Public Accounts Committee on June 6th, 2019

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thanks, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

We'll suspend.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

We'll reconvene and call the meeting back to order. We had suspended for a few moments and in that time Mr. Christopherson has had the opportunity to look at some wording.

Mr. Christopherson, I turn the floor back to you.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you, sir.

Yes, I did, and I very much appreciate the efforts of Mr. Whalen and in no way feel.... He's very sensitive to the fact that he's not a member of this committee and he didn't want to feel as if he's coming in here and trying to be the one who shakes everything up, but I think any contribution to trying to get out of where we are, because we're looking for a resolution, is helpful and appreciated. I thank him for that.

I have taken a look at the language and it's helpful language. It's positive language, but Chair, for me the politics of it are that it's kind of the next step. It deals with what we do to make sure that this doesn't happen again going forward in terms of the funding.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Can I just interrupt? The committee is not aware of any wording. Would you be prepared to share what is currently...either Mr. Whalen or Mr. Christopherson?

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Whalen has to go back actually.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

I'll just make a point of order.

I didn't have this language in both official languages so I wasn't able to share it, but I'll read what I do have in French. It would be two resolutions.

The first reads as follows: That the Committee recommend that funding to the Office of the Auditor General of Canada be increased annually to the cost of living/inflation rate; and, that the Committee report this recommendation to the House.

The second one, which is only in English, is that the committee recommend that the future government reconsider the allocation of funds as between officers of Parliament in order to ensure that the Auditor General is funded to undertake its vital performance audit on the government response to cybersecurity.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Right.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you. I think we've all heard it. I'm going to go back to Mr. Christopherson.

Did you want to jump in on the same thing, Mr. Kelly?

Are you open to that?

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I don't know where you're going to go with this.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

It looks as if there are some puzzled—

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

I have a point of order then.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Okay, go ahead.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Thank you. I do want to be clear about this.

Is that an amendment to his motion, is this a new motion or is he simply on a point of order under the Simm's protocol, sharing an idea that—

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

We were looking to see if this might unlock it, yes.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

If that's the case, then I'll leave the floor with Mr. Christopherson, but if this is a motion then I wish to speak to it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

My understanding now is that this is just a point of order with some more clarity.

Go ahead, Mr. Christopherson.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I thank Mr. Kelly and that's what I wanted to clarify. I was listening, but I didn't see anything there that got us off the dime. I was very straightforward with Mr. Whalen. I think I'm being open and honest. I never considered myself clever enough to pull off the alternative.

If you ask what gets us out of this, all I need to shut me up—as one member, for what it's worth—is for the government to announce that the $10.8 million for the Auditor General will be there. I don't need mechanisms. I don't need time frames, but I need to hear that the $10.8 million....

Again, Mr. Whalen, your suggestion takes me full circle back to the politics of this. How did we get into this? If I were sitting over where you were, I'd be camped out in that minister's office wanting to know why I have this problem. Why is public accounts, two weeks before we rise, into a filibuster? Why was this necessary? What was the purpose?

I understand—I won't get into the detail—that it may have something to do with the agents of Parliament and how if one gets funded and it throws things.... I understand that. I've been in government. I understand that problem, but I have two responses.

Number one, the House leader already had a mandate to fix this and didn't do it. There was a letter from the agents of Parliament in January of this year asking the Liberals to fix that funding mechanism. Had that funding mechanism been fixed and in place, I suspect that this whole process would have gone down a different road and this wouldn't have happened.

However, that's not where we are yet. There are two pieces in front of us. One is that for the first time...and I have more stuff to read in here that underscores that this has never happened before. It's this underfunding of the Auditor General that, again, I'll keep coming back to because there's an answer. I just can't find it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Let me just say, on the same principle here, that I'm wondering what is in our ability as a public accounts committee to make a difference. If Mr. Whalen and Ms. Mendès and the government side are saying that we make the request, that we put forward a mechanism as a suggestion.... Because it's really going to take the executive level to say, okay, we're going to do this. We can't take a simple vote and now it's done. It's going to take the executive branch to step up.

If we are willing to make a unanimous letter laying out exactly the problems as all parties, as all members of this committee, see them, is that enough? To be quite frank, you know how—you've been there, you've done it—the wheels of government turn very slowly. If we can get a unanimous letter suggesting this type of mechanism that would allow the Auditor General that ability.... We see money. This is not a time of austerity. We are not in a recession—

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Exactly.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

We have money for everything but this one.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

If we as a public accounts committee recognize that and make the request to the government, then is that sufficient? Having the government side, the official opposition and you, sir, signing a letter in unanimity showing exactly the import that we put on this, would that be sufficient?

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I'll be glad to take it under advisement.

Again, here's my thinking, sir: I know as well as you, and I agree, that getting government to change decisions and make decisions at the standing committee level is very difficult. It's like pushing string. However, I've been around long enough to know that if the public turns on them on this issue, it will be fixed real quick, because that's a lot more than a $10.8 million problem. That's my purpose.

As I started to say when I got here, part of me is going to feel like a bit of a failure if I leave here after all these years on public accounts—after all the fights and skirmishes we had to get information to make sure we could do our job—and the work plan for the year following has been devastated and gutted. I'm sorry, I cannot help but leave here feeling like I failed really, after 15 years, and that is the condition that I walked away from the PAC and the Auditor General work of Parliament. Whether or not that belongs on my shoulders, that's how I feel. That's why I feel so passionately.

I know enough about politics to understand that if enough people become aware of this, there will be outrage and it will be changed. I only stand a very small chance of using this little filibuster at the public accounts committee as my means. Once I let go of that, I may have a letter that's signed unanimously by the committee. Had we done that from the very beginning, we might have a different process, but we didn't. Now the government's getting more and more entrenched, and if I stop this filibuster and relinquish the floor—although I don't believe for a moment I can single-handedly change the world—I know that it will be impossible to do that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

I would argue, first of all, that you are putting too much on your shoulders if you're saying that you failed. You haven't.

Second, if the committee can move in unanimity as we have done in the last four years, working together for the betterment of Canadian taxpayers, for helping departments, for making sure that they're transparent and accountable.... Doing that would also give us a way, as a committee, to finish off our reports and complete the important work on the legacy document for next week.

I'll hear from Ms. Mendès on the understanding that we go back to Mr. Christopherson.