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Government Operations committee  Yes, I can, Mr. Martin.

May 7th, 2012Committee meeting

Prof. Paul Thomas

Government Operations committee  I'm retired officially and doing lots of things, so I haven't stopped dead in my tracks.

May 7th, 2012Committee meeting

Prof. Paul Thomas

Government Operations committee  Thank you very much. It's a real privilege to be here. I welcome this opportunity to share some of my opinions that go back to the days of being a parliamentary intern in '72, which I should hasten to add was 1972, not 1872. So it's good to be here. I've given the committee a s

May 7th, 2012Committee meeting

Prof. Paul Thomas

Government Operations committee  Let me just comment on the first two points. The Senate does very useful work and I'm not one of those who say that the Senate is a completely useless institution. Most of its good work happens in committees, and in a book edited by Senator Joyal I make a case for the role that

May 7th, 2012Committee meeting

Prof. Paul Thomas

Government Operations committee  It's very difficult. It's not like an organizational culture within an institution. Parliament, as I say in my submission, doesn't really have a collective identity and a collective purpose. It's dominated by parties. Particularly in the last decade or two, we've almost been in

May 7th, 2012Committee meeting

Prof. Paul Thomas

Government Operations committee  We've tried a number of things in the past. We used to do all of the estimates on the floor of the House of Commons, and that was just a game. It took up a lot of time. It wasn't very helpful in terms of giving meaningful advice to governments about how to improve their spending

May 7th, 2012Committee meeting

Prof. Paul Thomas

Government Operations committee  All right, we'll start with the Constitution. One of the constitutional principles is that all spending must originate with the crown. In other words, on the recommendation of responsible ministers in the cabinet, the government puts forward its spending plans through the office

May 7th, 2012Committee meeting

Prof. Paul Thomas

Government Operations committee  He used to work on 60 Minutes.

May 7th, 2012Committee meeting

Prof. Paul Thomas

Government Operations committee  Since he used to work on 60 Minutes, I recognize him.

May 7th, 2012Committee meeting

Prof. Paul Thomas

Government Operations committee  It's very much the inspiration for the proposal. I have studied that committee and written a paper about it. It took some time to develop that constructive culture inside the committee. The issues were not headline generating issues; they were little detailed laws, but they had

May 7th, 2012Committee meeting

Prof. Paul Thomas

Government Operations committee  At some point you have to cut off debate. The government's entitled to have a vote on its money. It's not entitled to get its money, necessarily, but it's entitled to have a vote. I don't think you want the spectacle that you have in Washington where you're going month to month w

May 7th, 2012Committee meeting

Prof. Paul Thomas

Government Operations committee  It's good to see you, John.

May 7th, 2012Committee meeting

Prof. Paul Thomas

Government Operations committee  I'm not attached to the number 40, necessarily, but I think it has to be larger than an ordinary committee. The main reason is that I see the working units of the committee actually being subcommittees. When a smaller group of MPs gets together, looks at a specialized topic or a

May 7th, 2012Committee meeting

Prof. Paul Thomas

Government Operations committee  I don't see this as a huge problem, this aligning of the presentation of the budget and the tabling of the estimates. The delay is not as important in my view. What is more important is to provide windows of opportunity for members of Parliament who are on committees to influence

May 7th, 2012Committee meeting

Prof. Paul Thomas

Government Operations committee  Yes. The parliamentary budget statements were converted to a program format in the mid-nineties. The idea was that it would raise the sights of members of parliament—the House of Representatives and senators—to a higher level. They would debate the policy that lies behind the s

May 7th, 2012Committee meeting

Prof. Paul Thomas