Thank you.
In November 2015, the new Prime Minister released for cabinet ministers a guidance document titled “Open and Accountable Government” to set out “core principles” and directions regarding the roles and responsibilities of cabinet ministers and individual ministerial responsibilities, like accountability to Parliament. In that document, the Prime Minister stated, “Ministers should place a high priority on...supporting the essential work of [committees]. This includes appearing [at] committees whenever appropriate.”
Minister Lebouthillier has now been the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans for over seven months and has attended the committee once, on October 26, 2023. In that same period, this committee—which the Prime Minister directed the minister to provide priority support to—has been visited by Deputy Minister Gibbons twice, Regional Director General Wentzell three times, and you, as assistant deputy minister, Mr. Burns, on five occasions.
The Prime Minister's guidance to ministers also clearly stated, “Public servants do not share in Ministers' constitutional accountability to Parliament”.
Since February 6, the minister has declined three requests from this committee for appearances, which we passed unanimously with all members' support. We believed it appropriate to hear from the minister herself, because she is supposed to be accountable to this committee and to the Canadians we represent. My office was informed that the minister's office provided the committee clerk with no reasons for the minister's refusal to attend the committee, as we unanimously requested her to on February 6, February 8 and February 13 of this year.
I don't wish to be inhospitable to the officials before us today, but I suspect that in fact you might be thinking the same thing that I am, the same thing the Prime Minister's 2015 guidance stated: “Public servants do not share [the Minister's] accountability to Parliament”.
Every day, our offices hear from Canadian harvesters worried about their livelihoods in coastal communities: Canadians who depend on marine resources like fisheries, Canadians pushed to anger because they are ignored by the minister, as they were by her predecessors—five predecessors, in fact. The whole point of Parliament is democracy, and it should be the opposite of tyranny. I'm starting to wonder what we call a government that tramples on the livelihoods and the communities of the people it is supposed to represent and work for. How can this committee support better decisions and policies from the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans when she won't even show up?
I know that there are fires burning in the minister's portfolio that she was assigned to, but ignoring affected Canadians and their elected representatives only makes things worse. It seems that the minister is trying to evade failures of her ministry by trying to evade accountability and evade the elected representatives of this committee, who do in fact have valuable points to contribute towards solutions.
I want to thank the witnesses for being here and commend you on your unending commitment to being deployed time and time again as human shields for ministers who simply refuse to fulfill their constitutional accountability to Parliament.
Mr. Burns, I was astonished earlier when I heard you say in response to a question about what quota numbers had been requested by the harvesters.... This meeting and study are specifically on redfish allocation and quotas, and you stated that you weren't able to provide that to the committee. You came to this meeting knowing that it was what was going to be discussed. How do you explain not having those answers?