Government Operations Committee on May 29th, 2023

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Mr. Chair, I see that there are bells. Maybe we can forgo the suspension and just carry on.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

We probably can, if you don't mind. It's relatively informal.

If I have consent, we will continue until five minutes before the vote's due to start.

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Wonderful. We're going to go right to the votes.

Does the committee wish to vote on the main estimates now?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

As I mentioned, and we received consent before, we will group the departments together.

CANADA POST CORPORATION

Vote 1—Payments to the Corporation for special purposes..........$22,210,000

(Vote 1 agreed to on division)

CANADA SCHOOL OF PUBLIC SERVICE

Vote 1—Program expenditures..........$63,502,781

(Vote 1 agreed to on division)

CANADIAN INTERGOVERNMENTAL CONFERENCE SECRETARIAT

Vote 1—Program expenditures..........$5,638,744

(Vote 1 agreed to on division)

CANADIAN TRANSPORTATION ACCIDENT INVESTIGATION AND SAFETY BOARD

Vote 1—Program expenditures..........$31,469,976

(Vote 1 agreed to on division)

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKS AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES

Vote 1—Operating expenditures..........$2,633,766,246

Vote 5—Capital expenditures..........$1,559,955,319

(Votes 1 and 5 agreed to on division)

NATIONAL CAPITAL COMMISSION

Vote 1—Payments to the Commission for operating expenditures..........$69,725,156

Vote 5—Payments to the Commission for capital expenditures..........$25,040,049

(Votes 1 and 5 agreed to on division)

OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR GENERAL'S SECRETARY

Vote 1—Program expenditures..........$20,677,200

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

Mr. Chair, I will be moving a motion to reduce the funding allocated to the office of the Governor General.

I will just explain. Canadians are currently facing an inflation crisis, which has been fuelled by this government's out of control spending. Canadians are struggling to keep up with the rising cost of living because of this Liberal inflationary crisis and the Liberal carbon tax. With a second tax soon to be added, it will become even harder for them to keep up.

With record levels of inflation, home prices doubling and mortgage rates and rental prices skyrocketing, the cost of living is getting out of control. As I said earlier today, 1.5 million Canadians are visiting food banks on a monthly basis, and one in five Canadians is skipping meals because food is too expensive.

Just this week, Chair, the food bank in Saskatoon held a food drive as the usage is higher than it's ever been, with 24,000 people. That's about the seating capacity of Madison Square Garden accessing food monthly.

Given this current situation, reports of irresponsible spending by the office of the Governor General have caused outrage. The Governor General charged taxpayers for extravagant in-flight catering when she travelled to the Middle East. At this very committee, we heard about hundreds of dollars for lemon and lime slices. It's an absurd cost that taxpayers had to foot the bill for.

The Governor General has shown a lack of respect for taxpayers and the Canadians she is meant to represent, and the job with which she is tasked has become a means to expense an extravagant lifestyle. The Governor General has billed almost $40,000 in clothing expenses to taxpayers since taking office. As my colleague, the member for Edmonton West, stated, MPs pay for their own tuxedos. I would expect that any business-style clothing, shoes, t-shirts—anything—should be paid for with their own very well compensated salary.

The Governor General is paid an annual salary of $351,000, and this salary has been increased by $48,000—almost $49,000—over the last five years. The Governor General's extravagance is obviously something that Canadians find unacceptable, and we, as members of Parliament, must act to curtail this outrageous extravagance.

As the said, “People expect us to manage their money with transparency. That obviously includes members and senators, the government and the Governor General.”

That is why I would like to move that vote 1 under Office of the Governor General's Secretary in the amount of $20,677,200, less the amount of $5,169,300 granted in interim supply, be reduced by $136,986.31 to $15,370,913.69.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, Mrs. Block.

Just to clarify, there's $20,677,200 and $5,169,300 was already granted in the interim supply.

Go ahead, Mr. Johns.

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

First, I appreciate my colleague for bringing forward this motion. We all have similar concerns, which is why we're doing a study on it.

We're at eight studies, I think, or are we at nine? Maybe. It feels like it.

My concern is that we're now getting motions here at committee that should be in the study so that we can make really good recommendations, and I think some of those recommendations should certainly be about how the Governor General's spending taxpayers' dollars.

My concern is now we're getting a lot of motions pre-empting the very studies we're doing. I'm not saying that I'm opposed to them at all. In fact, I'd like to learn more.

My colleague who moved this motion was in government. Stephen Harper appointed the Right Honourable David Johnston not once, but twice, and didn't do this cut. I'd like to know why that didn't happen under the Conservative government. Why is it this number? Where did this arbitrary number come from? I'd like to understand that.

Shouldn't this be something that is included in the study so that we can make some good policy decisions and recommendations moving forward? That's something that I'd like to hear from my colleague, whom I respect a lot. I just want some answers on that.

I appreciate her bringing this forward.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Ms. Vignola, you have the floor.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I completely agree. No one here will doubt that, if it were up to me, we would establish a republic where there would be no governor general or connection to the monarchy. However, the Constitution seems to be sacrosanct.

My colleague can confirm or deny my calculations, but the amount of $136,986.31 seems to correspond, to the penny, to the total cost of meals on board the Middle East flight and clothing. Is that correct?

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

That's correct.

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

So I was able to calculate that in 30 seconds.

In this case, we do indeed agree with reducing the vote, since we consider this to be abuse. When a person earns $340,000 or $350,000 a year, they are able to pay for $40,000 in clothing, if they insist on it. We do not earn that salary and we pay for our own clothing. There was a time when there were six of us at home, with a total income of $70,000, and we still paid for our clothing. So for someone earning $350,000, I don't think that's a problem.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you.

Can we vote, colleagues?

I'm sorry, Mr. Housefather; I didn't see you there.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think we all have our own views about the Governor General, and I don't think that my feeling in the long run is that much different from Ms. Vignola's in terms of who I would rather see as the head of government in Canada. Right now, we have a Governor General. We have a monarchy. We have people in these positions, and there is a budget allocated for these positions. The fact that we would cut some undetermined amount or the amount Mrs. Block has laid out in her motion doesn't mean that the money won't be used for clothes. The $142,000 or whatever the amount is could be used to cut staff positions. It could be used for anything else.

I don't know that there are specific line items in the budget we received. I don't believe that they are related to the Governor General. We're not just cutting a clothing line item. This is simply a proposal to arbitrarily cut an amount in the budget without having studied this properly to understand what that money is to be used for specifically. Would it mean that the Governor General would do one less trip in the year but that all the other trips would be the same amount of spending as previously, as opposed to cutting the spending on all trips in the way the committee is suggesting in our report?

What we should be doing is properly finishing our Governor General's report, making recommendations that, for as long as we have a Governor General, this is the way she should travel. I would support a line in the report saying it shouldn't be used for clothing allowances. I don't think that arbitrarily chopping up figures in a budget without having looked at it from a line item point of view and cutting line items is the way to go.

Given that we didn't even discuss this before the meeting and that Mrs. Block chose not to socialize this motion with Liberal members of this committee before the meeting, which could have been done very easily, I certainly won't be supporting this motion.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, Mr. Housefather.

Mr. Johns, you have the floor.

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

I have another question that I'm hoping Mrs. Block can help me with.

In 2012 the Governor General was paid $137,939 a year, and that salary doubled in the next year to $270,602. While we're having discussions about cutting the Governor General's budget, why did we double the pay to the Governor General in that period of time?

Was it the transfer, or is there some explanation for that?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Mrs. Block is next.

Something that happened 10 years ago is not relevant to today's estimates that we're voting on.

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

We're making decisions about cutting an increase, and I'd like to know how these decisions were made.

The average was around $125,000 for several years, and then suddenly the Conservative government decided to double David Johnston's salary—he was the Governor General for 2012 to 2013—by $130,000, doubling his pay. That's absurd too.

I think we should get back to the study and figure out what we're doing. I think we're probably a lot more on the same page here than we're not in figuring out what our plan is, but we need to do the study. Let's get a study done, one study. Maybe we can just finish this study.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

We have Mrs. Block and then Mr. Kusmierczyk.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

This is the purpose of the government operations and estimates committee. Its purpose is to be studying the mains, reviewing them and then making a decision. That is our job, and we don't need a study to determine whether or not we believe that the estimates should be reduced. That's really the only thing we can do. We can't increase. We can keep the budget the same, or we can reduce it.

We've done the study. We're at the point of looking at recommendations. We already know what has been spent in an extravagant way. I'm just hoping that my motion gets passed by this committee, because our job is to hold departments accountable and this is one way we can do it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Go ahead, Mr. Kusmierczyk.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm in full agreement with the argument that was made by Mr. Johns, my colleague. Even though we share certain sentiments, obviously, about the cost overruns, and though we have significant concerns and questions about some of the expenditures of the Governor General, at the end of the day, we're putting the cart before the horse here.

We need to do a study. We need to complete the conclusions and the recommendations of the study that's before us. That study is only half finished. We still have work to do. We haven't come up with all of the recommendations. We haven't approved it. There is much to be discussed.

Again, I just heard a couple of seconds ago my colleague across the way saying that we don't need a study. It's the same argument that underlies the notion that we don't need a briefing on national security to understand national security. I mean, this is how you govern. You get briefings, you look at facts, you conduct studies and you make an informed decision based on the information that you've gathered and the debates that you've held.

I don't quite understand coming in with a motion—again, as my colleague said—without even giving the Liberal side a heads-up that this motion was coming forward. That's not collaboration. That's not working together. That's not trying to get to the bottom of things. That's not trying to make an informed decision.

Again, for that matter, I fully support what Mr. Johns has brought forward. He has once again brought forward a pragmatic, responsible suggestion, which is to complete the study first, and then talk about the next steps in terms of what rules and frameworks need to change for the operation of the Governor General's office. I will be voting against.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Mr. Barrett.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Thanks, Chair.

There are a couple of things that I'll cover off.

I disagree respectfully with my colleague from the Bloc with respect to the office of Governor General and our transitioning to a republic, but I'm pleased that she seems to have found some consensus with her colleague from Mount Royal, who seems to be looking for that transition to happen. I'm quite pleased with the established practices that we have and am proud to be part of the Commonwealth, and God save the King.

That being said, I think the Governor General could save some money. It's important that we pay attention to the amount, with respect to Mr. Housefather's comments, that the Governor General didn't spend. To my reading, there were hundreds of thousands of dollars, more than three-quarters of a million dollars, in lapsed funding from the Governor General's office. We have the ability to make a reduction of $136,986.31 because that's an amount that was identified, through the work of this committee, as excess and luxuries that are incompatible with the expectations of Canadians. We don't need to produce a study on that.

While with all due respect I appreciate the history lesson from Mr. Johns on what happened more than 10 years ago, we've had a Liberal government for eight years. If, by voting against this motion, the NDP wants to effectively support luxury and excess for the Governor General in having an extra $136,986.31 for champagne and caviar, that's certainly their prerogative, but I wasn't here in 2012. I'm here in 2023. I'm going to vote to reduce the budget by $136,986.31, because what we've seen from her office is not consistent with what's acceptable when Canadians are facing the hardships they're facing.