Government Operations Committee on March 8th, 2023

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Good afternoon, everyone.

I call the meeting to order. Welcome to meeting number 55 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, a.k.a. the mighty OGGO.

For today's meeting we are doing the hybrid format, as usual.

Pursuant to the order of reference adopted by the House of Commons on February 15, 2023, the committee is meeting for its study of the supplementary estimates (C), 2022-23: vote 1c under Department of Public Works and Government Services, vote 1c under Privy Council Office, vote 1c under Public Service Commission, and votes 1c, 10c and 30c under Treasury Board Secretariat.

As everyone is aware, we are missing a minister. I understand she is in the House for a bit, so I am proposing, with everyone's agreement, that we switch the order and start with the officials from the department. We will have no opening statement until the minister shows up.

We will go right to Ms. Kusie for six minutes.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you to my colleagues for being here today.

Let me begin with the motion I presented in a notice last week. That does not mean that we have to vote on the motion now, but I think it would be a good idea for me to read it out.

The motion is:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(1)(a), the committee:

1. Send for all receipts and invoices in the possession of the Office of the Prime Minister, the Privy Council Office, and any other implicated government departments associated with the September 2022 trip to the United Kingdom by the Prime Minister of Canada, including for all individuals accompanying the Prime Minister;

a. That these documents be submitted in both redacted and unredacted form to the clerk of the committee in both official languages no later than Monday, March 20, 2023, at 12:00 p.m. and that the clerk be instructed to forward the unredacted version to members of the committee;

b. That these documents be published on the committee’s website immediately following the redaction of all personal information in the aforementioned documents by the Office of Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel;

2. Send for an unredacted copy of the completed access to information request A-2022-02366 from the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development;

a. That this document be submitted to the clerk of the committee in both official languages within 24 hours of the adoption of this motion and be distributed to members of the committee, and;

b. That this document be published on the committee’s website immediately following its distribution to committee members.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, Ms. Kusie.

This is one that was put on notice a couple of days ago, so it is in order. It was a continuation of the one we were discussing last week.

Is there debate on that?

Ms. Kusie.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Thank you very much.

Many times in this committee as well as in the House we have asked for documents in an unredacted form. They have not arrived or appeared as such in many cases. Canadians have a right to have this information regarding this trip which the Prime Minister and his colleagues took in September 2022.

As such, I submitted a motion previously, but I am resubmitting it upon the advisement of the clerk with more specific direction and instruction to receive the information, which I and I believe all members of this committee and Canadians would like, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, Ms. Kusie.

Mr. Johns and then Mr. Jowhari.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

First, I actually really like the motion because it gets us a look at what amounts are being spent on travel, on trips such as this. Certainly it was a grave circumstance that brought the Prime Minister to the U.K.

I'm an MP from British Columbia and as someone who had the lowest travel expenses for both me and my family out of all B.C. MPs in the last reporting period from 2015 to 2019, this is a big issue for me. In fact, I work really hard to keep my costs low, and I replaced two Conservative MPs who were always in the top five for British Columbia and Canada.

I think it's interesting to hear Conservatives bring forward motions like this.

I do want to talk about prime ministers' trips. Prime Minister Harper spent a million dollars on his Middle East trip, back when he was the prime minister, and $65,000 for a Keystone XL advertising trip to New York.

It says here it included coffee service of $6,600 and $3.4 million for an Arctic trip. Between him and Governor General David Johnston, they spent $4 million travelling on jets over three years. When he went to the World Economic Forum he spent $636,585—pretty close to Prime Minister Trudeau's $678,000.

He defended Senator Wallin's budget of $350,000 for travel. That's a lot, when mine was $25,000 in a year to travel all the way from Vancouver Island to here 20 times.

We know that the former justice minister took a helicopter ride that cost the taxpayers a lot of money.

I think that if we're going to look at this, I want some comparables. I think it's good for us, in support of this motion, to add a trip by the previous prime minister so we get a good look.

Prime Minister Harper went to South Africa to pay tribute to Nelson Mandela, who was a hero to many of us. I'm glad he went to represent Canada, but I would like to have the same analysis done of Prime Minister Harper's trip to South Africa to get an idea of what this out-of-control travel spending looks like between prime ministers. I think it's important that we don't just look at the trip by current prime minister to the Queen's funeral, but we also look at other really important trips that we have sent our prime minister on.

I think we should also look at another trip where Prime Minister Harper took CEOs to China on the taxpayers' dime.

I won't move my amendment yet. I think I want to hear from other members of the committee, but I do want to highlight the out-of-control travel expenses that have been taking place in our country. I'd like to hear from other committee members before I move my amendment, to ensure that we get a full perspective of not just the Prime Minister's recent trip on the Queen's death. I can only identify one other trip that Prime Minister Harper went on, which was for Nelson Mandela, but I think we should apply the same principles and examine both trips equally so that we can see what different prime ministers are doing in terms of spending. I think that would be a fair and reasonable thing to ask. If we're going to support this motion, I can't see why Conservatives or Liberals would be afraid to look at that trip fully as well.

I'll let other members speak before I move that, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Mr. Jowhari.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First of all, our government and our team fully support any type of study that brings clarity and transparency to any type of expenditure by any official. I would say that right off the bat. We welcome consideration of a broader scope when we do this study, number one.

Number two, the premise on which we started this meeting was to hear from our witnesses. We have witnesses here today and supplementary estimates (C) that we need to review. The premise that we agreed on to start the meeting, reversing the order of the committee business and starting with the officials here, was to be able to get to some questions.

I'd like to move a dilatory motion that we move this part of the debate—which I welcome very much—into the later part of the committee business. If we must have a discussion to make sure that part of the committee business is in camera or in public, I wouldn't have any problem with that. My request is that could we please move this part of the debate to the committee business?

Also, I am missing two colleagues who, based on the whip's instructions, were staying back to acknowledge one of our colleagues who has served Canada for over 14 years.

If the committee members would like to consider this dilatory motion to move the debate on this motion—which is in order by the way—to the committee business part of the meeting, then we could have a dialogue going back and forth on whether it should be held in public or in camera.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Our clerk does not believe it's a dilatory motion, because it has a condition attached to it. But I'm sure we could, as we've done in the past, just seek the permission of the committee.

I'll go to Mrs. Kusie first, and then we can get back to that.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Originally, I was going to ask for the Liberals' opinion on this. I feel we should just hash it out now. I really don't feel it's going to have any significant impact, similar to the Canadian elections, on the outcome of the vote that a couple of people are not here. I think we should just move forward. I think we should just get it done.

If we can move to voting on the amendment and then voting on the motion, Chair, that would be my preferred method of using the time. I know that we also have a lot of items to get through in the committee business portion. As well, when the minister comes, I think everyone agrees that we would like the full hour here.

I feel that further debate really isn't significant to determining the outcome of the debate, so I would really just suggest that we continue.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Go ahead, Mr. Johns.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Chair, I'm happy to move my amendment, then, and we can go into discussion on the amendment.

[Joanne Thompson, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Sorry, Mr. Chair. I was hoping to speak.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

I move that we expand the motion to include basically all of the language in here, but after the words “with the September 2022 trip to the United Kingdom by the Prime Minister of Canada, including for all individuals accompanying the Prime Minister”, I would add that we also include all expenses of Prime Minister Harper's trip to South Africa to honour the late Nelson Mandela in December 2013 and Prime Minister Harper's trip to Beijing in 2009.

That's all I would add. It would make it easy for this motion to include those other two trips. I hope that all of my colleagues would be wanting to see that comparison with those two trips. We don't have any understanding of what those costs were—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Mr. Johns, can I interrupt for a second? Can I get you to just read that back again for our clerk to follow along?

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Yes. It reads as follows: “1. Send for all receipts and invoices in the possession of the Office of the Prime Minister, the Privy Council Office, and any other implicated government departments associated with the September 2022 trip to the United Kingdom by the Prime Minister of Canada, including for all individuals accompanying the Prime Minister; and for Prime Minister Harper's trip in December 2013 to honour the late Nelson Mandela and Prime Minister Harper's 2009 trip to China that included CEOs.”

That would be it. Both (a) and (b) are fine, and paragraph 2 is fine. I don't have any changes to make to that at all.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Just bear with me. The clerk has asked me to suspend for about 30 seconds so that she can catch up on something....

We're back, folks.

Ms. Thompson, go ahead.

[Joanne Thompson, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you.

I certainly feel that oversight and transparency are incredibly important. I don't question that at all. What I am concerned about is really the number of studies that we have before us.

The McKinsey study was one that was noted to be incredibly important. We're in the middle of this process. We had another layer to the study, which I absolutely agree with, that includes other consulting groups and really allows for that comparison and expands the scope of the original McKinsey study. Plus, we have an outsourcing study, with the work that we were already carrying on shipbuilding, which, as you've certainly mentioned many times, is of significant financial interest for Canadians. We also have the GG study.

The amount of documentation that's required for us to do this work is significant. My concern with adding another study that requires in-depth documentation is that it would be adding—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm sorry. I'm going to interrupt quickly.

It's not a study; it's just a request for documents. It will not be studied in committee.

[Joanne Thompson, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

That's fair enough, but it's still documentation.

Let's work with what we have on the table. Let's move through at least a significant number of the items before us and then add to our work list. I think we have layers of documents that we need to review. Realistically, adding more documents at this time is not going to move our agenda forward. I think it's adding an unnecessary burden at this moment on the staff.

While I think it's incredibly important to look at this, I think that we can put this on the list of things we need to look at as we go forward. Let's go back and focus on the work that we've said is a priority and ensure that we spend the time reviewing the documents. There's quite a number of them. Let's do a good job on that before we take anything else on.

Certainly, transparency and accountability for all Canadians are incredibly important, and I would never suggest that we don't look into them, but I think we need to pay attention to the items that we have before us.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I have Mr. Johns and then Mrs. Vignola.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

I was going to say that this isn't a study, as you highlighted, Mr. Chair. I think it's fine.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Go ahead, Mrs. Vignola. No.

Seeing no speakers, we can vote on it.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

I'm sorry, Mr. Chair. The minister is here. We can proceed with hearing witnesses.

I'll reiterate that if I have to, I'll properly move this time a dilatory motion to adjourn the debate on this. I don't want to do that. We agreed that we can have that discussion during the in camera session, but if not, I'll move the dilatory motion to adjourn debate.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

We have a motion to adjourn.

We'll start a vote.

I'm sorry. I don't think we can recognize someone who's not wearing the proper headset.