Evidence of meeting #68 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was funding.
A video is available from Parliament.
5:50 p.m.
Conservative
5:50 p.m.
Liberal
Anthony Housefather Liberal Mount Royal, QC
Thanks, Mr. Chair.
I'm glad my friend Mr. Barrett takes such notice of my words. All I said was that my preference would be to eventually have a Canadian head of state. It's not that I think we can amend the Constitution now, or that it should be a priority, but I would rather have a Canadian head of state one day. It's just my view.
When it comes to attacking the institutions of the monarchy and the Governor General, this reduction in budget with no real explanation is to me a very insensitive way of treating the current Governor General, because essentially it's an attack on her. It's an attack on her spending. It's an attack on how she has been doing things.
Again, I believe this committee is able to have a proper report that doesn't arbitrarily take away funds when we don't understand why. I was a mayor and a councillor for many years. We would never look at a budget and not have any idea of the line breakdown of a budget or have a member show up at the last minute at a meeting and ask for monies to be taken away without having socialized it with other council members. We've done no study of the Governor General's budget specifically. I don't recall one question being asked about this amount—today even— and I just don't think it's the right way to go about it. We should finish our report properly.
I'm perfectly prepared to say again in the report that the Governor General shouldn't have a clothing allowance and that the salary of the Governor General should generally cover clothing. I believe we should make recommendations related to all travel of the Governor General and go through all of the things and the points we set out in our study and properly line them up in a report, which, again, we never seem to get to, because different members bring up motions constantly to have new studies about everything, and we never finish anything.
In the end, Mr. Chair, again, I don't think this is the right way to go about this type of motion, in my personal view.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
5:55 p.m.
NDP
Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC
I have a couple of things.
First, I know that Mr. Barrett doesn't want me to go back 10 years, in that he wasn't here, but his leader was here. In fact, he was in cabinet when they doubled the pay to the Governor General, so yes, I think it is relevant in that we have a conversation about how we do things.
I'm feeling a little blindsided about this too. It's like Mr. Housefather said. You cut a certain amount and there are no details about it—whether this is going to be about travel, about staff or about clothing or whatever expenses come in.
I'm open to the conversation. I want to have this conversation. Like Mr. Housefather, I also sat in local government. Even at the local government level, you actually look at things. You do a report with your staff, you come back and then you make decisions, instead of arbitrarily deciding on this certain amount of money that could not do what we actually want it to do.
If we want to cut in certain areas, then let's do that, but let's do it right. We have a study we're doing that we're not doing—instead, we're constantly reacting.
We have eight studies, Mr. Chair. We have not completed a single study in two years—
5:55 p.m.
Conservative
5:55 p.m.
NDP
Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC
It's like a double-double-double, Mr. Chair. I know Conservatives understand that language.
5:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
I'm going to adjourn because we have to go and vote.
I will bring up the fact that, if you look at past OGGOs, you'll see that your previous colleagues did very similar in reducing the estimates.... That is our role.
Anyway, we are adjourned. I'm disappointed that we did not get to a vote. That is our job in this committee, but that is life.
We are adjourning so we can go and vote. The estimates will be deemed reported tomorrow.