Finance Committee on May 26th, 2023

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm looking for some guidance on how debate will proceed, so what I'd like to do is explain the circumstances that I'm concerned may develop because of the way this debate is proceeding. I'd then like to look to guidance from you, and you may want to consult with the clerk before giving an answer. That's fine, but I want to get this out before Monday.

If we proceed with debate on this motion and we don't get back to the clauses, what I'm concerned about is that, the way things are currently structured, we're going to go to clause-by-clause at, I believe, 4 p.m. on Monday. As I said, that's something I support and I don't feel that I'm—

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

MP Blaikie, it's at 4:30 on Monday.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As I say, that's something I support. I won't revisit the reasons I gave earlier as to why I unfortunately don't feel I'm in a position to support an extension of time, despite having some sympathy for certain arguments being made.

What happens then, according to the motion, is that we proceed to vote on every clause and every amendment without further debate or discussion. If all of the time we have before then is used up debating the motion, that means we're going to be in a position of voting on clauses—but I think more importantly and more especially on amendments—without being able to put any reasons on the record for why we voted the way we voted. I think that's the most important thing. We will also—and this is important but I think perhaps of secondary importance, which is not to say not important—miss out on the opportunity to ask each other questions about our own amendments, to seek clarification and to get clarification from officials about certain clauses.

Here's the thing, Mr. Chair. In light of that concern, my instinct would be to say I'd like to get the floor. Then I'd like to go through all the amendments in advance of 4:30 p.m. on Monday and talk about all of the amendments that have so far been proposed and give my own reasoning and the position of the New Democratic Party in respect of those amendments in advance of the votes.

However, my own reading of the situation is that this would be out of order, because until amendments are moved, they are not public. Therefore, I'm not in a position to speak to amendments that are simply proposed and won't be public. If they're not moved until the process that will be triggered at 4:30 p.m. on Monday, there's no way for me to talk about them in advance, which means I'm currently in a position where, unless we wrap up debate on these motions, nobody is going to be able to give a position on the amendments. We'd actually be out of order doing that. It would be an issue of parliamentary privilege that one could complain about, and rightfully so.

I'm at a loss as to what to do, and I'm looking for guidance. I made an attempt earlier to beseech my colleagues to allow us to do the work on clause-by-clause. Right now that's not the trajectory we're on, to get to that work. Maybe that trajectory will change. There are people around the table who may know things about what they intend to do or not do, which I am not privy to, but I am very concerned about the situation that is developing, and I am very concerned that currently the rules of order, rightly in this case, I think—I'm not taking issue with the rules—prevent me from doing the one thing that I might be able to do to get our positions on the record in advance of the vote.

I'm looking for guidance from you, Mr. Chair, and I'm looking for a way, because I don't know if there's a solution to this that you can just effect on your own. I would turn to the committee and say I think we need to figure out what we're going to do about this, because I think it would be a travesty if we got to 4:30 p.m. on Monday.... I respect that we have Conservative members of the committee who are set in their position. Others are set in the position that we need to get on with it and that there has to be some end in sight on this. Some of us thought we were close to that. I get that's an issue. I'm not trying to participate in that debate, but, if everybody just sticks to their current position right now, we're going to create a really bad outcome that's not becoming, I think, of a senior committee of Parliament.

I wanted to raise this with you. I'm happy to get some advice from you, Mr. Chair, as I said, not necessarily immediately but perhaps before we close on Friday, and perhaps with enough time for there to be a little bit of discussion for the committee to figure out if we really are stuck in the dilemma that I think we are. That would be just one dilemma we're stuck in. Perhaps we might find a way out to at least be able to provide, I think, one of the very basic things we owe to Canadians, which is a statement on the record as to why we're voting for or against certain suggestions with respect to the legislation.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Blaikie.

I did look to our experts to the right and to the left here—Mr. Méla, our legislative clerk, as well as our clerk Alexandre Roger—and you are correct in all you have said. There would not be an opportunity to debate those, and when we get to 4:30 on Monday, we would go to clause-by-clause voting on those without any debate.

We do have, I believe, 682 clauses. To actually group some of those at that time, we would need unanimous consent, so you can just think about the amount of time it would take to get through those 680-plus clauses for the members. That is where we are.

Mr. Méla, would you like to add anything to that, to what MP Blaikie had to say, in terms of whether there is a way out of this conundrum?

No, we don't see that there is. There is no way.

Is this on this a point of order, PS Beech?

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

Yes. I hear what Mr. Blaikie is saying and, unfortunately, it's a tough circumstance that we're in. Almost anything at committee is fixable by unanimous consent, if I recollect correctly. I certainly agree that members should be able to put a position on the record, and we're not currently providing that.

Question period on Monday generally ends around 3:15 or so. There is a world where we could all agree to perhaps meet at 3:30, an hour before the votes begin, and we could equally divide the time among members, so people could put some things on the record. That's an idea we would be willing to consider, but of course that would require unanimous consent.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

MP Blaikie.

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

On that same point, Mr. Chair, I certainly appreciate Mr. Beech's suggestion.

My concern is that, until we get to the clause, as I understand it, procedurally you can't move the amendment. We would have to rip through all the clauses somehow, and then get to each clause separately, and then move.... We can't talk about the amendments until they're actually moved. We can't move amendments for a particular clause. We have amendments for clauses that are at the back end of the bill. We'd have to get through 400-some clauses in order to move the amendment, and we can't talk about the amendment until it's moved. I hear what PS Beech is saying, and I appreciate it. There may be a way through unanimous consent.

Another way we might do this—and here I would just beseech my Conservative colleagues to consider this—is to meet earlier in the day on Monday, so that we have some of the 10 hours. It's been nine hours so far, and it will be 10 by the end of our meeting today. It would be a way to try to recover a bit of that time. That would allow us to cycle through clauses. We would have to understand, first of all, that we were going to group clauses by unanimous consent and dispense with many of the clauses relatively quickly.

I wonder if we can go back to clause-by-clause instead of filibustering on this motion. Could we get through a number of clauses, get through to a point where we can move amendments, discuss the amendments and dispense with them?

Right now, the Conservatives are on track to filibuster until 4:30 on Monday anyway, at which point we're going to do all the voting. Could they just filibuster on the last clause after we've dealt with all the amendments? The effect will be the same, except with a very significant difference, which is that the committee will have.... Honestly, I thought this would have broken by now, so I wasn't even thinking about these things until the midpoint of this meeting, when I realized this filibuster is not going to break, and we're going to go until 4:30 on Monday. We're going to have some perverse outcomes, but how do we try to avoid those outcomes?

I get that the Conservatives want to go until 4:30, when we start voting, and I believe that is what's going to happen at this point, because everyone is pretty dug in. Could we do the clause-by-clause work, and then resume the filibuster either on a motion or on the final clause right up until 4:30 on Monday?

The Conservatives will get to use all of the time that is there to protest. I may not agree entirely with the protest, but I defend the rights of parliamentarians to do that. I just don't want to see it get in the way of the important work we're tasked with doing by the people who elected us.

If we could get to do the work, and then have the protest continue, at least we won't have sacrificed the opportunity to do our job and to make ourselves accountable for the decisions we make about the amendments being proposed on the bill. Demonstrating that level of accountability for ourselves is an important thing to do. We talk a lot about accountability for others. This is a way we can create accountability for ourselves and go right to 4:30 on Monday if that's what certain members of the committee want to do.

I'll throw that out there for consideration by committee members as a way to possibly proceed, but I am very concerned that.... I would encourage you, Mr. Chair, if you can, to convene as early as possible on Monday, so we have time to do this work. I respect it may be a frustration to some, but let's try to do this work and then have the protest, instead of having the protest make us unaccountable for the decisions we will ultimately make beginning at 4:30 on Monday.

I'm not quite sure how to proceed. I'll look to you, Mr. Chair, for direction, and I appreciate that folks will require some time to consider this. I am not looking to put anyone on the spot, because I don't think that will be conducive to the best possible outcome. I'd like folks to reflect on it a bit, but if we could make some kind of decision about how to proceed on Monday, including meeting a bit earlier to have more time to do clause-by-clause, that would be a positive thing.

I would be supportive of that, and there is a way, as I said, to honour our own work and responsibilities and to be accountable without depriving Conservatives of their right to protest until the deadline they had previously agreed to.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Blaikie.

There's a lot to digest there, and I'm looking, with the legislative clerk and the clerk, for a path forward.

I am going to suspend at this time so I can confer with them to be able to digest and mull over some of the things that MP Blaikie has put on the table.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

We're back, everyone.

MP Blaikie was correct in all he had to say. We are kind of at a stalemate with this and we're stuck. It looks as though we're coming back.... It depends on what happens right now with the discussion on this motion by MP Perkins. It's MP Perkins' decision.

MP Perkins, you have the floor.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I appreciate the thoughtful words by MP Blaikie. I think it's fair to say that some of our folks are thinking about that. In the interim, as they do, I will continue and we'll go from there.

As I was pointing out, the budget projects spending going up 94%. That's obviously not a revenue issue, since revenue is projected to go from $282 billion in 2015 to what's in this fiscal framework at the end, which is $543 billion. In other words, government tax revenue will have gone up by $261 billion, or 92%.

It's not a question of whether or not we have a problem where we've had to meet all of these needs, or the government has felt it had to meet all of these needs without adequate financial backing and was forced into this situation. Obviously it wasn't, when revenue will have gone up by the end of this by 92%. Revenue, in other words, for those watching, is taxes. How much you are sending to Ottawa is going up by that amount.

MP Blaikie earlier, a couple of interventions ago, said he was concerned that Canadians don't know what the heck is going on when they're watching this, and I get that. The whole issue of these discussions that have happened in this committee and in others is that, when you're in opposition and you believe there is a parliamentary tradition—some of it is written rules and some of it is just tradition—the examination of government legislation happens in certain ways.... When that doesn't happen and it doesn't give the opposition adequate time to question or examine, either through expert witnesses or ministers of the Crown, it leaves the opposition with little opportunity but to use the few tools we have to try to bring the discussion back to what we think is an open, fair and democratic process.

We had a long discussion, as the chair has pointed out on several occasions. We had about 27 hours of discussion on whether the Minister of Finance should appear for two hours. I know that seems silly. It could have been prevented at any stage during that process by the Minister of Finance simply committing and guaranteeing 100% that she was going to come for two hours, which she was unwilling to do as she had already missed three other invitations and chosen not to appear.

We have this situation where we now have compressed time for witnesses because the minister wouldn't appear for two hours. That could have all been resolved. If the minister had agreed up front to appear for two hours, all of these witnesses and more could have been heard from, and there would have been lots of time for clause-by-clause. However, the government, in the management of the agenda, chose not to make that very simple commitment to have the minister come, do her mere two hours—presumably she knows every aspect of this budget well enough to be able to defend it at a parliamentary committee—and defend her budget. The government chose not to do that.

It wasn't the opposition who chose to do that. We chose to use the only tool we have available to us to try to get the minister to show up. We believe she showed up, unlike with the last three invitations, because of that effort of finding Freeland or freeing Freeland.

The finding Freeland exercise was successful to some extent, because the minister actually came for this invitation for one hour, and then at the last minute added another 20 minutes to her appearance. It was hardly enough time to go through this spending bill—it's an omnibus bill, which this government promised never to use—which amends acts that have nothing to do with the budget, like the Elections Canada Act or the ocean protection act. These things have nothing to do with the budget.

That barely left us with any time to ask her anything or to probe into those questions. The minister was unwilling to even answer how much interest her spending plan actually generates and what the result of that is. What do we lose in terms of the ability to do things to help Canadians by paying that interest?

We thought that we were through all that. She appeared. We were back on schedule.... Well, we're not on schedule, but we were back to the meat of it. Let's hear from witnesses. We all, in good faith, agreed to 20 hours of witnesses. We were partway through that when the government decided that we were not going to hear from witnesses for 20 hours. We were only going to hear them for 10 hours for some strange reason or because that's what's been done. This is a break where that could have been done. It could have easily been accommodated in the five workdays and still could be accommodated this weekend.

To MP Blaikie's question about how we break through this, one way to break through this is for the Bloc members and the NDP member to support my motion and finish the nine hours over the next couple of days of witness testimony before Monday, so that we can get to that part of the work that they want. It's a simple solution, in my mind, as to supporting my motion. That will allow us to get on with things, get that part of the business done as a committee and move on to clause-by-clause by the 26th, like the motion says and which we all agreed to.

However, that 26th was on the condition that we do 20 hours of witnesses, not 10 hours. In this case, my motion only calls for 19. That's only an additional nine hours to hear from witnesses.

Some of the witnesses, we know, have not been able to come during the nine hours. When I left off, we were talking about the Business Council of Alberta and the Business Council of Canada.

During COVID, one of the hardest hit of the many hard-hit industries—basically every industry was hard hit—was the tourism industry. It's very important. It's the second-, if not the third-largest industry in my riding of South Shore, with the beautiful towns of Lunenburg and Mahone Bay. Summer tourism is a big part of our economy. We haven't had an opportunity to hear about whether or not the measures in this budget help or hurt the tourism industry in Canada. Hearing from the Tourism Industry Association of Canada would be helpful, but we will not get the opportunity to do that if we are limited to the 10 hours of witnesses who have been put forward already.

The Saskatchewan Cattlemen's Association.... There are a lot of things in this budget around agricultural policies and around the fiscal framework. We have the impact of the fuel taxes and what that's doing. We have the fertilizer taxes this government has been adding and what those are doing to reduce our productivity and make everything more expensive for our farmers who grow and make the food we all need and eat. Everybody wants to shop local and buy Canadian food.

Why can't we hear the Saskatchewan Cattlemen's Association talk about the impacts of the economic policies in this budget on their important industry?

As we all know, the Alberta Cattle Feeders' Association also wants to appear but has not been able to because we have unceremoniously broken the agreement that was made to hear from witnesses for 20 hours. We didn't break it. We want to hear them, but the government has broken that agreement that we would hear witnesses for 20 hours. That's not a lot. It's two hours for the minister and 20 hours for witnesses on a half-trillion dollar a year spending bill. It's $3.1 trillion over the next five years.

These are things that are important to these groups that drive our economy and our food. They understand the impact this budget has had on our food prices. The cost of feed, the cost of growing, the cost of fertilizer, the cost of taxes—all these are compounding and creating this structural 10% annualized food inflation that we have, which is causing people to have to choose between eating, heating and paying their mortgage or rent.

These are things that obviously the government doesn't want to hear witnesses talking about because those witnesses might change the government's mind and might cause some disruption among government members about why we're doing these things that have hurt our folks so much.

Harvest Manitoba is another important association, and the Canadian Canola Growers Association is also very important. They've been subjected to a lot of unfair trade barriers by China's retaliatory stuff in that closed economy that they have against our canola industry, and they've also been impacted in their growing by the fuel standard taxes that everyone is doing in this government, and that they've done in budget after budget. Most of this goes up every year.

The carbon tax is scheduled to go up every year. The two taxes combined, carbon tax one and carbon tax two, combined with the tax on the tax, will add 61¢ a litre to gasoline and fuel. That of course, by its nature, is inflationary and will drive inflation and food costs up more, on top of the government spending that is unrelated to the imposition of these taxes.

Will the government allow those who grow our food to speak about the impacts of this budget and this budget bill? The answer appears to be, “No,” and I could give them an opportunity right now to do a point of order if they'd like to, because I know they're shy.

In terms of that point of order now, MP Beech could easily say, as the parliamentary secretary: “You're right, MP Perkins, and we're going to hear over the next two days another nine hours of witnesses so that we get to the clause-by-clause on Monday and live up to the agreement that we made with the opposition for 20 hours of hearings.” So—

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

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, and responding to that particular point, how can we guarantee that you wouldn't filibuster? The last time we had witnesses you filibustered for 27 hours, if I'm correct, Mr. Chair, which is exactly what put us in this situation in the first place.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

I have Mr. Perkins.

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

I don't think I can take credit for 27 hours of filibustering.

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

That's fair. You were probably at 23 hours.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Beech.

Go ahead, Mr. Perkins.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

You're talking about the global official opposition in that, I assume, MP Beech.

I think it's fair to say that MP Chambers and others on our side would agree that this would stop if you voted for our motion now. I certainly would stop, and I'm sure you would like me to stop.

That's the simple way to have it happen: to say, “Yes, we'll agree to your motion if you agree to stop the filibuster.” I can say that, yes, I'll stop talking on this issue of meeting 20 hours, or 19 hours, of witnesses in total, if the parliamentary secretary would agree to that motion.

The committee can do that on the weekend. I know I'm prepared to do it.

[Sophie Chatel, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

How many motions have the Conservatives sent to the clerk on various points?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

I'll look to the clerk.

[The Clerk]

The motions that have been sent to the clerk's office are confidential, just like any motion submitted by any committee member.

[Sophie Chatel, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

Okay.

With regard to the witnesses listed by Mr. Perkins, I want to mention that it was the Conservatives who prevented all of them from testifying before the committee.

If we vote in favour of the motion, what other motion are they going to introduce to keep up the filibuster? It makes no sense.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mrs. Chatel.

We'll go back to MP Perkins.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Maybe I could be helpful to the member, to help her understand, as I've said, that none of this would have happened if her party had not broken the agreement on the original motion to hear 20 hours of witnesses—

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

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, I'll like to clarify further to Mr. Perkins that the motion itself has actually not been broken. That is false.

You can read the motion. There is nothing in this motion that has been broken, and that is why the chair continues to follow this motion, which was adopted by unanimous consent. Please stop misleading the public by saying things that are false.

This motion was adopted. It's written down. That's the fundamentally frustrating part of it. I said that I wasn't going to fall for this foolishness of the Conservatives misleading people again, so we have to write it down so that everybody is clear on what we agreed to.

We wrote it down. It's in writing and it was agreed to unanimously. I can't help it if MP Lawrence didn't understand what he agreed to on behalf of your party. He is a lawyer. I'm not a lawyer. I have full confidence that he understood every single clause that was in this motion.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Beech.

MP Perkins.

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

Thank you, MP Beech for that.

I don't believe it's false, because there have been only 10 hours of witnesses, and the motion was for 20 hours. The government hasn't agreed to having 20 hours. In fact, it stopped that, so the ability of the committee to hear the whole 20 hours of meetings is patently false. There haven't been 20 hours.