Public Accounts Committee on May 8th, 2012

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

I now call this 43rd meeting of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts of the House of Commons to order.

Colleagues will know that we had planned to have our Auditor General with us today. You'll know from the e-mail I sent to you and the news release that he had a relatively minor medical emergency that needed to be dealt with. He's going to make himself available as early as Thursday, but of course that's at the pleasure of the committee.

We have quite a bit of business in front of us. We have remnants of the 2011 fall report that we postponed to accommodate the F-35 meeting. We need to reschedule that one and get it back on track.

We have not yet prioritized our chapters from the spring 2012 report, other than chapter 2, on the F-35, which of course we've been focusing on. So we need to work on that.

We have a couple of outstanding motions in front of us. The thing we need to decide right now is how we want to proceed. Again, I'm a little hesitant, because after we lost the steering committee, the easy way to do this was lost.

I have fretted, again, over this notion of what I was going to do when all hands went up, and—we're back into this—who got to control the floor.

I have to tell you, with nobody doing anything and the government putting their hands up, it's all the same to me. I've said this to you before. Twice I've asked for assistance. I've asked for it privately. I've asked publicly. Nobody's taken me up on it, so I'm still left with this impossible situation.

In the absence of a clear rule, I'll let a couple of people speak. But I'm not going to take motions. I just want to give you an opportunity. As I said to you before, it's an impossible situation. You all throw your hands up at once. Whoever gets the floor first has a bearing. The people watching may not see it, but we all know here that inside politics, it matters a whole lot.

Here is my thinking, at this point. With a clear majority, the government always maintains the ability to deny an opposition motion and/or to carry their own motion. The opposition, by themselves, cannot force this committee to do anything. They don't have the votes. The government has 100% built-in control. No one can do anything without the agreement of the government. Conversely, the government can do anything they want, whether the opposition likes it or not, assuming they follow the usual rules of procedure.

With that in mind, all other things being equal, and given that this is an oversight committee whose sole purpose is to watch the books, hopefully in as non-partisan a fashion as possible, I'm going to try to bring some kind of fairness. Again, for those who may disagree, I am willing to host a meeting, private or public, to talk about a different way to approach this. But in the absence of that, I am going to go to the official opposition, then to the Liberals, and then to the government.

I am going to listen to interventions, probably from the government, if they want to make a different argument. But bear in mind that just winning isn't good enough in terms of winning the floor. We don't have a process that's fair. I'm trying to be as fair-minded as I can be, recognizing the mandate of this committee and that ultimately we're accountable to the public. We're the public accounts committee.

That's the way I'm going to proceed. I invite members to meet with me to talk about a different approach, but that's what I'm going to do.

I will now take any interventions. I will not accept any motions during these interventions, because my intent right now is to give the floor to the official opposition, at which time they will have the full right to the floor.

Right now I'm going to give people an opportunity to give me a little input into that decision, particularly from the government, since they would likely have the greatest difficulty with this. With that understanding, I'm willing to hear from Mr. Saxton.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

First of all, I'd just like to point out that I've been on this committee for three and a half years. My colleague Mr. Kramp has been on this committee a lot longer than that, as have you. Because of that, you know full well, Chair, that committee business historically, traditionally, has always been done in camera. It’s not just something that this committee has practised; it's something that all committees have practised, in fact.

Therefore, yesterday when I received your agenda, which says “Committee Business”, “Televised”, this is absolutely unprecedented. It is absolutely unusual for this committee—any committee, for that matter. It's got nothing to do with openness or not being open, because we've exercised openness on many occasions on this committee. As you've seen recently, we've even gone against practice, at times, to be open. This is a matter of your setting a very wrong precedent, in my opinion, and you're going down a very slippery slope.

This is committee business. If you want to change the rules of all committees, that's something that should be taken up perhaps in a different forum. But what you have done here, Chair—because it was your decision—is to start a precedent that goes counter and against anything that's ever happened in the public accounts committee, to my knowledge, certainly in the three and a half years that I've been on the committee. I'm sure Mr. Kramp would join me in saying that this is an unprecedented move. I understand where you're going, but I think it's a very slippery slope you have decided to go down.

I'd like to share my time with Mr. Kramp. I'm sure he has a few things he'd like to say on this subject as well.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Of course.

Mr. Kramp, you have the floor, sir.

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

Thank you, Chair.

With the greatest of respect to the chair, I do agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Saxton, as you would expect. This isn't a question, quite frankly, of who goes first; I think we all understand the realities and the implications of such. But I take great umbrage with the chair unilaterally making the decision that totally changes the direction this committee has generally worked with, as Mr. Saxton has stated.

To use the argument or the discussion point that the government has control because they have more members, well, whether a government has more members or the opposition has more members.... I've sat on a committee that was obviously on the other side of the coin. I've sat in the position where we have been the government, and the opposition have had more members. It was reversed.

To suggest that from this point, because the government has more members they take the back seat all the time is arbitrary, I do believe, and I honestly believe in my heart that it's an abuse of the chair's privilege. It's an abuse of the chair's responsibilities. I do see it as a direct partisan move, with the greatest respect to the chair. I can understand why the opposition wish to go that route. I understand the discussions that take place among all the opposition. It's a clear-cut strategy, and it is unfortunate, because as we move through an event like this and the subsequent examinations, this sets a precedent that I'm concerned will potentially be challenged through the House procedures--I don't know--as we move forward. I would hope that we would never get to that.

I suppose I can sum it up with a very simple word: I'm disappointed. I really am. I think this now takes the obvious politicization of this committee.... Now the chair has, willingly or not, knowingly or not--and I'll try to be deliberately vague here out of consideration for my past history with the chair--led us into an abuse of the work of the committee.

We saw that once before, in a previous chair. We've had some marvellous chairs, we really have--and no umbrage, again, toward this chair--but we saw where all of a sudden it became a one-sided coin. I do understand the dilemma the chair finds himself in with regard to having to pass judgment on whose hand is up first and that kind of thing. I understand there's an ongoing challenge to deal with that, and I do agree with the chair that we should have a process. It would certainly take that off the shoulders of the chair. But with the chair's ruling on an interim way forward until we come to that agreement, I think it is partisan, and I state that, once again, with respect. To arbitrarily just put the government to the back of the bus, and that's the way it's going to be.... Even if there were rotation, even if there were other members....

We saw what happened the last time. This is the process the opposition and the chair followed. Mr. Saxton's hand obviously was up first in the last meeting, and the chair arbitrarily ruled that no, the opposition parties are going to go ahead. Then Mr. Saxton was afforded the opportunity.

Now we're saying the same thing again. What we're doing now is we're building upon a wrong and making more wrongs, and I feel the direction of the committee has been hampered. I would certainly hope that we can in the very near future find a way we can move out of this uncomfortable situation, because now we are politicizing this committee. At the very least, moving forward there should be and could be an alternate, one versus the other--the government side, the opposition side; the opposition side, the government side--whatever way we do move forward. I think the chair sees where I'm going on this.

But to just say that because you have a majority on the committee your concerns and rights aren't going to be respected, we'll just throw you at the back of the bus....

I'll close now by saying I am disappointed, and I wish the chair would reconsider.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Go ahead, Mr. Saxton. Get it all on the table.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

I just wanted to add that I know the chair would like to be fair--he says that he would like to be fair, and I take him at his word. You have had this dilemma for some time now, and the last time you decided to choose the opposition first. So I think the only way to be fair now is to allow the government to go first, and until we come up with a better system, you alternate who goes first. I think that's the only way to be fair.

Otherwise, as Mr. Kramp says, you're throwing us to the back of the bus, and you know that's not going to last. It's just totally unfair.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Okay, let me throw a couple of things out in response.

Let me deal with the last point first. In terms of alternating, that was one of my suggestions. I said we could rotate who goes first, but nobody took me up on that. To offer that up as an alternative to a decision I had to make in the absence of any alternatives being offered up by anyone is patently unfair. I'm open to the idea of alternating. Ideally it would be nice if we could come to an agreement, rather than having the majority decide what's going to be fair from their perspective only.

Next, let me just say that the issue of recognizing first and being in camera or public are two different things. The issue of who I see first plays almost—not quite, but almost—as big a role when we're in camera. Whoever's first gets a chance to command the floor, because when you have the floor you have the right to make motions. By making motions you can command and control the floor. By virtue of doing that, you de facto control the agenda. So it matters, whether we're in camera or we're in public, who has the floor and who gets the floor. That's why we're always so scrupulous about taking a list of who speaks, trying to make sure the order is accurate, and doing the best we can to be fair with the time allocation. So that's a separate issue.

With regard to the issue we are dealing with right now, for every single F-35 meeting I have, as chair, received requests from media saying “We would like to be there for that meeting. We would like to broadcast or record the entire proceedings. May we have your permission to come in?” Sometimes there are requests from representatives of three, four, or five mainstream TV media in particular, and they have all the equipment. That means we would have all these crews walking around here while the committee was trying to do its business.

So it's a lot easier, it seems to me, for us, and surely a lot easier for the media, if we just agree to flip the switch and we throw the cameras on that are in here. I can't say to the media, “No, you can't come, because the committee members don't want you”, and I'm not sure that there's any one of you here that would want to lead that charge, although you're welcome to. So I have two choices. I can allow the media to come in with their cameras and equipment and crews, or we can take advantage of the fact that we have installed the television cameras. That's been my rule of thumb.

There have been one or two occasions when the issue was so big that before the media even bothered to call, I looked to see if the meeting would be televised, because it was just that obvious. Some of those things are at the discretion of the committee chair. I've tried to be particularly careful around the F-35 because it's so politically explosive, and we all know that substantive issues can morph into procedural issues really quickly, and procedural issues can take over a meeting, as they are doing now.

So there is the issue of whether we are in camera or not.

The other thing I want to mention is that at one of the meetings in the last few weeks when we dealt with committee business, every one of us, I'm going to say to you, was expecting the government would move to go in camera, and it didn't happen. Everybody on the committee agreed to stay in public, and we did the entire committee planning. Most of it—I believe all of it, but certainly most of it—was on the F-35.

So who am I to presume what the will of this committee is when it's dealing with further organizing around the issue of the F-35, when the unanimous decision, in the absence of any motion to go in camera, was the decision of this committee? If I went in camera someone could easily say, “Wait a minute. What gives you the right to unilaterally decide this one is going to be in camera when we as a committee chose, by unanimous consent, to do all that business in public? Who are you, Chair, to do that?”

I'm ready to accept when I'm wrong. I'll take my lumps, and I make my mistakes as everybody else does. But I want colleagues to know....

Oh, the other thing I want to say is that I have not had one word—and you can put down any religious document you want and I'll put hands all over it—of discussion with any opposition member about how things are going to proceed and how there's going to be some kind of trap set for the government. That doesn't happen when I'm in the chair. And they can vouch for me. Any time you see me talking to the opposition members, it's about procedural things that are already known, or they're asking me a detail. It's no different from when Mr. Kramp or Mr. Saxton approaches me in the House.

So there are no deals. I'm not going to destroy my opportunity to try to continue to bring the respect that this committee needs. I'm not going to put that in jeopardy by playing monkey games, especially in a majority House, where the government wins ten times out of ten. It's far more important to me that this committee and my chairing be respected as being fair and non-partisan, as much as humanly possible in this arena, recognizing that I am a partisan.

So I'm open to further thoughts, but that's how we got where we are. That's been my thinking as we've moved forward. I'm in the hands of the committee, as always.

Mr. McKay.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

As you know, I'm not a regular member of this committee. I'm substituting for Mr. Byrne, who, I'm sure everyone will be pleased to know, is recovering from pneumonia. He may be not present for a while. So I've not been privy to all the machinations, shall we say, with respect to this committee and its setting of the agenda.

I don't disagree with Mr. Saxton's observation that most committee agenda-setting is done in camera. I don't dispute that. I've been here 14 years, and that's generally true.

It ceases to be in camera when there's a sense that there's an unfairness that has happened, or may happen, or could happen. So the working presumption of being in camera--i.e., there's some give and take, everybody gets a little something, opposition parties get to direct some part of the agenda--all of that is a working presumption of a steering committee. That presumption seems to have gone out the window here. It appears to have gone out the window because of an enthusiasm, particularly on the part of the government, to not have the deliberations of the committee with respect to the F-35 any more public than they absolutely have to be.

As a consequence, the deliberations with respect to the direction and agenda of this committee are, at the opposition's desire, in public and on television thus far. I just thought that there is an irony in the name of this standing committee. It is the public accounts committee. Generally speaking, public should be preferenced over private, because it is one of the very few opportunities members of the opposition have to actually ask real questions and potentially get real answers with respect to issues such as the F-35.

I'm here to move Mr. Byrne's motion on the F-35, and I'm just flipping through it--actual statement of operational requirements, full life-cycle analysis, bid evaluation criteria. All of that is stuff the public is interested in. Why there would be such a resistance.... If there's anything that is in a nature of a secretive aspect to any of this stuff and that imperils national security in any way, I'm sure any witness will bring that to the clerk's or your attention, sir, and say that on this item, or this item within this item, the committee should not be studying it in public and possibly no one outside of the Privy Council should be studying it.

Working on the presumption that a public accounts committee is first and foremost public, my sense of it is that motions and even this discussion need to take place in public. Your ruling is correct.

I would say finally that this entire matter can be resolved in a heartbeat, if in fact Mr. Saxton on behalf of the government simply allows the motions that the opposition wish to put forward to take place in public and the votes to take place in public. It's pretty simple that way.

Thank you for that opportunity.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Thank you.

I apologize, Monsieur Ravignat, I should have gone to you first, as I'd outlined earlier. You now have the floor, sir.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

That's okay.

I was listening very carefully to what my colleagues were saying on the other side. To a certain extent I would be sympathetic to what they were saying, provided we were in an ideal situation. The reality is that this public accounts committee is not functioning like the public accounts committee did in the past. There's very little goodwill to proceed with the important oversight function we have. The subcommittee, which could be the place where we would create some form of consensus around witnesses heard and the agenda, has been abolished by my Conservative colleagues.

If we were in that ideal situation, then of course it would be normal to have our procedures to decide on the agenda and so forth in camera. The reality is that it's not normal, which begs the need to make public what the opposition is proposing and to have the government or other members of the committee deliberate on this issue as well as share their opinion. I think Canadians have a right to know that there has been a request to hear from certain witnesses and that this request has been denied, for whatever reasons.

So I think I'd like to come back. Obviously I sympathize with the chair's situation. I think it's untenable to play the gunslinger approach in trying to get the floor. It's an unacceptable way of proceeding. I think I speak for my other opposition colleagues that we're clearly willing to speak with the Conservatives, with the government side, to talk about how we could get out of this impasse, maybe reconstituting a subcommittee, so we could go forward with a more consensus-based approach with regard to the length of debates and the witnesses we want to hear from.

Canadians have a right to know there are people around the table who want to hear from people like the minister, Peter MacKay, on F-35s; Julian Fantino, obviously, the associate minister; and the public works minister. The debate was such in the last few weeks that it begs that we bring these people forward. We're far more uncertain as to what went on than we were before, and the only way to clarify this for Canadians is to continue this debate and call the proper witnesses.

I also would like to add that procedure can be used as a weapon to silence debate. This government has had a poor record since May 2 in that regard, in using procedural process to close debate.

I forgot to mention that I should probably share my time with Mr. Allen, as Mr. Saxton did with Mr. Kramp.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Very well.

Mr. Allen.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Let me start by talking about this idea, which was in place last fall when I returned to this committee, of how quickly one gets one's hand up and whether one competes or not. If you go back and look at the record, you will see that the government side probably won that race 80% of the time, if not more. It became very apparent to me, as the lead of the opposition side at that time, that it was a futile attempt to out-race Mr. Saxton, for a couple of reasons. One is that I had two surgeries on my right shoulder many years ago, and it doesn't really work all that well, and he's much younger than I am and much faster, so I wouldn't have won the gunslinger race anyhow. I say that somewhat facetiously, but I wouldn't have. It's kind of not funny. But I could have called the procedural piece and said, “Chair, Mr. Saxton's hand was up before you gavelled the meeting to order; he's now out of order.” You cannot get the attention of the chair before the chair is actually in the chair, which happens when he gavels the meeting to order. But I didn't pull that stunt because I felt we could probably work this out.

The reason we're at this point now, as Mr. Ravignat clearly pointed out, is that there were issues with the steering committee. I do not lay the blame solely at the feet of the government for that, but there is a way this needs to be resolved. The chair has asked for some form of intervention from us to try to figure this out, and we have not been helpful in resolving that. We need to do that on a go-forward basis. The public accounts committee will not end at the end of the F-35 hearings. It will continue on until the end of this Parliament, and we need to find a way to make it work.

Let me restate what I stated about a week and a half ago, about whether this side has ever approached the chair because he's in our caucus. I stated unequivocally then, and I stand by it now, that I have never, nor would I ever, nor do I intend to in the future approach the chair to try to help me get recognition at this committee. I don't do that for two reasons. One is out of respect for the chair, regardless of who the person is who sits in it. Let me personalize it. I have known this chair for about 30 years, from a previous life, not when he was in government but indeed when we belonged to the same union. For those who have been in a union and who understand what the hard stick is, if I even made an attempt, the hard stick would have come down on top of me and it wouldn't have felt very pleasurable. I understand there's no reason to do that, and the chair wouldn't tolerate it. So let me state that clearly for the public to know that it has never happened from this side, from New Democrats on the opposition side, nor do we intend to do that on a go-forward basis.

Clearly, there is an issue around the F-35. It's a very public issue. The government acquiesced and decided to stay in public. If folks had been betting on the last time we stayed in public on a witness list, and the bets were that you would not stay in public, that you wanted to go in camera, all of those who had bet that way would have lost. Now you want to go in camera even though we still have that to discuss. That's it, the dilemma.

The other side of it is clearly in the G-8, where we wrote, as an opposition, a major dissenting report. We clearly had issues. You can see our trepidation about going in camera when our experiences are not joyous when it comes to the government's will to decide to go forward or not go forward. We wanted to go forward; you didn't, so we did not. You can see how we on this side are looking at you and saying we still wish to go forward. What happens if we go in camera and you decide you do not?

You extended the olive branch at the beginning. I would suggest that you continue to extend it, at least on the F-35, to deal with this and get it back on the rails as far as the witness list is concerned and what we intend to do with that piece, since you started down that road. On the other pieces, I think you need to decide where you want to go and how you do that as a process. I think if we end up having a sense of actually being back on track working as a whole committee, we may find indeed that we're able to continue forward in a manner where there is trust on both sides, and we may actually start working on some reports where perhaps there is less political fire, because there's a lot at this one—I understand that—and the committee would get back to kind of a regular routine.

I would point out one statistic to the folks on this committee. I said it once before, but maybe not at committee. When you check the chart of who has the most in camera meetings, it's us. Part of that's by necessity, because we write a lot of reports; it's not just because we're secretive. Somehow we have to find a way to be less apparently secretive. That's hard, and I don't suggest it's not.

I look to my colleagues to try to help that process. I hope you will consider continuing, at least for the F-35s, to show willingness to actually get to the bottom of what happened with this project, and do it in a public manner. I think it would suit the government better, but again it's their decision to make to keep it open rather than closed, for all the apparent reasons of the political pieces that fall into that. Regardless of what you do behind closed doors, will anybody believe you? I don't know.

At this point, on the believability around the F-35 file—and it's just that file the committee is looking at—I don't think you have a lot of trust on that one, folks. So I suggest you try to keep it open.

At the end of the day, I recognize the reality of seven versus four and how that vote can turn out. But I offer my comments and we'll see where it takes us.

Thanks, Chair.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Thank you, Mr. Allen.

I have first-time speakers and second-time speakers. I'll complete the first-time speakers.

Mr. Shipley, you have the floor, sir.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

First of all, you've sort of laid out a couple of things. One is the issue around first to speak, and the second one is.... I have to tell you, as colleagues, I wasn't sure what was happening when I read the agenda, which indicated “televised”. Mr. Chair, I think your words were, “Well, it's just easier to flip the switch and have the televisions on”.

I would never be, and I don't think we should ever be, concerned about the work the media goes through to come to a public meeting. That's their job. If they choose to come, then they come. The meetings are public, and they can do that in any of the meetings. In fact, I'm on the international trade committee, and if they choose to come to those public meetings, they can bring all their equipment, and that's what they do.

I am concerned that we have taken a significant step to televise something that has been, in my history on this committee, limited to when the Auditor General comes, or when we do estimates and the ministers come. That is pretty much when we televise. We know that ahead or we're told ahead, and in this particular case it came out in the agenda. As has been mentioned, it is a direction where we as a committee are going down the wrong road when we can just say we'll just flip the switch and we'll televise the whole thing, taking away from the responsibility of the media to come and report public meetings.

All of the dialogue in an open public meeting is in the blues for anyone to read.

I also sat on this committee when we were in a minority government. I'm not sure where the big surprise is. In the committees I've been on over my six years here, committee business has always been done in camera. We made some exceptions the other day, and obviously they may or may not have been the right ones, but we decided we would just move ahead with some committee business.

Here we are now going back to what has been the standard and the norm for committees when you sit down, because you're talking sometimes about finances, the organization of who is going to come and when they're going to come, and who is going to be here whenever. I think that's a bit like the business meeting at home with your own business. That is what we should be doing.

So when we televise that.... Mr. Ravignat had said that this committee had always functioned well. I can tell you, Mr. Ravignat, that before you got on it, in the last session, it did not function well. It functioned well when we had the.... Chairs make a difference in how it's run.

Sir, I'm not taking a shot, but don't let yourself get in the position where the last chair of this—in fact I think you agreed with us—was making arbitrary decisions and making arbitrary comments without consulting and following the committee. You cannot have someone making unilateral decisions, and that's what happens when we get into this predicament.

Parliament has been asked to have a four-hour discussion and debate on Wednesday night on the Department of National Defence. As you mentioned, it would be nice to have Minister Peter MacKay, Mr. Fantino, and maybe Chris Alexander. All those folks are going to be there. It's going to be a great opportunity for all of us, quite honestly, to ask questions and for people who wouldn't normally get the opportunity here to have their opportunity in those four hours.

I think it is going to be a process that gives us an opportunity to follow. As Mr. Allen said, maybe we can be less secretive. I agree that much of that is because of the number of reports. If you go back to the number of reports we've been able to run through in this committee, in fact we're almost caught up. We're looking at an agenda here to deal with the reports of the Auditor General. There are six of them, and we've been asked to now start to prioritize them. Those are always committee business. We will decide how we're going to move forward with that, and then the other ones.

The other reason we're in camera is to follow the routine that has been there, which from my experience is that of committee business.

Mr. Chair, in a word of encouragement to you, and also a few critical words I must say, I would ask that we start to move back to doing committee business in camera, as it has traditionally been done. Let's move ahead so we can not only resolve the F-35 one, but also start to put together the agenda for the 2012 spring reports.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Thank you very much.

Just so we don't get too far off track, again I want to emphasize that there are two separate issues. I can see how the government, giving it some due here, would look at it and say, “Televised, in public, committee business? That's not the way we normally do things,” and leap to the conclusion that there's something untoward going on. I can at least see the pieces that you pulled together to get there.

I need to emphasize this, and I ask especially the government members to listen. In the past, it was debatable whether we were going in camera. That's what the race was about. Originally the race was about the government getting the floor right after I gaveled the meeting, because they wanted to place an in camera motion. Politically, we all know that the quicker you do that, the better.

But it does suggest that we do not have a rule that all committee business is automatically in camera. Given that it's the public accounts, it seems to me the default position would be that we are in public unless and until a motion is moved to go in camera. No one has ever questioned that. When we've been in an open public session, and there's a race to get the floor, when the government does get the floor, they move to go in camera.

There's no debate on that motion. We have a vote, the government wins, we clear the room, and then we do our business. But it was debatable whether we needed a motion. We do not have a rule that all committee business is automatically done in camera. The only thing that stands close to that, where there are no exceptions, is report writing. That we do in camera for obvious reasons, and that serves us and the public very well, particularly when we can find unanimity around a report, because that has impact.

The second thing is on the cameras. If you take what I just said and remove the TV question, the only difference here is that the media—as in every other meeting we've had on the F-35—advised me that they wanted to cover this meeting, and therefore they would have brought in their crews. And as in every other F-35 meeting up until now, I've said at that point, and only at that point.... There have been a few exceptions in the past, and nobody from the government questioned me when I made those decisions, when it was so obvious that it needed to be televised—just so obvious—but not very often. I don't do that. It's not my role.

But when the media says they want to come and they're going to have these crews here, I have said in the past, “Just flip the switch.” As you can see, that's what we're doing now. The only difference on that piece of paper is that it says the word “televised”. That's just a courtesy so that members know to wear their prettiest ties, that they're going to be on TV. Other than that, nothing is different about the procedure.

Had I not had the cameras in there, and had the call of this meeting not been on the notice paper, then we would have had those very same camera crews in here and doing what they do. It seems to me that all we're doing is making life difficult if we say we're not going to flip the switch and we're not going to use the built-in camera system to cover committees in this room, which is what it's designed for. No, we're going to keep those turned off, and we're going to force the media to come in here and drag their portable cameras and drag their crews in and do the whole thing. We've seen what that looks like in here.

They are two separate issues. I would urge the government members, in particular, to please respect and acknowledge that they are two different things. I did not, by virtue of what you've received, make a unilateral decision that we're going to do this in public and that we're going to have the glare of the cameras, whether the government likes it or not. That's not where we are. That's not what I did.

I have explained myself on the TV side, I've explained myself on the opening of this meeting, and I remain accountable for all my actions and all my decisions.

Mr. Hayes, you now have the floor, sir.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to speak to the steering committee first, and Mr. Ravignat's comment that it was the Conservative colleagues who put an end to that committee. We may have put an end to it by vote, but it was the makeup of the committee and the lack of productivity of the committee that put an end to the committee.

The committee was a complete waste of time. It was non-functional. I would suggest that the way we're doing it now has been more functional than the subcommittee, although only marginally so.

I would also like to state that I'm not impressed, Mr. Chair, that you would choose not to accept motions, that once again you would choose to first give the floor to the opposition, which is what you did before, but that's okay. I guess that's your prerogative. But what I would like to know is what is the authority of the chair? Do we have something in writing that speaks to the job description of the chair and the authority of the chair?

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Please.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

No, I'm quite serious, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Come on, don't start that nonsense.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

I'm quite serious, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

That's what worries me.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

You speak to being non-partisan. A chair is to run a meeting and to chair a meeting, and I accept that. But on several occasions you have had last say to witnesses and you have had your say in an extremely partisan way to witnesses who have been up there. We can check the record on that. You have lambasted some witnesses as your last say as a chair. Quite frankly, I don't feel that's appropriate.

That being said, back to Mr. Allen's point, nobody has accused anybody of approaching the chair. I think there was a statement made on our side last time that the meeting was pre-arranged. What that statement meant, I think, was that when Mr. Christopherson came in, he automatically selected the opposition to speak first. So it wasn't necessarily pre-arranged with the opposition; it was pre-arranged in Mr. Christopherson's mind, which I suppose is his prerogative as chair. I think that's where that statement came from, but nobody has accused anybody of any type of collaboration, and I don't believe that's happened.

I do have respect for you, Mr. Christopherson. You do a really good job as chair, and I like you as an individual. I'm simply not pleased with the way things have happened today. The issue seems to be one of who gets the floor first. I think that's really what it boils down to. Once we determine that, maybe we can move forward.

There's been some discussion about doing it in a rotating manner. Maybe that's the way to do it. I don't know. Do we need a motion in order for that to happen, that we do that at each meeting on a rotating basis as to who gets the floor first? I don't really have the answer.

Those are my comments, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Thank you.

Mr. McKay spoke once already, so he's on the secondary list. Are there any other first-time speakers?

Mr. Dreeshan, you have the floor, sir.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

There are only a couple of things I want to bring up as we speak about the rotational basis. If you're looking at it and saying that we'll rotationally set it up so that if there happens to be committee business, the government side will automatically get it, but if it happens to be anything else, the opposition side will get it, I am sure we would start to see another conflict taking place with that.

This new ruling that you have for today, that you won't take any motions but we will talk this out--and it's great we're doing that--means that we listen to the commentary from the other side and everything they would have typically put into a motion that would have been presented here, with the political spin and so on that they have to it, and it then gets put on the table.

You know, they speak about the F-35s and concerns and issues. We've been entirely open with everything that has taken place here. Nevertheless, they got the opportunity to take another stab at it here in public.

Getting back to the discussion about the subcommittee, it lost its way when some people reneged on deals they had made. That's something we should talk about in camera at some point, not here. There are a lot of things that make it necessary for us to be able to discuss the operational aspects of the committee, but those are some of the issues that I have.

Again, back to the last meeting, Mr. Byrne hadn't even put up his hand, but he was recognized. The response might be, “Well, I thought I saw him put up his hand.“ You know, these are the kinds of things that cause issue with those of us who have come here to try to make this particular committee work the best way it possibly can. When we see those sorts of things, that's when we get the extra frustration that comes along.

I will leave it at that.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Very good. Thank you, Mr. Dreeshen.

May I just comment again, very briefly? There is a difference between equal and fair. That's why they stagger the starting point in foot races. The person on the inside track has less distance to travel, so that's offset. So equal is not always fair.

When the government says equal, it means that the opposition may get to speak, but then before you go to the third party, you should go back to the government, because that's how we do a lot of our rotation, back this way. The element of fairness is such that when the government gets the floor, often it's to move in camera. Since it always wins that motion, it means the third party is denied any opportunity to have anything to say in public.

I hear what you're saying, Mr. Dreeshen, but the world doesn't collapse when things from this meeting are made public. In camera is meant to be a tool to allow us to work together more congenially, without the cameras, without worrying about saying something that's going to generate a headline. But it does not necessarily mean that things that would otherwise be said in public are damaging somehow and therefore they need to be kept under wraps.

I hear the government. Mr. Kramp, in particular, has emphasized this: going from the opposition, then before going to the third party, going back to the government. But I don't see that as being fair. It may be equal in terms of the strength of the seats you have, but it's not fair.

Remember, this is an oversight committee. The opposition members, quite frankly, are usually the ones who are the aggressors and the government members are the ones who are often on the defensive—not always; sometimes the government will agree with things. That's why I went that way. It wasn't for any particular fairness to the Liberals or any kind of game; it was a recognition that once the government got the floor, it could be the end of the meeting in public. So the official opposition would have got to say something, the government would have got to say something, but the third party would have been shut down.

Maybe I'm overly sensitive to the concerns of the third and fourth parties because I was over there for so long. I was in the fourth party, and I was the only one, as many of you remember. I remember those slights. But I also remember how fair many previous chairs were. We know there's an exception, but prior to that, there was a real element of fairness, and I always appreciated that. It didn't deny the majority the right to make a decision. It didn't deny the government its rights, but it did make me feel as if my presence at least mattered, and that I had an opportunity to express a point of view from the fourth party.

So Mr. Dreeshen, with respect, that's why I do it. It's not a deliberate intent to favour the opposition over the government. I'm trying to provide an element of fairness, in recognition of the overwhelmingly omnipotent power of the government once they have the floor, because they can guarantee that any motion they move will carry. The opposition does not have that luxury.

The last thing I would say is the public accounts committee is not a committee where government members are usually feeling good all the time. It's a rough position to be in. It's an important role, but it's not an easy one. I can appreciate that from time to time you feel the pressure and feel the heat, but that is the nature of this committee.

All right, I'll go on now to Madame Blanchette-Lamothe as a first-time speaker, and then over to Mr. Kramp for a second time.

Madame.