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.
March 16th, 2011 / 3:10 p.m.
NDP
3:10 p.m.
As an Individual
Exactly.
There's one other thing on the point Mr. Martin is raising about the role of Parliament in this situation. In the U.K.—and I spent four years there—the Intelligence and Security Committee is a committee of parliamentarians, but not a committee of Parliament. MPs from all parties are represented on the committee, and their office is inside 70 Whitehall. That would be similar to being in the Langevin Block. You would be sworn to secrecy as privy councillors and not allowed to divulge what you've seen, which means that you are privy to information that you can't use in question period. We have no such system in Canada.
3:10 p.m.
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
That's except for our current ad hoc committee on the Afghan papers.
3:10 p.m.
As an Individual
It was modelled, in effect, after that for a special purpose. The U.S. model in which committees are sworn, the U.K. model in which you have a committee of parliamentarians, and the Afghan model are not of general application.
3:15 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Thank you very much.
Mr. Brison, let's try four minutes. I think we'll fit it all in if we do a four-minute round here.
3:15 p.m.
Liberal
Scott Brison Liberal Kings—Hants, NS
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Cappe, earlier Mr. Lukiwski was asking questions on national security and on the potential, for national security reasons, to justifiably deny providing information to Parliament from time to time based on national security.
Do you see any reason that a national security consideration should apply to the costing of this government legislation, meaning the 18 bills specifically covered by the motion?
3:15 p.m.
As an Individual
I haven't studied the bills and I don't know what they really relate to, but given the conversation, I would say that national security would not be an element of it, not to my knowledge. You might be able to construct such a case, but I think it would be hard to do.
3:15 p.m.
Liberal
Scott Brison Liberal Kings—Hants, NS
We're aware as well that the national security argument put forth by the government on the Afghan detainee issue was rejected by the Speaker in his earlier ruling.
3:15 p.m.
As an Individual
I've endorsed the Speaker on other things; I would disagree with the Speaker on that one.
3:15 p.m.
Liberal
Scott Brison Liberal Kings—Hants, NS
You would disagree on that one, but on this one we have agreed--as you said earlier this hour—that Treasury Board guidelines would force the government to have this cost information calculated during cabinet deliberations leading to the legislation, and that once the legislation was provided to Parliament, it would not be a cabinet confidence.
3:15 p.m.
Liberal
Scott Brison Liberal Kings—Hants, NS
Exactly.
In your opinion, does a member of Parliament have a responsibility to demand the costs of legislation that he or she is asked to vote on?
3:15 p.m.
As an Individual
Again, Citizen Cappe thinks you should. I think the answer to that is yes.
3:15 p.m.
Liberal
Scott Brison Liberal Kings—Hants, NS
Once the government has tabled legislation in the House, should those costs, as calculated for cabinet, be provided to Parliament?
3:15 p.m.
Liberal
Scott Brison Liberal Kings—Hants, NS
And using cabinet confidence as a reason not to provide those costs to Parliament once the legislation is tabled is wrong?
3:15 p.m.
As an Individual
I've let you put words in my mouth up until now; I'm going to back up on this and say that I think it's unjustified.
3:15 p.m.
Liberal
Scott Brison Liberal Kings—Hants, NS
You'd say “unjustified”.
In your experience, has there been a time—any time—that these types of Treasury Board guidelines were not followed and that legislation was developed by a government without providing the costs?
3:15 p.m.
As an Individual
There may have been, but I'm not aware of any. Officials in Finance, Treasury Board, and PCO would not have been doing their jobs if they allowed cabinet to consider legislation without a cost estimate.
3:15 p.m.
Liberal
Scott Brison Liberal Kings—Hants, NS
Do you believe that the Parliament of Canada and members of Parliament have a fiduciary responsibility to demand the costs and to receive the costs?
3:15 p.m.
As an Individual
I believe in responsible government. You are the people we've delegated to be responsible for us as Canadians and I want you to have the information necessary to make the decision. You can have differences of view; you can thrash it out among yourselves, as you do, but you need the information. That's the role.... I actually was against the Parliamentary Budget Officer being established because I think we should rely on government officials to provide Parliament with that kind of information.
3:15 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Thank you.
If there was more time, I would go to Mr. Proulx because I love hearing from him, but right now you're out of time.
Mr. Armstrong, you are up for four minutes.
3:15 p.m.
Conservative
Scott Armstrong Conservative Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS
Thank you, Mr. Cappe, and welcome to committee this afternoon. Again, I'm finding this tremendously interesting.
On cabinet confidences, when you were Clerk of the Privy Council, if Mr. Chrétien as Prime Minister had come to you and asked to see cabinet materials from the Mulroney or the Campbell periods, what would you have advised him? Would he have had access to those?
3:15 p.m.
As an Individual
It's a very interesting question and I'm glad you've asked it, because I was the custodian of all previous prime ministers' papers. I used to deal with the previous prime ministers on a regular basis as requests for their documents came in. Each of those previous prime ministers had designated someone who would review the documents on their behalf, who was a privy councillor, sworn, etc.
The answer is clearly no. Those cabinet documents, the day of the election, become secret to the new government. That is the tradition in Westminster parliamentary democracy.