Public Accounts Committee on April 24th, 2012

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Very good, thank you.

On the amendment, are there any speakers? Second call for debate on the amendment?

Hearing none, we'll put the motion to the committee then. Madam Clerk, a roll call vote, please.

(Amendment negatived: nays 7; yeas 4)

Thank you. I declare the motion defeated on a vote of seven to four.

The main motion is now before us. Is there any further debate?

Mr. Allen.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

I have a question to the government side on the motion and hopefully they'll feel they wish to answer it. The motion says Thursday for the witnesses, and I'm not disputing that. My question simply is this: is that the one and only meeting at which you intend to call those particular witnesses?

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Does Mr. Saxton or anybody else from the government benches wish to respond?

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

I think it's too early to determine that, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Mr. Allen, you have the floor.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Then the supplementary question would be that if there's a need by the committee, would you be in favour of recalling those witnesses?

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Mr. Saxton.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Mr. Chair, that's something to be determined in a future planning meeting.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Mr. Allen, you're good?

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

No, but that's an answer.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Are you finished? Okay, thank you.

Mr. Byrne, you have the floor.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to raise and renew my objection to the process the government is suggesting.

I believe out of respect and courtesy for the author of this chapter we should be hearing first from the Auditor General of Canada and his team of principal auditors on this audit. Calling the deputy ministers as a group with officials in tow provides a bit of a circus format where no one can ask in-depth questions. As was rightfully pointed out, the majority of the time of our two-hour session will be consumed by pre-speeches. We really should be calling the Auditor General of Canada first.

This whole situation reminds me very much of the G-8 legacy chapter, where the Auditor General was never asked to appear before us. In a startling and very concerning change of process, for the very first time in what the interim Auditor General himself said in his 33 years had never happened before, the Auditor General of Canada was not invited to the public accounts committee while we engaged in a study. That was the G-8 legacy fund study.

We have a situation where the government will not pronounce itself as to whom they are proposing as witnesses for this study. The Liberal Party of Canada has brought forward a witness list, made it very publicly known, argued for it to the best of our ability, but has had it rejected time and time again by the government.

This is a cover-up in the making, Mr. Chair. If we simply allow this to go on in this way, I think Canadians can be assured they will never ever learn the truth about this particular initiative, about this F-35 fiasco.

It's not the first time. We've had an Auditor General report on the procurement of helicopters that provided very specific recommendations, very specific findings, as to how business should be done within the Government of Canada. Then we have the F-35 acquisition where the government rejected every conclusion of the Auditor General and said so to the Auditor General—we'll agree with your recommendation that we should do better in the future, but we disagree with every conclusion you came to.

That's written right in the Auditor General's report, so for the government to simply say that's not true.... Well, let me read what the Auditor General's report actually says. There are other quotes as well that reference the exact same issue, but on page 3 it says, “Both National Defence and Public Works and Government Services Canada disagree with the conclusions...”. You can't make it any more clear than that.

Now we have a situation where a new scandal has come to light with the medium-weight personnel carriers. I'm not sure what Minister Fantino actually does for a living anymore. He probably won't be asked to appear before this committee because the junior minister in charge of military procurement doesn't have a job. It's all going to the Department of Public Works and Government Services Canada.

I fail to see what shifting this to the Department of Public Works is going to provide by way of resolution because Public Works doesn't agree they did anything wrong in the acquisition of the F-35.

Mr. Chair, I think we have a very serious issue here. I think the normal course of business would be to call the Auditor General as the first witness, not have a circus at the end of the table where as many officials and deputy ministers as possible can be crammed in with nothing really coming from it, simply as a tactical exercise by the government.

It would be very simple. The Auditor General and his team are available to us.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Thank you.

The floor is open for further debate.

Mr. Byrne.

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

I'd like to read out the minutes from the last meeting if I can find them. If you'll give me a few minutes I'll have them.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

I don't know about a few minutes; I'll give you a few moments.

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

Mr. Chair, perhaps you can move to the next speaker.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

There is no other speaker.

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

If someone else would like to speak I'll be able to read out the minutes as soon as I can find them.

No.

Fair enough. No problem, Mr. Chair, go ahead.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

I'm willing to give you a little latitude here, but I can't suspend the whole meeting while you do your research.

I'll leave you to hunt through it.

I do this quite reluctantly, but I feel the need to speak out as the chair of this committee. This is my fourth Parliament on public accounts, and I've served longer on public accounts than any other member of Parliament sitting right now. This is now the second time that a chapter has begun and the Auditor General has not been brought in to present their report.

It didn't happen at all on the previous one, but I said nothing. It was so loaded with politics and the politics of the previous Parliament and this Parliament I let it go as a one-off, but now it's becoming more than a one-off. This trend is dangerous in terms of the critical importance of oversight.

Never before has this committee attempted to deal with a chapter without bringing in the author, the Auditor General, to clarify questions, present their findings, and set the stage. The report is the basis of everything. Not having the author of the report makes no sense and is politically dangerous. I understand the government says they're going to bring the Auditor General back later, but I'm finding that insufficient. I don't get a vote unless there's a tie, and members will know that I do not do this lightly, but this is wrong.

There is a reason why we have historically started with the Auditor General. It will probably show itself if this motion carries at the next meeting when people give interpretation to the Auditor General's report, but we haven't had the interpretation from the Auditor General himself. That will create confusion.

One of my predecessors was Mr. John Williams. He was one of the longest, if not the longest-serving of previous chairs of this committee. I consider Mr. Williams to be a mentor of mine on public accounts. Mr. Williams had a saying that I thought was so apropos to the business of this committee—that we must remember we are unique in that we are an oversight committee. It's not supposed to make the government feel comfortable and good, because usually there are criticisms contained in these reports. That's why we have procedures to give the opposition some ability to give some attention to those issues.

Mr. Williams used to say—and I agree whole-heartedly—that when a deputy minister finds out they've been invited to appear before the public accounts committee, it should ruin their entire week.

I am concerned that it's beginning to look like the process—I'm not talking about the specifics of the chapter—is being manipulated. There are lots of politics that go on around here. We talked about some of it at the beginning of the meeting, but I consider it to be at a whole other level to start manipulating when and if the Auditor General will be allowed to come before this committee to present his report.

I want colleagues to know that this will not continue with me in the chair. One way or another something has to give. This will not continue, at least with me as a member of this committee, because it's wrong. I urge the government to reconsider this approach to how they do business at public accounts, given that our mandate is oversight.

We'll now call the vote.

Mr. Kramp.

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

I'm making a point of debate, then to the chair's comments.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Mr. Chair, I'm sorry, but my hand was up first.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

You're right.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

You did say there was no vote.

I would like to bring up an issue that relates to parliamentary privilege. I think that another slippery slope that this motion creates—and this is a concern that I have for all future committees—is to abdicate our oversight privilege by allowing witnesses to be decided not by the committee and not by elected parliamentarians, but by the public service. This creates a slippery slope. It blurs the lines between our functions and the functions of the public service.

I'd like it to be on record that, frankly, as a member of this committee and as a parliamentarian, I think this is a dangerous trend with regard to our privileges as parliamentarians.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Thank you.

Mr. Kramp, you have the floor.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Certainly, I understand the chair's frustration and I think we all share it. I do believe that the chair is in error when he suggests that this is the second time that the Auditor General.... The government has made no such suggestion whatsoever. As a matter of fact, the government has suggested very strongly that the Auditor General would be a most welcome witness and we look forward to that happening very soon.

The unfortunate reality is that 95% of this meeting has been occupied by opposition grandstanding, and that's fine. That's part of their role too, but we have business to do in planning. We could certainly plan for Thursday. We could certainly plan for the following Tuesday and/or Thursday. There are a number of things. We can bring in witnesses. We can bring in the Auditor General. We can bring in the Parliamentary Budget Officer. Those things will happen in the course of this committee.

But to suggest right now that this is not the case.... With the greatest respect, I understand the chair's frustration, but he is dead wrong in that assumption. I would take the chair to task on that assumption, because that has not happened. Certainly as a member of the government I would not tolerate that happening, quite frankly, from my personal perspective. I assure the chair this is not the case.

I hope we can get back to planning this meeting and then take a look at the witnesses the government has suggested at this particular point, vote on that, and then if we have time to move on to future planning, then the committee would find itself most surprised at the government's willingness to bring in the Auditor General and other witnesses.

We don't know yet, but some of the witnesses who come with the deputy ministers could quite conceivably be witnesses that the opposition is looking for. So let's just take this step-by-step. The committee would be well served to do that and to try to minimize the politics of this as much as possible, while understanding the reality that both sides face on this.

I say that with the greatest respect. I think the chair knows that I'm not sitting here trying to play a game because we all recognize the responsibilities we have both to the government and to the opposition. I'm determined to have an answer out of this. The Auditor General voiced some serious concerns that we need to hear, and that we need to have dealt with.

I think this committee will do that, but let's not play the game of being presumptuous throughout the entire process without first hearing the testimony and seeing where that takes us down the road. I leave that with the chair, and I thank him for the opportunity to comment.