Public Accounts Committee on May 9th, 2024

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Oh, it's on relevance. That's different. Okay.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

You made it very clear that we were to speak on the amendment.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Pardon me. I thought you were looking to ask a question of Mr. Stewart.

Mr. Stewart, I think you're done. I'm going to move to—

[Jake Stewart, Conservative, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

I think I was building some statement around my support of the amendment, so long as it attends to the incremental aspect that Mr. Nater put forth.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Look, the amendment to the motion is clear—I see you, Mr. Desjarlais—and the analysts will do their job without further guidance unless they come back to us and seek it. I will not be dictating to them based on the transcript. They can refer to this. If they have questions, they'll come back to us.

How does that sound?

Go ahead, sir.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Williamson—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Oh, pardon me. It's Mr. Desjarlais next. I thought your hand was up from before. Mr. Desjarlais had his hand up. Let me turn to Mr. Desjarlais, and I'll come back to you.

Mr. Desjarlais, go ahead.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'm opposed to this idea of an incremental cost to try to find a way to hide public tax dollar expenditure just because the Conservatives want a trip to Ottawa in a week we're not in Ottawa. I'm opposed to that.

We need to actually be transparent. My goodness, this is the transparency committee. I want to know every single dollar that goes into this expenditure. I'm against any kind of approach that would have Mr. Stewart hide how much it costs taxpayers to ship them over here. I want to know exactly how much it costs the taxpayers to do that—every single dollar. I want to know every dollar that goes into these extra meetings.

Taxpayers are frustrated about the cost of living crisis. They're frustrated that parliamentarians get to sit around a room and talk about the fact that since 2011 the Conservatives and the Liberals spent almost a billion dollars in subcontracts. Someone could look at that.

For example, Mr. Stewart and Mr. Nater, I suggest you look at appendix B, contract values for GC Strategies, Dalian and Coradix. Since 2011, government under Harper and Justin Trudeau has cost us a billion dollars. I'm more interested in this than anyone else—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Mr. Desjarlais, let's come back—

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

I'm happy to do this work, Mr. Chair, but I'm not happy about wasting Canadian taxpayer dollars.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Fair enough, Mr. Desjarlais.

I would prefer that we not go down and try to overly define the analysts' work. I think the amendment is before the table. While there's been some voicing from the official opposition as well as others, I think the amendment to the motion is clear.

Mr. Desjarlais, for example, you're not asking for the cost of the air conditioning to be included. As I think the Conservatives would say, that's part of running the building. You're talking about the actual cost of running the meeting. I think that's clear. The analysts will pull together a cost estimate for us as best they can.

On that note, I will turn to Mr. Sorbara, please.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. Williamson, as I recollect—I'm from the finance industry as well—I believe you served in various capacities in which you examined the use of taxpayer dollars and expenditures from the federal government. I think you are just as committed as I am to ensuring that we utilize the funds of the taxpayers in the most efficient manner and in the most proper manner. Like you, I've served for a number of years in this Parliament, like many of us here. I think you served before, before coming back, if I remember correctly. You can correct me if I'm wrong.

Yes, having a meeting during a non-sitting week happens through Standing Order 106(4) or if there is something of paramount urgency, but I'm really quite surprised about just having a meeting and pulling this out. As well, we've received correspondence from the two individuals in terms of their two situations, so I'm not too sure where we're going with that.

I'm really at a loss as to why we would utilize the resources of the House on a non-sitting week when, as other members have commented, we will be here for five weeks in a row, minus the Monday of the Victoria Day long weekend. There will be ample opportunity to meet on various topics that the committee itself deems to be important. We know that the committee is the master of its own domain, with you as chair at this current moment.

I'm really trying to grasp why we need to use resources. I applaud the member from the New Democratic Party for referencing the use of taxpayer money and so forth and how we must be judicious on that front.

I did want to mention that.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Shanahan, go ahead.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

I want to mention that I see that I have the letter from Mr. Girard in my box. We got it at 3:54, which was 10 minutes ago. How is it that Mr. Nater had a motion prepared about the appearance of Mr. Girard? Does he have special powers?

Chair, I'm very concerned here. It's not fair to all members of this committee that some members have access to information before others.

[An hon. member]

It's a question of privilege.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

It is a question of privilege.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Is there anything else? Thank you.

I will call the vote on the amendment by Mr. Desjarlais.

(Amendment agreed to: yeas 10; nays 0 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

We now return to the motion as amended, which you will see in your inbox. It includes Mr. Nater's motion as well as the NDP amendment to that.

Go ahead, Ms. Khalid.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I would like to propose another amendment. It would delete the date of Thursday, May 16, and replace it with Thursday, May 23.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

I have a point of order, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

What is the point of order?

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

The point of order is that if the date is changed, it then negates the amendment we just passed. It becomes a normal meeting, and there is no cost analysis required for that.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Mr. Nater does raise an interesting point. The amendment will stand, at the risk of bumping the....

The meeting we currently have scheduled for the 23rd is the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act. You are addressing one of the challenges the chair has, which is....

Pardon me: It bumps the proposed scheduling of the auditor's report on transportation corridors. That is currently scheduled for the 23rd.

I suppose in doing this, the member is pointing out one of the challenges I have. We have only so much space. If you prefer to have not one meeting with witnesses but two on ArriveCAN, we can do that, but it will move others down or off the agenda, at least until the summer.

Is the amendment to change the date to May 23? It will impact another study that the government had requested.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Chair, my apologies. I had an outdated version of the work plan.

If it's okay with you, I'd like to change the May 23 to perhaps the 28th or the 30th.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Your amendment is to...?

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

It's to change the date from what is currently proposed in the motion to the 30th, I'll say.