:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
The ministers yesterday provided us with some information: binders that tried to respond to 72 pieces of information requested four months ago. They did not even come close to responding to those 72 pieces of information requested in my motion, and they failed to respect the Speaker's ruling.
Yesterday, Mr. Chair, the minister said he had responded to all the questions. But he left out many of the costs of these bills, including new prison costs, because he said our motion didn't require him to provide all these costs.
Mr. Chair, I'll draw to the attention of the committee the fact that my motion specifically said to provide all costs “in accordance with the Treasury Board Guide to Costing”, which requires all direct and indirect costs to all departments and requires all the costs to stakeholders, including provinces.
Mr. Chair, yesterday the ministers parsed their words. It reminded me of the Bill Clinton defence on the Lewinsky affair, when he said there was some confusion as to whether or not he had been asked specifically about sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky. His response, having been caught, was, “It depends upon what the definition of the word is is.”
It also reminded me of Mulroney's defence at the Oliphant commission, when Mulroney said he had not been asked the specific question by investigators as to whether or not he had received funds from Karlheinz Schreiber. I'll also remind the committee and the ministers that Justice Oliphant dismissed this defence as “patently absurd”.
Mr. Chair, these two ministers are acting like two crusty old lawyers trying to game the system instead of two cabinet ministers with a responsibility to tell the full truth to Parliament and to Canadians about the full cost of their prison bills. Canadians and this Parliament deserve better.
Mr. Nicholson, the finance committee set a deadline of November 24, 2010. That deadline passed without even an acknowledgement by your department, which showed contempt to this Parliament.
A week later, on December 1, you gave your first response: you couldn't provide any of the information because of cabinet confidence.
Do you still believe that to be true, or were you misleading the committee?
:
Thank you, Mr. Armstrong. I appreciate that question.
I do in fact believe that the answers provided on February 17 were in fact made in good faith. They were fulsome answers, and in fact we have now provided this entire binder of information, which deals with that extensively.
I find it curious, Mr. Armstrong, that Mr. Brison keeps on going back to paper over the deficiencies in his own motion.
He asked for information very specifically about 18 different bills, and then, Mr. Chair, raises issues that are on another bill.
For example, on the erroneous facts that Mr. Brison put on the table this morning, he indicated that I had indicated that I'd never said the cost would be $90 million. Of course, Mr. Chair, the costs were $90 million. If he reads the rest of the quote there, which he has neglected to state for the people of Canada, he would have found out that it dealt with the appropriation in one year, in one year of five years. The first year was $90 million. The full cost was $2.1 billion over five years. I haven't changed my mind. What Mr. Brison has done is selectively take quotes to mislead this committee in respect of that issue, and I find that disturbing.
I find that consistent, Mr. Chair, with the issues that we have raised here in full compliance with the subsequent concerns of the Speaker. The Speaker has indicated that there were some deficiencies. He didn't specify what the deficiencies were, so public servants have gone to a great deal of work to in fact find out and guess what those deficiencies might be. But they are all here to answer that. This document is a document of the public servants who are responsible for these figures coming forward.
Good morning, ministers.
We went through the massive pile of documentation last night, and we realized that, overall, the documents and the total amounts were pretty much identical, give or take a few things. There were a few extra details, but a number of questions remained unanswered. Among other things, I had a good look at Bill , which you called Sébastien's Law.
In your document, you said that the bill would likely lead to increased costs for Quebec, the territories and the provinces, but you could not say how much more, because young offenders are usually incarcerated in provincial and territorial institutions.
You are introducing a bill you want us to support, but you have no idea what it will cost. You do not say how much it will cost Quebec. You also say you are going to negotiate an agreement and that if the other governments need funding, you will look into that and perhaps give them some.
What's more, you have absolutely no idea what will be required of your department or the government, especially in terms of how much money the federal government will have to hand over to the provinces. That doesn't look very good, Mr. Minister. You are telling us we have all the documents we need, even though we do not have any of that information for one bill in particular. We do not know what it will cost because, according to you, you do not have that data since it is an area of provincial and territorial jurisdiction.
Frankly, I think that shows contempt. It shows contempt for me, as a parliamentarian, when you ask me to put my confidence in you and you cannot even provide us with a single figure for Bill .
And that comment stands for Bill as well. There again, you are telling us that the provinces will have to incur increased costs once the bill is passed, but you say you are not responsible for providing an estimate of those costs because it is an area of provincial and territorial responsibility.
It is pretty shocking that you can make legislative changes that have financial repercussions for the provinces and territories, yet you do not provide any information on what those figures will be.
How do you explain that, Mr. Minister? How can we possibly take you seriously? You say that we have everything we need to answer our questions and to make good decisions and that you have complied with the Speaker's ruling, when you are not providing us with any information on what these two bills will end up costing the provinces.
:
Again, we don't just say it's the provinces' responsibility; these costs are in fact incurred by the provinces.
I can say with respect to youth justice, as I indicated in response to the Liberals, that approximately $350 million is for the total youth justice system. I mean, these are programs that help prevent youth getting involved with the system and help those who already are. So it cannot be attributable to this particular bill...certainly not; I mean, that's the cost, and it is incurred by the provinces.
With respect to the Bill that the member just mentioned, that deals with conditional sentences. Now, there have been two changes to that, the Bill that several years ago....
We have not received any costing from the provinces on that. We've been looking to see if there's any information on that. We have not received that from them. So if we haven't received it from the first time we changed conditional sentencing, then I think you'll believe me when I tell you that we haven't received it for the most recent bill.
I can tell you, Mr. Chairman, that we don't bring forward these bills in a vacuum. On a regular basis I meet with my provincial counterparts, and very often I am encouraged to move forward on these. They are suggested by the provinces. Yes, there is a cost to the provinces, and again, I don't try to....
In answer to the question of the honourable member concerning conditional sentences, I won't speculate on what it costs the provinces. If they give us that information, or if they are able to determine...but again, I appreciate the challenges they have in trying to determine these.
That being said, with respect to federal costing, you have considerable information before you. We've been giving it to you over the last couple of months. As I say, I hope this is of great help to the committee, Mr. Chair, because these are the federal costs. I appreciate that the province has an important role in this--
Mr. Chair, I want to go back to where you started this meeting and ask for your indulgence.
I would like to ask a single question, just one question, of the ministers. I'd like them to take, through you, Mr. Chair, due note of the points I'm going to make in advance of the single question I'm going to ask them. They may want to write these down, because I think they're going to have to address them, but we'll work through you, Mr. Chair, if we could.
Quickly, before going into this, I want to correct the record on something Mr. Toews said. I think, Mr. Chair, if we look, we'll find that the Speaker has never found deficiencies in the motion that was brought here. I think there was an allusion to that, so I just wanted to make that very clear.
I want to go back to where I left off yesterday, Mr. Chair, because we are here today, we will be tomorrow, and we were yesterday to deal with the issue of contempt. I want to read once again for the ministers the definition of contempt. It is where “a person or a thing is beneath consideration or worthless, or deserving scorn or extreme reproach”.
Mr. Chair--
:
Well, we all know that not many Irishmen have actually seen a leprechaun until after they've had too many beers.
Anyway, thank you for inviting me here.
I would like to introduce three members of our finance department who we have with us. We have Doug Nevison, who is director of the fiscal policy division. We have Geoff Trueman, director of the business income tax division, which will be very relevant here today. We have Yvonne Milosevic, who is the senior counsel in our law branch. They are here to answer any of the technical questions. I'm sure we will get many of those throughout our discussion today.
Thank you for this opportunity to appear before the committee today. I am representing the Minister of Finance as well as the Department of Finance of Canada.
As you know, I, along with the Minister of Finance and our brand-new Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Shelly Glover, and officials in the department are hard at work—we are all hard at work—finalizing budget 2011. We're all waiting in anticipation for that to be delivered next Tuesday. It will be building on the success of Canada's economic action plan with its next phase.
While Canada has weathered the recession better than most other major industrialized countries, we all recognize that much work is left to do to secure Canada's economic recovery. Indeed, even though over 480,000 more Canadians are working today than in July 2009, more than offsetting the jobs lost in Canada during the global recession, we all remain concerned about the number of Canadians who are still looking for work.
Clearly, this is going to be an important budget, not merely for the political aspects that we are often fixated on here in Ottawa but for ensuring that we all do what we can to help secure Canada's economic recovery in the midst of a still fragile economic period.
Before continuing, let me assert that our government is committed to improving transparency in Parliament. Indeed, we believe, like all parliamentarians, that Canadians should know how their tax dollars are spent. That's why we recognized the need for something that no government had done before, or even contemplated for that matter, and that is creating the landmark and independent Parliamentary Budget Office.
We also passed a law requiring all federal departments and agencies to produce detailed quarterly financial statements. We proactively produce ground-breaking progress reports on the economic action plan, something even Kevin Page, our Parliamentary Budget Officer, has publicly stated, and I will quote him here, “really put Canada almost at the forefront in fiscal transparency and stimulus”.
We also made more crown corporations subject to access to information, including the CBC, the Royal Canadian Mint, Canada Post, and my favourite, the Canadian Wheat Board.
Hopefully, provided this Parliament and Canadians continue to support our government, we can build on that record in the years ahead. Nevertheless, I am here today to speak about recent issues around our government's low-tax plan, specifically the costing. I would suggest that the part that we missed in Mr. Brison's motion was the benefits of our low-tax plan, the benefits to business tax reductions that Parliament voted on and passed, thereby endorsing, in 2007.
I want to preface my remarks by noting that the government has already provided the information requested from the Department of Finance to the finance committee and the House of Commons. In fact, Mr. Chair, we provided more information than was requested. Indeed, we have shared the Department of Finance estimated cost of the 2007 legislative tax reduction along with the five-year projections of total corporate profits before taxes and effective corporate tax rates.
As the Department of Finance officials can attest—and I would encourage honourable members to get these points clarified with our officials here today—this represented the first time that this level of detail has been released publicly.
I will quote again the words of the Parliamentary Budget Officer in his February 25, 2011 report: “...this information adequately responds to the request by FINA”--that is, the finance committee.
I will note that the information, along with the later analysis provided by the Parliamentary Budget Office, showed that business tax revenue for government actually increased over time, despite the reductions in the business tax rate. I know there might be some disagreements about fiscal and economic forecasts, especially when it comes to the high-profile numbers the hardworking officials at the Department of Finance release on items like the forecast federal budget balances. I know that some, like those at the Parliamentary Budget Office, believe these forecasts to be too optimistic, while others, like TD Economics, as was widely reported in their recent analysis, actually believe them to be too pessimistic.
I am happy to report that the forecasts of our knowledgeable and hardworking economists at the Department of Finance have been roughly in the middle of those opposite ends. Nevertheless, it is important to note that these are ultimately only projections.
I think we can all appreciate that this has been a difficult past few years for economic forecasters. It reminds me of a statement by the Canadian economist John Kenneth Galbraith that “The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.”
I mean no disrespect to the economists at the Department of Finance. Nevertheless, our government strongly believes that we need to ensure objectivity when developing our fiscal and economic forecasts. That's why our economic projections are based on a private sector average.
Indeed, the process of surveying private sector forecasts has been followed for over a decade. These private sector forecasters represent Canada's leading financial and economic institutions. For instance, for the fall economic and fiscal update released last year, we consulted with over a dozen forecasters. Among them were Bank of Montreal Capital Markets, Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, CIBC World Markets, the Conference Board of Canada, Desjardins, IHS Global Insight, Laurentian Bank Securities, National Bank Financial Group, Royal Bank of Canada, Scotiabank, TD Bank Financial Group, UBS Securities Canada, and the University of Toronto.
While such projections are based on the best information available from leading forecasters, there's always a degree of uncertainty and risk in the global economy that cannot be forecast. Forecasters would all concede that there has been substantial uncertainty recently, so some flexibility was and is advisable on our part. Recognizing the fragile state of the global economy, we actually discounted the average of the private sector forecasters in last October's economic statement by including an adjustment for risk. However, let me stress and reiterate that our government strongly believes that we need to ensure objectivity when developing our fiscal and economic forecasts.
Before concluding and opening the floor to questions for me and departmental officials, let me briefly talk about the legislated 2007 business tax reductions. I am not going to get into the usual back and forth about the fact that the Liberals want to increase, not freeze, taxes on job-creating businesses by billions and billions of dollars. I'm not going to explain how that will hurt businesses both small and large, as Catherine Swift of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business has publicly stated, despite what some in Parliament might have you believe. I'm not going to explain how hiking business taxes in the middle of a fragile economic recovery will hurt sectors like manufacturing and forestry, and how that will endanger and kill Canadian jobs. I'm not going to do that, as almost every respected economist, think tank, business leader, industry association, and academic in Canada has already done that.
What I am going to do is to correct the public record with respect to a couple of items very quickly.
First, we have heard from many in Parliament that Canada already has the lowest business tax rate in the world, and that the 2007 reductions were of no real effect. That is factually incorrect. Canada is in the middle of the pack on business taxes.
As former Liberal Finance Minister John Manley recently pointed out, we're competing, particularly in the OECD, which is the developed countries. We're in the middle of the pack, barely, in the OECD.
Second, it's important to remember that business tax projections are not static. As many economists have noted, simply increasing business taxes will not automatically translate into billions in new revenue for the federal government. Indeed, only yesterday the C.D. Howe Institute released a detailed report, which I encourage everyone to read. It confirmed that increasing corporate income taxes is the most costly way to raise government revenues and that tax increases distort economic decisions and erode tax bases.
As well-known economist Jack Mintz noted—
:
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Welcome, Mr. Minister.
All of us here around this table have had to leave our ridings in the middle of the parliamentary recess. Like you, we have surely had to cancel important representational activities to be able to make an urgent decision in a few days about whether the government complied with an order of the House, as the Speaker asked us to do. He also asked us to report on our observations, recommendations and suggestions, which we will do later this afternoon. We have listened to a series of witnesses and ministers before you. They feel and trust that they have given us everything we need to understand. We disagree with them completely.
I would like to come back to a few points. Today is March 17. I would like to give a little background to understand what exactly is happening. We'll recall that, on November 24, the government sent the committee a memo saying that the projections of corporate profits before taxes and effective corporate income tax rates are basically cabinet confidence documents and that the government was unable to provide those documents to the Standing Committee on Finance, as requested by the committee.
A month later, on December 1, we received the same answer to another request. We were told that the information requested was subject to cabinet confidence. On February 7, Member of Parliament Scott Brison raised a question of privilege following two refusals by the government to provide this information. On February 17, under pressure—that's my personal interpretation—the government submitted a three-page document containing a table detailing certain amounts relating to bills.
On February 17, the government decided that certain documents that it had previously deemed confidential could now be provided. Today is March 17. Yesterday, March 16, we received another packet of documents dealing basically with the same information received on February 17.
I'm wondering why your government, which prides itself on being so transparent, had to wait until there was pressure by parliamentarians to finally say that what was confidential no longer is and to think that the table from February 17 was would satisfy the parliamentarians' information requests.
You are an experienced MP. You are now a minister. Can you explain to me why a document that was deemed confidential on November 24 and confirmed to be confidential on December 1 can all of a sudden be deemed non-confidential? Cabinet confidence is being lifted and some data is being given to parliamentarians.
I want to go back.... On this question, I know you had some difficulty with it earlier, but I think it really does speak now to this question of privilege and the credibility of the government's numbers.
My colleague Mr. Brison asked a question a moment ago of the minister to explain what happened in 2008 with the economic update, where there was a $100-million surplus, predicated on a $10.1-billion asset sale. We asked him rather explicitly whether he could help us and Canadians understand what happened.
I'd like to offer him the opportunity again to do so, but I'd also like to in that context remind him that on December 6, 2008, the Minister of Finance for Canada, Mr. Flaherty, admitted in an article that he was in cabinet with his colleagues Mr. Clement and Mr. Baird in the provincial legislature of Ontario in 2003, where he said, and I quote, “I was there”--in the Legislative Assembly--“when it was announced,”--the budget in 2003--“and I knew it wasn't”--that is, wasn't balanced.
So if I could ask the Minister to clarify, how is the $20-billion asset sale in the 2003 budget in Ontario to fudge the books—that has now been exposed very openly—different from the 2008 update, where $10.1 billion of assets were supposed to have been sold to provide a $100-million surplus? How is that not equal to fudging the books?
:
Mr. Chair, I have a point of order. May I, before we get going?
The Chair: Sure:
Mr. Tom Lukiwski: Just a quick one, because before we broke for lunch Mr. Martin had made some comments that really tweaked my interest, to say the least, because I didn't think they were quite correct. He and other members of the opposition seem to be talking a lot about trust, facts, and the truth. But I think maybe this principle, if they're sincere about that, should be applied to everyone around the table.
I say that because Mr. Martin stated just before lunch that the Library of Parliament used to be only open for use by cabinet ministers and it was the Trudeau government that opened it up for all MPs. Well, we had a little time over lunch, so we did a little research and found that the statement of Mr. Martin was far from being true.
In fact, Mr. Chair, I have here—which I can certainly table if it interests the committee—the Statutes of Canada from 1871, an act in relation to the Library of Parliament, which clearly states:
All books, paintings, maps and other effects...shall vest in the Queen's Majesty for the use of the two Houses of Parliament...
I also have copies of the Revised Statutes of 1970, which state the same thing.
So, Mr. Chair, I thought that since we were talking about trust and accountability and the facts, perhaps we should have the record set straight. Perhaps if Mr. Martin does show up this afternoon he can recognize that, withdraw his statements, and if he cares to apologize for misleading the committee, he can do so as well.
:
My opening statement is a bit longer, but I'll cut it.
First of all, I'll define “contempt”. To be found in contempt of Parliament, a person must be found guilty by the House of Commons of actions that obstruct or impede the House in the performance of its functions. And that's not the same as privilege.
I think we have to appreciate that, because there is no limit to what might be contempt. Examples of such actions include deliberately misleading the House or a House committee; falsifying or altering papers formally submitted to a committee or to the House; failing to attend before the House or a committee after being summoned to do so; and, especially germane to the matter under consideration today, refusing to produce papers when ordered to do so by the House or a House committee.
Contempt of Parliament is the parliamentary equivalent of contempt of court; after all, a venerable name for Parliament is the “High Court of Parliament”.
The main thing I wanted to say is there is no limit to what could be contempt and there are no defined rules of acts that are contempt. It's simply things that impede the House and its business. So the list I gave is simply examples.
Cases of contempt have been rare in Canada. I found eight of them. Regardless of the number, because people don't agree on that, three striking facts about these cases where persons were found in contempt deserve mention.
First, there were only two findings of contempt between 1867 and 2001, the first 133 years of Canada's existence, compared with six in the next ten. Second, all of the recent ones occurred in majority Parliaments. Third, unlike the two presently under consideration, none of the previous eight cases involved an explicit finding of contempt against a minister or a government.
Now I want to devote my remarks to the question of the right of Parliament to call for persons, papers, and records.
This was an issue before, in the Afghan detainees discussion, when Speaker Milliken ruled that while there were no exceptions to the right of Parliament to send for papers, accepting the authority of the executive to censor information provided to Parliament would in fact jeopardize the separation of powers that's purported to lie at the heart of our parliamentary system and the independence of its constituent parts.
On the other hand, there are good reasons to keep some documents confidential. One of the first studies I did related to the right of Parliament--and this was 40-plus years ago--for a commission examining the security branch of the RCMP. I did a study on Parliament and security matters for them and wrestled with this problem. Again, as we're wrestling here today, you start off with yes, there is an unlimited right of Parliament, but what constraints should Parliament impose on itself in demanding papers and records?
Now I get on to the tricky area of the question of what the government can keep to itself because it constitutes a cabinet confidence or, more formally, a confidence of the Queen's Privy Council.
Speaker Jeanne Sauvé observed in 1981 that the expression “confidential document” had never been defined and that it would be improper for the Speaker to attempt to make such a definition. She stated that it is the government's prerogative to decide which documents are of a confidential nature.
Canada's Supreme Court has also observed that “...all governments must maintain some degree of security and confidentiality in order to function”.
On the other hand, Speaker Milliken ruled on March 9, 2011, that there was a prima facie case for a finding of contempt of Parliament against the government because it had withheld information from Parliament. I shall leave that there.
To the extent that Speaker Milliken's ruling differs from Madame Sauvé's, I side with Speaker Milliken. The government does not have an unlimited unilateral right to decide what documents it will or will not release to Parliament. If nothing else, access-to-information legislation passed by Parliament limits what a government can keep confidential.
I make an aside comment here that it should be noted that there are some systems of government, such as the Swedish, where our notions of cabinet confidence are not recognized; in other words, cabinet documents are fully public and fully available.
In our system, which recognizes cabinet confidentiality, the question becomes, where does the right of the cabinet to keep documents confidential end and where does the right of Parliament to have access to documents begin?
I favour the barrier being set so as to limit as much as possible the documents that are regarded as cabinet confidences. Certainly the actual minutes of cabinet meetings that report what individual ministers said and what else transpired should be respected as confidential, and presumably position papers showing where individual ministers and departments stood on a matter, but not much else.
There is a huge amount of background material provided for the cabinet on major decisions, including legislation, most of which could, and should, be made public. The remoter a document or study is from a record of actual cabinet deliberations, the stronger the argument against confidentiality.
A good study from a department will include both pros and cons and will provide a comprehensive analysis of the costs and other implications of proposed legislation. With rare exceptions, Parliament and the public deserve to see these studies as much as does the cabinet. Parliament and the Canadian public should know the costs and other implications of major government decisions and the bills before Parliament.
An example of talking across rather than with each other--produced by the present arrangements--is the question of the cost of just one of the government's crime bills, where the Parliamentary Budget Officer found the cost to be an order of magnitude greater than the government claimed. But no useful discussion or resolution of this contradiction emerged because the government refused to release their own studies of costs on the grounds that they were cabinet confidences.
As an immediate band-aid solution, I would suggest that this committee consider five reforms: one, that Parliament and government immediately begin to work together to define what documents are cabinet confidences and what are not; two, that the report from this committee recommend that all pieces of legislation not extend beyond first reading unless they are accompanied by an analysis of their cost implications over at least a five-year period; three, that the Parliamentary Budget Officer be provided with the resources to make his or her own independent analysis or evaluation of data provided by the government, and be instructed to do this; four, that the House itself undertake an inquiry into the proper extent of the government's right to declare unilaterally that papers and records are cabinet confidences; and five, that Parliament should review the Access to Information Act and in particular reconsider the current provisions that put the responsibility for administering the legislation in the hands of departmental ministers.
In giving this responsibility to ministers, the present legislation gives to the foxes the keys to the chicken house. Deputy ministers should have the responsibility for administering the access to information legislation, unless specifically, and in a way that is made public so there is no question of who bears the responsibility, they are overruled by their minister. That would pretty well take the ministers--and that even more suspect class, the exempt staff in ministers' offices--out of the equation.
As a final comment, I do hope—but I do not have much faith that my hope will be realized—that the procedure and House affairs committee will reach a consensus in its report on this matter of contempt, even if this consensus extends only to proposed solutions to a very real problem. Access to adequate information is a fundamental requirement for the effective functioning of Parliament and Canada's parliamentary democracy. Without accurate costs and other information, debates and committee hearings in public and political discourse in the country at large risk being debased into sloganeering, name-calling, and pigheaded obtuseness. That is not the right way to run a Parliament, let alone a country.
Both sides of the House should be concerned about this, if only because someday they're probably going to sit on the other side.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
:
I'm from Kingston, so we know about them.
You can also just leave it at contempt. That is normally what happens to these things.
On the other hand, if the committee feels that even with the additional information that's being given it has not had time to assess it, you can report that. You can say that the initial materials given by the government were inadequate to the point that the government had failed to comply. You can also do a quick dip into the materials.
For example, you could look and see if there are adequate cost projections, if the provincial costs have been included or not. If they have done, on the crime bills, for example, an adequate assessment of how the criminal population will be affected by these, you could do this as quickly as you can.
I have not seen the amount of documentation, but my impression is that if everybody in this committee stopped talking to me right now and started reading the documents, you wouldn't be finished before July. I really don't understand how you can come to a firm answer.
You can say this is progress, but the only genuine progress will be to create a way of living with government, a modus vivendi, that ensures that this kind of thing doesn't happen again. That is where my proposals are trying to point you on both sides of the House.
:
I'll return the favour.
Let me first say I find your five recommendations to be very interesting and obviously well thought out. I'm going to take a good hard look at them because I think they have, in my first impression, some serious merit to them, but that's just by way of passing.
What I want to talk about for a few moments...and you might detect a smidgen of partisanship in my comments, but I'll try to keep it to a minimum. You mentioned the games that parliamentarians play. That's just the nature of politics, I suppose. We've certainly seen the partisanship and gamesmanship played here inasmuch as we've heard at least the Liberal opposition say, before testimony even began, that its end game, its target, is to find a ruling of contempt in this committee. To me, that puts a pall on the entire committee process. What are we doing here if they've already been predisposed to find a ruling of contempt without even hearing a shred of testimony?
This is what we have done here, and I say “we” being the government. About a week ago, as you well know, the Speaker's ruling came down in the House. There was a motion that accompanied that afterwards from the opposition that said the committee should meet, the government should be compelled to bring forward additional information that was lacking in their first presentation and tabling to Parliament, and a report should be tabled in the House by March 21, which is this coming Monday.
The government has complied with the information. We've heard complaints from the opposition saying that it's a document dump, but my goodness, they were the ones asking for the information.
The committee hearings started yesterday. We have consistently stated that we wanted to have the information to the committee by the time the testimony started, which we did. I'm not sure why the complaints are coming, but it was the shortness of time that really made the government have to get these volumes of information presented as quickly as possible.
You stated, and I think quite correctly, that for all members of this committee to do their due diligence, to do their work, to examine the documents that have been presented would take some length of time. This is what I see as the probability of what will be happening here, sir, and I'll just get your opinion on this. Should those members be united in their decision to try to find the government in contempt, which the opposition Liberals have already stated they want to see happen, when clearly they haven't examined all of the documents to the extent they should, I'm not sure what purpose committee hearings like these really serve.
Good afternoon, Dr. Franks.
We are in the middle of an exercise here. Let us be clear that, the day before yesterday, we got information on five of the 18 bills that had been put before the House of Commons and that were making their way through the legislative process. That means that there was information. What would those bills cost, what were the estimated costs?
Yesterday, we got a catalogue. It is spring, but instead of getting the Sears catalogue, we got the Harper catalogue. It contained information, but it was very vague, very sketchy. Someone said earlier that the provinces are going to see their costs go up. There will be a heavy cost, but we do not know how heavy and we cannot get the slightest idea of the extent. We talked about it this morning and I asked some questions along those lines in connection with some bills.
So here we are with the House, through the Speaker, ordering the government to provide documents so that we as elected representatives and lawmakers can do our work. You have heard all the rhetoric and you know how it has all unfolded.
Maybe it is a little utopian on my part, and that's fine because today's utopia is tomorrow's reality, as they say. Could you shed some more light on this for us? What do we have to do to make sure, right from the time a bill is first introduced, that we know how much it is going to cost and that the information comes from the government? When we as opposition MPs introduce private member's bills, we have to get a minister's consent if costs are involved. We know the process. If we do not have the minister's support, there is no point in debating the bill as it is going to die sooner or later. The government must do the same thing, in my humble opinion. Can you shed some light on that for us?
The purpose of the motion, Mr. Chair, is to assist the committee going forward and to assist in particular the drafters of the report, who are charged with a very difficult assignment, which is to try to circumscribe the evidence and deliberations in a very short period of time, as ordered by the Speaker of the House of Commons: it has to be done, completed, and reported back to the House on the 21st of this month.
Given the onerous scheduling tomorrow, Mr. Chair, in anticipation of our dealing with the issue of the Minister of International Cooperation, which is the second part of the reference to this committee, we felt that it would be productive and useful to help circumscribe and to help lend some early shape for the drafters so that they can deal with this onerous task in a very short period of time.
Particularly, I think the idea of having a draft report in two pages for each official language often helps sharpen the proposals or propositions that are put in the final report. I've seen way too many draft reports come in that are verbose. As I have often reminded my former students, verbosity is never a substitute for content, so I think it would be important for us to help the drafters circumscribe the length to two pages. If we can't say it in two pages in each official language, it's probably too long.
The addenda that would follow, of course, would include all of the briefs, all of the submissions by expert witnesses, all the testimony provided, and the transcripts. It's all there, Mr. Chair, as a matter of very public record, having been broadcast, for example, on television, the Internet, and beyond for the last two days.
There are of course all kinds.... The list of substantive reasons to go through to substantiate the points 1 through 5 in this motion is simply too long to cover. It would take me probably until 10 p.m. tonight, Mr. Chair, and I won't do that, but I do want to cite a few fundamental ones to help to substantiate some of the early conclusions that are reduced to writing in this motion.
I want to make a couple of foundational remarks to wrap up. I don't want to be much longer, Mr. Chair, I really don't, but I am inspired by a few statements. Chief among them is the statement by Mr. Stephen Harper, the Prime Minister of Canada himself. I believe he meant this when he said it. I really do. Let me just read the remark into the record again. It is something that he said some six years ago, as reported in the Montreal Gazette.
He said:
Without adequate access to key information about government policies and programs, citizens and parliamentarians cannot make informed decisions, and incompetent or corrupt governance can be hidden under a cloak of secrecy.
I think that is irrefutable in its wisdom and irrefutable in its impact. I think it informs the five points put before you today in this motion.
I would also refer the testimony of Dr. Franks--Professor Franks--as also being irrefutable. Each of us can go back and examine the record, as we have with respect to Mel Cappe's testimony and with respect to the testimony from the associate secretary of the Treasury Board and beyond. It boils down to a simple conclusion, and I asked that question earlier today of two cabinet ministers. They refused to answer. I think it's an important question that informs these five points.
With all that has transpired here over the last four months, limited just to this issue that we're treating here in this committee and leaving aside the government's conduct elsewhere--as we should rightly do in this instance--the question to ask of the government and of the ministers who were here today is a simple one: why shouldn't Canadians hold this government in contempt?
With all of the evidence, all of the conduct, all of the performance yesterday--walking in and dropping documents, which only fulfilled 15 of 72 requests--it's interesting, Mr. Chair, how that question is really a question that we're framing for our drafters. I believe deeply that these five preliminary conclusions ought to help inform this difficult drafting job for our parliamentary drafters.
With that, Mr. Chair, I submit this motion for your and the committee's consideration.
:
Let's talk about the motion. It is absolutely unbelievable to me that after two days of testimony, the opposition coalition would come together to present a motion that basically gives the conclusion to a report before the report is even written.
We know that the Liberals came in here with an endgame of trying to find the government in contempt, but to do something like this, Mr. Chairman, is unfathomable, in my estimation. What they could have done--and what they clearly had the ability to do, since the coalition does have the majority on committee--is that once the draft report was brought back to this committee by the analysts as an impartial assessment of the testimony that we heard, I'm sure the opposition coalition could have then used their power of numbers to make recommendations calling for the government perhaps to be found in contempt. In other words, they could have overturned any of the recommendations or any of the information contained in the report.
Instead they bring forward this motion, which is unbelievable. First and foremost it states that the committee report shall be no more than two pages in length. We've heard several hours of testimony. We've heard two ministers appear twice before committee and a minister of state appear for an hour. We've had many other witnesses, and many of them gave information conflicting with the opposition's position, by the way.
This report, in my estimation--and I've seen a few reports brought back to committee in my career--would have no chance whatsoever of being less than two pages in length had it run its due course, but the opposition, of course, wants to restrict the information contained in the report. They want to restrict information that was given in testimony before committee members, and even more obscene is the fact that they are trying to pass a motion that finds the government in contempt without the benefit of any testimony included in the report.
Mr. Chair, I don't know if anyone in this Parliament or any historian who has been observing Parliament for the last 50 years or more can find an example of a committee passing a motion either condemning the government or praising the government or coming to a conclusion before a draft report was presented by its analysts. There is no unanimity here, obviously, Mr. Chair. It is the opposition coalition merely trying, for some unknown reason, to come up with a conclusion before a report is presented to committee.
I honestly don't know what their endgame is in doing this. Do they think for a moment that the media are going to give them a free pass on this, that the media will agree that this is perhaps appropriate? It's far from being appropriate, Mr. Chair.
We can have our differences, and we do. We have severe differences on political ideology and philosophy on government programs and on our vision, but to pull something like this.... On the one hand they are complaining that the government has been secretive and manipulative, while on the other hand they are bringing forward a motion like this. It basically says that the two days of hearings we've had are meaningless, that they mean nothing, because they don't want the testimony that was given to be read in a report. They just want to have a motion passed that says that the government is in contempt and didn't comply with the Speaker's ruling. They do not want this report to be made public, Mr. Chair. They do not want testimony to be part of the public record.
Let's review some of that testimony, Mr. Chair. We've had the two ministers in question appear on two different occasions over the last two days. They presented binders of information, information that the government has stated fully complies with the Speaker's ruling, yet none of that information, Mr. Chair, is apparently going to be included in the final report if the opposition coalition has its way.
They come here full of sanctimony and pious indignation, stating that they oppose the government's approach because it hasn't been open and accountable to Parliament, and then they come up with this motion that absolutely prevents any direct testimony from being presented in a report.
Again I point out what members of the media know full well, because they saw the ushering in and out of this room by guards and officials who were trying to prevent them from seeing this motion, but they have seen it now, Mr. Chair. The media are aware of this; hopefully the Canadian public will become engaged as well, and whether or not, Mr. Chair, members of the Canadian public agree or disagree--
Then let's talk about being disrespectful. What is this? What is this motion before us, except the height of disrespect of Parliament? This motion suggests that we should ignore the testimony we've heard over the last two days and come to conclusions based on an opposition motion. That's exactly what this is saying. There is nothing more disrespectful than that.
Over the last two days I've heard members of the opposition complain on countless occasions that there have been abuses of power, abuses of government, and abuses of Parliament. There is no bigger abuse that we have seen in recent history, in my view, than this motion. This motion basically tries to craft a report through the tyranny of the majority, without any testimony and without any evaluation by our analysts, who are non-partisan in nature and who have over time provided excellent service to every committee in the Parliamentary precinct. Talk about an abuse of a majority.
When the Speaker ruled last year, he said that there is something called a tyranny of the majority, and he was right. He was referring to committees, and this is the best example we can see.
Why are the opposition members so afraid of seeing a report based on the testimony that we have received today? Obviously we know that the Liberals want to find a ruling of contempt so that they can use it for their own political purposes, but why in the world are they bringing forward a motion like this, which totally abuses and disrespects the conventions, policies, procedures, and practices of Parliament?
:
Thank you. I was just waiting for the microphone to come on, Mr. Chair.
Again, the opposition coalition wants--let's make sure that everyone is perfectly clear about what this motion states--the final report not to be assembled and written by the analysts. It wants it to be a report that is no more than two pages in length. It wants the report to come to some specific conclusions, conclusions that may be completely contrary to the testimony that has been heard here over two days, and it wants no summary of evidence to be included in the draft report.
My colleague Mr. Reid called this the “star chamber”. I can think of no better term than this.
We heard Mr. Franks talk about the games that parliamentarians play. There's no better example than this.
We've heard Mr. Walsh say that if you've got the numbers, you win, and if you don't have the numbers, you lose.
All of that is very true, Mr. Chair, but it flies in the face of, it directly contradicts, this sanctimonious approach that the opposition coalition has taken over the last two days. It flies in the face of that. This has been proven without a doubt by this motion. Mr. Chair, I suggest to you, and to any Canadians who may be watching, that this is not only an abuse of the parliamentary process; it makes a mockery of the parliamentary process.
I asked this question of a couple of our witnesses: if the opposition was hell-bent on coming forward with a finding of contempt and it was predisposed to that conclusion before the committee started its hearings, what worth does this committee have? Why did we even engage in these hearings? There's no reason.
I've heard time and time again the sanctimony from the other side of the table when they say that we have to respect the taxpayers' dollars. What is this except a complete misuse of taxpayers' dollars? In bringing this committee together for two days--bringing officials from the Department of Finance, ministers of the crown, and parliamentarians from across Canada--in fact it had no intention of listening to testimony, no intention of having testimony included in the final report, and no intention to give a fair and impartial accounting of what we heard today. All its intent was, Mr. Chair, was to use this as a vehicle to present this motion at the conclusion of the two days of hearings. It does not want impartiality. It does not want reasoned documents being presented. It does not want the truth. All it was looking for, Mr. Chair, was a vehicle to try to force an election.
Apparently, Mr. Chair, the opposition seems to think that actions like this--complete abuse of the democratic process, the parliamentary process--will be valuable for it if there is an election campaign coming, an election that it desperately seems to want to force.
Let me point out again for the record, Mr. Chair--as I have on countless occasions over the past months, as has our Prime Minister--that our government does not want an election. Canadians do not want an election. We want to focus on the priorities of Canadians, those being job growth and the economy, but it is vividly apparent that the opposition doesn't care about or share in those priorities. All it is trying to do, as it has done countless times in past years, is to try to create scandals where none exist.
Mr. Chair, we have heard the Speaker's ruling. We agree with the Speaker's ruling. What the Speaker said was he felt there was insufficient information concerning the costs of government legislative bills, primarily the costs of corporate tax cuts and the costs of our government's crime legislation.
The motion then, Mr. Chair, was sent before this committee. We said at the outset that we would comply with the Speaker's ruling and would be attempting to provide all the information that the Speaker requested--