Evidence of meeting #27 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was information.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
I call the question. Quickly, we have a minute left. We have to pass this.
Liberal
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
This is the first that I've heard of the request for this information, so I would ask for specifics on what exactly we as a committee might learn from these documents or what is hoped to be learned from these documents.
In my office I receive and have received The Fiscal Monitor, which highlights the spending for the last number of months. I understand from the website that on July 20, the results of April and May 2009 will be released to members of Parliament and the information will be public. Now, I know that The Fiscal Monitor is a compilation of the information the member is specifically asking for, but I'm just a little bit uncertain as to what exactly we might learn from the information that is being requested that would be different from what's provided in The Fiscal Monitor. That's my first question.
My second point is that The Fiscal Monitor and all of these documents that the member talks about are really, in my understanding, the purview of the public accounts committee. It is responsible to undertake the review of the expenditures. It has done this in the past and continues to look at those documents. I really don't feel that it's the purview of this committee, unless I understand a little bit more fully as to what exactly we as a committee are hoping to learn from these documents and how it relates to our purview as a committee.
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
Well, I think maybe first I would get the member's clarification. If in fact I'm looking for an order as to whether or not this falls into our purview, then I may ask you, the clerk, and the analyst to rule on it.
Liberal
Martha Hall Findlay Liberal Willowdale, ON
Well, I thank my honourable colleague for his questions and concerns. I will address them, I hope, in order.
One, this is information that is not in The Fiscal Monitor in its entirety. The central financial management reporting system data, fiscal year expenditures, and lapses by department are not there.
Secondly, to have the final report by July, given the repeated concerns we have raised about the spending of this government and the timing of the spending--particularly given that it's well after the House will have risen--is simply not timely enough.
Thirdly, in terms of the committee, we have had before our committee the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities. We have had before our committee the President of the Treasury Board. The fact that the public accounts committee may have an interest in this as well does not preclude this committee's having a significant interest in this information. This is government operations and estimates, after all, and our job as parliamentarians, one of our most significant jobs, is in fact oversight of spending.
We are looking for this information. As I said in my introduction, it should be public information, so I'm not sure why we're not able to get this. Iit begs the question if there is something being hidden.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Derek Lee
On the issue of mandate of the committee, I'm of the view, subject to any arguments that members want to put forward, that this falls squarely within our mandate, which is government expenditures or lapses dealing with the current and the immediately past fiscal year. It has to do with how much money is in the till.
I'm quite sure that's within our mandate. It's being requested by a department.
On the question about what CFMRS is all about, our researcher points out a document here used by Parliament. It's from the government, and it says that the CFMRS
...provides a central repository of government-wide financial information which can be used by Parliament, central agencies and others without requiring departments and agencies to respond to numerous individual requests for information.
On the face of it, it appears that the CFMRS is available to the general public. A committee order from us requesting information from it would seem to be pretty much standard. If there are little problems associated with this request or this order, then we can perhaps work those out, but I don't see a problem with the thing going forward. If this expenditure is monitored or if there is a document that's produced regularly, and if it exists, why wouldn't we just be able to have a copy here today so that we wouldn't have to ask for it?
I see that we have two parts, but we might have the second part.
Continuing debate on this, we have Mr. Warkentin.
Conservative
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
Are we going to leave this for the next meeting?
Let's just ask the chair what the procedure is now in terms of being over our time.
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Derek Lee
The chair does too. I'm just not sure if it would be in order to put a vote after our....
I've checked with the clerk, and we're not obliged to adjourn at any particular time. We could move for a....
Conservative
Rob Anders Conservative Calgary West, AB
I'm going to speak here.
There are timing issues all over this thing. You have a deadline here of June 11, which is on Thursday. That's a lot of documents for Thursday. That's a bit of a joke.
Second, in terms of the quorum for this thing, we have members walking in after the actual deadline of the committee at 1 p.m.
Why don't we have this dealt with as the first bit of business at the next meeting? This is ridiculous.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Derek Lee
All right. I always prefer that these things go through smoothly and in a rational way.
Ms. Hall Findlay, is it realistic to expect that the data required for June 11 can be brought forward within the day or two that remains? Do you believe that's realistic?
Liberal
Martha Hall Findlay Liberal Willowdale, ON
My understanding is that this information has already been compiled, so it's not a question of somebody preparing data. These data are already available, but have simply not been released. The short answer is yes, June 11 is appropriate.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Derek Lee
I'm going to ask this as a point of information: do you have any information, Mr. Warkentin?
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
I don't want to speak on behalf of the government, but the information I have received is that this information is not ready to be released. It's not in any form.
The information being requested as it pertains to the central financial management reporting system is really a number of reports that have a number of numbers that are compiled for The Fiscal Monitor, so the information is all there in the compiled form. In terms of the information by department and across every department, my understanding--and this is just my understanding--is that it would take a lot longer to pull that out of every single department and that it would take forever. It certainly wouldn't happen in a day. That's my understanding. I have no information as to the inner workings of that.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Derek Lee
I don't want to be part of the debate, but just in terms of a point of information here, if it were the case that the department could not deliver on time, it would be in a position to explain to us that it could not deliver on time. So it's not the end of the world. It's not even notice of the end of the world. It's just a fact of life.
In the event the information was not forthcoming and couldn't be provided, for whatever logistical reasons that may exist, that can be explained to the committee, and the committee would make other arrangements. The committee is not going to be unreasonable about this. So I don't see anything grossly unreasonable in the motion. I accept that from the point of view of some members we may be moving a little bit too quickly on this, but the vote that intervened in our meeting did significantly impair our ability to deal with this.
If members want to move that we conclude debate and go to the vote on it, we can. I'll just leave it to the members.
Okay, Madame Bourgeois is moving we vote on this.
Mr. Warkentin.
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
Just preceding the vote, I'd like to offer for the public record that prior to coming back and bringing the meeting back to order, many of my colleagues were under the understanding that if the votes took us past the 12:40 mark, they weren't to return, that there would not be an expectation that the meeting would proceed. So I'll just put that on the public record.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Derek Lee
And for the public record, the chair might have mumbled a few words that we could probably squeak in another good 20 minutes if we came back after the vote. So I forgive members if in fact they were in any way misled.
Under the Standing Orders, I am required to suspend, which I did, and I indicated to members in the chamber and whoever I could make contact with that we were coming back. So all those things considered, this is a no-fault ambulatory walk to a vote, and if there are any loose ends, we'll deal with them at the next meeting.
We'll end the debate. I'll take a vote on this now.
Yes, Mr. Jean.