Government Operations Committee on Feb. 10th, 2026

[Pauline Rochefort, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

In my riding—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

No, we're way past our time, Ms. Rochefort.

[Pauline Rochefort, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Algoma was so happy. You see the impact in communities.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Ms. Rochefort, we allowed him an extra two minutes, to be kind.

[Pauline Rochefort, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Yes, and I know there's a snowstorm outside.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

What does the snowstorm have to do with it? Fix the snowstorm.

We're done. Thank you for joining us.

I have a couple of quick questions, if you don't mind.

Mr. Guzman, are you subject to the one-year cooling-off period that Governor in Council appointments are subject to?

[Doug Guzman]

Do you mean on the other side, when I leave?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Yes.

[Doug Guzman]

I believe so.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Are you not sure? Would you respond back to us?

[Doug Guzman]

Yes, sure.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

We asked the PCO, and they said to ask Mr. Guzman. Maybe you can get back to us.

Ms. Harty and Secretary Fuhr—

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

I have a point of order.

I don't understand why we're done already.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

It's because we're finishing at 5:30, having done our rounds.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

There's no further round.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

That's correct.

I know you were talking about how we're going to hit 2% in the years ahead. Could you provide to us just how much of that is due to the reclassification of an unarmed, civilian Coast Guard? Could you get back to us? Again, there's no hurry.

Just talking about reaching the 5% for the costs, I'm looking at the PBO report. The response was.... They talk about how, from 2% to 3.5%, that's already existing spending across all levels of government. I want you to get back to us with how much of that, at all levels of government and ancillary components, they expect to be met under current planned spending. It's already existing spending at all levels of government. How much of that is actually going to be on defence equipment? The point is, we hear so much—and we've heard it today—and everyone is excited that we're ramping up, but we're hitting the 2% because we've reclassified, by and large, the Coast Guard. Apparently, from the 2% to 3.5%, it's already existing spending across all levels of government.

I'm not looking for an answer right now, because there's a snowstorm and you have seven minutes left, but if you could, get back to us when you have the time.

Thank you again for being with us today. I appreciate your time.

Colleagues, quickly, before we break, our analysts are going to provide a short summary of what we've heard so far regarding our recent study on the budget. They'll have that out during the break week. We agreed, then, that we would put our recommendations to the other group, and we're asking for those by the 20th at noon. We'll have a report out. The analysts will have their suggestions out on what we've heard, and the suggestions, and then we'll provide recommendations and we'll try to hash it out. That's by the 20th at noon, please. We'll send out a reminder next week.

Thanks, everyone. We are adjourned.