Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to government Motion No. 2, a motion that would allow for the continued business of Parliament in this new session.
It is my view that the motion is important as it allows for the reinstatement of government bills and the continuation of committee business. I believe there are nine bills that are being reinstated and a number of committees in the House which have important business before them to be reinstated. Simply put, the reason comes down to common sense.
When the House was prorogued a lot of work had been done by certain committees prior to the date of prorogation. All the motion does is reinstate all the work done by the committees prior to that date. I realize that committees have the option of reinstating their own work but it is much simpler to do it in Parliament in the House of Commons.
However, if we accepted the argument being advanced by the official opposition, then the committees would have to go back and start from square one and go through all the hearings, the witnesses, the reports and the tabling of documents that have gone on for the past month and sometimes years.
I have asked to speak to the motion because it has a special interest to me. I am on the public accounts committee and the finance committee and both those committees have embarked upon relatively significant issues. They have spent a lot of time, energy, effort and resources going through the issues and I, at this point in time, do not want to throw out the baby with the bath water. I want to get on with the work of Parliament.
The motion states:
That, in order to provide for the resumption and continuation of the business of the House begun in the previous session of Parliament it is ordered:
- That any evidence adduced by any Standing or Special Committee on any matter not reported upon in the previous session shall be deemed to have been laid upon the table in the present session;
I will speak directly now to the two committees with which I am involved because those are the two issues for which I have intimate knowledge. The first one is the public accounts committee.
As I believe everyone who reads newspapers in Canada is aware, in the last three to five months we have had an extensive investigation of the Groupaction affair. We have had at least six to eight witnesses. We have had very heated discussions among all members as to the procedures to be followed, the witnesses to be called and the witnesses' right to counsel. It was extensively published in all media outlets. We had a couple of hearings in camera. We had two hearings in the summer, one in July and one in August. The work of the committee was almost done. The only thing we had left to do was to finalize the report. If it had not been for the summer recess this work would have been done, the report would have been filed in the House and we would be looking for a government response.
However, because of the summer recess, the report, which I understand is in draft form, has not been done and has not been filed in the House. If the motion does not get passed by Parliament then we will have to go back and do the whole thing again: call the same witnesses, have the same arguments, et cetera. Of course we would take another six months of time.
I believe every person in Canada watching this show tonight would agree with me that it is incumbent upon that committee and Parliament to get that committee's report filed in the House as soon as possible so that a response can be made by the government of the day.
The second committee is the finance committee. As everyone is aware, the government back in I believe 1994 or 1995 started a new procedure to get the views of all Canadians before the budget was tabled in the House of Commons. Prior to that, the budget document was cloaked in secrecy. Only a few people knew what was going on and only a few people had dialogue on the budget. This has become a very significant process involving democracy.
The finance committee starts to hold hearings in the fall and it holds hearings very extensively. It travels to the west coast and the east coast. I am not exactly sure of the number of different groups and organizations that appear before the committee but it is at least 300 or 400 different groups and individuals. These groups put an awful lot of time, energy and resources into presenting their submissions. Many of the groups are very well organized. They have their own economists and they come forward with excellent papers dealing with their views and positions as to what should be in or not in the upcoming budget.
That process started in April of this year. We had a large number of hearings with a large number of groups. We received their submissions. Under normal circumstances that process would continue on and we would file a report by November or December of this year. That report would be considered by the government when preparing the budget, which would be tabled by the Minister of Finance in the House.
If we look back at the number of reports of the finance committee and the pre-budget consultations, the results are not always immediate. However if we were to go back and read the recommendations made by the committee we would find that a significant number of the recommendations that were made did find their way into the budget that was eventually tabled by the Minister of Finance. In other words, the government is listening to the people of Canada.
The process has been started and a tremendous amount of time has been spent, not only by the committee members but, more important, by the groups, organizations and individuals who made submissions to the committee. I do not know the exact number but the submissions have been substantial.
If the motion does not pass the House the proponents to defeating the bill have suggested that we go back, start again, ask those groups to present new submissions and come back before the committee. It would just delay the matter that much further. With all due respect, that lacks common sense.
Another issue I would like to speak to is the costs, the costs of travel, of bringing in witnesses and of having hearings. It would all have to be repeated and duplicated but for what purpose?
If we listen to the official opposition it is because it does not like one particular bill, the species at risk bill. That was debated in Parliament long before I arrived here. An act has gone to the Senate. This particular bill pits the agriculture community against the animal rights community. It was a compromise. It is not perfect. I am sure there are people out there watching this show who are not totally happy with all the provisions of the bill. However a lot of work and effort has been put into the bill. It has gone before the committee. Hearings have been held and evidence has been adduced. It has taken up a lot of time, effort and energy of a lot of people in the House to come forward with this bill.
I want to bring to the attention of the House the reinstatement of the special committee on the non-medical use of drugs. I believe most members are aware of the extensive amount of work that committee has done hearing evidence and researching the whole issue. I believe it was near the completion of its mandate and was almost ready to file its report. The Senate has already filed its report and I believe the Canadian people want that report to be filed by the House of Commons as soon as possible.
I did some research on this issue. This matter has come before the House many times before, in 1970, 1972, 1974 and 1986. It seems to be a common procedure that when the House prorogues to reinstate bills that died on the order paper and committee work that was in existence. I believe that in 2000 the same procedure was followed.
I want to point out that the very same procedure is followed for private members' bills with the consent of all parties in the House. Private members' bills that died when the House was prorogued are automatically reinstated pursuant to a bill that was adopted in the House. I see the same argument being advanced in this motion also.
Another committee is the subcommittee on the status of persons with disabilities of the human resources development committee. This is a very timely matter. It is an important issue and it is one that the Canadian public deserves to hear from Parliament on.
I want to highlight how ridiculous this is. Let us look at the heritage committee. As I believe most people are aware, the heritage committee was in the middle of a very extensive study on the Canadian broadcasting system. The committee has travelled, heard witnesses, done research and put a lot of time into this initiative. Therefore the motion would also support this committee in the completion of this very important study.
In conclusion, those are just some of the examples of what we are dealing with in the House. I will come back to my point on the public accounts committee and the finance committee that would benefit from this motion. It would benefit the committees, it would benefit the House and would benefit the Canadian public
Therefore I urge all members to support the adoption of the motion.