Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure today to move a motion for concurrence in the 13th report of Standing Committee on Public Accounts.
The committee's report contains a protocol that lays the ground rules for the appearance of deputy ministers and agency heads before the public accounts committee to defend the management of public money and their departments and agencies.
This is a complicated issue, so let me give the House some background on how this protocol came to play and why it is so important that we get concurrence in this report.
Deputy ministers and agency heads are now considered accounting officers under the government's new legislation. Accounting officers are accountable in their own right before Parliament for the financial administration of their departments.
At the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts we are responsible for holding the government to account for the way it spends taxpayers' dollars. For members of the public accounts committee the accounting officer provision is very useful because it clarifies the question of just who is accountable when there is misspending found within a department or an agency. However, the accounting officer provision is only as good as the way it is implemented.
Unfortunately, Canadians are faced with a minority Conservative government that is quite happy to trumpet the rhetoric of accountability, but when the time comes to take real action, the Conservatives have shown themselves to be completely opposed to implementing the principles that would allow for a transparent and accountable government. That is why we are here today seeking concurrence in this report.
After the passage of the accounting officer provision last year, the committee undertook to study the provision and how it would work in reality when public servants are called before Parliament to account for their actions.
With the assistance of a widely respected academic, Dr. Franks of Queen's University, the public accounts committee drafted a protocol that sets the ground rules for the appearance of accounting officers before the committee to account for the financial administration of their departments, a very important role.
Throughout the process of writing this protocol, we have repeatedly reached out to the government to work with us to develop a document that would work for both Parliament and the government. The Treasury Board Secretariat was also invited to participate in the writing of a joint protocol.
However, the Treasury Board Secretariat was unwilling to cooperate with the committee. In fact, the government went as far as to bypass Parliament in an attempt to tell the committee how the accounting officer provision would work, not ask but tell the committee.
Shortly before the protocol was to be debated by the committee, the Privy Council Office released a separate document outlining its interpretation of the responsibilities of accounting officers appearing before parliamentary committees.
Mr. Speaker, as you well know, it is absolutely inappropriate for the government to dictate to Parliament the terms on which it will hold the government to account.
Moreover, the Privy Council Office document interprets the roles and responsibilities of accounting officers in such a narrow way that the legislation might well not even exist. For example, the public accounts committee protocol insists that accounting officers are personally and permanently accountable for the decisions made while in office, whereas the Privy Council Office document suggests that only the current accounting officer can be called before Parliament.
In the current environment of public administration in which deputy ministers are shuffled on a regular basis, it is the opinion of the opposition members of the committee that this is a wholly unsatisfactory framework in which to exact accountability from anyone. In short, the Privy Council Office document is intended to shield the government from increased accountability.
This debate is occurring in the context of an ongoing struggle between the executive and Parliament. Parliament is ultimately responsible for approving government spending and holding the government to account for the way it spends. When it comes to accountability, it is ultimately for Parliament, not the executive of government, to decide how it will hold the government to account for its spending of taxpayers dollars.
Given the discord between these two interpretations, the opposition members of the committee wish to debate and pass a motion for concurrence with its protocol in the House of Commons. This would give the protocol the weight of a Standing Order of the House and would empower the committee to compel the government to conform to Parliament's interpretation of the terms of accountability.
It is quite unacceptable that the government is not more willing to cooperate with the committee on this extremely important issue, but I believe that we owe it to Canadians to make sure that we as parliamentarians are able to work on their behalf to ensure that their government remains open, transparent and accountable.
In conclusion, I believe that it is extremely important that the House of Commons vote to concur with this protocol of the public accounts committee. Doing so will send a strong message to the government that the Parliament of Canada is a strong, effective body that is working hard to hold it to account by the way it spends taxpayers' dollars.
I would ask all members of Parliament to support this concurrence motion in favour of real accountability.