Government Operations Committee on April 17th, 2023

[The Clerk]

The motion would read:

That, in regard to the motion adopted on January 18, 2023, for the committee to undertake a study regarding the federal government consulting contracts awarded to McKinsey & Company, the Parliamentary Budget Officer provide the total cost to date and estimated costs to complete parts (c) and (d) of the motion, broken down by cost type and by each department, agency, or Crown Corporation, and that this information be provided by 5:00 p.m. EDT on May 5, 2023.

Is that correct?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Are we fine with the amendment?

(Amendment agreed to)

(Motion as amended agreed to)

We have a few more minutes.

Mrs. Block, did you want...?

We have the outstanding motion. Before I hand it over to Mrs. Block, this is a motion that was passed in the public accounts committee from the government side, if I recall correctly, that just directs the departments. Sitting in public accounts, it's very helpful in getting information back from the departments.

I'll turn it over to Mrs. Block.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you for that reminder.

Colleagues, you may recall that I introduced this at one of our committee meetings, and it's been on notice for some time. It simply reads the following—perhaps you already have a copy of it:

That, when undertakings are given by witnesses at committee meetings to provide further answers to questions or follow up information, the witnesses be given three weeks to provide the committee with a written response, if a response is not received within the specified time that the committee invite the appropriate accounting officer to appear before the committee to explain why the information has not been provided in the time requested.

As Mr. McCauley pointed out, I was chairing the public accounts committee when they adopted this motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm sorry. Go ahead, Ms. Vignola.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Could the clerk send us the text of the motion, so that we may be able to read it?

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

We'll send it out.

We had sent it out previously about three weeks ago, but we'll send it out again right now.

I'll just add my commentary to this. When we do have officials with us, and we ask them to get back to us, they're not being forced to. This takes the onus off our clerk for tracking them down, or for you to keep track of these requests and ask the clerk to track them down.

I think I can say, Mrs. Block, it works very well in public accounts.

Are we okay to move forward with this? Colleagues, are we in agreement?

(Motion agreed to)

Wonderful. Thank you very much.

I will thank colleagues again for the wonderful change of tone afterwards. I know it's very difficult. I'm just as guilty of that in the past and sometimes present, so I appreciate the change of tone.

Unless there's anything else, we're adjourned.