Public Accounts Committee on March 13th, 2008

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much.

I want to thank you all on behalf of the committee. We have a motion to deal with. We want to thank you for your appearance. All the best.

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

I have a very quick inquiry to make. Shall I just wait?

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Just before we go to Mr. Poilievre, what I propose to do here, colleagues, is give Mr. Wrzesnewskyj two minutes to talk about his motion. I'll entertain six interventions, up to a maximum of one minute. Then I'll go back to Mr. Wrzesnewskyj for the last word, and then I'll put the question.

Mr. Poilievre.

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

About a week ago, I raised the concern that we should be returning to the RCMP question, even though our report is done, for the purpose of reflecting on where the personnel changes have gone, and I thought maybe fall would be a good time period. There seemed to be consensus around the table that that might be a useful exercise.

I'm just wondering where that ended up. I'm not sure if I actually....

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

[Inaudible--Editor]...if you want to bring it forward next week. You did present a motion, but it was never brought forward. We can deal with that, if you want.

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

I'm sorry, I thought I had brought it forward.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Mr. Wrzesnewskyj.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you.

I think the motion is self-explanatory. Perhaps I could add a couple of words to the motion.

The Honourable Jim Flaherty, Canada's Minister of Finance, is not a rookie politician. In fact, he's quite the opposite. He's a very experienced politician. That's why it's quite worrisome that there was this violation of Treasury Board guidelines.

Even more perplexing and worrisome is the explanation that this was fine because there was value for money. We know that Mr. MacPhie, a long-time Conservative stalwart going back to the time of Mr. Harris, obviously got tremendous value for the money he received. Perhaps there's a long-standing relationship with the minister. Perhaps there was value for money for the minister. But I'm not convinced that this renders value for money for the Canadian taxpayer.

Secondly, even more worrisome is that after an admission of violation of Treasury Board guidelines, we've seen through access to information documents that there has been a series of these contracts just below the $25,000 limit. This is something similar to what we saw in the RCMP investigation of pension insurance funds, when we talked about the rigged contracting system. We saw a similar pattern of nudging just below the limit.

Instead of addressing this violation thoroughly and making sure that in the future these sorts of things do not occur, we've seen a new manner in which to circumvent Treasury Board guidelines. This is why I think it's incumbent upon us to bring the minister before us.

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

I have a point of order. Borys said he was going to make an amendment to his motion, but he hasn't actually made an amendment yet. He was going to add two words to amend his motion, he said, at the beginning of his preamble.

Did you actually make an amendment?

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

I didn't say I was going to make an amendment.

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

You said you were going to add a couple of words to amend your motion.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

No, he said he was going to add a few words to speak to it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

You may comment, Mr. Williams, for one minute.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I appreciate where Mr. Wrzesnewskyj is coming from. First of all, Mr. Flaherty, the Minister of Finance, apologized not to the committee but to the House of Commons for breaking the Treasury Board guidelines, in that there was a contract for well in excess of the $25,000 limit for untendered contracts. Not only did he apologize, but he made a clear, categorical statement that he wouldn't do it again.

I'm not sure what Mr. Wrzesnewskyj wants beyond an apology and a commitment that it will not happen again. I don't know what he intends to do.

With regard to the Treasury Board guidelines of $25,000 for untendered contracts, that is the rule. If the contract is awarded for less than $25,000, that is not breaking Treasury Board guidelines; that's living within the guidelines.

Now, some people may say there's a perception of abuse, in that it's close to the limit, though not in excess of it. Let's remember that this is not breaking the guidelines. Therefore, it is very strange to call in the President of the Treasury Board to ask him why he didn't take any action against the Minister of Finance. What's he supposed to take action against? The Minister of Finance lived within the Treasury Board guidelines.

The first point I want to make is that I cannot understand why the President of the Treasury Board would be called before the committee other than to reaffirm what the rules are. Well, we already know what the rules are.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you, Mr. Williams.

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

Mr. Chairman, let me continue. I have a second point. This is serious and I'm speaking on behalf of our members. We have a clear guideline at this committee that we do not call ministers before us. If we have a problem, then we call the departmental officials.

I want to make a third important point, namely that there is no detail here. He has just said that untendered contracts for $24,900 were offered to Conservative Party supporters. How many? To whom? When? I have no detail. If he had a list of a hundred long, I could say maybe there was something. But there's no information.

How can we support this motion? It's just a witch hunt by the Liberal Party based on an apology by the minister in the House and a commitment not to do it again. Here we have a motion at the public accounts committee. We can't support this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

One minute.

Mr. Laforest, you're up after him.

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

It seems to me that I put my name on the list a long time ago. I did so at the outset.

[Charles Hubbard, Liberal, Miramichi, NB]

I can let him go first.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

No, you go ahead, Mr. Hubbard.

[Charles Hubbard, Liberal, Miramichi, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I take the opposite point of view. I know speeches are valuable, and I listened to that speech in the House. When I heard later that the writing of that speech cost that much money, I just wonder what value we did get. What was the cost per page? It seems like a very significant cost to have someone write a speech.

I know we have speakers in this country who come and deliver speeches at great conventions and they're paid $50,000 or $100,000. I know certainly the government has great support for the presenter, the so-called minister. To think it cost that much to write him a speech seems extraordinary.

The fact that it was done, Mr. Williams, without any tendering process certainly shows that one of the senior ministers in our government is not able to follow the accountability and the high standard that the present government has for how it deals with business.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Mr. Laforest, for one minute.

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

Mr. Chairman, this motion was tabled at the Standing Committee on Finance, on which I also sit. One of the reasons why we did not agree that it be studied at the Standing Committee on Finance was that we were convinced that it should come under the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.

I therefore agree on the substance of the question. However, some components of the motion are very different from the motion that was tabled at the other committee. That was much less accusatory, in part. I would like to propose a friendly amendment to Mr. Wrzesnewskyj, if he agrees. In the second paragraph, I would delete the part that talks about contracts “valued at $24,900 to Conservative Party supporters in order to bypass Treasury Board guidelines”. If we want to find out if that is what was done, we must hear from the witnesses in order to ask them, before stating it in the motion. I will read the motion as it was tabled at the Standing Committee on Finance. It said:

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

Everyone knows that. I would delete the entire third paragraph. At the end of the fourth paragraph, where it says: “to appear as witnesses in order to further study these violations of Treasury Board guidelines”, I would delete the words “these violations of Treasury Board guidelines”, and say: “on these situations that appear to be contrary to Treasury Board guidelines”.

I do not know if Mr. Wrzesnewskyj will agree, but I propose this friendly amendment.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Chair, I accept those changes as friendly amendments.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Would you move those amendments, Mr. Laforest.