Public Accounts Committee on June 22nd, 2011

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

Thank you. Maybe the clerk could help me with the wording of that which I seek to do.

Madam Clerk, I'm seeking to amend the main motion to specifically allow the committee to summon documents from the Comptroller General's office or other relevant government departments or agencies pertaining to any line item for which a non-disclosure clause has been invoked or a non-disclosure has been invoked. That's a very complicated amendment.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Joann Garbig]

Perhaps there could be an amendment following “the Committee concur in the request for endorsement of waivers to the publication”, and so on; you could add the words, “provided that”--

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

Perhaps “notwithstanding the Committee's prerogative to summon”--

[The Clerk]

Or “provided that the Committee reserves the right to”—

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

Perhaps “summon documents and hear witnesses”—

[The Clerk]

Or “request the disclosure of the information sought”....

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

If I may, was the phrase you used “retain the right”? Is that the word you used, “retain”?

[The Clerk]

It was “provided that the”....

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

The reason we need certain wording is that this is time sensitive. The idea is to get it approved today.

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

Understood.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

So as long as you're doing your amendment in such a way that it's something else we might do after the fact, if we wish, that would allow us to be timely on the motion. If we don't pass it now, subject to a review, we're going to miss our deadline.

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

Yes. I appreciate that, Mr. Chair.

I think we can accomplish both objectives very quickly today.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Good.

Are you comfortable with the idea that we would approve it subject to the committee retaining the right to...and so on?

That works for you?

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

Absolutely. That works for me.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Okay.

That's the amendment. I think we have the gist of it.

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

And it should be specifically noting the in camera nature of the request--

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Yes, of course.

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

—so that the confidentiality wouldn't always be maintained.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

All right. I'll take that as a motion.

Is there a seconder? No seconder.

All right, I have a seconder.

The motion is on the floor for debate.

Mr. Shipley.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Mr. Chair, this is just a question.

Mr. Byrne, you mentioned “the motion”, and that you were going to change “the motion”. What motion? What we have in front of us I think is a process, a policy, or a regulation.

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

No.

I think, Mr. Chair, you did read out a motion initially.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

There is a motion.

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

Which one? Where?

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

It's in the letter.

Oh, you don't have that?

I read it once, and I'll read it again. This would be the motion in front of the committee to acquiesce to the approval:

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.

Mr. Byrne's amendment would state in the motion that the committee reserves the right to look at these in camera.

Am I correct? Are you actually requesting that they be delivered, or is it just that you're retaining the right?

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

Now, what has been explained to me, Mr. Chair, is that the public accounts will not aggregate these figures, that they'll list them out. The testimony that we've heard this afternoon is that the only exclusion will be to a specific individual's name. There will be line-by-line items of....

In fairness, I'm not interested in the residential schools or the.... I mean, Parliament has already authorized that. We do not need to know. We can find out on an aggregate basis the number of claimants and the total value.

As we go off that mark, as we get into territory that has not been discussed by Parliament at all, then I would like to know what the individual cases are, excluding the names so that confidentiality is maintained. Then, if we so choose, based on that information that's available to us and to the entire public, we can call forward a request for further information on an in camera basis.

That's consistent with what the Comptroller General actually wrote to us, Mr. Chair, in his letter to us. He effectively argued that the committee should retain its right to view this information on an in camera basis.

So I'm sure no one would have an objection to that. The Comptroller General himself actually set out those exact terms in his letter to us.