Justice Committee on Oct. 29th, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqra Khalid]

Absolutely, Ms. Findlay.

I thought I had made it clear in my remarks earlier. I should have made it clearer, though, that the minister would not be able to respond to questions on the supplementary estimates.

To deal with this issue, I would like to put it to a vote. We have two options before us. We can have another meeting to vote on the supplementary estimates at a later time. Obviously, there are specific deadlines that we have to keep in mind, which may throw off our schedule for other things.

The alternative is that we can put your questions, Madam Findlay, and any other questions that we have with respect to the supplementary estimates on the record today and get written responses. Then at a later time during committee business, we can vote on the supplementary estimates once we have those written responses.

Is that something we can all agree to do?

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Could I just make one further intervention, Madam Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqra Khalid]

Yes, go ahead, Mr. Virani.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

On this very specific point, I think what you're alluding to is the very pressing deadline we have with respect to the medical assistance in dying legislation, which has a court-imposed deadline of December 18. My view is not in any way to prevent Ms. Findlay from getting the answers to her important questions. As a former employee of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, I think she was presenting very good questions .

Given the precious nature of the resource that we are now using—the translation, the IT, etc.—when we have a court-imposed deadline to get a bill through two houses of Parliament to royal assent, that needs to take precedence. I'm loath to convene another meeting on the supplementary estimates that might jeopardize our ability to meet that deadline, which I think is incumbent upon all parliamentarians to work towards meeting.

Thank you.

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Madam Chair, may I just add one further comment on this?

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqra Khalid]

Yes, please go ahead.

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

There is a 28% increase in spending from last year at the commission. I believe my questions are extremely important and something we should know about. It may be that if I am given written responses in detail and the committee members are able to see those, we could deal with the supplementary estimates in fairly short order. I think we're presuming that this is going to take a long time, but we actually don't know that.

I think these questions on spending are very pertinent. The human rights commission—if my colleague has served on it, as I've served on the tribunal—we know is an integral institution for equity-seeking individuals and groups in our country. How money is allocated there and how it's spent, and a large increase, particularly at a time of COVID, when perhaps there hasn't been the same take-up.... I don't know. That's a part of my question.

I really would like to see that we have the opportunity to see that information and not presuppose the time on it. It may not take much time at all if we feel we have the answers we need in writing.

[David Lametti, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, QC]

Madam Chair, I'll jump in. I'm willing to undertake to get those answers to MP Findlay.

Again, my understanding is that a lot of that increase was based on new requirements in the accessibility act and implementing the accessibility act.

I'm perfectly happy to undertake to get her those answers, or for the department or my team to get her and the whole committee those answers.

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqra Khalid]

Thank you for stepping in, Mr. Lametti. I really do appreciate your proactiveness on this.

Mr. Garrison, I see that your hand is raised for this point of order.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Yes, Madam Chair.

I think we need to make some clear decisions here. For me, the best way to proceed would be to conduct a vote on whether we are going to vote on the supplementary estimates today. If we are not doing that, then we can discuss what the alternatives are.

You made yourself very clear at the beginning. I'm not a fan of do-overs, so I think we should tackle these questions in a very simple, straightforward manner. Are we going to vote on the supplementary estimates today? If not, then we can deal with these other questions in committee business.

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqra Khalid]

With that, then, I'll put it to the committee to decide. I do need to put Madam Findlay's questions on the record.

Ms. Findlay, why don't you read out your questions? That way we all have them on the record and we can deal with them at a later time with respect to how to proceed with the supplementaries.

Please go ahead, Madam Findlay, as quickly as possible, as we're short on time.

Thank you.

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Does that include the ones I stated already?

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqra Khalid]

The ones that you've already stated are good. It's just the ones that you didn't have the opportunity to ask that are specific to the supplementaries.

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Thank you.

I would like an explanation of how the additional $9 million in spending in 2020-21 will be spread across the various tribunals supported by the Administrative Tribunals Support Service of Canada. We have $72 million in 2020-21 versus $63 million in 2019-20.

Secondly, what factors or metrics are used to allocate the $72 million that will be spent in 2020-21 across each of the various tribunals?

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqra Khalid]

Thank you very much, Ms. Findlay.

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqra Khalid]

As the minister has said, and the clerk has confirmed, we will undertake to get written answers to the questions posed by you today.

With that, I would like to thank the minister and the witnesses for their time today and for answering so candidly. We really appreciate having you here, and hopefully we'll have you back again on some other hot topics. Thank you very much for your presence here today.

We'll just give a couple of minutes for them to leave.

Mr. Lewis, I see your hand raised. We'll come to you next.

[Chris Lewis, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I just want to make a statement. I do respect Mr. Virani very much and his comments with regard to December 18, but in my short time here—just shortly over a year in politics—it seems as though we're always rushed. Everything is last minute because it has to be pushed through. I come from the business world, where we take time to gather the proper information to make an educated decision. I just really want to back my colleague Ms. Findlay on this. It's really difficult to make decisions unless we have all of the information.

Thank you, Madam Chair, for letting me say that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqra Khalid]

Thank you very much for that, Mr. Lewis.

We're now in the committee business portion.

What I hope to get your agreement on is that once we receive written responses to Ms. Findlay's questions—and she was the only one who has asked any questions that touch on the supplementary estimates—maybe at another meeting we can just vote on the supplementary estimates without having to spend a whole meeting on them. I leave that to your discretion. We can put that to a vote so that I can be sure what all of you are saying and so we can move forward in a collaborative fashion. I think that would be the most prudent way for us to move forward on this, but I seek your opinion—also, obviously, keeping in mind that we need to get through the voting on the main estimates as well as witnesses for C-7, which I know everybody's quite anxious about.

Can I hear from Mr. Virani?

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

I'm just a little bit unclear. I think we did make a decision at the start of this meeting. Some people are saying it wasn't clear what we were voting on. I thought it was clear. Mr. Garrison thought it was clear. Perhaps the most efficacious way is simply to ask whether we should we vote today on the mains and the supplementaries, or should we only vote on the mains today? All those other qualifiers make it a little bit hard for everyone to understand. My understanding is that we were voting today on the mains and the supplementary estimates, and if that's what people want to do, maybe just put it to the group that clearly: Do you approve of voting in favour of both the mains and the supplementary estimates right now?

Thanks.

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqra Khalid]

Can I then ask—

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

I have a point of clarification, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqra Khalid]

Yes.

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

I just want to make sure that I'm correct on this. There is a deadline of November 27 for the mains, but am I not right that the deadline for the supplementary estimates is later, being December 8? We're not exactly in the same time crunch for both. Is that correct?

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqra Khalid]

I'll have the clerk support me on this, but my understanding is that the deadline for the supplementaries could potentially be a moving target. We just want to make sure that we have them done and back, but Mr. Clerk, if you want to speak to that for a second, please do.