Government Operations Committee on Oct. 5th, 2017

[Ian McCowan]

As I tried to explain a minute ago, it does a couple of things. We have a certain set of legal arrangements by which you can make adjustments in terms of powers, duties, functions, and delegations if you're a minister of state. What this statute does is it allows for similar powers, duties, and functions to be transferred to this group of ministers in terms of responsibilities, use of services of department facilities, appropriate delegations, etc. It basically allows for a series of shifts to this group of ministers, which we would otherwise have to do in a different way if they were ministers of state. The only other change is for the other two points I raised, but that's the major thing in terms of powers, duties, and functions.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

In the act it allows it, but it doesn't say that they will. Is that correct?

[Ian McCowan]

I apologize—

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

They will have the responsibility. It allows for them to have that, but it doesn't say that they will, so right until they do, they don't have those responsibilities of budgeting, or as deputy ministers, they don't have the responsibilities in terms of legislative authority.

[Ian McCowan]

There are a lot of good questions in there, so let me try to answer them all.

In terms of the way it's structured with respect to ministers, first of all they get a mandate letter that sets out the things that the Prime Minister expects them to do. In the current structure of the ministry, where we have a number of individuals who are ministers of state, there was a series of internal administrative adjustments made, orders in council in a few instances, in terms of trying to attempt to empower and give life to what ministers needed to do, what was in their mandate letter. With the passing of this legislation, because they're now full ministers, it will be necessary to do a similar series of considerations in the areas that I just went through to make sure that people have the necessary services, facilities, delegations, etc., so they can continue to do what's in their mandate letter. Is that clear?

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

In a way. When I looked at one of the mandate letters, it doesn't spell out their increased responsibilities in terms of the deputy minister or in terms of carrying the budget for a given department. I didn't see that in the mandate letter.

[Ian McCowan]

The mandate letters are the central articulation of the expectations of the Prime Minister in terms of the responsibilities for each minister, and certainly there's nothing in this statute that touches on what's in the mandate letters.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

That's right. As you said, it allows, but it doesn't direct.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

We're out of time.

Mr. Blaikie, you have seven minutes.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you very much.

Part of the project around Bill C-24 has been to try to narrow down why it is that this legislation is necessary and why it's important for Parliament to spend time on it. We heard earlier that one of those reasons is to bring legislation into harmony with the current practice of government.

An earlier line of questioning I was pursing was why we're doing that in the case of regional economic development ministers but not in the case of the different kinds of ministers. The government is not using ministers of state, so presumably, if you wanted the legislation to go here, you would get rid of it, particularly so if there's a principled objection to having ministers of state. This seems to be the case in the debate about whether you have a one-tier ministry or a two-tier ministry.

That's not clear, but I don't expect you to answer that. It's more of a comment than a question.

The other aspect of the legislation seems to be creating equality of ministers, and I've been trying to hone in on what the relevant sense of equality is because it's not exactly clear to me, if I'm being generous. I think there is a superficial answer, which is that it's nice to be called “minister” as opposed to “minister of state”, and maybe get taken more seriously.

In any event, what we did hear from the government House leader was that, with this legislation, the five ministries that we've been concerned about largely in the debate—although there's a sixth now because the Minister of Indigenous Services is currently a minister of state—are ministers to assist. One of the things that Bill C-24 will accomplish is that there will no longer be ministers who assist other ministers. Is that true? Is that one of the goals of Bill C-24, to eliminate scenarios where other ministers are characterized as assisting full ministers?

[Ian McCowan]

I'll ask Ms. Boyle to add to that.

I think historically the “minister of state” styling has been in the zone of assisting a minister. What the government tried to do when the ministry was stood up, though, right from the get-go, was establish, through the mandate letters, a specific series of responsibilities for each minister and minister of state, styled as a minister, and transfer some of the powers, duties, and authorities to those specific individuals. What we are basically seeing here is a formalization of what was done with the existing tool kit, if you will, similar to what other governments have done.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

So the goal is to have ministers not be ministers who are assisting other ministers. They would be ministers in their own right, with their own areas of responsibility, who would not have to defer to other ministers, because then there would be a hierarchy. If one minister had to go to another minister for sign-off, you'd have a hierarchy of ministers or a two-tiered ministry. Is that not true?

[Ian McCowan]

My understanding is that the goal is to pursue the one-tier cabinet philosophy and to ensure that each minister is equipped with all the tools.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

What we want to avoid is a hierarchy of ministers, where some ministers would have to go to other ministers to get sign-off. Is that the case?

[Ian McCowan]

I'm not sure that I'm following your question. I think the objective is to ensure that each minister has whatever tools he or she needs to do what's in the mandate letter.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Say I'm a minister of X, but I'm in a position where I have to go to the minister of Y to get a sign-off for my initiative. I do the work with the resources allocated to me within a particular department, but before I can go ahead with something, there's another minister who if he or she says no, it's trumped. Then you would have a hierarchy of ministers, and it's the goal of the government to eliminate that hierarchy of ministers. Is that a right interpretation of the government's argument with respect to Bill C-24?

[Ian McCowan]

I'm not sure I can speak on behalf of the government as a whole in terms of the answer to your question.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

I would need someone from government to ask that question to, for instance the House leader.

[Ian McCowan]

What I would say to you, and I'm doing my best to answer your question, is the—

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

I appreciate that. I don't mean any disrespect.

[Ian McCowan]

Starting with the mandate letter, the objective is to try to give all the powers, duties, authorities, and delegations, you name it, to the individual. In terms of sign-offs, and it depends on what the sign-off is on, if somebody has something within his or her unique purview as a minister of state, he or she can sign off on that.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

What I'm trying to understand is this. In the structure of Global Affairs, you have the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who is the minister who “holds office during pleasure and has the management and direction of the Department in Canada and abroad.”

Then there are additional ministers for Global Affairs.

“A Minister for International Trade is to be appointed by commission...to hold office during pleasure and to assist the Minister in carrying out his or her responsibilities relating to international trade.”

“A Minister for International Development...hold[s] office during pleasure”, and the job is “to assist the Minister in carrying out his or her responsibilities relating to international development, poverty reduction and humanitarian assistance.”

A further section says, “A minister appointed under section 3 or 4”, which is to say, those two sub-ministries, “is to act with the concurrence of the Minister”, who is the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

There is clearly a hierarchy within Global Affairs. The Minister of Foreign Affairs is the minister in charge. The other two ministers act to assist that minister but need the sign-off of that minister to go ahead with things. If the goal of Bill C-24 is to eliminate a hierarchy within cabinet, should Bill C-24 also not change the structure of Global Affairs so that the Minister of International Trade and the minister of international aid are independent ministers who don't require the sign-off of the Minister of Foreign affairs for the work they do?

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

I'll let Mr. McCowan respond, but I'm not sure whether, being a dedicated public servant, he's in a position to answer a question about how the government and this cabinet want to operate.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

I would note that the House leader was quite ready to have him answer similar questions earlier, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

I'm certain that Mr. McCowan can answer for himself. I'm just saying that I'm not sure whether he's in a position to comment on the Prime Minister's prerogative.