Debates of April 20th, 2005

Committees of the House

[Louise Thibault, Bloc, Rimouski—Témiscouata, QC]

Madam Speaker, with respect to the comments the parliamentary secretary has just made and with respect to the response by my colleague, the committee chair and member for Vegreville—Wainwright, I would like to point out that—and I think many of my committee colleagues will agree—the issue here is the spirit of the motion and not the letter.

While my colleague from Vegreville—Wainwright will call on us to vote, I think that the essence in a democratic process is that, by clarifying one another's comments, we move the matter along and really improve it. When I say really, I do not mean—and my colleagues will agree—spending one, two or three days on it. Still, at issue is taking the time to study the items in the supplementary estimates.

In my comments, I will first consider the budget cycle in its entirety—I will point out certain things—which includes the specific question raised in the motion, with respect to timing.

Consideration of the estimates, votes and the supplementary estimates is one very important aspect of the job of MPs in committee, but, more generally, of our work as parliamentarians. The motion concerns the supplementary estimates, but it is interesting to debate it in broader terms.

What we do in fact in studying the supplementary estimates and other items is analyze them. MPs analyze how public funds will be spent and distributed. This is very important, as my colleague from Vegreville—Wainwright pointed out at the start. The analysis is crucial because it has to do with the way the government intends to spend every cent taxpayers contribute to government coffers. It is no small matter.

The role of government is to redistribute the collective wealth and to meet the needs of the public. We all know the needs are many and pressing. We also know how little they are being met at the moment.

Consideration of the estimates, votes and the supplementary estimates is vital. It is not symbolic, because it is linked directly to government spending, obviously, as I have mentioned.

In my opinion, and no doubt that of many others, this study therefore deserves all possible attention. Members must, therefore, have enough time. The notion of time needs to be defined, that is the deadline, as opposed to the maximum amount of time we would all like to have. The members of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates have voiced their consternation and frustration in order to indicate how seriously they take this task. They did not make a criticism just for the sake of doing so. It is, moreover, inconceivable that we should give the impression that we are approaching something so important in a way that might be interpreted as cavalier, as if we were not concerned about this very important work we are doing in committee. Yet this work is of the highest importance, and we do indeed want to assign to it the great importance it deserves. It needs to meet the expectations of the public, no more and no less. So the time required must be taken.

If it is necessary to redefine the expression “time required”, it would not be 21 days, I am sure, but it will certainly not be one or two days either, as I said.

I feel that this is a matter of respecting the democratic process, at least I feel it is also about that. The issue at stake here is the respect of our fellow citizens, that is, the people we represent. And the basis of that respect is for us to respect their legitimate expectations, especially where public finances are concerned.

In my opinion, this motion is justified and important. The time must be taken to closely scrutinize the government's requests for supplemental funding, and thus to require justification. This is critical, at a time when, more than ever, the population is absolutely entitled to demand accountability.

It is a known fact that having too much information is the same as having too little. When we have to go through this much information in so little time, we may not look at it as carefully as we should.

Committee members need more than just one day's notice to examine such voluminous and complex documents. Let us acknowledge that a budget document, whether for the main or supplementary estimates, is not very user-friendly. It has to be deciphered. The House of Commons has highly-skilled staff to help us with this task, but each member of the committee has to take on this task, give it serious thought, develop tools and be as well prepared as possible at committee meetings.

I will reiterate my last thought. It would be an aberration to have only one, two or three days to consider these budgetary estimates. Furthermore, this aberration could lead, and may have led, to other more serious aberrations. You may have guessed that I am referring to, without going into detail—it is being discussed enough these days and rightfully so—the scandals, the sponsorship scandal and the gun registry scandal in particular.

With regard to the review and consideration of estimates and budgets, if we had the right tools and if we could effectively review such ample documentation, we could obtain truly timely information and answers. In fact, as parliamentarians, we could obtain information that would allow us to act more expediently.

We want the members to be able to conduct a serious, in-depth and comprehensive review and to have more time for this than they currently do. We must take the time to study the figures. When necessary, the committee must be able to take the time to call witnesses and ask questions.

In response to the comments by my colleague from Mississauga South, I recognize that parliamentarians are responsible for ensuring they have access to the most complete and useful set of tools possible. However, I will put the ball back in the member's court by saying that it is always appropriate for the government, in keeping with its philosophy of transparency, to keep improving these tools, as well.

Dealing with such an important matter in so little time is part of the democratic deficit. As parliamentarians, we must work to minimize this deficit, and eliminate it, if possible. I want to be part of this process and, to this end, I believe that this motion is entirely justified.

The committee members, of which I am one, must have the time to do their job properly. I sincerely hope that everyone in the House will support substantial improvements to this process.

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, discussions have taken place among all parties and I believe you would find unanimous consent for the following motion. I move:

That in relation to its study on Canada's defence policy and the future role of the Canadian Forces, 10 members of the Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs be authorized to travel:

(a) to London, Ontario on May 12 and 13, 2005;

(b) to North Bay and Petawawa from May 18 to May 20, 2005;

(c) to Dwyer Hill, Ontario on May 31, 2005;

(d) to Winnipeg, Manitoba and Victoria and Esquimalt, B.C. from June 27 to 30, 2005; and

(e) to Colorado Springs, CO, Washington, DC and Norfolk, VA in the United States from July 10 to 15, 2005,

and that the necessary staff do accompany the committee.

(Motion agreed to)

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, I move:

That 12 members of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts be authorized to travel to Niagara-on-the-Lake from August 21 to 23, 2005 to attend the Conference of the Canadian Association of Public Accounts Committees, and that the necessary staff do accompany the committee.

(Motion agreed to)

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, I move:

That, notwithstanding the order made on March 11, 2005 in relation to its study on the government action plan on official languages, the Standing Committee on Official Languages be authorized to travel to Bathurst, the eastern townships, Toronto, Windsor, Whitehorse, Vancouver, Saint Boniface and Sudbury in May 2005, and that the necessary staff do accompany the committee.

(Motion agreed to)

The House resumed consideration of the motion.

[Françoise Boivin, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

Madam Speaker, I have listened with care to what my colleague from the Bloc Québécois has had to say, and in principle I agree with her comment on the importance of being able to properly fulfill our role as parliamentarians. Since she is new here, as I am, I imagine our views on that coincide.

We are here to do a job. On the committees of which I am a member, we receive lots of documents on which we have to vote and express our opinion. Then everything goes back to the House, with our hopes that this will advance the democratic process for the sake of those we represent.

That said, we do have a lot of support. I should take this opportunity to congratulate the researchers available to us MPs, who provide us with truly exceptional service. Rarely do we turn up at committee meetings without having already studied the issue thoroughly.

My colleague made a point of saying that everybody would be somewhat favourable to the motion and the concept involved. No one wants to make decisions without being fully informed, particularly when budgets are involved. That is, after all, how the taxpayers judge us.

Our colleague also says that a day or two is not enough. I would like to know how many days would have been really necessary in her opinion, since she is on that committee. I have also heard what the deputy leader had to say, and I admit that practicality must come into it as well. If a day or two is insufficient, can she give us some idea? Given the deputy leader's arguments, the jump to 21 strikes me as overdoing things somewhat.

[Louise Thibault, Bloc, Rimouski—Témiscouata, QC]

Madam Speaker, when I addressed the parliamentary secretary earlier, I was truly speaking in good faith, as are my colleagues. It was an opening and it was in this light that I was calling on my colleagues.

In my opinion, it does not matter whether we ask for 21 days or 15 days. What matters is that we recognize the principle. I am prepared to give my support too, once we have been enlightened or given information—whether in a debate or another forum—which helps ensure further reflection. I will not dig in my heels at 21 days; when I said one, two or three days, I meant that this takes time.

I thanked the House staff who assist us in committee, because they do an excellent job. I am in complete agreement, since I said it earlier, with what the member for Gatineau has just added.

The main point we must remember from what the committee members have said about the motion before us is that the time must be spent. I think a proposal of one, two, three or four days is rather inappropriate. What I wanted to point out when I rose to speak were the reasons it is important to act responsibly, transparently, with good documents in hand and to be properly equipped. Obviously, my colleagues and I said at the start in this House that there are no partisan politics on this committee. It is truly a committee where its members, all equal, have the desire to move things along.

The point I want to address is, “Let us give ourselves more time”. I have no magic answers, but what interests me is considering everything people here have to say and when we return to committee taking the time to reflect.

When I say it takes the number of days it takes, that means the time required is the time needed to do a thorough and serious study so that—if I may be permitted a pun—the public really gets its money's worth.

[Leon Benoit, Conservative, Vegreville—Wainwright, AB]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member who just spoke is a very valuable member of our committee. She brings with her a lot of experience and is certainly very helpful to the committee when it comes to personnel issues in particular but on other issues as well.

The hon. member seems to be doubting whether the motion we brought forth about 21 days is reasonable. I want to argue that it is.

The parliamentary secretary in his presentation said that if the 21 day rule had been in place, the government would have had to have presented its supplementary estimates B sometime in the first part of February. What is wrong with that? The end of the fiscal year is March 31. Is it unreasonable for government to have decided on its final spending for that year ending March 31 in mid-February? I would argue that it is not unreasonable at all.

We must keep in mind that for true emergencies a contingency fund has been set up. The money is there.

Why is it that government, in just that short time, the middle of February, which would give the 21 days required, cannot plan its final spending for the year? To me that seems absurd. I believe that 21 days is reasonable. I also believe that we should pass this motion.

If there is discussion after and we agree to bring another motion back to the House and shorten it somewhat, I would be open to discussing that, but I do not think the 21 days is unreasonable and I think we should pass the motion.

I would just like to ask the hon. member whether she feels it is unreasonable to have the government present its final spending estimates a short month and a half before the end of the fiscal year.

[Louise Thibault, Bloc, Rimouski—Témiscouata, QC]

Madame Speaker, I thank my colleague from Vegreville—Wainwright for his question. I do not think it unreasonable. All I wanted to say is that open-mindedness is essential. Should the number of days, give or take a few hours, conflict with the merits of a request, I say that common sense must prevail and something else be agreed upon.

When I was on the committee I agreed with the 21 days and to make amendments. The matter of breaks to permit members to be with their families has been raised. I do not want to give it cavalier treatment, as it is an important value in our society. I do not see why parliamentarians could not benefit as well.

So my answer is that I will vote for 21 days. However, if anyone proposed changing that somewhat, I would not be opposed to listening to arguments put forward by persons of good faith.

[The Acting Speaker (Hon. Jean Augustine)]

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Edmonton—Leduc, Technology Partnerships Canada; the hon. member for Fort McMurray—Athabasca, The Environment; the hon. member for Langley, Transport.

Message from the Senate

[The Acting Speaker (Hon. Jean Augustine)]

I have the honour to inform the House that a message has been received from the Senate informing this House that the Senate has passed the certain bills to which the concurrence of this House is desired.

The House resumed consideration of the motion

Committees of the House

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to enter into the debate on the concurrence motion for the sixth report of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates.

On behalf of the NDP, I welcome the opportunity to comment on the sixth report. I want to thank the member for Vegreville—Wainwright for giving us this opportunity today. This was not the regularly scheduled debate to be before the House.

As the chair of our committee, the member for Vegreville—Wainwright felt it important to bring to the attention of the House a very important and pressing issue on how the representatives in our House of Commons are managing the public finances. My colleague and friend, the chair of the committee, is doing a service to Canadians by allowing us this opportunity to reflect on this today.

By way of introduction, I am one of the vice-chairs of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates. I was present when the frustration that led to this report took place. By explanation for those who have just tuned in, the very brief sixth report of the government operations committee is an expression of frustration of the members of Parliament who serve as members of that committee.

MPs, who out of good will and cooperation come to that committee on a regular basis to do the important work of being the oversight committee and the watchdogs on public spending, were very frustrated back on that day in March when we were called upon to review, study, research, comment on and entertain witnesses on the supplementary estimates of the Government of Canada in one day.

Imagine how we felt. We were given these fat volumes of budget lines, big enough that we could hardly lift and carry them. We were asked, on behalf of the people of Canada, to give our opinion and our views as to whether authority should be given to the Government of Canada to spend hundreds of millions of dollars more than were estimated in the main budget estimates.

Supplementary estimates are a natural occurrence. There are some unforeseen spending necessities that come in the fiscal year of government that cannot be foreseen or anticipated by the main budget.

There are two things. In the first place, the government has a horrendous record on their main estimates. The evidence I can give is that successive ministers of finance have been so far out on the estimates that they astound everyone in the whole country who can count. Nobody can believe how far out these ministers of finance of the Liberal government have been. There is a skepticism right off the get go as we sit down at the government operations committee and we use the word “estimates”.

Second, if there are justifiable additional expenses within the course of the fiscal year that lead to the necessity of what they call supplementary estimates B, surely if the government expects the cooperation and the goodwill of the all party committee, it should be given the courtesy of letting us see those estimates and some justification for that spending well in advance to garner our support.

First, it is only courtesy and second, it is only common sense. Suffice to say it was frustrating for us as committee members.

I have a comment from one of my colleagues on that committee. He is a new member of Parliament, the member for Elgin—Middlesex—London. He is a Conservative member who regularly makes good quality contributions to that committee. Here is the quote of that member from the Hansard of our committee. He said on Tuesday, March 8:

You know I'm new to this place, but to be handed the supplementary estimates on the day we leave, on a Friday, and have to come back and really, a day and a half later, vote on these...I don't believe the Canadian public thinks that's what we do with estimates or the supplementary estimates. They think we spend a great deal more time looking at them, going over them and finding where the good hard-earned money that they send up here is being spent.

This was before our week break.

I could not have said it better myself. There is an expectation in the country that we are sent here on good faith as the people's representatives to be the watchdog on their hard earned dollars. In the first hour of one committee meeting, we are supposed to make sense of this mountain of literature. It is confusing to anyone, especially lay people like us, with no rationale or justification, no little paragraph next to the budget line that says “we need this money because”. There is very little of that. We have to rely on the researchers of our committee to give us some of that.

The member for Elgin—Middlesex—London expressed his frustration quite clearly at the committee. We went around the table and everybody expressed the same frustration. They asked how we were supposed to make sense of these complicated supplementary estimates in that period of time.

We are kind of behind the eight ball because as committee members we do not want to be irresponsible and deny the ability of the federal government to meet its commitments and legal obligations. We do not want to grind the government to a halt by voting down supplementary estimates of this type. We are talking hundreds of millions of dollars.

In fact, I believe it was $1.4 billion worth of supplementary estimates, not a couple of bucks here and there, not an amount of money to make the rent at the end of the month for the government. We are talking about huge spending obligations, which, fairly or unfairly, would certainly indicate a poor budgetary process at the front end if at the back end one finds oneself $1.5 billion short in meeting obligations.

Then we have the Minister of Finance say things to the media such as the government does not want to build up expectations because it only has about a $1.9 billion surplus this year and there really will be enough money for all the regional needs. Then when the cookie jar is opened up, we find it is not a $1.9 billion surplus, it is a $9.1 billion surplus. He is dyslexic or something. He got the numbers completely wrong. I mean no disrespect to people with that affliction. Maybe he was looking in a mirror and was reading it in the inverse or he comes from some parallel universe perhaps where everything is reversed, like in the old Superman comics. Clearly, if the Minister of Finance cannot count that high, maybe he should take off his shoes and that might help him.

We go in to committee with some skepticism. However, to be asked at this late date, with virtually no notice, and to be given one day to deal with $1.4 billion worth of supplementary estimates is unfair, discourteous and an abuse of the process, in my mind, either by omission or co-mission. It is abusive to us. One could even call it a breach of privilege. I have a parliamentary expert here who will probably correct me, but I view it as a breach of my privileges. I am being denied the ability to do my job properly. I have a right as a member of Parliament in the House of Commons to exercise the tasks that have been assigned to me by the people of Canada in a thorough way, but I cannot do that when these things are plopped on my desk with virtually no advance notice.

I fully appreciate and recognize what my colleague from Vegreville—Wainwright has done today to move concurrence in this report. It gives us the opportunity to ball the Liberals out, if nothing else. It gives us the opportunity to tell the Government of Canada that we are not satisfied, as the Parliament of Canada and the House of Commons of Canada, with the government's behaviour, track record, management of our funds and certainly not the way it approaches us for permission to spend more money at the end of the fiscal year.

I was one of the founding members of this relatively newly struck committee called the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates. We went into this with some hope and optimism that this would be an opportunity to add better scrutiny and oversight of public spending.

I come from the province of Manitoba, where the estimates process is quite different from the federal government process. Since this committee is called “government operations and estimates”, we thought that not only would we be reviewing the operations of government and trying to make sure there were efficiencies and streamlining, but we also thought we would be able to do a thorough review of the estimates process, like we do in Manitoba.

Let me back up and tell the House a bit about what that is like in Manitoba. Prior to budgets being granted in the province of Manitoba, ministers go before committees and get grilled on their estimates line by line. Here in Parliament we do a thorough analysis after the spending has been done.

The public accounts committee and the Auditor General have a thorough review of what spending took place and comment on whether they think it was wisely spent or not, if Canadian taxpayers received good value for their money or not. Very little happens at the front end. It is all after the fact. After the horse is out of the barn we get to comment on whether a good job was done.

In my home province, and I believe in Quebec and other provinces as well, the time, energy and resources are spent at the front end, before the spending takes place. A minister of the Crown has to sit before an all-party committee and defend why his department should get $100 million for X, Y or Z. That is torn apart and sometimes the minister is kept there all night long.

This has two positive consequences. First, there is a thorough oversight of what spending is anticipated and whether it is justified. Second, it forces ministers to become experts in their departments, because they have to answer the toughest of questions. They get a strip torn off them for every single budget line that says,“I need more money”. Those ministers need to prove it.

We do not do any of that here. My colleague from Elgin--Middlesex--London said in his remarks that the people of Canada would be disappointed to learn the actual facts of our estimates process. If what happened to us at the government operations committee is any example, there is none of this rigorous tearing apart of the budget in March at the government operations committee. There is a cursory overview if we have time to even flip open the book. I am not accusing members of Parliament of not doing their homework or not working hard, but we are just not allowed the time to do it properly.

Hundreds of millions of dollars, nay, billions of dollars are being spent by the government with almost no permission, no oversight and no scrutiny by members of Parliament, certainly not by opposition members of Parliament. Maybe there is some behind the scenes stuff on the government side. Who knows what those members do in their free time? But in the light of day where there is transparency and accountability, nothing goes on. I am not trying to upset or alarm Canadians unnecessarily, but I can tell members that there is not the scrutiny and oversight they expect.

I think all of us would be able to attest to the fact that transparency and accountability have become the buzzwords of Ottawa, would we not? There is no phrase more frequently used in Ottawa now than the phrase “transparency and accountability”. Where is the transparency and where is the accountability? It is almost an issue of natural justice. If we are denied access and the luxury of time to do a thorough job, that is not transparency. If we are denied a full opportunity to review estimates, that is not accountability.

Accountability is not the Government of Canada, the ruling party, being able to unilaterally and arbitrarily say it did not sharpen its pencil on the main estimates, it blew it and it needs another $1.4 billion, so “let us fire off some documents to the government operations committee and get it to okay them”. Is that good management? Is that sharpening the pencil and streamlining efficiency? Transparency and accountability may be the buzzwords in Ottawa, but they are certainly not the practice that I have seen since I have been here.

I have just learned by the magic of BlackBerry that the Prime Minister will be addressing the nation on Thursday night at 7:45 p.m. He is giving a state of the nation address. Maybe he will say something substantive about accountability and transparency.

[An hon. member]

He should say it here.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

His best gamble would be to act like Jimmy Swaggart and prostrate himself before Canadians and beg their forgiveness. That is what I would advise him to do, but in all likelihood he probably intends to try to defend the indefensible.

Were we able to question the Prime Minister on any one single thing that we have found failing in the time we have spent here as members of Parliament and as members of the government operations committee, we would have to say to him that the notion of transparency and accountability has not been the reality in my experience.

I am sad to say that, because I believe most members of Parliament want to do a thorough job. They want to represent the interests of the people who sent them here. They want to be aggressive watchdogs of public spending. But we do not have the tools to do that unless we pass the motion as put forward by my colleague today, which is the report of the House of Commons standing committee.

In question period today, the member for Elmwood—Transcona, a man who is the dean of Parliament and has the respect of Parliament, stood up and chewed out the Prime Minister for, in his mind, the failure to act on the democratic deficit by ignoring the will of Parliament in situations just like this.

The member for Elmwood--Transcona cited four or five examples where we have moved concurrence in a report of a committee and passed it in a majority vote of Parliament, directing the Government of Canada to do a specific thing. The Air-India inquiry is one example. The motions then are ignored as if they were just minor irritants, just another thing to get through in a busy day.

When Parliament speaks, government is supposed to listen. Government is supposed to implement the will of Parliament. Otherwise, there is no respect for Parliament and we are just wasting our time here.

I raise this only to emphasize that when we finish this debate today on this concept, this notion put forward in good faith by a unanimous vote of the government operations and estimates committee, that when we are finished debating it for three hours today, it comes to a vote. If the vote of concurrence passes, as I expect it will, the Government of Canada will ignore that vote at its peril.

If the Liberals decide not to implement the will of Parliament in this, which is yet another example, then going to the nation tomorrow night at 7:45 p.m. and begging for forgiveness is not going to help them. They will be doomed. I predict that the wrath of Canadians will be upon them, certainly the wrath of those representatives of Canadians who make up the House of Commons. We will do it for them. If the Canadian people do not have a chance to tell the Liberal government what they think of it, it is up to us to tell the Liberal government what we think of it and we will do that at every opportunity.

As the vice-chair of the government operations and estimates committee, I support my chair, the member for Vegreville—Wainwright, in his efforts to drive this message home.

This is perhaps the shortest report that I have ever seen from a parliamentary committee. We wanted to keep it simple. We did not want to cloud this issue with unnecessary language. We did not want to mix issues. This is a single message. It is not pluralistic in any way. It deals specifically with the length of time we should be given to review and study the supplementary estimates when they come before our committee. Nothing could be more straightforward. The figure that we agreed to at committee and which is in the report is 21 days' advance notice. That is not too much to ask for a billion dollars worth of spending.

We are not talking about 21 sitting days of our committee. We are talking about 21 calendar days, during which time the committee would have had perhaps two or three meetings but during which time researchers and people working on our behalf could develop material and opinions for us to be able to do our job properly and make sound and wise judgments.

In my closing minute, I urge my colleagues to look favourably on this motion, to speak in favour of it and to restore the confidence of the Canadian people in how somebody around here cares about how their money is being managed. I would like to think that we in this chamber do and there is a way to demonstrate that: support this motion.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, the member always gets good marks on style, but I want to comment on the substance. The reality is that the supplementary estimates (B) are the final adjustments as a result of labour negotiations and settlements.

Indeed, on this particular Thursday, here we are talking about how the supplementary estimates (B) have to be reported by the following Thursday morning, which means, since we only meet twice a week, that we only have one more scheduled day of meetings. But this is a Thursday. We also had Friday. We also had Monday. We had Tuesday and Wednesday to hold meetings if we had wanted to.

If the members would just check the transcripts of the meeting, which are public and on the web, they will see that the committee members said, “Why do we not just have everybody review it on their own, and if they have any concerns, they can bring them to the committee on our Tuesday meeting? If there are any questions by any member, we will call the necessary witnesses on the Wednesday and still be able to report Thursday”.

How many members of the government operations and estimates committee came to that meeting having reviewed the supplementary estimates (B) to say that they had a problem and they wanted witnesses because they did not understand something and they needed to have answers to certain questions? None.

Perhaps the member doth protest too much. As a matter of fact, I want to suggest to him that only 3 out of 20 standing committees reported back the supplementary estimates (B). It gets even worse if we look back at the main estimates, which were reported November 30. Only 9 out of 20 standing committees even reviewed the main estimates, where the big decisions are made and the big money is approved.

When we put this in the context that every standing committee of the House of Commons has a majority of opposition members and this is what is going on, we have to understand that the problem is not so much a government trying to stop somebody from looking at the estimates; it is in fact the committee system, which has become dysfunctional and has ignored virtually half of its job, that is, to do appropriate review. We have more systemic problems.

I would like to ask the member if, as a starting point when members of Parliament come to this place, the House of Commons should offer an orientation program on an appropriate review of estimates, and also do periodic updates and training so that members of Parliament can anticipate the dates on which things happen and can start working in advance of the tabling of estimates.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Mississauga South for his lengthy preamble and short question, but I would like to quote my colleague, who is also a vice-chair of the government operations committee. At the very meeting in question, on Tuesday, March 8, the member for Mississauga South said:

I would, however, suggest that in reporting back on the supplementaries, we append a note that expresses our concern about the shortness of the time, in that it did not permit us to do a proper job, and that we fully intend to pursue this with regard to a change in the Standing Orders.

That is a quote from the committee Hansard, verbatim, of the member for Mississauga South. He has been sent here with a mission to defend the government, but he forgot what he himself said at the committee. He cannot have it both ways.

My argument is that members here do not need training to do their job well. They need opportunity. I think it is a little cavalier to say that maybe the members would do a better job if they were given an educational tutorial on how supplementary estimates work.

We know how they work. I have been here a long time, as has my colleague. We think we do not have the opportunity to do our jobs properly or are being denied that opportunity by a system that does not really demonstrate a commitment to transparency and accountability.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Madam Speaker, I would like to compliment the previous speaker on his speech, mainly because of the way he presented it. I think that ordinary Canadians who might be watching this program, I cannot imagine why they would be, but I understand quite a few do, probably understood really well what the member was saying.

One of the problems in this country is that people do not understand what is going on here or what takes place. A lot of people just do not understand what is happening. I remember when I came here as a rookie in 1993, I walked in here and got on a committee. I did not know up from down, or down from up. I did not get much clarification on estimates and all that. We had some quick learning lessons that were supposed to help us out, but I distinctly remember the first time we came in here to vote on estimates. We all sat in the House. All the government members were sitting over there and we were sitting over here, and we went through the clause by clause thing.

Will clause 1 pass? Yes, by division. Will clause 2 pass? Yes, by division. We went whoosh through all these things. We did that with the supplementaries. I got up, walked out and asked one of the older members, what happened? He said I had just spent $120 million. I did what? How did that happen? What kind of a system do we have?

I think that rookie members definitely need a clearer understanding of what the purpose of these committees are when it comes to estimates, particularly those with supplementary estimates (B). The estimates come in when there are a few weeks left for the House to sit. We might get another $1.7 billion, and in some cases $7.1 billion because someone got dyslexia. I think the numbers can be switched, but we can spend that. The attitude that a lot of governments have had forever is that if they have all this extra money, they should spend it, get rid of it because they have a new budget coming. That is a rotten attitude, especially when one lives with an operation that is $500 billion in debt. That is not even considered.

I used to get brown envelopes from people from CIDA and other places. I did not know what a brown envelope was. I opened one and thought that they ought to at least have signed it. No, they were not for that purpose. The information was to let me know about a particular group of people, 37 people, who were being taken to Argentina to study how that country was making out with its environmental work. Why were they doing it? The information said, quite plainly, that it was a total waste of money. It was just a matter of getting rid of the money, so that they would be sure to get a share of the budget the next time around. This kind of activity has to stop.

When we mention that to most people, they do not even know what we are talking about. We are so short on accountability in this place. Do Canadians understand? Absolutely not, because most of the people here do not understand. I appreciate the message and I hope that Canadians quickly come to their senses that we must have a government in power that is willing to say that every voice in this place will be heard on these committees and committees will be given ample time to do the work that I think needs to be done.

I compliment the committee, my fellow chairman and the vice-chairman who I heard today, for taking action on this issue. I think that has been a big problem for the 20 some years that I have been around. This issue must be addressed.

I compliment the member for presenting it the way he did and I compliment the chairman for bringing this motion forward. It is time that some accountability procedures were put into place, so Canadians can at least understand that when we spend $180 billion, they get some inkling of what it is all about.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Wild Rose. One of his best qualities is the plain language and the straight talk that he brings to the House of Commons. That is what makes people admire his tenure and his many years as an MP.

There is one point that I would like to leave people with as I finish my opportunity to speak. If we spent more time at the front end of our spending in the estimates process and less time after the fact reviewing what we have already spent, which is the public accounts and Auditor General process, Canadians would at least know what the government plans on doing. That is not too much to ask.

We have to reverse things somehow and spend more of our energy and resources at the front end, make the government justify and defend what it plans to spend, and why it is going to spend it. The former minister from the province of Manitoba could tell us, I believe, that the estimates process is a much more rigid activity in that province. Ministers there have to really know their books and budget because they are going to be grilled by the committee on every budget line they plan to spend. We do not do that here. We do not do enough of it and we would be better off if we did.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, despite the partisan chipping that goes on, looking around this place I see all of the people whom I know personally and consider to be my friends, and it has nothing to do with political parties. However, when it gets down to issues of importance, we tend to dig in and give it our best shot. That is really important to the democratic process. If we were all to agree on all things, this would be a very boring place.

I think all the members on our committee would admit that we are probably the least partisan committee on the Hill. We get along extremely well. We have, from time to time, made some tough decisions, for instance a significant cut to the Governor General's budget. I believe it was more a demonstration of a broader concern than it was of spending, but this issue of estimates is really important.

I have often thought that most people would think that the estimates are like reading the telephone book. It is something that one can only do for so long before one's eyes become mesmerized and cannot focus.

I was very concerned to know that in the history of Parliament less than half the standing committees of the House ever report back estimates or supplementary estimates to the House. Why does that happen? I guess the reason is that we have a rule in the Standing Orders that says that if the estimates are not reported back, they are deemed to have been reported back without amendment. In other words, if we do nothing there are no consequences. This is part of the problem. There is no incentive.

I participated in a modernization of Parliament committee. I believe Mr. Speaker might have even been a part of this as well. One of the things, among many changes that we continue to consider on an all party basis, was how we could make this place run a little better. One of the changes we did make, and I am not sure if many people realize this, was that if a committee did not report back the estimates, there was an obligation under the Standing Orders to either inform the Speaker in writing or to appear in the House to explain why the estimates were not returned. I have a feeling that is not being enforced, or at least that recommendation was not ratified even though it was recommended by the modernization committee.

It is a very small but important step, so that committees have an opportunity to say that if they did not do their job, there is a reason, but if it is because they are too busy or because there is so much legislation and they are not sure which has precedence, these are contradictions.

Speaking to this specific concurrence motion before the House, on a Thursday we got the numbers and it was time to do the review of the supplementary estimates (B). The committee only had one more regular day of meetings, the following Tuesday, and then it had to be reported to the House during routine proceedings on the Thursday. That meant that the committee really only had one scheduled sitting day.

I know we had this discussion, that if our meeting was on Tuesday, that meant we had to do everything that day, but we already scheduled something else. We were not given a heck of a lot more time, so we decided to do something else. We agreed in committee, this non-partisan group of MPs who just wanted to do a good job, that everybody would do their own homework and review the supplementary estimates themselves, come back to our meeting on Tuesday, and if there were any questions whatsoever on the numbers that needed an explanation, we would undertake as a committee to get the answers on Wednesday and still report it back.

Notwithstanding the protestations that we could not be accountable, we had a backup plan to deal with any problems. However, the reality is that only three out of 20 committees actually reported back the supplementaries, and only nine of the 20 committees reported back the estimates when they had them on October 8 and had until November 30 to report them back. It would be two months less a week to do the work and less than half of the committees did the work.

There are those who protest that the government is interfering with accountability and we cannot do our work and so on. When there is just under two months to do something and it is not done, and the rules are that if it is not done there are no consequences, this is not something we should blame on anybody but ourselves.

If there is a will to do this, committees have to schedule their work to provide for sufficient meetings. The government operations and estimates committee, unlike others, has a large number of departments for which it has to do reviews. We also have a number of crown corporations and other agencies, about 50 of them, that we have responsibility for and we would never, ever be able to do them all every time.

Even the Auditor General does not review every department every year. Her department does auditing, selection and sampling. It is constantly working on these things and when it sees problems, officials may do it again the next year. It is put on a rotational basis so that with a sampling approach toward things, the Auditor General can get a reasonable assurance that the operations within a department are operating in the prescribed fashion.

I spoke to the Auditor General about this whole process of the estimates. The Auditor General's department has produced a document for the reference of all members of Parliament. We had breakfast one morning about this. We wanted to talk about this informally. The Auditor General was very comfortable if parliamentarians would adopt a very similar approach to the review of the estimates. In terms of looking at the risks, looking at where there were large dollars, and that a small shift in either assumptions or direction might have enormous consequences in terms of spending and undertaking obligations, and indeed on the ultimate determination of a surplus or a deficit.

I remember when the gun registry was a big issue in the 35th Parliament. I know there are a couple of members here who have made it their life's work to continue opposing it. One member is right here and he has done an enormous job, but the registry spending was within the mandate of the justice committee. It was never looked at or queried. This was one piece of the responsibility of the entire justice portfolio and it was never looked at by the committee because members were too busy doing legislation.

Why is it if something is very important to members of Parliament that somehow they cannot say we want to look at it? It is an important policy issue and it is potentially a very expensive issue, and we want to monitor it. Well it did not happen. No one said we could not look at it. Members of Parliament decided that they would not do it because we are too busy doing other things.

We have to take responsibility. I wrote a report on this matter. The former clerk of the House, Robert Marleau, wrote an op-ed piece and it was on the front page of The Hill Times . It said that members of Parliament ignored 50% of their jobs. The 50% of the job was doing a proper review of plans and priorities, the estimates and performance reports.

Canadians cannot be terribly impressed if an eminent person such as the Clerk of the House of Commons makes an indictment like that. It is true because there are only so many hours in a day and I bet every member in this place gets up early in the day and goes to bed very late at night. They are away from their family and have lots on their mind, and some have trouble sleeping and travelling, and all the other attendant things. Yet, there is far more work to do and not enough hours in the day.

How do we deal with it? This report may very well turn out to be a proxy for the House of Commons to re-examine the role of parliamentarians and the way we do our job, so that we can meet our priorities. If the priorities are to micromanage dollars, then let us micromanage dollars. If our priority is to ensure that we have the best qualified people in the role and responsibilities of safeguarding the assets and the controls over spending, let us spend our time monitoring who is in those positions.

If our priority is to change the rules to lock down things really tight so nobody can spend a dollar without coming through Parliament, let us establish that priority. However it takes a collaborative effort.

It would easy for me to simply stand here and say to my colleagues that the opposition is on one side and the government is on the other. The opposition is saying that government does not want us to be accountable. We can get into a partisan dialogue and have a little fun with it but this is not funny. This is serious and it is important. The dollars and cents are taxpayers' money. We all understand that and we do want to do a good job on behalf of Canadians but half of our jobs, maybe even more than half of our jobs, is to take care of our responsibilities at constituency offices.

I know the member quoted me and said that we must make sure we send a little shot over the bow that Parliament did not give us enough time to do the thing and we just wanted members to know, and that was the right thing to do, but we had a way around it.

We did a report. I have been on the government operations committee from its inception. I was the chair in the last Parliament. We had a subcommittee report. The subcommittee was chaired by the member who is currently the government House leader and it had representation from the other parties.

The report contained 21 recommendations. The first recommendation was pursuant to a meeting that we called with each and every chair of every standing committee, and we served them lunch. We asked them to please come to the meeting because we wanted to talk about the issue of reviewing the estimates. We sat them down, they had their sandwiches and their cold drinks, and we asked them what the attitude was of their committee to doing a review of the estimates and getting into this. Members can imagine what was said. Most of them said that it was a nuisance, an annoyance, that it gets in the way, that they were too busy, that they did not do them, that it was like reading the phone book and that nobody had ever explained it to them.

The first recommendation in the report of the Subcommittee on Government Operations and Estimates, entitled “Meaningful Scrutiny: Practical Improvements to the Estimates Process”, which was in the second session of the 36th Parliament, was that when a member of Parliament comes to this place they ought to get some orientation on how to understand the estimates, the meaning of the words and the vocabulary.

We knew that not every member of the House was a bean counter or an accountant. We knew that not everyone liked dealing with pages and pages of numbers. As one member said, it is a stack of books. However we do not all look at the full stack of books. We second those responsibilities of other departments to other standing committees because we all take a share of the pie. When we come together and we all do the work obviously an adequate review is done.

I think we should be very careful on how we assess the responsibility for the situation in which we find ourselves. I have no doubt that there is support for the concurrence motion and that we should do everything possible to ensure committees get more than a few days to do a review of supplementary estimates.

However a responsible committee would understand, and the chair certainly understands, that the supplementaries are coming before the end of March so why would the committee schedule meetings during those times? Why would the committees lock up all their meetings when they know the supplementaries are coming? They should have left the time open and then there would not have been a problem.

However we just carry on in our merry old way and, if it does not happen the way we want it, then we use the excuse that we already had business or witnesses planned.

I really commend the report to members to learn a little bit about the estimates process. I think members should also take the opportunity to give their input from their own committee perspective.

I hope every member will go back to their standing committee and ask what the committee's track record is on doing a review of the estimates, of having people in, of reviewing the numbers, of taking the responsibility for doing an appropriate review and of reporting it back to the House. Half of those committees have not done it and have not done it for years, and yet there is important spending going on there.

We are responsible. The problem is us collectively as members of Parliament. I am sorry if I sound like I am preaching but it is important. It is not enough to say that the committees are now controlled by the opposition, which they are, because when people work together they deal with the priorities in a fashion that is in the best interests of all Canadians. That is what we are here for.

I will support the concurrence motion because I recommended it and supported it in committee. However I want Canadians to understand that when certain things happen and one does not listen to the rhetoric or the allegations but gets the facts, one understands that the problem is not somebody deliberating trying to interfere with the ability of members of Parliament to do their jobs. It is in fact that members of Parliament have decided on priorities which are other than reviewing the estimates and the supplementary estimates.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. There have been consultations with the other parties and I would ask that you seek unanimous consent to jump to questions on the order paper in routine proceedings. I am prepared to table three rather lengthy questions from opposition members but I think we will run out of time.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask the hon. parliamentary secretary for clarification. Is he asking us to revert back to questions on the order paper or orders of the day?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Mr. Speaker, for the benefit of the chief opposition whip, we would be going forward to questions on the order paper so I can table the questions. It is not government orders.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Just so I am clear on this as well, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons would like to skip ahead to questions on the order paper so that he can table the answers. We would then revert back to the motion that we are currently debating.

Does the hon. parliamentary secretary have the unanimous consent of the House to move to questions on the order paper?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.