—in light of the fact that others aren't, but here you are facing the fire. But also, I thank you for your tone, your approach and your acknowledgement of the legitimacy, at least, of the issue here. I appreciate the way you're defending the job you did, and I compliment you. This could have gone sideways really quickly. I think you've done an excellent job, and I want to personally commend you. I hope you continue to provide the kind of contribution that you do.
Chair, I think the Auditor General has outlined the case as well as can be expected. What I'd like to do in my first round is just provide some context, and I'll reserve my right to shore up any arguments later, if that should be necessary. I'd like to put this in context.
Let's understand that in the world of democracies, and particularly accountability, Canada is a world leader. We fight for that in as many categories as we can. Given our size, we don't normally make number one or two in too many things; we're usually in the top six or 10 on things that matter. But I have to tell you, in terms of auditing and our Auditor General process and the work of the public accounts committee, we are world renowned. Particularly, this committee, in this Parliament, stands out so much. Again, I compliment the government members. It's a much more difficult decision for them than for us in opposition, yet you rose to the occasion. I can't praise and respect you enough for doing that, because without that, we're nowhere. Thank you.
Conversely, something like this jars the international community when they go, “Wait a minute. I'm hearing something about the Liberals. Trudeau, in Canada, is not giving the Auditor General the money they need. What's this all about?” It'll have an effect—a negative one. It breaks my heart. We're down to the last couple of meetings. I leave here so proud of the work we've done, yet here's this great big stain on the work of the public accounts committee.
Mr. Leswick went out of his way to point out the processes involved. Again, I have great respect for what he said, and particularly how he said it. But understand, that's the problem. It shouldn't be looked at the way every other department is. Right now part of the argument being put forward by the government is that they didn't treat the Auditor General any differently from other departments. Well, that's a red light; there's a problem and a flag on the field. It isn't other departments, regardless of how we structured it. Keep in mind, this was recognized by the government and personally by the Prime Minister, who gave a mandate to his House leader to stop this way of funding it because this is how you end up in crisis—exactly this.
Had the House leader done her job and put that mechanism in place, we wouldn't be here. In fact, I would be complimenting the government on making a significant advancement in protecting the independence of Parliament's officers. Let's remember, these are not just any bureaucrats. They answer to Parliament. Parliament hires the Auditor General. Parliament fires the Auditor General—not the government. Yet it's the government process that decides funding.
To get into a little bit of the politics of this, I am, very much like my friend, Mr. Davidson, at a complete loss— and have been from the beginning—as to why the heck this is happening at all, given that it's never happened before. I can come up with only three potential motivating reasons, and I haven't heard a single one from the government. I don't mean the government members here; I mean the government in the House of Commons. You've done your job, and now it's for us to put the pressure on the government through the House. That's how this works.
If the Auditor General had a process, an independent way of getting its funding, I wouldn't need to raise this. But we don't, even though they were supposed to do it.
First, it was specifically to avoid the cybersecurity issue. The political calculation is that it's better to take the hit now for underfunding the Auditor General, especially when nobody in the media's paying any attention—except Andrew Coyne and Postmedia. I give them full marks.
I wish it were somebody else driving this than I, because for us it often looks like we're trying to generate a headline. I'm trying to do the opposite: to fade away and disappear. This is not the way I wanted things to be. But I have to tell you, I just wish the national media would pay a little more attention to this. With the greatest of respect, this bloody well matters.
Anyway, was the political calculation to avoid the cybersecurity issue because it would be so devastating? I was here for the first cybersecurity audit and it was devastating. It shook me to the core. Is that why they're underfunding the office? Is it to make sure that that particular audit doesn't come forward because they're arrogant enough to believe they're going to get re-elected and they know the damage this might do to them in the second mandate? That's one possibility. Is another—and with the greatest of respect, I don't you mean you personally, Mr. Leswick—that it is retaliation and revenge on the part of the bureaucracy who ended up having a rather negative audit?
The Auditor General audited the very people who help decide whether or not they get full funding. So was it revenge or retaliation? I want to say that I find it hard to believe it's either one of those two, particularly given that I know the individual members of this government. I find that really hard to believe.
But I'm at a loss. The last one seems to me to be the most likely, and it's also the one that we can fix the quickest. It looks to me like there was a mistake, that this slipped through and now they've doubled down because they don't want the embarrassment of having to change their mind. If anyone can offer me any motivation beyond that, I'm willing to listen, because I really can't think of any other reason why the government would do this except for those three reasons.
Thanks, Chair.