Public Accounts Committee on May 14th, 2024

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Indeed, and I will quote to you, Chair, the language of the motion:

That, given that the chair has yet to table a subcommittee report for subcommittee approval, in relation to the committee’s future business, it be agreed that:

Therefore, what I am talking about is, unfortunately, your failure to table subcommittee reports and come up with a workable work plan and the fact that, unfortunately, you pre-empt the committee. You had given indication that you were calling a committee meeting for Thursday, yet here we are on Tuesday for a three-hour meeting. I am more than happy to discuss that.

However, Chair, we need to have a work plan, and that is what this motion is really all about. It's about creating that work plan and holding you to account, Chair, because, quite frankly, every single member on this committee has the same objectives. The public accounts committee has a very clear mandate that we are all in agreement with. The facts are that the work plan keeps changing; that we get duped every single time on when committee meetings are going to happen, when they're not going to happen, what the agenda is and who the witnesses are; and that constant amended notices of meeting have led us to this point, when we are now putting forward a motion to say, Chair, if you're not going to do your job, let committee members come together and do your job for you.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

There is a point of order, Ms. Khalid.

Mr. Nater.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Thank you, Chair. I would just remind Ms. Khalid that it is in our Standing Orders not to speak disrespectfully of the chair. The position of chair is an important position, and we have faith in our chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Absolutely, Chair, I have faith in you, and I know that you can do the right thing. I am not speaking ill of you. I am just calling out what has happened over the past number of months that I have been a member of this committee, to try to bring some order to this committee.

Chair, I know that you're trying to do your best. I know how difficult it is for the clerks to find witnesses and fill in the schedules, etc. However, the fact that we keep amending our meetings and the fact that we keep calling unexpected meetings is difficult. The meeting here today has cost taxpayers over $10,000. Can you imagine $10,000 for three hours in which we could have been supporting our constituents and had this in our sitting week?

Therefore, what I'm trying to say to you, Chair, is that this motion is a proposition as to how we are going to conduct ourselves over the coming weeks. We have five long weeks in Ottawa when we are going to be able to do all the work that is on your agenda and on all of our members' agendas. We just need some kind of decorum. We just need some kind of ability to have certainty, not only in our own schedules but also in the schedules of our constituents, so that when they schedule meetings to come to see me, for example, I don't have to cancel on them at the last minute just so I can appear here.

Therefore, Chair, I submit that to you. I am very much in support of this motion, and I'm hopeful that members of our committee are also, because what this motion would do is give us clarity. It would give us a concrete work plan, for which we have been waiting for a very long time, for months in fact, with a work plan that keeps changing and we keep fidgeting around with. Here we are in a surprise meeting on a Tuesday. I don't know why we are doing this, but I'm hopeful that this motion brings concreteness and stability to our committee.

Again, Chair, I respect the work that you do, and I look forward to continuing to work with you, I'm hoping, in a more collaborative way than we have so far. I'll leave my remarks there, Chair, and I look forward to continuing with this debate.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you.

Up next is Ms. Yip.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

You know, this motion came about because we want some certainty about a work plan. As my colleague, Ms. Khalid, has brought up, we never know what the plan is. The emails keep coming from the clerk, amending and so forth. There are so many changes. It's just that we would all like to have everybody agree on a work plan that works for everyone.

I would really like to also remind the chair that we still have some outstanding reports to look at. I think it's about six or seven, and some of them date back to 2022. I really think we need to get back to that.

That being said, I'd like to propose a friendly amendment that we dedicate the meeting for May 23 to witness testimony from officials on the report for the national trade corridors fund and Transport Canada.

Then we dedicate June 11 to the environmental report.... I'm sorry, I just need a moment to get the right wording of that. It's report 6, on the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

All right. I'll just see if the clerk.... Is that clear?

You're moving an amendment to Mrs. Shanahan's motion that we will study the report for trade corridors on May 23 and we will study report 6 on Canadian net-zero emissions on June 11.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

That's correct.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Is there discussion on that, or should we call a vote?

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

They're all accepted as friendly amendments.

(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

We'll go back to the discussion.

Mrs. Shanahan, you have the floor.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Thank you very much, Chair.

I appreciate the friendly amendment brought forward by my colleague because indeed it's the kind of accommodation that we can normally expect in this committee, where members discuss, either in the subcommittee or in committee business and usually in camera, what the work plan is going to be going forward, so there's some clarity and certainty in the work that we have to do. We all take it very seriously, and we want to be prepared.

Chair, I have to say that last Thursday, we had committee business in public for an hour, and we discussed at great length a Thursday meeting that we would be having this week, without any clarity as to the witnesses that were going to be called. In fact, members on the Liberal side found out that other members on the Conservative side had prior knowledge about whether or not witnesses would be able to attend. That was shown by a motion—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Mrs. Shanahan, first of all, that was put to bed.

Second, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. You appear to have advance knowledge of Minister Hajdu's availability in a few weeks, which I'm aware of and the clerk's aware of, but no other members are aware of.

I'll go back to you, but let's not go down that road. Please speak to your motion and save your skulduggery.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Indeed, Chair, and I hope that you're not impugning any motives—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

You were the one doing that, Mrs. Shanahan. It's back to you.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Well, Chair, you know, this is why we normally have these discussions in an in camera meeting, where members can speak freely, share information and so on.

For some reason, well, not for just some reason but because of weeks and months of, frankly, some members not being able to have full access to all information that was made available to other members, because of multiple changes to a work plan, because of the work plan not being sent out on a timely basis, and because of a subcommittee report not being submitted to the committee for approval and then being subject to change after the subcommittee has spent considerable time working on it, I am presenting this motion, and I'm very happy to receive the friendly amendment that has been put forward today. I'm looking forward to some very constructive work by this committee in the weeks to come.

I will leave it there. Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you.

Mr. Arya, you have the floor, please.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

I have just a short comment, Chair.

I'm not a regular member of this committee, but I was on this committee from 2015 to 2019, when I was first elected. Conservative Kevin Sorenson was the chair, and we had NDP member David Christopherson, who was a very active member of the committee. I fondly recall those four years, when the committee worked very well. In fact, in the entire four years, there was not a single dissenting report from any of us. We had a majority then, I should say, and it appears that things have changed now. That's all I wanted to say.

I'll say another thing, Chair. In fact, before our committee in 2015, the departments used to send different levels of officers to the committee, but we put our foot down and insisted that the deputy ministers themselves be available for every single meeting, and we enforced it. At our insistence on the Liberal side, we made sure that the deputy ministers appeared on behalf of the department.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Bradford, you have the floor.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to speak in favour of the motion, as amended with a friendly amendment. As a new MP, I know we have two roles. One is our parliamentary duties, which take place here in Ottawa. The other, equally important, if not more so, is our duty to our constituents back home.

At this time of year, we have very few weeks dedicated to that. In fact, this is our final week here in the constituency until the House rises on June 21. Consequently, we have a lot of meetings booked here, often quite a bit in advance. The schedule is very jammed.

I reiterate the comments made previously by Ms. Khalid and Mrs. Shanahan. We get these things booked, and then, all of a sudden, they're upended, and we have to cancel on our constituents. It sends a very poor message.

With ArriveCAN, we've had—I don't know; I've lost track—probably 17 meetings on this, and I think half of them have happened during constituency weeks, which should not happen. Now we're at the point where we're recalling witnesses we've previously heard from, and they don't really have anything new to add.

Last Thursday, you said that we were going to have a meeting on Thursday, so I had to get coverage, which was difficult, because I have something—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Ms. Bradford, just to jump in, this is not about the motion. This is about not wanting to sit in recess week.

We'll go back to you.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

I'm sorry, Chair. It's about the need for the motion.

I'm sorry that this motion is necessary, but it has become quite evident over the past couple of months, with these unexpected meetings that happen during constituency weeks, that we need a program. We need a plan, so that we can be prepared. We need to know who the witnesses are and when they're coming, so that we can prepare and so that we have some good, valid, relevant questions. That's what we're trying to accomplish here, Mr. Chair.

I think that this plan...and we need to stick to it. By passing this motion, we need to say that this is our work plan, and we won't be altering it. The witnesses will be lined up, and we won't be having any extra things added on that are going to disrupt this work program, because we have reports that we need to table and get done, so that we look like we're effectively conducting the work that we're elected to do. We need to get on with it.

Our wish is that this brings some structure and clarity, which I feel has been missing with all these additional things that have disrupted and pushed our reports back so that we don't get things tabled in the House. It's just so that we have some structure and advance knowledge of what's coming up and who the witnesses will be, so that we can proceed on an ongoing basis.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Ms. Khalid.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I just want to add on to what my colleagues have said but also to kind of expand on all of the points that this motion outlines.

When we talk about spring cleaning, there's a lot that's on the plate of the public accounts committee's agenda. There's a lot that's pending. I know that our last meeting was in camera, so I can't go into specific detail about what was edited or discussed in reports, but I do recall being alarmed at having to change dates, given how much the reports have been delayed and pushed back because of calling and recalling the same witnesses again and again.

I think that point one is very, very necessary, and we definitely need to have a spring cleaning of what is on our agenda and how we are going to conduct ourselves going forward. I think that having that conversation is going to really clear up and, hopefully, prioritize and triage what is on our plate and what we need to get done as soon as possible.

For point two, the meeting for May 23 dedicated to officials on “Report 6: Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act—2030 Emissions Reduction Plan” is something that Canadians really want to hear about. That report is a significant one in terms of the climate today.

We are about to go into a significant fire season, and we are going to see a lot of forest fires over the summer. We are going to have multiple conversations about what climate change means to all of us and how we as a government and, specifically, as the public accounts committee are going to ensure that we hold government to account in terms of what the action plan is with net-zero emissions. I think that this report is very important for us to get on the radar and tabled in the House. We do need to discuss it as a committee. Again, that report is a very, very important thing to be included in this motion.

The third point is the consideration of draft reports. As I alluded to earlier, Chair, there are so many reports that we just have not gotten to that we should be getting to. In fact, we've had to amend some of these reports based on the delay. I think that it is important for us to get these draft reports tabled, because the work of the Auditor General is important. The work of this committee is important. If we just hold on to all of these reports, how are we going to further the work we're trying to do? How are we going to further the recommendations we are proposing, based on the Auditor General and based on what we've heard in this committee? I think sitting on them is doing a disservice to our committee and to Canadians. I really think that is an important part of this motion as well.

As the chair, you've indicated that ArriveCAN is very, very important. This motion also speaks to that, to say that the May 30 meeting be dedicated to witness testimony on report 1 on ArriveCAN, because we do care, Chair, about what you think, about what all members of this committee think, what impacts Canadians and what is important to them. Including this as part of the work plan for the next couple of months is very important because I, for one—and I've said this on the record so many times—am so disappointed with how ArriveCAN happened. I can't believe how much money we've spent on this. I think it is important for us to put out that final report on what exactly happened here and how we are going to reconcile the 13 years, Chair, of multiple governments that have had challenges with contracting. I think ArriveCAN is a good example of how we can do that.

On the housing issue with first nations, I know that Mr. Desjarlais has been very, very vigilant in ensuring that we speak about this. I know that our government has had a lot of interventions on this as well and done a lot of work.

I think that's another really good thing for us to talk about to ensure that this is triaged and prioritized in what we do from today until we rise at the end of June. Again, I really think this is important.

The two ministers, Minister Blair and Minister Hajdu, do need to appear, because that is the will of the committee. We've passed motions accordingly. We have talked about this and collaborated on this. It is difficult, as members have said, to get the agenda and the time from ministers, so if we have those times confirmed, I think it would be really helpful for us to be able to schedule that and make sure that we are getting them on the record on a lot of the issues that we have been discussing in this committee.

Chair, I have talked point by point on all of the issues that have been raised in this motion, and I'm really hopeful that you and all members of this committee can support this work plan. Quite frankly, we have not seen a workable work plan—or any work plan, to be quite frank—over the past couple of months. We're just trying to propose something that would be helpful to guide this committee and give some kind of order to the prioritization and triaging of how this committee operates.

I'll stop there, Chair. I look forward to a positive vote on this.

Thanks.