Evidence of meeting #3 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was ministers.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:20 p.m.
NDP
Leah Gazan NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
Mr. Chair, could I request that the vote be in public? Is that possible?
Is it public? Okay.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
Adam Vaughan Liberal Spadina—Fort York, ON
As parliamentary tradition would dictate, we of course support the ministers appearing in front of the committee. It's an important and integral part of the accountability mechanisms of Parliament. Our challenge is that we have about 20 meetings before we rise for the summer. In splitting out the estimates, splitting out the one-hour meetings and splitting out the mandate letters—plus, officials usually follow on after ministers are here so that we can ask more detailed questions about issues that arise—my worry would be that we would take up all the time talking to ministers and no time in doing the studies and the work we need to process legislation and get our reports done.
I was wondering if it would be possible to have a typical process of doing this, which would be to combine the ministers' mandate letters and the estimates—because they're related—and have two at a time appear, with the staff to follow for the subsequent hour. Then we'd go to the next two at the next meeting and have the staff appear. We would get all four here. It's hard to get four ministers to line up. Their schedules, even in a minority Parliament, are really tough, especially when we meet on Tuesday afternoons and that's when cabinet is.
We can try to get it in such a way that we have two ministers with estimates and mandate letters, then follow that hour with the senior staff so we can drill down deeper into the departments, and then repeat that same format for the other two ministers. I'll leave it to the committee to decide how we pair them, but that's more likely to be driven by the ministers' schedules than our capacity to tell them when to show up.
We of course support the ministers coming here for that exploration. We just think it's more efficient to link them and to have staff follow up as well.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
Dan Albas Conservative Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC
First of all, I always like the idea of ministers coming here, especially at the beginning of a mandate, so that we can understand where their priorities are. Obviously the Prime Minister has given them this set of priorities, and I think it's always helpful to have them come in and to familiarize ourselves with those.
I do think, though, that having one minister, as has been suggested, is a good thing, because if you look at those mandate letters, first of all, you can see that there's a lot in them. I think we could very well spend an hour with the ministers in familiarizing ourselves with their style, what's in their mandate, where they feel they can make progress and how our committee can work into this, not only to provide oversight in terms of supply, but also in terms of some policy perspective.
I just had those few thoughts. I just don't want to have two ministers here at the same time and then try to ask questions, because there's severe overlap in some of these files.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
Kate Young Liberal London West, ON
This question is more about how we will handle making sure that we can get the ministers here. When you're talking about four ministers, and if we do go for an hour per minister, how are we going to be able to start our reports, when we may have to wait a week or two for one minister and then a couple of weeks for another minister?
I would hate to see our motions and the reports we're going to be studying broken up. I think we've all been on committees where, once you start getting witnesses, you want to continue hearing them. I wouldn't want the ministers to be appearing willy-nilly.
4:20 p.m.
Bloc
Louise Chabot Bloc Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
I agree with meeting with the appropriate ministers in order to talk about their mandate letters. This is a new Parliament, so there are new mandates.
I agree with putting ministers together, the Minister of Labour and the Minister of Employment, for example. Their mandate letters ask them to work together on certain issues. So it could be useful for those two ministers to come to meet with us together in order to talk about their mandate letters.
I am not opposed to the idea of adding the Minister of Finance to that session, although I do not know what that might mean. For me, the priority is to hear from the ministers on their mandate letters rather than to deal with matters of finance.
However, I agree with maximizing the number of ministers per meeting. We cannot have eight meetings on the subject, but I feel that is important to meet them.
4:25 p.m.
Conservative
Dan Albas Conservative Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC
Obviously, there seems to be some direction the committee is going in here, but I would just like us, perhaps, because some are senior ministers and some are junior ministers.... Quite honestly, I don't want to see two senior ministers coming in where there's a ton of.... But there are some complementary roles, as my friend from the Bloc has mentioned today; perhaps we should just work on which particular ministers. Is there an example we might want to use?
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
4:25 p.m.
Conservative
Dan Albas Conservative Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC
For example, I think Minister Qualtrough and Minister Tassi might be a good one, and maybe for the other section we'll have the two other ministers together. To me, those sound like logical choices, because they complement each other's mandates.
That was very persuasive, Madam.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
Adam Vaughan Liberal Spadina—Fort York, ON
We move to request that ministers Qualtrough and Tassi, the ministers of.... I can't even remember the names of the ministries anymore; I can barely remember my own half the time. It is that ministers Qualtrough and Tassi appear together, that both estimates and mandate letters be discussed, and that staff be asked to follow on for the second hour, and then that ministers Hussen and Schulte, the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development and the Minister of Seniors, form the second meeting, that they appear together for an hour, and that the staff follow on.
4:25 p.m.
Bloc
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
Adam Vaughan Liberal Spadina—Fort York, ON
The Minister of Labour is Ms. Tassi.
So it would be Minister Tassi and Minister Qualtrough together.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
Adam Vaughan Liberal Spadina—Fort York, ON
Also, Mr. Hussen, Minister of Families, Children and Social Development and the Minister of Seniors will appear together. I'll take their pairing. Does that make sense?
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Can I take a crack at the wording? Someone else is going to have to move it.
I think what I've heard you say, Mr. Vaughan, is that you wish to amend the motion as follows: delete the words “for one hour per minister to explain their mandate letters” and replace them with the following: “, and that the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion appear with the Minister of Labour to explain their mandate letters and main estimates, and that the Minister of Seniors and the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development appear at a subsequent meeting to explain their mandate letters and main estimates.”
I think that's what you were trying to say. I hope that's helpful.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
Anthony Housefather Liberal Mount Royal, QC
Before you move that, Mr. Chair, could you change the word “subsequent” to “different”? We don't know what order we're going to be able to line them up in.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
That's a fair comment.
Is there any further discussion on the amendment?
Mr. Albas.
4:25 p.m.
Conservative
Dan Albas Conservative Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC
Again, just so I have complete clarity before I register my vote, Mr. Chair, are we talking about taking the mandate letter, which was a separate proposal put forward by the NDP, and merging it with the estimates? If we don't expand the time, we're actually now trying to cram more things into that one session, and I really have a challenge with that. You can't have a conversation in which everything is everywhere. It will not be as conducive as a good discussion on it would be.
Can we get some clarification on that? I think we're throwing in more things, and doing that will dilute the ability of Mr. Vis to ask the questions about the estimates that he wants to.