Public Accounts Committee on Dec. 9th, 2024

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

You can keep speaking to it until I check.

Once the clerk has received it, I will then suspend to get it out. However, until then, you have the floor. I don't want to create a precedent where I suspend while a motion is being drafted.

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

I appreciate that.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

You keep the floor, speaking to your amendment. I'll check with the clerk.

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

I'm happy to keep the floor because I did hear—I wouldn't say a heckle—perhaps a question from Ms. Khalid about my one amendment being redundant because it falls under point eight. I would note—and I believe this is actually her original motion—that the consideration of draft reports is far different from drafting instructions. The consideration of the draft reports are reports that have already been drafted under the direction of our committee. This would be drafting instructions on the new reports that may or may not come out of this report.

Let's go back to the amendment, which I believe I have the floor on. I think it's important that we remove point nine, plain and simple. I think this would be the antithesis of a democratic society, where we would knowingly and freely condemn ourselves to being unable to respond to things that may or may not arise in the six weeks.

Now, perhaps there may be things that Liberals know are coming down the pipe that would be unfriendly to their narrative, or perhaps the fall economic statement that's coming on December 16 will be so bad that they don't want the opportunity to be anywhere near Ottawa to be held to account for their blown deficit projections.

My friend Mr. Drouin claims rightly that he's always near Ottawa. He does have the wonderful benefit of being from a beautiful part of eastern Ontario, where he is within—

[An hon. member]

It's soon to be blue.

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

I won't make a political comment on what colour that riding may be in the future, but it is a nice part of the country and a strong—

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh!

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

I'm sorry. I was getting distracted by the important commentary going back and forth between our friends across the way. I do appreciate the friendly commentary.

Back to the point at hand, it's not appropriate for us to be shutting down this committee and giving the Liberals a holiday from accountability, which is exactly what this motion would do. That's why we have to remove that.

We are open to some of this, obviously. We're being fair. We'll have the remaining meetings. We'll send drafting instructions after that, but we shouldn't be handcuffing ourselves so we're not able to do our jobs, as Canadians sent us here to do.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Mr. Nater, I'll just interrupt you.

The clerk has received the amendment to the motion. We're working on it and, as per what we normally do, you'll have the floor when you come back. I'm going to suspend until everyone has the amendment, so they can see it in both official languages.

I'll suspend for approximately five minutes, until the clerk is done.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I'll bring this meeting back to order.

Mr. Nater, the floor is yours when I finish up here. Your amendment to the motion has been sent in and received by email.

I'm now working on a speaking list for the amendment to the motion. I currently have Mr. Genuis, Madame Sinclair-Desgagné and then Mr. Vis.

Mr. McCauley, if you would like to speak to it, just put your hand up either virtually or in the room.

Mr. Nater, you have the floor.

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

Thank you, Chair. I'll just wrap up very briefly.

For the benefit of the tens of viewers who are tuning in, I want to take us back to what happened here today.

We had witnesses, including the Auditor General and the Department of Finance, here to testify on the damning Auditor General's report about the CEBA program and the fact that there were at least 17 instances of potential fraud that have been referred to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and that $3.5 billion of ineligible funding went out to those who were not eligible to receive the funding. Instead of dealing with the witnesses, the witnesses have now been excused so the Liberals could introduce a motion to give themselves a holiday from accountability.

I think we've made an amendment here that is eminently reasonable for members of this committee

I will leave my comments there. I know a few of my colleagues wish to offer their thoughts on it, but I will end my formal comments there, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

Just to run through it, I have Mr. Genuis, Madame Sinclair-Desgagné, Mr. Vis, Mr. McCauley and then Mr. Cannings.

Mr. Genuis, you have the floor.

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

Thank you very much, Chair.

It's a real pleasure to be back at the public accounts committee and to follow my good friend, Mr. Nater. He has certainly put forward a reasonable amendment—to my taste, it might be almost too reasonable.

Colleagues, this is a frustrating situation to find ourselves in, because the government's view seems to be that the only time they need to be doing any kind of parliamentary work is during the relatively limited periods when Parliament is sitting. Fundamentally, as Conservatives, we don't agree with that.

I think members are, of course, familiar with the schedule, but for members of the public who may be less familiar with it, Parliament sits about half of the weeks of the year. It sits Monday to Friday, but when it's in session, typically most members are here Monday to Thursday. Some remain on the Friday. The rest of the weeks of the year used to be informally known as “break weeks”, but of course, politicians have wisely sought to brand those as something else. In truth, they're not break weeks; they are constituency work weeks. Members do obviously undertake lots of activities during those non-parliamentary weeks that do qualify substantively as work. Nonetheless, the business of the nation, that is, the governance responsibilities of members of Parliament, can and should continue.

I was first elected in 2015, and just looking around this table, there are lots of colleagues here who were elected at that time or, like you, Mr. Chair, had been elected previous to that time. You'll recall a time when, if Parliament was sitting or committees were meeting, the only way to participate in the activities of that session was to be physically present in Ottawa. If you were in your own constituency for an event or you were somewhere else in the country, you couldn't vote, you couldn't participate in debate and you couldn't participate in committee. That was the reality from the founding of this country up until the COVID pandemic. That's when the hybrid Parliament structure was established.

We've had lots of debates about the pros and cons of different aspects of that, and whether it makes sense. There have been some modifications along the way. However, whatever one thinks about the wisdom of those systems, the reality is that those systems are, in fact, in place, which means that now members of Parliament who want to vote, participate in committee or even participate in the activities of the chamber do not need to be physically present in Ottawa. They can get out of bed, fire up a computer and sign on to a House of Commons committee. They can vote through their app, so there is a great deal more flexibility for members of Parliament to engage in those ways.

In fact, right now we have a number of members doing that very thing. I am here in Ottawa, but I see that there are a number of members participating virtually, and that's something the system allows them to do.

The point is that, when committees meet now with this new technology, which existed during COVID and in the postpandemic period, members can fully participate in the work of committees and they can do so from anywhere in the country.

The only exception to that is you, Mr. Chair. The rules now require you to be present in person. However, the rules also provide for the fact that the chair is the one who calls the meetings, so at least the chair has some flexibility in terms of when to call the meetings to ensure that she or he is able to be in Ottawa for the facilitation of those.

Other than the chair, you could have an entirely empty room. You could have all members participating from their constituencies. If there is, say, a two-hour meeting in the middle of a parliamentary break, it is no longer the case that it means lots of travel both ways for members of Parliament, especially for people like me who come from the west. Some members will choose to do that, obviously. I have often flown into Ottawa, specifically seeing the value in being in person for committee meetings. The option exists.

Therefore, I don't think it should be that onerous to, from time to time, have committee meetings take place during parliamentary breaks. Basically, yes, it requires a person to find those two or three hours in their schedule for that meeting and, yes, of course, to do the appropriate preparation.

I can imagine what people who were members of Parliament 20 years ago must think of this. Frankly, Liberal members of Parliament have championed their own ease and comfort in their engagement with their parliamentary work—

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

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

I question the relevance of what Mr. Genuis has been talking about for the past however long he's been talking about it.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I have another point of order from Mr. Nater on the same issue.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I think it's eminently related to the point because we're talking about when meetings can be and ought to be held.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you.

I tend to agree that Mr. Genuis is addressing when Parliament sits and how, which goes to the heart of this amendment to the motion.

Mr. Cannings, I do have you down on the list. You stepped away when I went through the roll call. You're about four away to speak on the amendment, but I do have you down, sir.

Mr. Genuis, you have the floor.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I'm speaking precisely to the way the parliamentary calendar unfolds and to how that really should shed some light on point nine in the original motion by Ms. Khalid, which my colleague Mr. Nater is proposing to remove via his amendment.

We have this situation—and this is relatively novel in the history of our Parliament—where at times, not that long ago.... I've been here for only about nine years. When I was first elected, you would have the requirement to be in person for committees and in the House. You would have a lot of work happening around the clock in this place, work that required you to be here in person. Now, with the hybrid Parliament provisions, it is much more flexible.

I think the reality is that the Liberals have prioritized trying to make things easier for members of Parliament. I wish they'd put more of an emphasis on making life easier for Canadians, instead of being so focused on trying to make life easy for themselves.

We have this motion again before this committee that, on top of everything that is already in place, tries to make life even easier for them by saying that the committee would not be able to meet at all to do its work outside of Standing Order 106(4), which I'll comment on, although, the language here is.... I don't think that what the motion says, with respect to 106(4), actually matches Ms. Khalid's explanation of it. I'll talk about the issues around Standing Order 106(4) in a few moments.

I'll read the provisions of point nine in this motion: “Notwithstanding a meeting called pursuant to Standing Order 106(4), no meetings of the committee or subcommittee be held during Parliament's adjournment from December 18, 2024 to January 26, 2025.”

This is during a six-week break in the parliamentary calendar where, yes, members will be engaging in their constituencies, but it's also a time when other kinds of parliamentary work can happen, including committee meetings. If a meeting is called for sometime in January, then yes, members will have to plan their schedules accordingly, in the same way they would during a sitting week. However, they have a much easier time doing that now because we are all given the equipment. We can access it from our offices and even from our homes. We can sign into a committee and can participate in the work of that committee, and the—

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

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

I respect the honourable member, but he's repeating himself. I've heard that before—less than five minutes ago.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you.

Mr. Genuis, yes, if you can, try to avoid repetition. I didn't think you were being repetitive, but I'll just flag that as one of the guidelines for any kind of discussion.

[An. hon. member]

Oh, oh!

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

Mr. Drouin, I respectfully would say that your colleague intervened on a point of order on relevance, which suggested that maybe I needed to be more clear about the relationship, so I was trying to lay it out. I do appreciate that you're paying more attention to my remarks than you were to Mr. Nater's. I think it would probably be more edifying if you listened more to him and less to me, honestly.

Mr. Nater and I were schoolmates together at Carleton University and were part of the bachelor of public affairs and policy management caucus. He always got better grades than I did, of course, as one might expect.

Anyway, the amendment that Mr. Nater, in his great wisdom, has proposed, is to remove this section so that the committee can actually do its work over the break.

I want to make one other observation on this, Chair, which is the makeup of parliamentary committees. There are—I can't remember the exact number, I'm sorry to say—a large number of parliamentary committees, the vast majority, that are chaired by government members. The Standing Orders provide chairs of committees with significant powers. They have to act within the parameters of motions that are passed at committees. Within those parameters, they schedule meetings and schedule witnesses. They do the logistical work around the planning of the committee, of course supported by the various committee staff. Within the rules, they have a substantial amount of discretion in terms of how they schedule meetings. That discretion, in my experience, spending a lot of time on government-chaired committees, particularly under this government, has been shamelessly used in ways that align with the preferred patterns of activity that you'd expect from the government.

In fact, we have a situation today at another committee where the House has ordered the committee to hear from four ministers, and those four ministers are all packed into the same meeting, which is a.... Actually, I don't even think that's an appropriate use of discretion. I think that goes beyond an appropriate use of discretion as per the House order.

The fundamental issue is that you have a government chair doing things that no doubt reflect what the government wants. There are four committees that are opposition chaired, and these committees are particularly important because I think they're actually closer to what a parliamentary committee should be in the ideal—not nearly as beholden in their activities to the directives of the executive. In practice, the government exercises significant control, effectively appointing the chairs of government-chaired committees. They can, in practice, reassign those chairs, which may raise some questions as well.

In government-chaired committees, the chair, who's a member of the government caucus, has significant discretion, and that discretion is easily directed by the executive branch. However, we have four committees that have a special particular role within our system because those four committees are chaired by members of the official opposition. In those cases, the chairs are able to use their discretion in a way that lends itself more to facilitating the holding of government to account. In my experience, the official opposition chairs have actually been much more reasonable in being respectful of all committee members than have the many government chairs.

The motion—and this is a motion that we would likely not see at a government-chaired committee—is a motion that seeks to fetter the discretion of the chair. Chairs of committees are supposed to be able to say if there's some urgent issue or if there's some particular opportunity to hear from a witness. The chairs are able to grab those moments.

We see that happening on government-controlled committees, totally at the discretion of the chair. It's notable that we see more of an effort, particularly here at public accounts, to constrain what is supposed to normally be the room for action by the chair.

Those four committees are the public accounts committee, the government operations committee, the ethics and privacy committee and the status of women committee. Those four committees, uniquely, are able to work in a way that reflects having an opposition chair. I think those who negotiated and worked out our Standing Orders to the point they are now have obviously recognized the importance of having opposition-chaired committees and the role that they play.

I think it's inappropriate that we see these unique efforts by the government—a government member moving this motion—to try to, number one, do less work by limiting the ability of the committee to meet and, number two, impose these constraints on the work that an opposition chair is supposed to be able to do.

I wanted to speak, as well, on the reference to the Standing Order 106(4) in point nine of Ms. Khalid's motion. Her explanation of the intention of the motion is to say that the provisions of Standing Order 106(4) would still apply even if this motion passed. Maybe a better way of wording this section would have been, “No meeting of the committee or subcommittee be held during Parliament's adjournment from December 18 to January 26, 2025, unless that meeting followed the issuance of a notice under Standing Order 106(4).”

I still wouldn't support it for the reasons that I've explained, but if I can be helpful, that would maybe be a more effective way of wording the point that was intended to be communicated by this motion.

The way it's currently worded, it says, “Notwithstanding a meeting called pursuant to Standing Order 106(4), no meetings of the committee or subcommittee be held during Parliament's adjournment from December 18, 2024 to January 26, 2025.”

One obvious piece is that parliamentary committees are below the House of Commons as a whole. If the House of Commons issues an order to committees, committees have to follow it. The House of Commons can agree to “notwithstand” a typical practice or rule of the House. A committee can decide to do something notwithstanding its own previous decisions, but committees can't order the House to do things and committees cannot decide to do things notwithstanding the rules of the House.

If this committee was to pass a motion that said, “notwithstanding 106(4), no meetings shall happen in this period”—which isn't quite what the section says either, although it sort of sounds like it's saying that—that motion couldn't apply. The committee cannot decide to not have Standing Order 106(4) apply because Standing Order 106(4) is a standing order of the House.

It binds the committee because it comes from the House, in the same way that, if the committee received a House order to undertake a certain study or to call a certain person, the committee couldn't just decide to ignore the House because committees are creatures of the House. Their power is derived from the House and they have to respect the direction of the House.

Standing Order 106(4) will apply regardless of what we say, even if this committee was unanimous in wanting something to occur. There are some procedural tools for a committee to ask the House to issue an order that would change its normal operating procedures, but that would require the House to take a decision. It would not be something that would just flow from an expressed wish of the committee.

For those who are unfamiliar with it, Standing Order 106(4) provides that a group of members.... The standing order itself says four members, and we're operating under a House agreement that those members must be from at least two parties. In practice, if you had three members of one party and one member of another party signing a letter asking the committee to meet on a particular subject matter, then the chair would have to, within, I believe, five days, call a meeting for that purpose.

This has been one tool for getting committees to meet outside of regular parliamentary sitting times, and it's a tool that I've seen frequently used on government-chaired committees. We used it from time to time when I was at the foreign affairs committee, for example, when there was some breaking international situation that required our work, and government members, being how they are, didn't want to have to meet. We would then have the opposition come together and say that we needed to meet, and this would compel, even on a government-chaired committee, the committee to come together and hold that meeting. That's how Standing Order 106(4) works.

Generally, we have not seen Standing Order 106(4) requests on opposition-chaired committees, and it's kind of obvious why. On a government-chaired committee, governments generally—and this government in particular—wants committees to meet as infrequently as possible because they don't like the scrutiny and the accountability associated with it. Usually, on government-chaired committees, it takes a Standing Order 106(4) to get the committee to come, even in the face of an urgent, emergent situation, whereas, on opposition-chaired committees, we have very diligent opposition chairs who are prepared to call those meetings in response to emerging situations. It doesn't require the same kind of logistical work that is usually associated with putting together a Standing Order 106(4) meeting. The chair can simply call the meeting.

I think that it is worthwhile that chairs be able to use the power that they have within the rules to call meetings, and not just when someone's gone around and gathered signatures. Those meetings can be called efficiently and effectively in response to emerging events.

Look, we can use the time. We have a 10-week break over the summer, and we have a six-week break over Christmas. Most Canadians would not expect that we are completely tools-down for that period of time. Yes, we're going to spend time meeting with constituents and engaging with people in our ridings to hear what they're saying, but we can't be totally absent from the work of governance at the same time.

Part of our job is to engage our constituents, and part of our job is to be part of the work of this deliberative assembly that we call Parliament and its committees. I don't think Canadians would expect us to put that work on hold.

That's point nine.

I want to refer back to an earlier section that Mr. Nater amended. Section one says, “Any further meetings on Report 8, Canada Emergency Business Account, take place after January 27, 2025”.

Mr. Nater, in his great wisdom and reasonableness, proposed an amendment that changes January 27 to January 6, as long as it wasn't scheduled on January 7. That would take us past the date when Christmas is celebrated in any of the various traditions according to various calendars. It would provide some degree of a buffer in between.

The purpose of this amendment is to underline that the review of the eighth report on the Canada emergency business account is extremely important. We've seen how, in general, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, the government was very imprecise in the way it connected what it said its programs were supposed to do with the eligibility of the people who got the money.

It's important that we insist on the idea of rule of law. If there are eligibility criteria, then those eligibility criteria should apply. On multiple levels, this government has been very imprecise. It's seen billions of dollars spent in ways that may not align with eligibility. Then it has come back and tried to make the excuse that there was a lot going on, that it was a busy time and that there were things it was trying to do and change quickly.

I mean, of course there was a lot going on, and of course it was a busy time. However, we're talking about real money that Canadians worked hard for and paid to the government through their taxes. We're also talking about money that was borrowed and that future generations will have to pay interest on and pay back.

Through the period in which the Prime Minister has been in office, the last nine years, the national debt has more than doubled. I think that a lot of that spending has demonstrated an imprecision and a lack of focus and attention to what it has said the criteria of these programs are, so I do very strongly think that the work of this committee around the Canada emergency business account is important.

Look, the clock is ticking towards the end of this Parliament. Our position is well known. We think that Canada should have a carbon tax election as soon as possible. We'll be voting non-confidence in the government later today. I encourage my colleagues to join us in doing the same. Let's use the time we have left—whatever time we have left—in this Parliament to maximize the value and the effectiveness of our work. This is why we have put forward this amendment to the first point in the motion.

With that in mind, Mr. Chair, I am going to propose a subamendment to clarify the timeline in the first point. I think we need to clarify that the work on the Canada emergency business account is so important that it needs to continue as soon as possible. It also needs to be able to continue after an election. I don't think we would want, for instance, an election to prevent us from being able to dig into these reports, although we certainly do want to have an election as soon as possible.

I am proposing that, at the end of the first bullet point, we add the words “or a carbon tax election, whichever comes first”. It would now read, “Any further meetings on Report 8, Canada Emergency Business Account, take place after January 6, 2025 or a carbon tax election, whichever comes first”.

That's the subamendment. I don't have it in writing, but I think it's fairly clear.

Shall I continue, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Hold on. I'm going to propose....

Mr. Drouin, do you have a point of order, or are you looking to speak?

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

Both.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Then why don't you start with the point of order?