Public Accounts Committee on May 13th, 2008

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Mr. Lussier and Mr. Laforest.

We'll have Mr. Poilievre for seven minutes.

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

Minister, you just had an apology from Mr. McCallum for his having wrongly smeared you, your family, and your kids and for his having gotten his facts wrong in doing so. Now we see this attack on private citizens who provided value for money in contractual work they did for the government.

Can you tell us, given your knowledge of Treasury Board rules, whether there are rules forbidding your ministry from hiring people you know?

[Jim Flaherty, Conservative, Whitby—Oshawa, ON]

No.

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

There are no such rules. So given the great lengths to which the opposition has gone to show that you know the people who were hired, to what end do you think they were making such efforts?

[Jim Flaherty, Conservative, Whitby—Oshawa, ON]

Let me put it this way, and this does upset me, actually. What we do as politicians when we do this kind of thing, when we try to create clouds of suspicion and smear good Canadians who give value for money when they do work for the government, many for pure public policy reasons and not for any compensation, is discourage people from doing it. We discourage good people from taking on government contracts.

The type of contract that MacPhie & Company took means that they have to give up most of their other work for a period of time, because they have to intensely work on the budget. It means working weekends, working nights, working long hours, having no time off, and taking no ski trips in the wintertime--none of that stuff--as we approach the budget date. It mean being quiet about it all and being confidential about it all so that there are no leaks and there is no sharing of information. So it's a monk-like duty they enter into when they do this.

Quite frankly, I think we have to be careful before we cast aspersions on people who are prepared to undertake arduous work for reasonable compensation.

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

Mr. Hubbard points out, and I quote, that he and his colleagues are “not really concerned about your ability to do a good job”. The people he was referring to are Ms. Mintz and Mr. MacPhie. So we now have an opposition that's put together a hearing to look into the work, which they admit does not concern them, of some contractors who provided value for money and who broke no rules.

We know that this group--we're talking about Mr. MacPhie--for example, put in over 800 hours of work. That's not disputed by anyone. They went over 400 pages of budgetary material and helped with writing and editing that material. They had sessions in Calgary, Winnipeg, Vancouver, North York, and Montreal to gather feedback from everyday Canadians on the budget. And they did all that for what is the standard hourly rate, if not significantly less. It raises a lot of questions about why we're actually here having these hearings.

Ms. Mintz is highly qualified. If she were billing in the legal community, with her qualifications, she would have been billing at a much higher rate than she ever did the government. She's a hardworking person. No one disputes any of that.

I guess, Minister, it all comes down to the fact that you know these people, and therefore there must be something nefarious about their hard work. That's what this is really about, isn't it?

[Jim Flaherty, Conservative, Whitby—Oshawa, ON]

Then I suppose there would be a rule that one may only hire strangers, and there is no such rule. In fact, I think most of us, in our experience, certainly in my experience in private practice for many years, in the government of the Province of Ontario in cabinet for many years, and here in the federal government is that people of all parties tend to look to people they know, who they trust, whose track record they know before they hire them. Certainly if they have someone in that category, they tend to hire them before they hire someone who is not known to them and whose track record and trustworthiness are not known to them.

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

I wonder if Mr. McCallum will confirm that when he was a minister he only hired people he didn't know; he only hired strangers to work for his ministry.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Your questions are to be directed to Mr. Flaherty. He is the only witness.

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

Well, we'll see. He'll be up next. He'll have a chance to answer that question.

Again, to summarize the work that Mr. MacPhie's company did, we're talking about 800 hours, going over 400 pages, having five listening sessions across the country to communicate a roughly $220 billion budget to 30 million Canadians. That's generally what we're talking about here in terms of work. Is that right?

[Jim Flaherty, Conservative, Whitby—Oshawa, ON]

There was a lot of work. It was good value for the money.

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

Good.

How much time do I have?

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

One and a half minutes.

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

One and a half minutes.

Sara Mintz demonstrated a vast degree of experience and knowledge, and tremendous education. Did you find that the work she did was of high quality and value for money?

[Jim Flaherty, Conservative, Whitby—Oshawa, ON]

She did. She's very bright, and she also performed a valuable challenge function, which is a popular phrase around Parliament Hill. That is, she was not afraid to challenge assumptions and to test theories and test analyses, which is very helpful in the formulation of budgetary policy.

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

And with the $24,000 contract that she received, it's important to note that all of her expenses were included in that. Did she not bill any other expenses to the government for that particular work?

[Jim Flaherty, Conservative, Whitby—Oshawa, ON]

Yes, I'm told that now, that her expenses were included in that figure, which meant she was paying for her own transportation back and forth to the greater Toronto area, and the greater Hamilton area too.

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

Right. So why are you here?

[Jim Flaherty, Conservative, Whitby—Oshawa, ON]

I'm here to get an apology from the member for Markham—Unionville, and I'm very pleased to be here to receive it. Thank you.

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

You did get it. Excellent. So mission accomplished.

Thank you very much, Minister.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Mr. Poilievre.

Thank you, Mr. Flaherty.

Mr. Christopherson, seven minutes.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you, Minister, for attending. It's good to see you again. We have been political colleagues on different sides of two different houses for some time now.

I don't know whether it's Mr. MacPhie or anyone else, but just as an opening comment, I want to ask you to please stop the attack on Ontario. We're in enough trouble as it is. This is hurting us, sir, and I'm asking you not to.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

I'm actually going to ask you, Mr. Christopherson, let's try to keep it to the contracts that we have. We're here to talk about the $120,000 contract, the Mintz contract, and some other contracts there. Let's keep the rest of the discussion in that particular domain.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Earlier, I read a quote from your Prime Minister from November 17, 2005, that patronage “has got to stop, and when we become government, it will stop”. You just answered a moment ago, Minister, that the opposite would be to just hire only strangers. I'm having some trouble understanding, then, what you think your Prime Minister meant by that, and how much obligation you have to honour that commitment to the Canadian people.

[Jim Flaherty, Conservative, Whitby—Oshawa, ON]

I think what most people mean by “patronage” is that unqualified people who are undeserving obtain appointments because of some political favouritism. I think that's what most people think patronage is.

That's certainly not applicable here. These were highly qualified people who were heavily engaged in their practices and who were prepared to take some intense time to help prepare the largest Canadian budget in history. It has nothing to do with what you suggest. It has to do with qualified people doing a good job for the government and value for money for the people of Canada.