Evidence of meeting #34 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was main.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
Thank you.
Welcome to the meeting.
I thought your letter on our estimates study was good and will be helpful. But that's not my question.
My question is, when and in what form will we know the details of the expenditure reductions that will be contained in the budget?
Conservative
Tony Clement Conservative Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON
We've already indicated—the finance minister has already indicated—that there will be some detail in the budget. But as you know, the budget document.... You've been around here long enough to know that the budget document is a broad document. You really start to drill down in the budget implementation acts and the subsequent estimates and things like that.
So it will be an ongoing process.
Liberal
John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
Will it be in the spring? There's a budget implementation bill in the spring and also one in the fall.
Liberal
Conservative
Tony Clement Conservative Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON
Here's my pledge to you. You'll get the information when it is available and in a form that can be presented to Parliament. We'll be abiding by all of the Standing Orders. We'll be abiding by the usual conventions.
For instance, in what we have used for strategic review in the last year or two, we have given information in accordance with that.
Liberal
John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
What I'm saying is that.... I have a quote from you saying: “My position is that we have an obligation to provide Parliament with timely and accurate information.”
You talk about budgets. We did a similar exercise in 2004-05, and right in Budget 2005 we had $11 billion of savings over five years, which is perhaps a similar order of magnitude to your exercise. On a website, on budget day, Canadians saw every program cut in dollars and a description of what it was. This was on budget day.
I don't think the technology has regressed in the last seven years, so I'm saying to you that if we had that information on budget day, committees could examine the cuts in the departments relevant to them, and it would provide information to those unfortunate civil servants who are about to lose their jobs.
Liberal
John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
But if we have to wait until the fall to get this information, it will be so old, and those who are losing their jobs won't have that information, and it will just dribble out through leaks to the media.
I don't understand why we have to wait until the fall, when seven years ago we were able to get that information out on budget day.
Conservative
Tony Clement Conservative Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON
I don't want to be churlish, but I have reviewed the budget documents you refer to from the Martin years, when he was finance minister. Yes, there was some information in a table, a page, or a chart. There wasn't as much information there as you may recall in hindsight.
Conservative
Tony Clement Conservative Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON
Our commitment to you is that when we have detailed information that is accurate, we will, of course, post that in the normal course, as we do for estimates and budget implementation acts and other requirements we have in place.
Liberal
John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
Well, what you said was wrong. Martin was the Prime Minister, not the finance minister, and we had 33 pages—
Conservative
Liberal
John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
No, I'm talking about 2005. We had about 33 pages of documents, and for each department, each item that was to be cut was described and the dollars were assigned. People had all of that information on budget day. So had we not had an election and lost, committees could have called the relevant officials and analyzed those cuts. And those who would have suffered from them would have been informed instead of waiting.
What is it? Is it six or seven months after budget day when people will know, if then?
Conservative
Tony Clement Conservative Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON
I think our obligation is to provide accurate information both to those individuals who are affected and to Canadian citizens. What I'm telling you is that we will provide that accurate information when we have it. It will be pursuant to a budget implementation act being passed. It will be pursuant to notices we give to affected individuals. It will be pursuant to the obligation to post that information to Parliament, which we take very seriously, and we will abide by it. So maybe we're saying the same thing. I don't know.
Liberal
John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
No, we're not. I'm saying that in our information, each one of the cuts was described in detail on budget day. You're saying that Canadians will have to wait six to seven months—
Conservative
Tony Clement Conservative Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON
No, I think you're putting a few words in my mouth there.
Conservative
Tony Clement Conservative Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON
First of all, there is a budget implementation act in the spring, John. You keep talking about the fall.
Liberal
John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
Well, that's why I asked you which one, and you said both.
Conservative
Tony Clement Conservative Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON
I'm saying that there might be certain details available in the spring. They will be provided to Parliament. There will be certain details that will not be formalized until the fall. They will be in the fall BIA. And I think that's fair.
Liberal
John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
I don't understand why the technology has deteriorated in seven years so that you can't do it on budget day.