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.