Government Operations Committee on April 1st, 2008

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Yes, he does, and he requires unanimous consent, and I'm saying no.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

You need unanimous consent.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Oh, okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Well, if you want to vote on this, it's totally up to you.

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

I'd like to move on to Charlie's motion with regard to Gomery.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Well....

Mr. Angus.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Chair, I'm jumping the gun; I was so excited to talk about Gomery.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

I certainly feel we need to get on to business, like the public appointments commission and Gomery and what we're dealing with there. I was actually holding off on that today, because I wanted to check a few more facts. So I'm ready to go with that on Thursday.

Again, in terms of this motion, I certainly understand the desire to go on to other business. I don't know if there's much more we can do on this at committee; I think we've heard what we needed to hear. But what makes me uncomfortable about this is if we're just shutting the door, and whether or not we want to look at that evidence and to present even a one-page report—

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

I think it all depends on what we get from our requests. That's my feeling.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

But I think we certainly need to be looking at getting on track with all the issues we have before us, because we need to continue to move forward.

So I'm not looking to be hostile on this. I think we are close to moving on, but I'm wary about just shutting the door now before I've seen any of that. I can't—

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

I'm not moving an amendment to the Constitution Act. I'm just moving a motion before the committee so that we can give the clerk some certainty in terms of scheduling from now on forward, through this coming three-week block, then the gap, then the next three-week block. We are masters of our own agenda, and if we want to consider something in the future.... But I think this is getting pretty circular with regard to the light rail project this morning.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

We haven't scheduled any other meetings on this issue at this time. Obviously, if the committee wants more meetings, that's up to the committee. At this point, there's nothing scheduled.

There has been a request of the minister, and we'll wait to get the report of the minister. There may not be another meeting, even without this motion. But that's up to you; if you want us to vote on this motion, we will.

All those in favour of the committee dismissing any further consideration of the Ottawa light rail issue?

(Motion negatived)

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Now we're on to committee business.

Did you wish to move your notice of motion? You had given me notice that you would not be moving it today. But we do have a few minutes, if you wish to go with that.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

If we are going to future business—because I certainly think we need to get on a schedule to make sure we are planning—the one thing I would also recommend is that we move away from making motions that lock in our time. We need to get back to a planning framework. I think it would probably bring down a bit of the temperature if we actually had a plan we were trying to follow in general.

From Justice Gomery's appearance the other day, which I thought was very interesting for all of us, I feel there are basically three areas that fall to our committee. One is that we're asking the government to embark on a formal study of Justice John Gomery's report. That's what he's requested from the House, and we're the only committee that's looked at it, so I think that would be a reasonable thing to bring forward.

We should immediately take steps to enact section 228 of the Federal Accountability Act that calls for the establishment of a public appointments commission, because that was one of the key elements in the report, and Justice Gomery certainly believes it is very crucial.

And we should immediately move to implement Justice Gomery's recommendation 15 by bringing into force the provisions of the Lobbyists Registration Act, which are not yet in force.

Again, those are areas, I believe, that are under the purview of what we try to do at this committee. Again, it's something we're going to bring as a recommendation to the government; we're not going to fill this up with 30 more witnesses. It's fairly straightforward.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Mr. Kramp.

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

While I appreciate Charlie's intent in bringing this forward, I have some difficulty with some of the statements in here, quite frankly. I'll just sift down through them.

The first one in the first paragraph states that he received no acknowledgement of appreciation. Well, I can accept the statement that was made, but that really doesn't have any bearing on the operations of government, on the actual efficiency and efficacy of what we're trying to do here. So I really think that is irrelevant at this particular point, from a point of administration.

Particularly in paragraph 3, it says that no meaningful action has been taken on a number of important recommendations. Well, at the same time he acknowledges that 14 of the 19 have been implemented. So that's a direct contradiction in that statement. I think that statement is just absolutely wrong. There's no doubt that there are still some recommendations not implemented that Justice Gomery would like to see, and the government readily acknowledges that. But there's also a significant number of them that have been, so that statement is just factually wrong.

Then of course the next one, statement 4, expresses sincere thanks. I couldn't agree more. I think that's a great statement in there. I think it's a recognition of the appreciation of all the work of Justice Gomery's committee and his study. I think that's absolutely reasonable.

I think that really just takes away from what we're trying to do here. If Mr. Angus wishes to follow a different course of action on this, I think I'd certainly be amenable to some further discussion.

But I'd take a look at the other comments as well, the comments with recommendations 1, 2, and 3. I could talk at great length on the public appointments commission. Of course, I sat on the committee when that was thwarted for political reasons, but I don't want to go back into that and rehash that one at this particular point.

With recommendation 3, it's my understanding that that's already in process. We've advanced well along the way.

There are a lot of recommendations that require a lot of work. As Mr. Thibault would know, and Madam Chair, from having served in cabinet positions, implementing a whole series of recommendations isn't done overnight. There's been significant movement made on a number of these recommendations. If the committee feels there's a particular recommendation that requires more or immediate work, I think that's fair ball to bring before this committee to evaluate and discuss, but to throw a blank cheque over the whole thing as being not accepted, or not in the form of a recommendation, or no acquiescence from the government on this, I think is a bit wrong and misleading.

And particularly with the last one, with the Lobbyists Registration Act, it's my understanding, and of course I'm not totally familiar—I'm not the minister involved with this—but there is progress being made on that, as there has been on a number of issues that came forward with the 14 recommendations that were included in the Federal Accountability Act.

So progress has definitely been made. I certainly have great appreciation for Justice Gomery for all of the work he encountered on his study.

On this motion, I think the intent is there but there are just too many either errors or omissions in it, with the greatest respect, Charlie.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Mr. Angus.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you.

I'm very intrigued by my colleague's response. I guess I'll have to find out whether the issue here is concern over editorial content—and I'm always wary of editorial content—or actually moving forward with this motion.

If the issue is fundamentally about making statements that are perhaps politicized, I'd be more than willing to augment it to say:

Justice John Gomery appeared before the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates on March 13, 2008.

Then we would strike the third and fourth line of that first paragraph and move right to the second paragraph:

Justice Gomery further testified that the Federal Accountability Act took steps in the right direction on accountability and transparency, but that it was predominantly developed before his report was finished and therefore cannot be considered a response to his recommendations.

That was his position. Then it would continue:

Justice Gomery testified that no meaningful action....

That third paragraph might bother somebody. I don't mind. That's your side of the House versus our side of the House in how we interpret it. If it means moving forward, I would certainly strike that. It's neither here nor there.

So we would be delivering something more fact-based. He came and this is what he said. We want to thank him as a committee for his work, because someone in government should do that, and we're taking it upon ourselves.

That leads me to the fundamental issue of the three key recommendations we're asking the government to study and report back on. They can choose to do that in their own time.

If my colleague's concern is on the Lobbyists Registration Act, which is not yet in force but is moving ahead, that shouldn't pose any problem to the government because it will be completed.

The public appointments commission was a commitment. Justice Gomery made it clear that he felt it should move ahead.

So if we can strike some of the language in the preamble and move forward with that, I don't think it should present any problem to anyone on the government side. So I'm interested to see if I can get support on that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Mr. Angus, can I go over the changes you've made on your motion?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Sure.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

You say it would read that the committee present the following report to the House:

Justice John Gomery appeared before the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates on March 13, 2008, testifying that the Federal Accountability Act took steps in the right direction on accountability and transparency, but that it was predominantly developed before his report was finished and therefore cannot be considered a response to his recommendations.

Then you skip the next two lines and continue:

The Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates expresses the sincere thanks of this Committee and all Canadians to Justice Gomery for his work done on behalf of ordinary Canadians from coast to coast to coast to improve the accountability and transparency of the federal government.

Then there are three recommendations, and they remain essentially unchanged.

Mr. Kramp.

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

Madam Chair, I don't have too much difficulty with where we're moving on this. I'm prepared to move forward. I think we're both in the same spirit on this. Taking out paragraph 3 is solidly judgmental at this point, so I'm comfortable with that.

I would ask for one further consideration, and then I think we can really move forward on this and bring forward the estimates. Once again it's judgmental. In paragraph 2, I'm fine with the exception “and therefore cannot be considered a response to his recommendations”. There's a wide variety of opinion on that. If we can remove that portion of it but leave everything else in there, I'll be in favour of moving forward with this.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

I just want to clarify. You're saying, “but that it was predominantly developed before his report was finished”.

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

Yes, he said that and it's a fair statement.