Public Accounts Committee on June 22nd, 2011

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

I call this meeting to order, please, colleagues, this being the second meeting of the public accounts committee.

Our first order of business deals with the following: publication waiver, payments of claims against the crown, ex gratia payments, and court awards. Then we have our report.

I would suggest we take it in the order presented in order to allow any officials who are here an opportunity to do what they're going to do, and then they can leave; we won't hold them up.

Do I have agreement from colleagues?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Members should consider the following motion put before you for discussion. It's not recommended....

I'm just going to put this on the table. In the steering committee, we now have a situation where it's two government members and two opposition members. We're still trying to work our way through how things can get on the agenda without being affirmed by a motion, through lack of majority, and yet there may be a desire to talk about it. We're still trying to work our way through that.

In this case, we've brought the motion to the committee so that it's before us now, but there's no recommendation yet.

The request is contained in this document from the Treasury Board of Canada, Comptroller General, addressed to me as chair. The subject line is “Public Accounts of Canada--Publication Waiver”.

Does everyone have that? Okay.

The motion itself, what we're focusing on, reads as follows:

That in relation to the letter received June 17, 2011, from the Comptroller General of Canada, the Committee concur in the request for endorsement of waivers to the publication of details related to ex gratia payments, payments of claims against the Crown and court awards in the 2011 Public Accounts of Canada.

So the matter is before us. It's in your hands, colleagues.

Mr. Byrne.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Mr. Chair, was I to understand that the Comptroller General would be asked to appear before us?

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Yes, or representatives of his office, and they are here.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Would we be able to invite them to the table and have the members ask some questions?

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Of course. If you have questions of them, I would ask them to please join us at the end of the table.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

If we're afforded an opportunity to ask questions of those appearing before us, I'd like to take advantage of that.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Okay.

I'm going to ask for a little indulgence from colleagues. One of the things we haven't yet addressed is the issue of rotation. That's to happen at this meeting. So I would suggest that you allow me to just take speakers as they are and that we go with the five minutes we were looking at earlier as a way to move through this until we get to the rotation question.

Mr. Kramp.

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

Mr. Chair, it's the government's position that quite frankly this is a wasted exercise, “how and why”, and I don't want to go through an entire meeting with a whole group of questions around....

The government has no questions at all, because this is just routine from year to year to year. The question is actually very simple. We do one of two things: we either entrust the Comptroller General--

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Sorry, Mr. Kramp, but right now I'm dealing with process. I think you're debating now.

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

Okay.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

I was seeking to get agreement that in the absence of a formal rotation that we've ratified, you allow me to chair the meeting as almost a committee of the whole and take speakers as they come--limited to the five minutes--and that will get us through this piece.

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

No, no, Chair, that was not the understanding at the pre-committee. The understanding was that we would give a brief opportunity to have them here. We would not be doing a lot of questions. The only thing they were here to do was to give clarification if someone wanted it; it was not to have a round of questioning and on and on.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

No, calm down, it's okay; I'm just saying I'll take questions.... I don't have a rotation to go by caucus; I'm just asking permission to be able to take the speakers, if there are any, in the order that I receive them. That's all. Otherwise, I don't have a directive as to how to proceed.

I'm just asking for agreement that I'll take the calls, starting with Mr. Byrne, and the next hand I see, I'll put down. If there are no more hands, we're done, and I'll move to the motion.

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

And if we all want to speak, are we going to go for the next hour and a half on this issue?

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Well, members are allowed to speak if they want, Mr. Kramp.

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

No, Chair, that was not the agreement.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

One question.

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

One question? Fine.

Let's keep it simple. Otherwise, we're going to waste this meeting.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Mr. Saxton.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

I would like to support Mr. Kramp. If Mr. Byrne has a question, he can ask a question, but let's not continue this on indefinitely. There should be a fixed--

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

With great respect, my colleagues, I'm trying to get to Mr. Byrne. He may be the only questioner.

This shouldn't be a two-hour procedure. I'm just trying to get an okay as to how to proceed, because we don't have rules confirmed yet.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

But the whole point, Mr. Chair, is that we don't want this to go on indefinitely.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

I agree.