Evidence of meeting #59 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was amendment.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
I've made my argument on the point of order, but if your ruling is that it is in order, I would like to make an argument and appeal to my colleagues with respect to the amendment itself. If this is not the right time, I won't make those comments, but if it is, I will.
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
I was quite clear. We did a number of things here. I've been around committee for a while and we said a couple of things. We were dealing with Bill C-304, which is the national housing strategy bill, which we had the numbers here at that point to actually defeat. But part of what happened here was that we did three things. We said, one, we will move Bill C-304 forward before we break; two, we would travel next week; and three, we would report this bill to the House by tomorrow.
Not everybody would have agreed with that, and I'm sure Monsieur Lessard may not have, but that was the motion that passed. Obviously when I was part of that process, it was with the idea that the bill wouldn't be reported to the House with amendments that would end up having a financial impact.
I say to my colleagues that this motion as it stands should be defeated. If it's not, I consider it to be a substantive amendment to the bill, and it wouldn't be in accordance with my understanding of what we did when we moved those motions.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
Thank you, Mr. Komarnicki.
Mr. Lessard, Madam Folco, and then Mr. Savage.
Bloc
Yves Lessard Bloc Chambly—Borduas, QC
If that's Mr. Komarnicki's final argument, he must be getting desperate. He claims that amendments should not have been approved, when he himself tabled 15 amendments, Mr. Chair. Is he saying then that we should also reject these amendments without first studying them?
In my opinion, each amendment must be weighed on its own merits. We have tabled one amendment, and it is key to restoring a cost balance between Quebec and the other provinces. There is a cost factor involved that reflects an absolute imbalance.
Earlier, one of our colleagues opposite was saying that he did not understand why they were doing this. If we had agreed to hear from the former Chief Actuary, Mr. Bédard, this colleague would have likely understood why. He refused to get this information and now, he is refusing to say anything or to hear anything about this motion, because he claims he doesn't have the information. They are the ones who decided not to get this information.
I have all of this information here with me and I wanted to share it with my colleagues. It does not come from me, but from a person in whom the Canadian government placed its trust for 32 years, 12 of which were spent as an actuary and senior advisor on the Employment Insurance Fund. That is nothing to sneeze it.
Instead, they prefer to tell us that it is of no consequence, that we are comparing apples and oranges, that we mustn't do this, and so on. They prefer to shoot everything down, rather than hear from someone whose opinion differs from theirs. Sometimes, the opposite view brings the truth.But in this case, the opposite view was rejected. This is becoming a habit here in this committee. We saw it last week when an attempt was made to shoot down a witness who held an opposing view. The same happened earlier, as if there was nothing untoward about it.
I remind members that the aim of our motion is to restore a cost balance between Quebec and the other provinces, for the sake of justice and fairness. It is not a matter of awarding additional benefits. We are keeping the same cost envelope, in so far as premiums are concerned, but we are shifting a certain percentage of these costs, based on accounting facts, or calculations. We haven't done the calculations, because that is ultimately a job for the actuaries. It's a matter of agreeing on this method of calculation, not of arguing that we are holding to a principle, as some have maintained. In fact, we've been accused of holding to a principle and that the decision had nothing to do with accounting, but rather was political in nature. That is what the gentlemen said earlier during the course of his testimony.
It makes no sense to agree to a premium based on a political principle, because that creates some injustices. And it is precisely one such injustice that we want to correct, and the only way of doing that is by sticking to foolproof accounting principles that have stood the test of time.
Conservative
Liberal
Raymonde Folco Liberal Laval—Les Îles, QC
Mr. Chair, I would like to remind Mr. Komarnicki that I was the one who chaired the committee in your absence.
I will do it in English so there won't be a translation problem between me and Mr. Kormarnicki and he will understand the weight of my words.
I was the person who presided over the meeting because you were away, Mr. Chair. In the meeting we discussed under what circumstances we would discuss and do the clause-by-clause and table Bill C-56. I do not recall our ever mentioning the word “amendment” either in a negative or in a positive sense. We simply discussed the fact that we would do the clause-by-clause and that we would eventually, by Friday at the latest.... That is what the agreement was. There was no agreement as to whether we would bring in or not bring in amendments. We simply didn't discuss it.
That is the first thing I want to say.
The second one is, since Mr. Komarnicki talks about additional expenses, the legislative clerk has just explained to us—and I have to take his word as being a very informed person—that there are no additional expenses, and this is why he has ruled that my colleague Mr. Lessard's motion is not out of order as you wish it to be, Mr. Komarnicki.
The last thing I want to mention is this regarding Tuesday afternoon when I sat in the chair once again. I want Mr. Komarnicki to recall how difficult it had been--and he was part of the discussion--to bring the actuary to this meeting this afternoon. We didn't even really know, in fact, which actuary we were bringing because we didn't even know what his full title was, whether he was actuary to the government or if he was one to the ministry or what. That was another question we were asking. I know that perhaps other people around this table were not in the dark, but I was pretty much in the dark as to who this person was and what his title was, and therefore what his responsibilities were.
So things have come out this afternoon that I certainly didn't know about and I am very glad I know about now, because it does bring a certain light on that aspect--not on the whole Bill C-56, but on that aspect of the bill. This does not change the fact that eventually we will come to a decision, whatever that decision may be, and that eventually it will be tabled or not on Friday.
Mr. Komarnicki, I'll say it right to you. I feel that what you are doing right now is pure blackmail. I'm telling you, Mr. Komarnicki, I am disappointed in you.
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
I'm disappointed in you, in the fact that we understood very clearly--
November 26th, 2009 / 5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
--what was happening and it wasn't some kind of amendment, and you know that. Mr. Savage was clear about that too in the last meeting, so you--
Conservative
Liberal
Michael Savage Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
The members will know, and if they don't know they can look at the minutes, that I have never been in favour of rushing this bill through. I have said it is our fiduciary responsibility to examine legislation. I did not vote for that motion, although I allowed it to pass because it was the will of the committee. I did not vote for the motion that put the timetable on this, because I think it's an abdication of responsibility of the committee to say we'll pass something within a very short period of time, no matter what we find.
We have found some troubling information. We've seen this from the very beginning. The questions that were given to the minister were vague. She didn't seem to know what actuary we were talking about. Then we forced some information out of Mr. Vermaeten and Mr. Beauséjour. It is troubling, but that's what happens when you rush legislation through. That's the problem, and we are where perhaps some of us thought we might be.
Having said that, it's a very difficult thing to be here, trying to be a responsible opposition, the day before we as a committee have voted to report this back to the House and hearing this kind of information. Having amendments put forward by Mr. Lessard that might correct that situation was anticipated before. What do we do as a responsible opposition? It's a tough question, Mr. Chair. It's five past five on Thursday. Most members of Parliament are on planes or they're back home, and we are trying to get this legislation through. It produces a very difficult situation.
What I am asking the parliamentary secretary is this. If we are not going to make material changes to this bill, what is the government prepared to do? Are they prepared, for example, to ask the Auditor General to have a full look at this bill and give us her opinion as to whether this rate setting has been appropriate? Will she examine the bill so that we have an independent set of eyes look at the financing of the bill, the impacts on the EI fund, and whether the rates are set correctly across the board, particularly in the province of Quebec?
If the parliamentary secretary can commit to me that he's prepared to have that done, that would go a long way in alleviating the concern that I personally have as a member of Parliament who is trying to do his job and do the due diligence in committee that needs to be done and also recognize that we made a commitment as a committee, even though I wasn't keen on it when we did it.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
Okay.
Here's who I have on the list: Mr. Lobb, and then Mr. Martin.
Mr. Martin.
Conservative
Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON
A lot of the pieces to this amendment have been discussed, and various things have been negotiated in the past. Mr. Lessard made his point, but you know, in the spirit of cooperation, he did receive his information, it appears from this e-mail, over 48 hours ago, and failed to e-mail any of my colleagues that I know of. It would have given us at least a chance to look at this information and consider it. Instead, the day of--the time of--we're presented with this. So we'll take the spirit of cooperation or consideration with a grain of salt, if he doesn't mind.
I would argue to the legislative clerk, though, that inside that amendment, the proposed or possible rate could in theory drive an excessive intake of this program, which would lead the program to an excessive deficit, possibly; we're talking theoretically here. It would in fact create an expenditure that would fall under the considerations given when a royal recommendation is considered.
I take that very seriously. We are talking all of these situations here on best estimates and so forth, and that would qualify the proposal under a royal recommendation.
NDP
Tony Martin NDP Sault Ste. Marie, ON
I accept the ruling of the clerk here.
I have just a couple of comments in response to the comments put on the table by Mr. Savage. Yes, we agreed on a timetable here. I thought it was tight, but we had a week. We could have had other meetings. We chose not to. I know that my colleague Mr. Godin suggested that we have a meeting on Wednesday to work our way through some of the difficulties that present re this bill.
As well, there are difficulties. Right from the beginning there were no suggestions by anyone that this was as sound as it could be and that it couldn't be improved. We agreed on the principle. We wanted to move forward. We thought that the self-employed workers out there deserved at least the small amount of coverage they get with regard to this--
Liberal
Raymonde Folco Liberal Laval—Les Îles, QC
On a point of order, Mr. Chair, it's only a detail, but Mr. Godin never brought this up in committee. He never asked for an extra day for a meeting.
NDP
Tony Martin NDP Sault Ste. Marie, ON
That's fine. He did suggest and have some discussions re other times that we could meet, and particularly Wednesday of this week. As I look at it, there weren't the witnesses to bring forward anyway.
Having said that, I at no time suggested, certainly, that we would simply rush this thing through, after hearing from witnesses, without bringing forward amendments that would improve this bill, make it better, and respond to some of the difficulties with the bill brought forward by the witnesses. I mean, that's the work of committee. That's how committee works. That's the dynamic of committee. To suggest for a second that we might not, given the opportunity, as we have this afternoon, bring forward amendments and have them discussed and voted on or not, is not, I think, understanding the process.
For example, one of the big concerns of the bill is that it's not actuarially sound, that there isn't the money coming in from the people who are going to be covered that would be available to cover the cost of the benefits to them. What the Bloc has moved here is an amendment that will move us in that direction, particularly where Quebec is concerned. There already is special consideration for Quebec in the bill. This just moves us to a place where the bill may in fact be more actuarially sound. Because of that, we're going to support it.
I'm going to suggest to you that there are other difficulties with this bill. Given that we don't have unlimited time--we never do with bills--and that the government has brought forward a piece of work that we think is necessary for a significant number of self-employed workers out there, we're bringing forward an amendment to make sure the government actually lives up to a commitment they made in the budget, which is to set up a panel of experts to look at this and come back and make recommendations to change it so that it in fact does work better for everybody concerned. But we'll have that discussion when that time comes.
Those are my comments at this time.
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
Mr. Lobb raised an interesting point. I don't think anybody has ruled on it and it should have a ruling.
Perhaps I might pose a question—well, maybe we can't—to someone here in the room who knows. If you lowered the premium rates, as could happen under the formula that Mr. Lessard is proposing, that would result in a higher take-up rate, which would result in more expenditures, which would affect the royal recommendation. I think that was the essence of Mr. Lobb's point, and I hadn't heard what the response to that was or what the ruling was.
When we talked about reporting the bill to the House.... I mean, I've been in legal practice for 31 years and I know it would mean without any material changes or substitutions or additions. I don't think anyone's less than clear on that. You can do what you like, but I know what the basis and premise of that is.
And then I would like to have Mr. Savage maybe indicate to me more clearly what he is suggesting. I know exactly what happened in the last meeting. And you can say what you want, but being around a long time, I know the difference. I think there should be a ruling on this point.
Procedural Clerk
If more people participate in the program, and there are higher expenditures as a result of that, those would be the operating expenditures of the program. But nothing in that changes the manner or the rules, the framework in which the program functions. And that's what's covered by the royal recommendation. So the additional expenses that might occur in that particular scenario would be operating expenses.
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
How do you consider it an operating expense when it increases the amount you have to pay out in benefits as opposed to premiums collected? If it's an operating expense, it's an expense as a result of paying out benefits. How is it an operating expense if it's actually paying out the benefits?