Procedure and House Affairs Committee on March 21st, 2011

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Mr. Blaney.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

I would like to go back to Mr. Reid's comment.

Mr. Page was invited here as the parliamentary budget officer. We also had Mel Cappe, who was a clerk for 10 years and who is highly credible.

My question is for the chair and the analysts. In your view, did Mr. Cappe make a comment on the same topic as Mr. Page?

If so, I think it should be included. Mr. Cappe was invited here as an expert of the Privy Council, unlike Mr. Page who was invited as the parliamentary budget officer.

If not, that paragraph rather seems to contain a general opinion. We can infer it from the comment. The report will reach many people and I feel it will be misleading for its readers.

That creates more confusion rather than clarity. I recommend that we remove the paragraph if it cannot be corroborated by Mr. Cappe, the expert analyst of the Privy Council Office.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Mr. Reid, are you prepared to carry on?

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Yes.

I'll start with Mr. Page speaking. Then Mr. Lukiwski responds, then Mr. Page, and Mr. Lukiwski. So here we go.

Mr. Page says--and this is just before 5:35 in the afternoon:

For me, the extension of this information as to a cabinet confidence we've challenged on multiple occasions. I think there is a debate that needs to take place as to what is truly cabinet confidence.

Mr. Lukiwski responds:

Mr. Cappe also stated this morning that in his opinion, and I don't know if it was a recommendation perhaps or just an opinion, he didn't believe there should be an Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, which was an interesting comment coming from someone who was a former clerk of the Privy Council.

Mr. Page said:

Sir, I had to be pretty much forced to take the job in the first place. Nobody was really keen on being Parliamentary Budget Officer, for multiple reasons.

Mr. Lukiwski said:

I want to go back to the statute again. You talked about what is defined as a cabinet confidence and what is not. You would agree, however, that information that would be contained in a cabinet document would be exempted from any request from your office, yes?

Mr. Page said--and here's where the quote comes in:

Again, there's information that's contained within the actual memorandum of cabinet. There's information that sometimes could be attached to a cabinet document. Again, the question is was this information presented just to cabinet, or was this information circulated widely? Was there an effort to keep this information truly secret?

Most of the costing that I've done, sir, and in fact we see here--and my staff as well have worked at these central agencies--this information is broadly circulated in order to generate estimates.

You can see that he's referring to practices that go on within the government, and that it's not that there's been some departure with this government from past practices when the Liberals were in power, for example, or a greater level of secrecy. It's nothing of that sort, which one could read into paragraph 24, the way it's worded, where it says--and I'm quoting from the report now:

in his professional experience, and having worked in the Privy Council Office, most costing information had been, in the past, “broadly circulated in order to generate estimates”.

That implies a shift here that has not taken place. He's saying that some documents may have been confidential and others were not, based upon the internal practices of the government. None of that nuance is reflected here. I would think we'd have to include a more substantial part of that exchange. I know it's an awkward exchange from the point of view of writing a report, but it's vitally important if we don't want this report to be pretty significantly misleading, although unintentionally misleading. Or we should just drop the paragraph entirely.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you, Mr. Reid.

I have Mr. Brison next and then Mr. Godin.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

I believe these researchers, by quoting Mr. Page specifically, have captured the essence of what he said. In fact, I think both paragraphs 23 and 24, as written now by the researchers, are done effectively and ought not to be changed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

I have others on the list. I'll come back to you.

Mr. Godin.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Chair, I would just like to comment on Mr. Blaney's remarks. As he said, he wasn't here.

Mr. Page has significant cabinet experience. He did not just appear here as the parliamentary budget officer. He was invited because of his expertise, and this is part of his expertise.

If Mr. Cappe was not asked the question, we cannot put anything. As to Mr. Page, he answered the questions from the committee. I don't want us to mistake Mr. Cappe for Mr. Page.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Mr. Reid.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I do agree that it's a good idea to reflect Mr. Page's previous experience, which I don't think has been noted here. I think it would be reasonable to add, perhaps in this paragraph, that “Mr. Page, who has”--well, I'm just quoting here--“more than 25 years in central government agencies and worked for Mr. Cappe at the Privy Council Office....”

I'd be happy to put that in. That's number one.

Two, I would be happy to include the quote as long as we include the entire quote. I don't want to include the back-and-forth with Mr. Lukiwski, because I think that gets awkward, but I do think we could start from where he responds to Mr. Lukiwski's question.

So I am moving that we add to this paragraph the entire quotation. I think we can leave off the word “Again”, which he starts with, but we would quote him as follows:

...there's information that's contained within the actual memorandum of cabinet. There's information that sometimes could be attached to a cabinet document. Again, the question is was this information presented just to cabinet, or was this information circulated widely? Was there an effort to keep this information truly secret? Most of the costing that I've done, sir, and in fact we see here--and my staff as well have worked at these central agencies--this information is broadly circulated in order to generate estimates.

If we include that, and we make reference to his past experience to show that he has the knowledge and the experience to give credibility to his words, then I think that would be appropriate.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

All right.

Mr. Reid has suggested a change to paragraph 24.

Is there anything more on that topic?

Seeing nothing, are we accepting the amendment from Mr. Reid?

[An hon. member]

No.

[An hon. member]

Can we have a recorded vote, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

We'll have a recorded vote on the change.

(Amendment negatived: nays 6; yeas 5)

All right. We're back to paragraph 24 as it sits.

Those in favour of 24 as it is written in the report?

Those opposed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Seeing none opposed, paragraph 24 sits.

Turning to paragraph 25, is there any comment or discussion?

Do we accept 25 as written?

All those in favour?

Any opposed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

So 25 is there.

We move now to paragraph 26.

As written?

Mr. McGuinty.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

I'm not sure if it's here, Chair, or later, but on several occasions the ministers asserted that they had determined that they were in compliance with the Speaker's ruling. They asserted repeatedly that they believed, by making the document dump that was made, the 700-and-some pages 15 minutes before they showed up to testify, that they had complied. In fact, they announced that the government was in full compliance.

That's an important point to make, I think, or to capture, because it's not for Ministers Nicholson or Toews to decide; it's for this committee to decide. This attitudinal approach is not captured in these bullet points, and I think it's important for Canadians to know; the ministers were here to participate, provide information, and then leave the determination to the committee itself.

I'm not sure how you would capture that, but it was a repeated assertion.

It also came from different Conservative MPs, particularly Mr. Lukiwski, who kept saying that they'd already announced that they were in compliance, when the whole purpose of this process is to come to a determination in that regard.

I'm not sure whether we can weave it in here or whether the analysts see a need to do so or not.

Again, I'm not going to die on the hill, but it's an important point.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

[Inaudible--Editor]...suggest that any member of the committee's testimony here wouldn't be included in the report, but if you have a specific passage from testimony that you'd like included--

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

I'm sure we can find it, Mr. Chair. I don't have it in front of me, but I know that repeatedly Minister Toews asserted that the government was in full compliance.

[Andre Barnes, Committee Researcher]

In that respect, the attempt to capture that reads:

The ministers explained that it was their view that the information contained in the projected cost estimate that had been tabled by the government in the House of Commons on February 17, 2011 had fully satisfied the FINA motions.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

But it was the material that was deposited here, at committee, that they asserted....

[Andre Barnes]

I tried to capture that by referring to the documents at the beginning: “This binder contained additional and detailed information...”--so “additional”.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

I see.