Government Operations Committee on May 7th, 2012

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

I'm a bit confused because I thought when I asked my question earlier that you said that the business plans and the performance reporting documents came out on the same day as the budget. Now I think you're saying something different. Would you be able to clarify that question on timing?

[Dr. Philip Massolin]

Yes, maybe the confusion rests on the fact that performance measures are contained within two sets of documents: one, the budget document pertinent to our discussion right now; two, in the annual reports, which are essentially the public accounts. Those documents are typically released in June, so that's the different timing. So you have a February-June difference there.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

We have one question from Ron Cannan.

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

Thanks.

We had some witnesses from New Zealand or Australia who said that their committee members submitted their questions in writing to the ministers before they came to committee. Has that ever been done in any of your committees to give the departmental officials an opportunity to answer the questions as well, so they come more prepared and use their three hours more efficiently?

[Shannon Dean]

I don't recall that happening in advance. What often transpires, though, is that near the end of the three hours, members may want to read into the record a number of questions for the minister, and instead of taking up time the minister will undertake to provide responses in writing at a later date.

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

Yes, we do that as well. Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

We have one more question from Bernard Trottier.

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

Thank you.

I want to talk about amendments. You mentioned that the policy field committees can propose amendments that entail reductions in the amounts of the main estimates, but not increases. Is there anything in your standing orders.... Let's say you had a minority parliament and decisions were made to eliminate the estimates all together. Would that trigger a confidence vote under the Westminster system, based on your standing orders?

[Shannon Dean]

We don't have any experience with that kind of situation so I can't comment on that.

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

In a majority legislature, are there any limits to the amount that an estimate can be reduced? I think one of the legislature's representatives we talked to mentioned that there was a 5% limit on the amount that estimates could be reduced.

[Shannon Dean]

They can't be reduced to zero, but they can be reduced to one dollar, in theory.

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

Reduced to one dollar. Okay.

That doesn't result in any kind of confidence vote under your current standing orders?

[Shannon Dean]

Again, we don't have any experience with respect to minority parliaments, so I can't really comment with any expertise on that.

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

Okay, thank you very much.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Thank you, Bernard.

That concludes the questions the committee members had, so we want to thank both of you, Ms. Dean, and Dr. Massolin, for giving your time today as we try to explore the best practices both domestically and internationally. It's been an interesting study, and we certainly will make good use of what you shared with us today.

Thank you again for giving us your time.

I'm going to suspend the meeting briefly while we connect our next witness. In that time I have a bit of committee business we might want to do.

We'll reconvene and discuss one scheduling problem with a witness. Human Resources and Skills Development want to appear before us on May 30, but that's exactly the same time and date that the minister and her department are appearing before her own committee. Obviously, that conflict doesn't work, so we have two options on what to do about it.

One, we could have HRSDC appear on the 28th instead of the 30th, reverse Heritage and bring them on the 30th; or we could drop HRSDC altogether and select another department to invite and study their mains. How do we feel about that?

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

You say she's going to another committee for purposes of estimates?

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Yes, she's going to her own committee.

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

Then it's better to have another department because, otherwise, she'd be examined twice.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Can I ask you to have the clerk do a little research? Is there any committee that's not asking their minister to come to their committee to review estimates? If there's one that isn't, maybe that's the one we should ask.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

We can ask and they—

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

No, they'll never decline coming to their own committee, Linda. It just doesn't happen.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

I beg to differ.

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

Yes, that happens.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Which one?