Public Accounts Committee on April 24th, 2012

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

Absolutely. My objective, sir, is not to have my motion win out. My objective is to establish a witness list. I'll accept Mr. Saxton's motion per se, which we adopted on Thursday, but now what I would like to do is get to the business of getting witnesses in place. So my motion would simply be that the following witnesses be called to testify at the committee—

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Sorry, is that not your April 3 motion?

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

Yes, it is.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Okay. Is that not now what's before us?

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

Yes, it is, but I'm not interested in simply replacing Mr. Saxton's motion, because that would seem like...I wouldn't want to have anyone accuse me of having my banjo out of tune.

The motion that I presented also included that witnesses appear as panels, with no more than two witnesses per panel, and each panel appear for a minimum of one hour, and that the committee report its findings to the House of Commons.

So if you like, Mr. Chair, this is the motion. So that there's no confusion—

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Well, you just made confusion, because we dealt with the issue of panels at the previous meeting. Not that it's hard to do, but you're now confusing me.

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

Okay. Why don't we just stick to it at this point?

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Why don't you just give me a motion that you would like, regardless of anything you've done in the past? If you want to make reference to lists and spelling and titles, fine, but please give me a motion, sir, so I can continue the business of the committee.

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

No problem.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Or just keep talking. You don't have to move a motion, but do one or the other.

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

Well, I was attempting to streamline this to get to the business at hand, but to ensure that everything is in order, and to ensure that progress is made, I move as follows:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the Standing Committee on Public Accounts begin a study of the spring 2012 report of the Auditor General, beginning with Chapter 2, “Replacing Canada's Fighter Jets”, and that the witness list include, but not be limited to: • François Guimont, Deputy Minister of Public Works and Government Services Canada; • Craig Morris, Deputy Director, F-35 Industrial Participation, Industry Canada; • Richard Dicerni, Deputy Minister, Industry Canada; • Johanne Provencher, Director General, Defence and Major Projects Directorate, Public Works and Government Services Canada; • Tom Ring, Assistant Deputy Minister, Acquisitions Branch, Public Works and Government Services Canada; • Col D.C. Burt, Director, New Generation Fighter Capability, National Defence; • Michael J. Slack, F-35 Project Manager, Director of Continental Materiel Cooperation, National Defence; • LGen J.P.A. Deschamps, Chief of the Air Staff, National Defence; • Dan Ross, Assistant Deputy Minister (Materiel), National Defence; • Kevin Page, Parliamentary Budget Officer; • Michael Ferguson, Auditor General of Canada; and That witnesses appear as panels with no more than two witnesses per panel and that each panel appear for a minimum of one hour, and that the committee report its findings to the House of Commons.

Mr. Chair, that's my motion.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Very good, thank you. I have a question concerning a detail.

At the beginning of your motion you made reference to Standing Order 108. Was it (3)(g) or (2)(g)?

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

It was Standing Order 108(2).

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

That's what I thought. Standing Order 108(3)(g) would be more appropriate.

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

I will accept your advice, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Very good. The motion's in order and it's accepted. You may speak to it.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I had an opportunity to speak on this at length on Thursday, so I won't be long. I'll ask others to provide their input as to whether they feel it's appropriate that witnesses appear as panels, with no more than two witnesses per panel, and that each panel appear for a minimum of one hour.

I was pleased that Mr. Kramp agreed with this notion. At Thursday's meeting he said, if I paraphrase correctly, that it would be disrespectful to the witnesses and counterproductive to have a large group appear before us, with the consequence that committee members could not pose questions to each and every individual witness. And of those who were indeed questioned, there would be limited time for each witness to provide answers. This is an important point.

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

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Excuse me, Mr. Byrne, there's a point of order.

Mr. Kramp.

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

Chair, my concern, of course, is Mr. Byrne's paraphrasing.

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

That's a point of debate, Mr. Chair.

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

He is absolutely incorrectly stating how I interpreted the witness list. We don't want 20 people all at the table at the one time, but to suggest that I was favourably disposed to going in the manner he has suggested is absolutely incorrect.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Thank you, Mr. Kramp.

I think you'll appreciate that this was a point of debate as opposed to a point of order, however.... Well, there's no “however”; you're out of order.

You have the floor, Mr. Byrne.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. For those who may be interested—

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Sorry, Mr. Byrne.

Madam Bateman has a point of order.