Public Accounts Committee on Sept. 25th, 2024

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

What's the motion?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

It's not a motion; we're debating the budget for SDTC.

Mr. Drouin.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Then, on the next one—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

No, we're only dealing with the first budget.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

All right.

Is the opposition not going to speak? I'm looking towards you.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

No, we're fine with that.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

The budget was prepared by the clerk.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

I understand. Are they going to have more witnesses? Are we going to approve this on an as-we-go basis, or are we actually going to budget...? That's part of budgeting.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

The budget reflects the witnesses this committee has....

Just so you know, Mr. Drouin, this committee passed a motion some time ago requiring the committee to agree to witnesses before they're called before committee. This budget reflects the witnesses this committee previously agreed to hear from.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Okay. I don't have access to the.... Normally, the clerk would send us a list of the witnesses who have been submitted by all parties. I'm new, so maybe I don't.... It may be in the digital binder, but I don't have access. I would ask if I can see it, just so I can check off who is there.

I'm assuming this is how we work. Just like other committees, we submit a list and then we work through the witness list.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

That is how we proceed, but at the same time, any committee motions that come before the committee and are passed supersede that. That debate has happened, but, yes, as a matter of course, witnesses do come from the parties, and they are allotted proportionally as well.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

It's an open study. We don't have a budget for the study. Do we just have an open-ended budget? That's what I'm asking.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I suppose that's true, but that's true of every committee.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Not necessarily.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

A committee can extend and extend. Right now, we have witnesses who have been passed. For SDTC, I think there are 16 to go or something like that. That is fixed. That is set. This budget reflects that. That's the witness list. That's the budget.

I can't predict if the committee is going to come back and ask for more witnesses, and neither can you, but it's very fixed. This is the budget for the workload we have adopted as a committee.

You have the floor, Ms. Sinclair‑Desgagné.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Mr. Drouin, you are new to this committee, but not new to the House of Commons.

The committee would like to conduct a study on SDTC. The names of the witnesses have already been submitted. Approving the budgets is a formality. All the members of the committee here have better things to do than debate what should be a formality, because the matter has already been voted on and the committee has decided that it wants to proceed with the study.

Could we, in good faith, approve the budget allocated for the witnesses and move on to something else please? Once again, the witness list has already been validated by a motion passed by the committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I'm not going to call for a formal vote. Is there agreement to pass this budget. Is it agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Okay. That first budget is passed.

On the second one, moving on to “Report 1: ArriveCAN”, we're looking for an additional $1,500. That would bring our total budget to $3,500. Are there any comments on this?

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Again, I'm going to ask for the willingness.... I'm new and I just want to make sure, but I've also sat on the government ops committee. We normally have an agreement on how many meetings we have, and it's not an open-ended question. There have been 22 meetings on ArriveCAN. I want to make sure we don't treat this committee as a Facebook studio. That's what I'm trying to make sure of, because we are talking about taxpayers' dollars and we have open-ended investigations. There have been investigations of investigations.

Is it the will of the committee to continue to openly investigate this and to go down to the weeds and the...?

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

We're not discussing this. We're discussing the budget.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

The budget has an impact on taxpayer dollars, Mr. McCauley.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Now you're concerned about taxpayers' dollars, after the millions diverted to Liberal Party appointees.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I'll make a speaking list.

Mr. Genuis, why don't you go ahead first?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

I hope we can get on with this, but I want to underline that Mr. Drouin is showing disgusting disrespect for the important work being done by parliamentary committees. Of course members share the work they do in various fora with their constituents, but this is not a studio. This is a committee where we undertake investigations into important issues of public interest. Those issues include a series of serious Liberal government corruption scandals.

I understand that you, as a new member of the committee—and some other members of the government—don't like those investigations, but they are investigations that have happened, have revealed important information and have been agreed to. The kinds of things we have seen happening with ArriveCAN certainly merit investigation.

The broader point, though, is that parliamentary committees require budgets to do their work. They need to spend money if they're meeting. If we're not spending money doing this study, we're spending money doing another study, or we're just not meeting at all. It's very convenient for the Liberals, who spent $60 million on an app, to suddenly claim to be fiscal hawks when it comes to this. Maybe parliamentary committees just shouldn't meet in order to save money. The work of public accounts saves the government far more money than it spends in gathering chairs together and having the audio equipment necessary for a meeting. We do important work, and the committee has already agreed to study these issues. It needs to study these issues.

I believe much more in the work of Parliament than Mr. Drouin clearly does. These are very reasonable budgets. They are in line with the work of committees. They are in line with the budgets we see at other committees. I think it is worth the public expenditure for parliamentary committees to conduct investigations that hold powerful people accountable and drill down on ways we can push the government to save more taxpayer money in much broader, deeper and more substantive ways than his efforts to hold up the budget for the committee to do that investigation.

I think all of this is fairly obvious. If we were discussing this in camera, he wouldn't bother making these interventions. He's trying to defend the government's efforts to minimize these investigations.

I think we should now get on with it.