That being the case, I think I'll continue to talk about how important this is, because I suspect I know what my Liberal colleague will do, which is to stop debate, which he has done on numerous occasions. When we get to his comments, he has said before to this committee, as he did last week, “I move to adjourn debate”.
When that happens, it's a deleterious motion. It gives clear direction to say that there will be no further debate. They vote to end debate and then we don't deal with the issue. It drops dead on the table, so to speak. I regret that other opposition members won't be able to speak to this before the government has a chance to shut down our conversation.
Of the many committees I've been on over my 11 years here on Parliament Hill—in a minority Liberal government, majority Conservative government, minority Conservative government and now a majority Liberal government—the obstruction that is happening right now in committees totally contradicts what this government said it was going to do. In fact, it has moved it to another level in some cases, of flexing their muscle as a voting machine to get what they want.
When we talk about supplementary estimates (B), every time this has come before any other committee I've been involved with, there has been no discussion of “Let's reconsider doing this” or “Let's reconsider calling the minister.” It's always, “Yes, let's get on with it. Let's get the minister here and let's scrutinize the spending as we should.”
These are taxpayers' dollars. These are the dollars that people at home have sent in to the government. It baffles me. It's the money of hard-working people who are honest and pay their taxes that's represented in the $323 million. Some of it might have been borrowed, because this government has a penchant for borrowing money they don't have. However, that said, it's money that we are accountable for—every one of us as a member of Parliament.
When I think back to the structures that have been put in place for us to have the honest truth about government and I hear the Parliamentary Budget Officer describe, in no uncertain terms in his report, that the future spending vis-à-vis the appropriations, supplementary estimates and the estimates, when they eventually get approved.... It's unconscionable to me that we would allow a committee to use their partisan bullying and not address it.
This is what they did last week. This is exactly what they did. They shut down debate.