Evidence of meeting #90 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 information.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
I just want to make two brief comments.
I hadn't mentioned the accrued versus cash, but I'm in favour of accrued. I'm convinced by the Auditor General's arguments and also experts like Pete DeVries, who used to work for Finance. It's just a statement.
When we did our report we were unanimous on this vote by program. I think most of us agree that it was the most important recommendation. I said earlier we might be on the cusp of success, but having heard Mike Wallace and Mr. Matthews, I'm starting to think we're on the cusp of failure because Mike is downplaying the importance of voting by program, but we may still be okay because he's no longer a committee member.
12:50 p.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
12:50 p.m.
NDP
Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
I just wanted to make one final comment.
It's important to keep in perspective that the premise of this committee's report is to enhance the capacity of members of Parliament to scrutinize spending. When we're making our comments, it's all very fine to say that this would be better for Treasury Board, and that isn't it the role of the assistant deputies, directors, and so forth to manage the funds appropriately and report up to the ministers, but that's not what our report was about. Our report was about what the mandate of our committee is, and that is to assist members of Parliament in scrutinizing spending and to make sure the estimates process remains open, transparent, and effective.
There are still some questions up in the air. Treasury Board has made some recommendations. Most of those decisions seem to be appropriate to retaining control by the government and within the bureaucracy, and to keeping costs down. When I look at the hundreds of millions of dollars increasingly spent on outside consultants, I see the spending argument as a fairly weak one.
That's my final comment.
12:50 p.m.
NDP
The Chair NDP Pat Martin
Thank you, Linda.
On that note, we're going to thank Mr. Matthews and the panellists for all the work they've done in response to our request. On behalf of the minister, it's been very useful and very helpful. I know a great deal of work went into it. So thank you for your time and your presentation. I'm sure we'll be asking to speak to you again once we have given this some more consideration. Thank you, Mr. Matthews, and panel.
We're going to suspend the meeting very briefly and ask the witnesses and anyone else to leave the room as we'll be going in camera for committee planning.
[Proceedings continue in camera]