Evidence of meeting #50 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 chair.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Ted Menzies Conservative Macleod, AB
Well, as I reflected earlier, Mr. Brison, you swore the Privy Council oath at one point--
Conservative
Conservative
Ted Menzies Conservative Macleod, AB
That was perceived as cabinet confidentiality. So I'm sure that at some point you actually spoke to a lawyer and had the same advice.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Conversations with each other on a point of order are certainly beyond what I was looking for.
The request has been made. If it's at all possible, I suppose, but normally legal advice between two people is a confidentiality between the legal adviser and who's getting the advice. Obviously, anything possible is possible, so....
Liberal
Liberal
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
If you could help us on this, Mr. Menzies, I'll ask you to help us, but at this moment I have a real problem when a committee asks legal advice to be tabled, because of what I've already said.
Let's move on. We have very little time left.
Mr. McGuinty, you're up for...let's try two minutes. We'll move along on it and see if we can convince the minister to stay.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
Thank you, Chair.
I want to go back.... On this question, I know you had some difficulty with it earlier, but I think it really does speak now to this question of privilege and the credibility of the government's numbers.
My colleague Mr. Brison asked a question a moment ago of the minister to explain what happened in 2008 with the economic update, where there was a $100-million surplus, predicated on a $10.1-billion asset sale. We asked him rather explicitly whether he could help us and Canadians understand what happened.
I'd like to offer him the opportunity again to do so, but I'd also like to in that context remind him that on December 6, 2008, the Minister of Finance for Canada, Mr. Flaherty, admitted in an article that he was in cabinet with his colleagues Mr. Clement and Mr. Baird in the provincial legislature of Ontario in 2003, where he said, and I quote, “I was there”--in the Legislative Assembly--“when it was announced,”--the budget in 2003--“and I knew it wasn't”--that is, wasn't balanced.
So if I could ask the Minister to clarify, how is the $20-billion asset sale in the 2003 budget in Ontario to fudge the books—that has now been exposed very openly—different from the 2008 update, where $10.1 billion of assets were supposed to have been sold to provide a $100-million surplus? How is that not equal to fudging the books?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Mr. McGuinty, I have to state again that in the chair's opinion that's so far out of left field on where we are on this point of privilege--
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Okay, centre field. We're going to get spring training finished here and into real baseball soon. But that's just.... If the minister would like to answer it, great, but I think we're so far out of where we need to be....
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
Chair, this is all about credibility, and it's all about a point of privilege, as my colleague Mr. Martin referred to a moment ago.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Then I would suggest that in future, in your reference to the chair on points of privilege, we broaden what it is you're looking for. Because truly, on a point of privilege, we're looking for what the Speaker's ruling says to us to look for, and that included some documents—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
—and in this case a request about corporate profits and corporate taxes. I've been fairly broad on that, so....
