Public Accounts Committee on March 13th, 2008

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Pardon me, Mr. Chairman?

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

That is a motion to make that amendment.

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

I ask Mr. Wrzesnewskyj to change the motion himself.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

You can move that amendment, and Mr. Wrzesnewskyj has already moved his motion, so we're dealing with the amendment.

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Mr. Chairman, this is a friendly amendment that I am asking him to include in his motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Do you agree with that, Mr. Wrzesnewskyj? But we're going to vote on the amendment also.

Mr. Lake, you have a point of order.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

This is obviously going to take more time than we have. It's past one o'clock now. I have to go. I literally do have to go. I have some other things I have to do right now, and this is obviously going to take more time to discuss.

We're going to need to actually go over the amended motion and hear from the clerk on exactly what that amended motion says, and then we're going to have discussion on that. We have an amendment that we might move as well. This is going to take more time.

I suggest we come back and do this at the beginning of our next meeting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

No, Mr. Lake, unless there's a motion to adjourn--moved and adopted--the committee will continue. I don't think this will take too long.

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

I move we adjourn, Mr. Chairman, because after our normal adjournment time, there's nothing that allows us to continue on.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

We'll have a recorded vote on the motion to adjourn.

(Motion negatived: nays 6; yeas 5)

Read the amendment, please.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Justin Vaive]

I'll read the amendment from Mr. Laforest from the start, in French.

On February 4, 2008, the Honourable Jim Flaherty, Minister of Finance, admitted that he violated Treasury Board guidelines in awarding a contract to Hugh MacPhie for work provided in relation to Budget 2007.

Furthermore, Access to Information requests have shown that the Minister of Finance awarded a disproportionate share of contracts valued at between $24,000 and $24,900 that were untendered, falling just below the level at which contracts must be subject to competitive tendering.

The third paragraph has been completely eliminated and the fourth paragraph reads as follows:

The Public Accounts Committee calls the Honourable Jim Flaherty, Minister of Finance, the Honourable Vic Toews, President of the Treasury Board, Rob Wright, Deputy Minister of Finance, Wayne Wouters, Secretary of the Treasury Board, Hugh MacPhie and Sara Beth Mintz to appear as witnesses in order to further study these situations which appear to be contrary to Treasury Board guidelines.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Okay. We're on the amendment.

Mr. Christopherson, you have one minute.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I'll hold off and speak to the main motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Mr. Lake is next on the amendment.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

I'd like some clarification on this amended motion.

We've taken out the reference to the Honourable Vic Toews, President of the Treasury Board, but we have him still being called before the committee in the fourth paragraph.

It's my understanding that ministers are accountable to Parliament and not to the Treasury Board. I'm not sure that the minister in charge of the Treasury Board is responsible to apply sanctions to the finance minister. I'm not sure what the rationale is here to have Minister Toews come before our committee, given the amendment that has been accepted by Mr. Wrzesnewskyj.

Perhaps Mr. Wrzesnewskyj can give some rational for that. I'd like to hear that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

We'll come back to Mr. Wrzesnewskyj.

Mr. Fitzpatrick.

[Brian Fitzpatrick, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

I have an observation or comment I want to make on this.

Not too many years ago I was on the other side, and there was a strong reluctance on the public accounts committee to be hauling ministers in here. I never once supported doing that. I don't recall that happening in my experience on public accounts, including being on the opposition side.

I think it's an unwise practice because of the point that Mr. Lake just mentioned. Ministers are accountable to Parliament. We're dealing with the administrators of departments, and so on, and their accountability. We can deviate and throw this committee off course by turning it into that kind of a committee, but I don't think it's a good thing to do.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Mr. Poilievre, you have one minute.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

First of all, I think the amendment improves the motion dramatically and brings it more in line with the reality of the situation. To punish a minister or ridicule him because he came close to reaching the maximum but didn't reach it would be the equivalent of giving someone a ticket because they almost reached the speeding limit, but not quite.

Flowing from that, we really don't have much reason to bring in the police officer who, according to this motion, would be the President of the Treasury Board. He is not accused of having broken any rules whatsoever. The only administrative rules that were not followed were on the one contract with regards to the budget speech, and the Minister of Finance has already apologized for that. I fail to see why the President of the Treasury Board would have anything to do with our discussion.

I would be more inclined to support the motion if Mr. Wrzesnewskyj would accept a friendly amendment that Mr. Vic Toews be removed at this time, and he could be called later if we find that there's something in some of his conduct that would require greater scrutiny later on.

I would offer that as a friendly amendment, that we remove President Toews from this motion as a witness.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Mr. Poilievre, I accept your comments, but we're going to have to follow this procedure. We're going to have to deal with the first amendment. I take it that's a subamendment or the next amendment.

I'm going to ask the clerk to call for a recorded vote on the amendment only. Not the motion, but the amendment only.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Mr. Chair, I don't mean to interrupt the proceedings--

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

We'll then turn the floor back to you for your amendment, which I think you want to make.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

I understand the procedure is that first the subamendment amends the amendment and then we vote on the--

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

I'm going to ask the clerk for a recorded vote on Mr. Laforest's amendment.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

On a point of order, further to what Mr. Poilievre is saying, are you making a ruling that Mr. Poilievre's amendment is a separate amendment? If it is, that makes sense, but if what he's doing is a subamendment, we should be discussing the subamendment first.