Government Operations Committee on June 9th, 2011

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Marc-Olivier Girard]

Good morning, everyone. This is the first committee meeting of this 41^st Parliament. Isn't that wonderful?

I see a quorum.

We can now proceed to the election of the chair pursuant to the Standing Orders. I am now ready to receive any motions you might have in this regard.

Mr. Wallace.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

I nominate Pat Martin from the New Democratic Party for the chairmanship.

[The Clerk]

Mr. Wallace has just nominated Mr. Pat Martin for the position of chair of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates.

Are there any further nominations?

Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt this motion?

(Motion agreed to)

Mr. Pat Martin is duly elected chair of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates.

Congratulations.

With the consent of the committee, I would now like to preside over the election of the first vice-chair of this committee. The candidate for this position must be a candidate from the

government party.

Are there any nominations?

Mr. Blanchette, the floor is yours.

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

I nominate Mr. Mike Wallace.

[The Clerk]

It has been moved by Mr. Blanchette that Mr. Mike Wallace be elected first vice-chair.

Are there any other nominations?

Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt this motion?

(Motion agreed to)

[The Clerk]

I declare Mr. Mike Wallace duly elected first vice-chair of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear!

[The Clerk]

We will now proceed to the election of the second vice-chair. I would just like to remind you that, pursuant to the Standing Orders, the candidate shall be a member of an opposition party other than the official opposition party.

Are there any motions?

Mr. Wallace, you have the floor.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Alexandre, are you going to do it?

Go ahead.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

It is my pleasure to move that Mr. John McCallum be elected second vice-chair.

[The Clerk]

Mr. Boulerice moves that Mr. McCallum be elected to the position.

Is it the pleasure of this committee to adopt this motion?

(Motion agreed to)

Mr. McCallum is duly elected second vice-chair of this committee.

Now I would like to invite the chair, Mr. Martin, to take his seat.

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

It looks as though this election is rigged, because they already have a name tag there that says “Chair/Président”.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Marc-Olivier, for conducting our election.

We should note that we're very well served by one of the most experienced and well-respected clerks in the House of Commons, Marc-Olivier. It will be a pleasure having him guide us through the next number of years.

It's a great honour for me to be elected as the chair. Just as a point of curiosity, I was a member of the founding committee when this committee was first struck. I think that was in 1998, when the chairman was Reg Alcock. We played a role in putting together the scope and the mandate of this new committee. This is the newest committee in the House of Commons, with an interesting and broad mandate. I don't think anybody has even tested the boundaries of the mandate of this committee. The scope and the scale of it are virtually whatever the members decide within the parameters of this committee.

There are a bunch of routine issues to get out of the way when we first establish a new committee. As a start, I think it might be worthwhile, because we have lots of time, to just go around the table and introduce ourselves. There are some committee members who are brand new to Parliament, never mind brand new to committees.

So maybe take 30 seconds or something to introduce yourself and what your background was prior to getting elected. Or if you're a veteran MP, perhaps tell us when you were elected and what your committee work has been.

I'll start. I'm Pat Martin, MP for Winnipeg Centre. I was on the government operations committee as the vice-chair in the previous Parliament.

Nycole, would you like to introduce yourself?

[Nycole Turmel, NDP, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Thank you, Pat.

My name is Nycole Turmel. I am the member for Hull—Aylmer. I was previously president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada.

Thank you.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Good morning, everyone. My name is Alexandre Boulerice. I am the new member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie and the party's Treasury Board critic. Until recently, I was a communications advisor for the Canadian Union of Public Employees.

Thank you.

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

My name is Denis Blanchette. I am the member for Louis-Hébert. Over the past 27 years, I have worked in computers for the Quebec government.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

My name is John McCallum, member of Parliament for Markham—Unionville.

I've had an interesting evolution in my 11 years in politics, from member of the first party and member of the Chrétien-Martin cabinet to member of the second party, and now to member of the third party. So we'll see how it goes.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

I am Bernard Trottier, new member of Parliament for Etobicoke—Lakeshore.

Prior to getting elected, I was a business consultant for 20 years, all in the private sector.

I am bilingual. I am Franco-Albertan by birth, and now I am Franco-Ontarian.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

My name is Scott Armstrong. I'm a member of Parliament who first was elected in the byelection of 2009.

Previous to that, I had 18 years of experience as a professional educator at the elementary, secondary, and post-secondary levels.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Bonjour. Good morning. My name is Ron Cannan, member of Parliament for Kelowna—Lake Country in the beautiful Okanagan Valley.

I now have the opportunity to serve for a third term. I was on the government operations committee for the last part of the last session, and on a variety of committees. I spent nine years on city council and have a business background.

It will be a pleasure to work with you.

Thank you.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Good morning. I am Peter Braid, member of Parliament for Kitchener—Waterloo.

I was first elected in 2008. Prior to being elected, I had both business and federal government experience.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Good morning. I'm Kelly Block. I'm from Saskatoon, and Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar is my riding. It was dubbed as “the one to watch” in 2008 and 2011.

Prior to that, I was mayor of a small community in Saskatchewan and was involved in the health care system.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

I'm Mike Wallace. I'm the member of Parliament for Burlington, which is in Ontario just west of Toronto.

This is my seventeenth year of elected office, five years federally and thirteen municipally--I'm in my eighteenth year--for the City of Burlington. I was a municipal councillor before that.

I'm here for my third term, so I've been around a little bit. I was on the finance committee prior to this position I have now.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

I am Jacques Gourde, the member for Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, a constituency in Quebec. I was elected in 2006. I was parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources, parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Public Works and Government Services, for Official Languages and for the Economic Development Agency for the Regions of Quebec, and so on. Before that, I was a farmer in my region.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Excellent. Thank you, everyone.

We could be together for quite some time. This will be a four-year Parliament, so we look forward to working with all of you. There are a number of interesting studies that we might get into.

There are mandatory orders of business. As a new committee is constituted, we have to get approval on a number of routine motions. Then, if it's the will of the committee....

I've spoken to Mike on the government side, and we've agreed that because it's a relatively short meeting, it would be worthwhile to spend a few minutes talking about future business, or at least the business that will obviously be before this committee, which is the estimates, and scheduling some meetings to do that.

This is the government operations and estimates committee, and the people who are new to this committee will know that it's an integral part of our government system that the public accounts committee studies spending after the fact. The government operations and estimates committee has the opportunity to look at proposed spending and to study this and to comment on it.

A lot of us have lamented over many years that we don't really spend a great deal of time on that stage. There is lots of criticism and lots of scrutiny and oversight on the spending the government has done, with positive and negative comment on that, but there is very little comment at the front end, which seems foolish when we are dealing with hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of government spending. I am hoping this committee will perhaps pay more attention to that.

I know that Mike has become somewhat of an expert on the estimates process, and we have our researchers and our clerk to guide us through some of that as well if we wanted to get into a more in-depth study of that stage.

First things first, though. We do have these routine motions, so let's get them out of the way and then we can open it up to talking about what business the committee will actually undertake.

I need a motion, I guess.

You all have the list of routine motions in front of you?

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

I'll move the motion on the analysts.