the committee last week for her brief and shining appearance, she was asked about the $12 billion. Believe it or not, folks, there is $12 billion of unallocated spending, meaning that they're going to spend the $12 billion, they just haven't figured it out yet. I would have thought this government was expert at knowing how to spend the money, but it has provided itself with a large cushion of $12 billion to spend in the next year on things it hasn't even thought of yet. When asked about that, the minister said that it was for things like Volkswagen.
Wow. I can't believe that of the $12-billion spend in the next year.... I asked her—but she obfuscated on it, shockingly—why she would be spending any portion of that $12 billion in the next year on Volkswagen, since Volkswagen doesn't even have a plant here. What could she possibly be spending that money on, if it's not that? That was the best example the Minister of Finance could come up with.
These are the issues that we have to have witnesses for and it's why we need to have people before this committee to help us sort through this mess of a spending plan.
I know that officials—it's hard to tell here—from the Department of Finance are there. I would just plead with you—and I'm sure you are pleading with your ministers, this one and the one before—to provide some restraint, to actually say no once in a while, to not say that we're going to spend this record amount this year, $3.1 trillion in the next five years and add, as part of that, at least $12 billion that they have set aside just to come in on budget.
We know that the $12 billion will not cover it. That's what always happens, since this government misses every single budget target. They actually have never come in and said that they've produced less debt than they projected. They actually come in every time, every six months, and say that they're producing more debt. They promise less debt than the last one and they promise that it will only be a deficit of $44 billion, $47 billion or whatever billion they want to do this year, but it comes in higher than that. They say that it's somebody else's fault.
In fact, when asked about it, the Minister of Finance, in committee last week said that it's the banks' fault. She said that she bases her budgets on the bank projections, and the banks must have gotten it wrong.
It's the old “dog ate my homework” excuse that people used to give in school. When you guys were all in high school, you knew of students who always had some excuse for why they weren't able to produce their report. In this case, the Minister of Finance continues to use the “dog ate my homework” excuse and it's somebody else's fault. It's the fault of the war in Ukraine, it's a global recession, or they forced her to spend so much during COVID. Only half of it was on COVID. The other half was on things unrelated to COVID, but she'll use that as an excuse to blow the doors off our spending. She says that it's somebody else's fault, when it's their own fault.
They make the decisions. They propose the budget. The Liberal members of this committee and the Liberal members in the House, combined with their coalition partner, the NDP, consistently say, “That's okay. We forgive you.” Being a Liberal means always having to say you're sorry about everything, but never mind. Now we have another situation where we're trying to get people who aren't from this government with the PMO's talking points to come before the committee and discuss parts of this massive omnibus bill that is being proposed here. We're only asking about the basics of this budget. We can't get into the details.
I have more witnesses here I would like to go through, but in the spirit of compromise and in reflection of what MP Blaikie said earlier, I would like to move the following motion, Mr. Chair:
That notwithstanding the May 16th motion passed by the committee—