The document comes from the Privy Council Office, December 1990, and it has been carried on, basically, in principle, by successive governments in the relationships they have between the House of Commons, and the Senate, and the public service, and the operation of committees.
It goes on. It says:
Responsible Government:
In our system of government, the powers of the Crown are exercised by Ministers who are in turn answerable to Parliament.
And they are answerable directly to Parliament
Ministers are individually and collectively responsible to the House of Commons for the policies, programs and activities of the Government. They are supported in the exercise of their responsibilities by the public service, whose duty it is to give loyal, professional and non-partisan support to the Government of the day. It is the responsibility of individual public servants to provide advice and information to Ministers, to carry out faithfully the directions given by Ministers, and in so doing to serve the people of Canada. Public servants are accountable to their superiors and ultimately to their Minister for the proper and competent execution of their duties.
Ours is a system of responsible government because the Government must retain the confidence of the House of Commons and because Ministers are responsible to the House for everything that is done under their authority. They are answerable to Parliament and its committees. It is Ministers who decide policy.
As was just stated by my honourable colleague Mr. Moore, it is ministers who will make policy and who are responsible for the administration of it, and they must defend it ultimately before the House, before the committees, and before the people of Canada.
“Accordingly, responsibility for providing information to Parliament and its committees rests with Ministers”--it states that exactly. I'll get to it more in response, but “Officials have no constitutional responsibility to Parliament, nor do they share in that of Ministers”. And this gets right to the point that they definitely should appear before this committee: “They do, however, support Ministers in their relationship with Parliament and to this extent they may be said to assist in the answerability of Ministers to Parliament. ”
So they should be here with ministers to answer questions.
Now, we were talking in this motion about subpoenaing the witnesses; you want to summon the witnesses here. Well,
Under the Standing Orders, committees of the House and Senate are entitled to exercise all or any of the powers delegated to them. These include the right not only to invite witnesses to appear but to summon them to appear, if necessary. They include the right to examine witnesses on oath.
We agree. But I caution you, on the summoning of public servants:
The House and Senate, and their committees, have the power to call (or summon ) whomever they see fit and thus could in theory call officials even against the wishes of a Minister. (However, only the House and Senate themselves can compel witnesses to attend.)
This is very important, this statement here:
Committees, mindful of the principle of ministerial responsibility, usually solicit the testimony of officials by informal invitation rather than by formal summons and do not generally insist on the appearance of particular individuals, leaving it instead to Ministers to determine which officials will speak on their behalf at committee. In the same vein, it is for Ministers to decide which questions they will answer and which questions properly can be answered by officials.
Now, Madam Chair, you have operated as a senior minister under these guidelines of operations, and this has been the standard operation from this House and for committees to follow. All of a sudden, now we want to deviate from that. I'm suggesting....
Madam Chair, we have ministers and senior public servants appearing before not just this committee, but every committee in most cases. They can't just go here, go here, go here, go there; they also have responsibilities and timelines. Our ministers have never refused to appear before this committee. They have willingly appeared before this committee and they are willing to come back before this committee, the ministers and their officials.
So might I suggest--