Thanks, Mr. Chair. I appreciate having the opportunity to speak again after the last meeting. Unfortunately, I missed a great deal of that because I was up in the House delivering a speech.
I was in the middle of some comments at that point. I would like to wrap them up. They speak directly to what my colleague just talked about—the work of committees and the potential of committees. I tend to agree with him on that.
I want to start by saying that we're all professionals here, but we're also people. We have feelings and sensitivities. I want to ensure, certainly, from my own perspective—and, I'm sure, that of my colleagues—that at no point are we making personal comments about others' professionalism or about them as people. There shouldn't be any ad hominem attacks in this committee or in the House of Commons—well, that's a different story. I want to make it very clear that what I say is said with respect for the professional context we find ourselves in and for the work we have to do. Our politics may be different from time to time—sometimes very different—based on whatever issue we might be debating, but I have the utmost respect for all colleagues around this table. This includes Mr. Lemire, who has worked very hard with us on making amendments and trying to find a resolution on this particular motion that I know is very important to him and the people in his riding. It's important to us too.
I will get back to the comments I started last meeting.
I want to talk about what the public accounts committee does and what it stands for, because Mr. Lemire touched on that in his comments. We all know public accounts is Parliament's standing audit committee. Its mandate is to review the work of the federal government's external auditor, the Auditor General of Canada, who was here today. When a report is tabled on behalf of the Auditor General in the House of Commons, I understand that it's referred to this committee. Public accounts selects the chapters it wants to study. It calls the Auditor General and senior public servants from the audited organizations to appear. At the conclusion of the study, it presents a report to the House of Commons that includes recommendations for improvements in administrative and financial practices.
I recognize that for colleagues around the table who've been here for a long time, it might be kind of silly to review this, but for someone new like me, it's good to have. The first anniversary of the election is coming up. Having a review of what we do here at public accounts is beneficial for me, so I appreciate everyone indulging me as I go through it.
That mandate is significant and worth pausing on. It's not a general investigations committee we have here. It's not a committee whose purpose is to receive raw documents in significant amounts—in dumps—and sift through correspondence for political ammunition. I want to be careful about my word choice here, because I don't want my colleague to feel I'm overly politicizing things or assuming that he is. However, to someone on the outside looking in at what this motion requests, it might appear that way. The mandate of public accounts is grounded not in partisan inquiry but in audit follow-through. That's a different thing. It's more demanding, in some respects, than just piling on voluminous amounts of documents.
I'll go back to some history, because that's my passion, and I think it will help us review where we've come from in order to know where we're going.
The British public accounts committee at Westminster is the oldest in the world. It operates on a principle that has guided its work since William Ewart Gladstone established it in 1861. I don't know if there are any other history students around the table, but I'm going to wax eloquent, a little, about history.
The committee exists to ensure that public money is spent only as Parliament intended. I think we can agree on that. It's not to adjudicate political disputes. It's not to pursue political adversaries but to ensure that the executives' financial conduct is consistent with Parliament's will, as expressed in its appropriations. That tradition is alive in this committee. It is alive in our Standing Orders. It deserves respect.
Walter Bagehot, writing in The English Constitution in 1867, famously observed that “a big meeting never does anything”. His point—and I think it's a sharp one—was that the real work of Parliament happens in these smaller, deliberative bodies, where members can examine evidence carefully, follow arguments to their conclusions and produce considered judgements. He called the floor of the House the “grand inquest”—it does feel like that sometimes—but it's in committees where Parliament actually works. As Woodrow Wilson wrote in 1885, in the American context but with equal application here, “Congress in its committee-rooms is Congress at work”. He called them “little legislatures”.
This committee is Parliament at work, I believe, on the specific and serious question of whether the Government of Canada is spending public money wisely and in accordance with Parliament's intentions. This is a really high calling. I'll admit that I'm not sure it's one I fully understood when I was assigned to this committee, but over the past year of having the Auditor General and her team come here, and various officials and ministers, and engaging in meaningful debate around this table, as well as attending conferences—which I was very lucky to do at the beginning of the fall—I've learned that this is indeed a very high calling. It requires a high standard of discipline of us. I'm really proud to sit on this committee. I take the work seriously.
It's precisely because I take it seriously that I want to urge a measure of caution today about the motion before us. It's not because I'm indifferent to the concerns about the BDM programme, because I think there are real concerns there. There are real concerns that need to be examined and looked at. It's not because I think those concerns are fabricated. I do not. I believe those concerns are real, and in fact, the Auditor General herself confirmed this.
I believe the way in which a committee conducts itself—the procedures it follows, the instruments it deploys and the scope it takes on—determines the quality and credibility of the work it ultimately produces.
There's a broader concern that I want to raise here respectfully, but also directly, because I believe I owe it to my colleagues—and, surely, that we owe to each other. In recent years, committees in the Canadian House of Commons have become increasingly the site of partisan confrontation. That's not a secret. We all do it. It's been observed by members of all parties, journalists, constitutional scholars and by Canadians who have watched parliamentary proceedings.
In 2024, the House itself was, as I understand, effectively paralyzed for months by a filibuster over the production of documents relating to Sustainable Development Technology Canada. In 2020—going back six years or so—this very committee and others were gridlocked for days, as government members spoke at great length on matters of questionable relevance to prevent votes from coming to the floor.
I have considered myself really fortunate to have been around this table over the past year, because we've functioned pretty well during that time. We have gotten through a number of reports. We've had good discussions and have revealed a lot of important testimony that's come from the witnesses who have been called in before us. Overall, I think the public accounts committee has functioned really well over the past year. Apparently, that's a marked improvement from the time before I came onto the committee.
