Government Operations Committee on March 22nd, 2021

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Normally that would be the case—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Yes, usually the chair, when he gets the report, would ask if we want to make it public, so I'm going to give you that opportunity to do so.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

I'm sorry. Just for clarification, you are asking that the documents we called for from March 17 would be made public. Is that correct?

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

That's right. I think it's a tradition.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you.

Is there any debate on that motion?

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

I'm sorry, Mr. Chair.

Are these the documents that Treasury Board sent to us last week with regard to Mr. McCauley?

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

That's right.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Yes...and to be put on our website as well I'm assuming is your meaning, Mr. McCauley.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Yes, sir.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you.

Is there any further debate on that? I'm not seeing any hands up.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Chair, in terms of a point of clarification, are we in committee business now, or are we still having our witnesses before us?

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

It's still the witnesses.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

My understanding would be that this would be a motion that has been put forward to the committee versus whether we were going to bring it up in committee....

The fact is that it's a motion on the floor that would be debated here.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Okay. We're good.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Thanks.

On that issue, I'd like to put through a matter-at-hand motion, please, from the floor in consideration of the fact that TBS has submitted documents to this committee that were not what the committee asked for.

The committee asked very specifically that the Treasury Board Secretariat provide the committee with “all monthly COVID-19 expenditures reports and COVID-19 spending data”. For some reason, TBS has decided not to provide that information agreed to by the committee.

I would like to put forward a motion that the committee recall officials from the Treasury Board Secretariat to discuss the documents they provided regarding COVID-19 spending, and that the meeting be held no later than the third week of April.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

That's April 23, more specifically.

Specifically—and I'll be very brief on this—I know that Treasury Board collects information, and I am happy to read the email that Mr. Huppé sent out in March 2020, an entire year ago. It says, “TBS efforts to collect estimated expenditures related to Canada’s COVID-19 Economic Response Plan have been done on an exceptional basis, and these efforts have not been audited.”

It also says that TBS “has reached out to organizations to gather spending data related to COVID-19 on a monthly basis, recognizing that the ability to effectively track expenditures attributable to the COVID-19 response”.

Also in that same email, Treasury Board sent out an Excel spreadsheet to every single chief financial officer, asking for incremental expenditures, such as salary, overtime, operations—i.e., purchases—travel, grants, contributions, stat expenses and non-incremental expenditures, and asking for comments and current monthly expenditures.

The reason I bring this up is that it is very clear that Treasury Board reached out to all the CFOs in March 2020 to provide this information to Treasury Board. Treasury Board has this information—that's very clear—yet Treasury Board has refused the request from this committee to provide such information.

I would like to have Treasury Board please attend and explain to the Canadian people, the public, taxpayers and Parliament why it decided to ignore or defy a request from the committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. McCauley.

Mr. Drouin.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Chair, we scheduled an hour of committee business. I'm wondering if we can excuse our witnesses so we don't waste their time. I know they took the time to come before us, so if Mr. McCauley wants to present any motion, I would suggest that we move to committee business because now we're not even discussing the matter at hand.

Obviously I understand that we are not against inviting Treasury Board officials to testify with regard to the documentation they have provided us, and I know that if our committee is not happy with their particular format, I'm sure this is something we can discuss with the Treasury Board officials.

For everybody's sake, it would probably be best if we move to committee business, as we are now half an hour over our allotted time with our witnesses.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Drouin.

With that said, we are debating it at this point. I assume that perhaps, Mr. Drouin, you're offering that Mr. Weiler not have any further questions.

As I see no more hands up, the motion is on the floor. I would ask for unanimous consent to approve this.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

For clarity, Mr. Chair, are you moving on the motion, or are you moving on going in camera?

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

No, it's strictly on the motion.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Perfect. Thank you. I am happy to keep it moving.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

I'm sorry, Mr. Chair. Can the clerk reread the motion before we say yea or nay?