Evidence of meeting #49 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was costs.
A recording is available from Parliament.
As an Individual
The expenditure management system that calls on the costing guide, and I haven't got it in front of me, requires Treasury Board and Finance to advise cabinet on the costs. In so doing, really Finance and Treasury Board get departments to do the costing.
Liberal
Scott Brison Liberal Kings—Hants, NS
Would it be unheard of for a bill to go to cabinet without this full costing?
As an Individual
I can't say that it's never happened, but I would say that all of Privy Council Office, Treasury Board, and Finance would have lain down in the trenches to insist that the costing be done and provided to ministers.
Liberal
Scott Brison Liberal Kings—Hants, NS
If cabinet made a decision without that costing, that would have been in violation of the Treasury Board's guide to costing.
As an Individual
It would, and to the expenditure management system guide as well. That's true, but it doesn't mean that in some emergencies it wouldn't be done.
Liberal
Scott Brison Liberal Kings—Hants, NS
You've established without doubt that cabinet would have had all this information, unless it broke Treasury Board guidelines, at the time of the development of legislation. You've also established that once the legislation is provided to Parliament, cabinet confidence cannot be used by the government to deny Parliament the information on the costing.
As an Individual
I would say cabinet should have had that information, and that once the legislation was tabled, Parliament should have had the notional costing.
Liberal
Scott Brison Liberal Kings—Hants, NS
Mr. Cappe, there are costs to this legislation also on provincial governments. In the same Treasury Board guideline, it says that sound costing cannot be performed in isolation. It says that effective consultation and sound judgment are always required and that consultation with the stakeholders, which may sometimes be extensive, is a fundamental costing principle.
We were told that these programs have provincial costs. Should the provinces have been made aware of those costs during the cabinet deliberations, and should they be made fully aware of those costs by the government?
As an Individual
I think that in the process of preparing information for cabinet, provinces should have been consulted according to the expenditure management system process. Those costs would have been known, and they should have been brought to ministers' attention as a federal-provincial-territorial relations issue.
Liberal
Scott Brison Liberal Kings—Hants, NS
Mr. Cappe, just to review what you've told us, you've told us that if the government didn't do the costing for cabinet, it broke these Treasury Board guidelines. You also told us that if it followed Treasury Board guidelines and did that costing, but then failed to provide that information to Parliament, it actually wasn't respecting Parliament's right and requirement to have that information.
As an Individual
I'm not going to disagree with you, but I'd rather put it in my own words. The Speaker found that.
Conservative
Conservative
Tom Lukiwski Conservative Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK
Thank you, Mr. Cappe, for being here. It's good to meet you.
Let me just recap. You said you were Clerk of the Privy Council from 1999 to 2002. Did I hear you correctly?
Conservative
Tom Lukiwski Conservative Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK
Okay.
As Clerk of the Privy Council, I assume you would have handled cabinet confidences and top secret documents on a regular basis in your role. Would that be correct?
Conservative
Tom Lukiwski Conservative Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK
Can you tell me how many times in that period of time you had to provide cabinet confidence documents to either the House or to a committee that had requested them because of a motion that was passed, say, at the committee level?
Conservative
Tom Lukiwski Conservative Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK
Okay.
You can offer an opinion if you wish, but part of that, I am sure, is because during that period of time we were dealing with a majority government. We heard Mr. Walsh talk about that as well: if you have the numbers, great; if you don't, you don't. This means that in a majority government, the government of the day has the majority on committees. In other words, it has the majority number of members at committee.
It would be very difficult, I would suggest, in a majority government regime, for any motion such as the one we see before us today to actually pass at the committee level. Would you agree with that assessment?
As an Individual
Again, I'd rather use my own words. What we heard before was Mr. Walsh ducking, so let's be clear, and I'm going to do the same.
The fact is that with respect to cabinet confidences, I come back to this principle that it is not the Queen's public council, but the Queen's Privy Council. It is the government and the cabinet, as the Governor in Council, that is actually discussing and debating what should be done, and if you have that as not private and allow it to be open, you will undermine the candour and credibility of the conversation that takes place inside. Parliament has recognized this over time and it has passed legislation, both in the Canada Evidence Act and in the Access to Information Act, that says there is an exclusion--and an absolute exclusion--for those documents.
By the way, again, Madame Legault kept talking about documents. I want to talk about the conversations, the exchanges. It's all of those things that have to be protected if you want good government. Good government requires openness, as someone earlier said, but good government also requires secrecy.
Conservative
Tom Lukiwski Conservative Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK
Thank you.
What our government has done is provide information that flowed out of cabinet, and that information is actually pertinent to the discussion we have before us, on which the opposition motion, a point of privilege motion, stated that they did not have enough information.
What I'm getting at here is that you're saying the government was perfectly within its rights to refuse cabinet documents to be provided, but it also afforded the opposition members the opportunity to get the information contained from cabinet confidence documents or cabinet discussions by providing the information that was tabled in the House back in February. Do you think that's the appropriate method for governments now and in future to handle situations like this?
As an Individual
Again, I would rather use my own words. I would not necessarily say that what happened on February 17 was or was not adequate, but I would say that the approach you have described is correct: you don't reveal the cabinet confidence, but the information that was presented and that went into the decision-making is now relevant to Parliament and should be disclosed. We heard both the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Public Safety say that the binders do not contain cabinet confidences, but they do contain the information you need. I'm not passing judgment on whether that's the right information, but that's what they said, and I think that's the right approach.
