Foreign Affairs Committee on April 9th, 2014

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

No. I fundamentally disagree with what your analysis is. It's dead wrong. It's not about saving money; it's about your doing the job Canadians pay you to do. You're not doing your job on this.

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

We have an honest difference of opinion, but—

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

No, we don't.

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

We do, actually. I expected you would ask this question and I have some numbers for you.

We have put grants and contributions into four categories. These are all preliminary results, and I'm happy to share them with you and members of the committee.

For me, under grants and contributions expenditures, what preliminary results show is that we spent approximately 96% of the budget. The frozen allotment for the crisis pool quick release mechanism is more than ninety—

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

—for this year? I'm sorry to interrupt. Do you mean for this year?

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

It's for 2013-14, last year. I'll give you this in a chart. I have a chart here.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

You can hand it in, because I only have a minute.

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

But I want to read it out, because it's good. You'll be happy to—

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Well, no, you can hand it in, because I have a question, and you can follow up—

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

No, no. You asked me a question, and I want.... I'll just go very quickly.

For the frozen allotment to the crisis pool, we spent over 97%; for restricted funds to assess contributions, we spent over 99.4%; and of non-restricted grants and contributions we spent more than 99%. I have a little chart here—

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

For the global budget, you would admit that the numbers I gave you are correct.

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

No. I'll give you my little chart. It has the facts.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Well, your little chart is not what we get as parliamentarians, so we have a problem in terms of information sharing.

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Well, that's why I brought it for you.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Well, they should be in front of us as estimates, Minister Baird. I love your pie charts, but as members of Parliament—

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

You've never seen it.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

I know. We're supposed to get the estimates in front of us so that we can actually hold you to account.

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

But these are the estimates of what we have spent. You're talking about my underspending.

Can I give this to him?

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

You can't come here and hand out pie charts and say that you've done your job, when the numbers you're giving to us aren't up to date.

So let me ask you—

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

No, no, but you made a comment. I want to respond. In fairness—

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

—one more thing, Minister Baird. I'll have to come back with another math question for you, so get your pencil sharpener—

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Mr. Dewar. I'm sorry, but that's all the time we have. We're going to—

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

But could I make a quick response?

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

If I can't have an answer in the time.... My time allotted stays the same.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Is this is in response to his question?