Transport Committee on Feb. 16th, 2012

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Watson.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

First of all, the committee just agreed to a timetable for what we would be spending our time doing for the next several weeks. It's not just now that they're pre-empting this: with notice of motion, they had intended to pre-empt the committee's work all along anyway. I don't think that's good. Second, what they're not proposing is a review of all appointments at Transport Canada, and there are hundreds and hundreds of appointments there. Perhaps that means they endorse all of our appointments except for these two. We thank them for that.

What they are proposing is a selective endorsement of certain appointments. In my opinion, either this committee is going to vet all appointments or it will vet no appointments. By what means do you select certain appointments for vetting? Given the sheer volume of appointments at Transport Canada, this committee would be completely inundated and exclusively devoted to reviewing appointments. We would not be getting on with the other important work we have already agreed to do.

I think we should go with the timetable we've suggested for this committee's work. That's the much more valuable work here. We should not proceed with.... Again, this is for politics. This isn't for anything else. I'll be voting against the motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Nicholls.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

We're not suggesting vetting hundreds of candidates. We're suggesting asking questions of two. It's within the mandate of the committee to do so, so I don't see anything unusual here. When two candidates come up who we have legitimate questions for, we don't see why the committee should be prevented from fulfilling its mandate to question them.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Sullivan.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

I think Mr. Watson hit the nail on the head when he said it would take probably years of meetings to try to review all of the appointments. that is why we've proposed only bringing up two. I guess the reason these two are here is that there have been legitimate concerns raised in those communities about the appropriateness of the appointments. As a committee, we have the opportunity—I thought—to review some of these appointments.

There is a significant amount of money being spent by this government on these authorities, a significant amount of money in the salaries and per diems and the rest of this, and we want to make sure the taxpayer is getting good value for that money. We don't want there to be a return to the kinds of appointments that are put there purely for political purposes: to reward bagmen, to reward former failed candidates. The Conservatives complained about that when the Liberals were doing it. They complained vigorously about the Liberals appointing their friends—who didn't have experience in running ports—to port authorities.

We're concerned that some of those tendencies may be creeping up here. You may be able to prove us completely wrong, so fine. Let's bring these people here and find out just what their qualifications are to be paid from the public purse to run these authorities.

I understand...you haven't seen.... We review all of them in my office. I make sure that when we get all the notices of appointments from the government, we look at all of them. We look at all of them as thoroughly as we can in the time.... With some of them, little red flags go up, and we do some checking. We say “oh yes, that's okay”....

But here, we have two where bigger than little red flags go up. We have done a little bit of research on these and discovered that there were some issues with regard to these individuals.

That's all we want to do. We're not suggesting, nor would we suggest, that we would want to review as a committee the hundreds and hundreds of appointments this government makes. By and large, most of them are just reappointments of people who were appointed by the previous Liberal government—or rather, some are. Clearly there have been some changes, and clearly, the Conservative government, which complained about appointments being done for political purposes, has weeded out a lot of those people.

But when they start falling into the same traps, we want to be able to ask the questions. I thought that was a legitimate role of the committee: to ask questions of people who are on the public purse in roles in which they are being given the trust of the Canadian people. If there are allegations that these appointments are being made for political reasons rather than for good economic reasons, we'd like to be able to get at those. That's why we put these forward.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Before I recognize Ms. Chow, I think it is important to put on the record for the information of all members that port authorities are self-financing. They're not financed through the government. That is just to make the record clear.

Ms. Chow.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Yes, but they're also entitled to apply for funding from the federal government, and quite a large number of port authorities do receive federal funding. Previously, under the Marine Act, they weren't allowed to receive public funding, but then there was a change of legislation allowing all port authorities to apply for federal funding. Subsequently, the Toronto Port Authority, for example, has received quite a lot of federal funding dealing with the airports.

I see that a press release from April 21, 2006, talks about a new public appointments commission, and that it is established that:

The mandate of the Public Appointments Commission is to oversee and report on the...selection processes for Governor in Council appointments to agencies, boards, commissions and Crown corporations.

That's crown corporations like port authorities. It continues:

The Commission will develop guidelines, review and approve the selection processes proposed by Ministers to fill vacancies within their portfolios, and report publicly on the Government's compliance with the guidelines. ...The Public Appointments Commission is provided for in the Federal Accountability Act which was tabled in the House of Commons on April 11th, 2006.

At that time, the Prime Minister said that:By establishing the Public Appointments Commission, the Government is implementing a key component of its overall plan to strengthen accountability in government as outlined in the Federal Accountability Act...The Commission will provide the necessary oversight—

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Watson, on a point of order.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

I believe the motion is to call specific appointees before the committee. The Federal Accountability Act is not a part of this committee's mandate, so I don't think that's relevant. I'd like her to be relevant to the motion, I guess.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

I was listening to Ms. Chow and I was hoping that she would round out to the point very quickly.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

I'm about to.

To continue:

The Commission will provide the necessary oversight to ensure that the selection of individuals is based on merit and is done in an open and transparent way.

Now, Mr. Chairman, since we no longer have this commission, there's really no way for anyone to “provide the necessary oversight to ensure that the selection of individuals is based on merit and is done in an open and transparent way”.

If these appointments are done in an open and transparent way and are based on merit, then there is nothing to hide. Allow us to bring them here to the committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Adler.

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Mr. Chair, once again, I'm really uncomfortable with this motion that the NDP is proposing. These are McCarthyesque tactics.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

What they want to do is bring in appointments that our government has made and pretty much ask them, “Are you now or have you ever been a Conservative?” This is ridiculous.

Please, come on: have you no common decency?

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Seeing no further comments, I'll call the question.

[An hon. member]

A recorded vote.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

There is a request for a recorded vote.

(Motion negatived: nays 6; yeas 5)

The motion has been defeated and that is the conclusion of today's business meeting.

I'll wish everybody a good break week back in your constituencies. We'll see you on the 28th.

Thank you, everyone.

The meeting is adjourned.