Mr. Speaker, I am being heckled by the member for Winnipeg North. Maybe he does not know that it is his own caucus colleagues who have filibustered Bill C-4 at the finance committee, but I will get to that. I want to take this in order.
This committee formed and began in the spring. It had a chair who has demonstrated a disregard for the rules of committee, does not follow the practice and procedure according to our green book that spells out proper practice and procedure and, on June 16, gavelled out a meeting without the consent of members. I brought to her attention that this is not permitted.
I should point out that I am sharing my time with the member from Edmonton West.
At committee, we repeatedly pointed out the rules of committee from the green book, page 1099, which states, “The committee Chair cannot adjourn the meeting without the consent of a majority of the members”. This is a rule of committee that I have found in the debate today. The chair of the finance committee is not the only committee Liberal chair, governing party caucus chair, who gavels out meetings when the going gets tough for their side or if they just feel like stopping a meeting. I bring to the House's attention that the rules of committee are not being followed.
At the finance committee, on October 22, when the governing party members were filibustering their own bill, obstructing Bill C-4, a bill that Conservatives and other members of the House did support and voted for in the House and referred to committee for study, we spent that entire meeting debating a single NDP amendment that had been brought forward, with the Liberal members, in particular the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance, asking repeated vexatious questions of the officials present in order to prolong the meeting and prevent it getting to a vote.
It was not clear to us why at the time. Had they just not read the amendments and they were just treading water? Were they waiting for their higher-ups to tell them what to do? Were they waiting for their whip's office or the PMO to give them word about how to vote on these amendments? Did they not do their homework? Did they not have a pre-committee meeting? Did they not take this meeting seriously and were just blathering to prevent business from occurring? I did not know, and I never will. However, I do know that meeting was also gavelled out while the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance was literally in the middle of asking an official a question. It was the most disrespectful thing I have ever seen. We had officials present who were doing their jobs, answering questions of members of committee, and the chair gavelled the meeting out while her own parliamentary secretary was asking a question.
We returned the following Monday. Again, governing party members spent 110 minutes filibustering their own bill, Bill C-4. On the one hand, the member for Winnipeg North came into the chamber and, in debate, asked why we could not advance this bill. We cannot advance it because his own members would not let it advance at committee. I had to be the voice of reason at that meeting. We withdrew some proposed amendments of our own, but they were not the source of the logjam. We had not even come to those yet.
We eventually talked the Liberals into allowing the other amendments that other parties had proposed to come to a vote, which they did, and we managed to get through Bill C-4 and report it back to the House. It was no thanks to any of the Liberals.
Did any member of the finance committee approach other parties and ask to perhaps sit down informally to discuss what our priorities are and see if we could negotiate resolution to the different motions? This is how adults solve problems, but it has not happened on that committee. I do not blame the three new MPs on the committee; they all seem to be reasonable people, but I do have to ask why the chair and the parliamentary secretary come into every meeting unable to work with members of other parties. We did get through that.
On October 29 we had a meeting with the Parliamentary Budget Officer. The committee chair completely inconsistently enforced the rule of relevance, enforcing it on one side but not the other. Toward the end of that meeting, there was kind of a blow up with the parliamentary secretary and the Parliamentary Budget Officer. It was quite something; it was not a credit to him, I can assure members of that.
Then, on November 19, with witnesses present, toward the end of the meeting but with time on the clock, the Bloc vice-chair, that being the only time that he would have had the floor, introduced a routine motion that we could have dispensed with very quickly, or we could even have moved to adjourn debate on it and returned to our witnesses, but no: Liberals, the parliamentary secretary in fact, filibustered the meeting until, I think, 8:30 in the evening, before then agreeing to adopt the motion. The dysfunction for no purpose, apparent strategy or goal is just bizarre. I do not understand it.
What we have had on the finance committee is a complete lack of co-operation, and not for lack of willingness. I do not know how many times I have said on the record at the committee, and urged the chair, to hold a steering committee meeting where her vice-chairs can come, present their agendas, talk about the motions they have put on notice and, with the cameras off, discuss the potential business of the committee ahead and plan a schedule and a work plan. This is how committees that are strong, functional and do good work together can, through the process of collegial disagreement, forge better policy and outcomes and produce better reports and legislation for Canadians, but it is not happening at finance committee.
There has been of late a fixation from the Liberals who have proposed motions to pre-study the budget implementation act. Pre-studying legislation is not normally how it is done. There is a motion before the House to refer that bill to the finance committee upon its adoption in the House, and that is the correct order in which to do things. If the Liberals had a particular reason, or if there were a negotiation they wanted to have over this, I am sure we could have it; that is what a subcommittee is for.
The chair has cancelled meetings twice in the last couple of weeks and has scheduled only one hour instead of two when witnesses were not available. The second hour could have been devoted to a subcommittee where the issues could be worked out so the committee could function together more properly.
The purpose of the debate and the report before the House is to examine the efficacy of the finance committee. I am sad to report that it is not going all that well at the finance committee, and I put the blame fully with the chair and the parliamentary secretary, neither of whom ever reaches out to members to encourage working together to co-operate and have a work plan.