Evidence of meeting #50 for Public Accounts in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was regulations.

A video is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Michael Ferguson  Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
Michael Keenan  Deputy Minister, Department of Transport
Kim Benjamin  Director General, Road Safety and Motor Vehicle Regulation, Department of Transport
Clerk of the Committee  Mr. Michel Marcotte
Dillan Theckedath  Committee Researcher

5:05 p.m.

Liberal

Brenda Shanahan Liberal Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC

Thank you very much.

5:05 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

Thank you, Ms. Shanahan.

I think that pretty well completes it.

You had one question, Mr. McColeman?

5:10 p.m.

Conservative

Phil McColeman Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON

It just has to do with Bill S-2, because I know it's at first reading in the House. I know it's a government bill, but can you give us the estimated ongoing financial cost of Bill S-2 if it becomes law?

5:10 p.m.

Deputy Minister, Department of Transport

Michael Keenan

I can't give you that number at this time. I apologize. I don't have it.

5:10 p.m.

Conservative

Phil McColeman Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON

Okay, thank you.

5:10 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

Would that be the type of information you could get back to our committee with?

5:10 p.m.

Deputy Minister, Department of Transport

Michael Keenan

We'd be happy to.

5:10 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

You must have those estimates.

Thank you for coming. I just have a couple of comments and one question.

By the way, thank you for your apology for not being here previously.

We sit here and bring the transport department before us, and we know that you're trying to make vehicles safer and to give Canadians who are purchasing vehicles the confidence that they're safe. I think we all know, especially after last weekend, that we're only as safe as the driver who is behind the wheel. In the United States where you had someone texting as he was driving, there is no vehicle that's going to remove the risk from everyone on the road when it comes to doing that. However, it is important; it's vital that Canadians know that manufacturers have gone through a vehicle safety regime they can be confident in.

I think I know the answer to this, but do you work and use studies with our trading partners? When we export these same vehicles to the United States, is there one group above Transport Canada for the United States and you? You say they've accepted your research and you've accepted theirs. Is that typical?

5:10 p.m.

Deputy Minister, Department of Transport

Michael Keenan

In that context, in the area of transport and my experience in a number of other domains of the government, being smarter about using all the research in the world has been a growing trend among regulatory authorities. In the area of transport, we do work closely with our U.S. counterparts to Transport Canada in sharing research. There's a ten-to-one gearing in the Canada-U.S. dimension. There are greater resources in the U.S. for this type of research than in Canada, so it would be irresponsible not to use it.

At the same time, we have a Canada-U.S. exchange of research and findings in data. Sometimes even though we're smaller, we at Transport Canada can make a big difference. When the safety officials in Ms. Benjamin's area discovered the problem with the Rav4, we jumped on that first. We believe that the recall has saved lives and serious injuries not only in Canada, but also around the world.

There's also a UN system on road transportation safety and UN standards. There's a lot of research that many countries share under the auspices of UN governance on this matter, which also contributes to our being able to bring a lot more research to bear in making our regulatory decisions than we could ever possibly afford in Canada alone.

5:10 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

I assume that you go out and buy these 30 vehicles and crash them, but the manufacturers are doing the same thing. Is that correct? They're engineering these vehicles. They're doing crash tests as well. They're trying to live up to the regulations that you have, and you're making sure they've done that. Right? They're spending a fair bit of time and effort as well, trying to make their product not have that black mark from Transport Canada as an unsafe vehicle.

5:10 p.m.

Deputy Minister, Department of Transport

Michael Keenan

The answer is yes. We pull information from manufacturers and other government agencies. I don't know how many vehicles the U.S. agency crashes. I'm pretty sure they crash a lot more than we do—don't they, Kim? The manufacturers have a lot of information as they're developing vehicles, and for sure they do their own crash testing.

We have a centre in Blainville, Quebec, our crash test centre, the place where we crash all our vehicles. In fact, a private company operates it on our behalf. That private operator will crash test vehicles on behalf of companies using that facility. It's not quite the same as getting companies to pay for the cars that we crash, but they effectively pay us for using our crash test centre for their research, while we use the same one. We just have to get them to pay for the vehicles tested.

5:15 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

I'm not sure you do. I may respectfully disagree with Mr. Harvey on that.

I know what happens when you all of a sudden give government the ability to abscond after they've done all their crash tests. Now you're going to have them...30 vehicles. Next year it will be 75, and the next year, 90. These guys are all....for every level of vehicle that they have, I would assume.

We hope you're going to meet the mandate that you've received from the Auditor General, through his report, and that you've given to us today. We look forward to another performance report on the way that you're coming along with these new methods of making sure that we have safety within the automotive sector.

Thank you for being here today and clarifying that for us.

We're going to suspend for about two minutes and then come back to committee business. It should take us less than two minutes to pass one quick motion so we can come here for our Wednesday meeting.

So we will suspend. Thank you all for your presence here today and for the words that you've given us.

5:15 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

We'll call this meeting back to order.

We are in public. We didn't go in camera. We'll just take the last few moments to deal with committee business, with one motion that has come up.

Maybe I'll have our clerk brief the committee again on this motion and why we need do deal with it quickly.

5:15 p.m.

The Clerk of the Committee Mr. Michel Marcotte

Thank you, Chair.

Basically, it's because the members of the committee decided to study the main estimates of the Office of the Auditor General this Wednesday. Every year some documents are tabled in the House. Most of them are referred to this committee, but one is not. The main estimates for this year were tabled on March 21, and they were referred to the committee. That's one thing.

The departmental plans, which used to be the reports on plans and priorities, were also tabled on March 9 and referred to this committee. Now, another very interesting document that's at the end of the budget process, the performance reports, are tabled every year. They are tabled in the House, but they are not referred to the committee. This document has been available since last November, I think; and the one we would be studying is the performance report for 2015-16, for the end of a year and half ago.

To do that, we just need a little motion saying that we want to study this. These three documents would be part of the main estimates process.

5:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

Okay.

Maybe we'll just go to our analyst first. They wanted to make a very short presentation.

April 3rd, 2017 / 5:20 p.m.

Dillan Theckedath Committee Researcher

Thank you, Chair.

Although they were not referred—that's a procedural matter, which we're not quite familiar with—we had already prepared a briefing note for the estimates. That briefing document includes the departmental plan, as it's now known, as well as the performance report of 2015-16. That's already included in the brief. It has been translated. I don't know if it's been distributed.

It's ready. These are in the briefing notes, and questions and analysis pertaining to that are included. We just wanted to let the committee know this.

5:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

All right.

Mr. McColeman.

5:20 p.m.

Conservative

Phil McColeman Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON

Mr. Chair, I'm pleased to put the motion to the committee that pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the committee undertakes a study of the performance report 2015-16 of the Office of the Auditor General of Canada.

5:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

All right.

Are you ready for the question? Is there no other discussion or debate?

Okay.

(Motion agreed to)

It carried unanimously.

Mr. Badawey.

5:20 p.m.

Liberal

Vance Badawey Liberal Niagara Centre, ON

Mr. Chairman, I know I'm new to the committee, this being my first and only time I've been here. Usually I'm on the transport, infrastructure and communities committee, as well as the scrutiny of regulations committee. One thing that caught me by surprise today was the fact that when there was an opportunity, the chair took it to comment on some of the discussions that were happening, especially as they related to the witnesses.

Is that normal? I know that on my committees, the chair doesn't give opinions. Albeit as a Conservative, or on my other committees as a Liberal, it could be taken as being partisan, and possibly not. However, I guess the norm is that the chair usually chairs the meeting but doesn't give opinion.

Is it normal on this committee for the chairman to give an opinion?

5:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

The quick answer is yes. We have a chair's prerogative, and what we do is the following. Many times, I will sit here and ask my analysts if there is a question, as we prepare our report, that we need asked to get a response that hasn't been made yet. I think if you go back and look, you will see, first of all, that we're a very non-partisan committee and, typically, you'll never get a partisan comment made here. If there's a partisan comment, we'll pass that on to the other parties to make.

5:20 p.m.

Liberal

Vance Badawey Liberal Niagara Centre, ON

That's what I'm getting that. With that, my second question would be, does the chair get a vote even if there's no tie, or only when there's a tie?

5:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

No, only when there's a tie.

5:20 p.m.

Liberal

Vance Badawey Liberal Niagara Centre, ON

However, the chair can still give comment on debate.

5:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

Yes, a chair can give comment on whatever. In fact, the chair can say absolutely anything unless there is a point of order. Then if there is a point of order on what the chair says, or on what anyone says, then they can be called into question. There's a challenge of the chair. In fact, today I asked Dillan, “Is there something that we need to bring up that you may want to have in a report?” That's the way that we operate here.