Public Accounts Committee on Dec. 9th, 2024

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

It was determined by whom? Was it a group decision of “we have no one else”, or was it “no, make it EDC”?

[Chris Forbes]

We would have assessed what the options were for the delivery of such a program. We would have assessed that, and we would have provided options, the risks and benefits of various delivery options, and the decision would have been made based on that.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Forbes.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

Next up is Mr. Erskine-Smith, joining us online.

You have the floor.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Thanks very much, Chair.

By the way, I'm using a different system, but I've just gone through a sound check with this. I hope it's sufficient for the interpreters. I was told it was better, so we'll see.

I want to start with you, Mr. Forbes. There's been a lot of talk about the recovery of ineligible loans. In fact, when the Auditor General attended previously, she expressed some displeasure.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Wait one second, Mr. Erskine-Smith. I'm looking for either a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down.

Mr. Erskine-Smith, I'm afraid I'm getting a thumbs-down from the interpreters.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

After all that.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I will turn to Mr. Drouin.

Mr. Drouin, you have the floor for six minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have one quick question.

I know that you've acknowledged the auditor's reports.

Mr. Forbes, it's good to see you in front of the PACP committee. I was used to seeing you in front of the ag committee. We still miss you over there. You were a good deputy minister, but it's great to see you. Now that you're in finance, just remember to say yes to all the ag requests, if I can make that one plea.

Regarding report 8, the CEBA account, obviously the Auditor General has made a statement with regard to the administrative costs with EDC, and there should be more accountability, and Finance Canada should have taken that. Finance has said they've disagreed with that. Can you explain to this committee as to why?

[Chris Forbes]

I think there are two points. One, as I said, is that I feel, in discussions with the Auditor General's team and in the report, we recognized that, with this scale and scope, we needed to think about oversight. If we were to deliver a program of this scale via EDC and the Canada account again, we would have to think about whether there are better oversight mechanisms for administrative expenses.

Our issue at the Department of Finance is that we don't really have, once a program is launched, the legislative or administrative tools to play that role ourselves. I'm not opposed to oversight, to be clear. I think it was just that we were put in the recommendation as the organization to do that. We felt that it would be something that should be better thought about, but not necessarily....

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

At the time, the government would have had to propose a legislative change in order for that to respect the recommendation of the Auditor General. We would have had to change the law. Is that essentially what you're saying?

[Chris Forbes]

I'd have to think about whether it would be a legislative change, but I would have had to effectively insert myself into administrative decisions that were being made by EDC over the course of the administration of the program. Now, I do want to say that we were engaged with EDC as the program rolled out, so we were aware of the expenses that were going on. In the end, we feel quite honestly that the level of the administrative expenses is quite reasonable. It's certainly, we think, under 1% per year for delivering loans of that value, which is quite reasonable in the context of the cost of other programs.

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

Yes, and we've definitely had some previous meetings with regard to other matters that the Auditor General has brought forward.

On this note, Mr. Chair, I know that the subcommittee met before, but I would move that we resume debate on Ms. Khalid's motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Just one second.... I'm going to have the clerk send that out so everyone has it.

I'm going to get the witnesses to hold for a few minutes.

We have to do the vote as well.

Would members like to see...? I guess it doesn't really matter, does it? Well, actually, it could.

Clerk, would you send the motion out to all members so that members know what we're voting on resuming or not? Thank you.

I'm going to suspend until that is sent out. It'll be a minute or two.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

All right. The motion has been sent around.

Mr. Cannings, did you have a point? I have an obligation to go directly to a vote. Is this a point of order, or are you just in the lineup to speak?

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

No, I'm sorry. This is was to get in the lineup.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

That's fine. Thank you very much. I will take note of that. You're not the first.

I will turn to the clerk to take a roll call.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 6; nays 4)

All right.

If I could ask the witnesses.... I suspect you'll be excused momentarily here, but I'm just going to take the temperature of the room first.

I already have a speaking list. We're resuming the debate on the motion, which you've all been sent.

Mr. Nater, you have the floor, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Pardon me. We're actually resuming debate on the amendment to the motion, just so we're clear.

You have the floor, Mr. Nater.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

You know, it's quite frankly galling. I guess the Liberals don't want to listen, but that's all fine. I'll wait for Ms. Bradford and Ms. Yip to complete their private conversations getting their directions from staff—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Let me ask you, Ms. Khalid, did you motion to speak? I saw your hand move quickly.

No? Okay. That's fine. I just didn't want to overlook you.

Mr. Nater, you have the floor.

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

Thank you, Chair.

You know, here we are, frankly, and we've had two rounds of questions. Our friends from the NDP and the Bloc have yet to have a chance to ask these officials any questions, and here we are with the Liberals coming in with a guillotine motion to prevent the committee from doing its work.

I will say as a matter in passing that I do want to thank our witnesses for joining us, even though they may not get their full opportunity to answer questions. I want to note that I appreciate Finance Canada coming in person. I think that's a show of respect for this committee.

I appreciate the in-person attendance, which we did not have with Export Development Canada and which I think is quite unfortunate, considering that they're 450 metres away from this building. I do appreciate in-person attendance. I think it's a mark of respect, and I do thank you for that.

Here we are. I mean, we've had a subcommittee meeting on this, a subcommittee meeting where Liberal members were present and where we agreed that CEBA would be a priority for this committee. There's a Liberal member on that committee—

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

I have a point of order.

I believe that the discussions that happened within the subcommittee were in camera, and the member should not be speaking about them out of camera, especially since we haven't passed any report that came out of that subcommittee.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

All right.

The subcommittee had a report. I want to check with the clerk to find out.... It was certainly sent to members, but I would ask you, Mr. Nater, to respect the in camera—

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

Absolutely, but I will say that there was a subcommittee report, and Liberal members are on that subcommittee. If they want to have these discussions, let's go back to the subcommittee report and discuss it that way, but here's the thing. This is a priority of this committee, the CEBA study, and what we've had today after two rounds of questions—or not even two rounds, just two sets of questions—is a guillotine motion to go to this.

I want to highlight a couple of the points from this motion that I think are just ridiculous.