Public Accounts Committee on June 20th, 2024

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

No, they weren't.

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

Please don't talk over me. I didn't talk over you, buddy.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Order.

Mr. Perkins, Ms. Khalid has the floor. You have the right to add yourself to the list again for speaking.

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

Thank you so much, Chair, for your intervention.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

We have interpreters to concern ourselves with.

Ms. Khalid, you have the floor. We'll keep this meeting orderly. It's over to you.

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

Thank you very much.

I take issue with the amount of misinformation and disinformation the Conservatives are plugging across Parliament through committees, not just this one, and the House of Commons and across social media—everywhere. They're trying to profit off the politics of agitation. I see that they're smirking and laughing at each other. It's great. I am here all night, and I'm more than willing to talk this out and understand the objective of why we are here doing what we're doing.

When I look at the text of this motion, what concerns me is how desperate the Conservatives are right now to link any type of scandal with the government and to call on the minister to recoup funds. Absolutely taxpayer dollars need to be accounted for. That's the purpose of this committee. I agree a hundred per cent. However, to do it in the manner the Conservatives are doing right now is quite questionable or, as my friend Michael Cooper would say, highly suspicious.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

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

What I'm trying to get at is that we need to understand whether the minister has the ability to recoup these funds, as the motion states, and whether our committee has the ability to call on the minister to recoup these funds. We have a list of funds outlined in the motion. I would personally like to see where those numbers came from. We should be able to have that discussion to see what comes next.

The role of our committee is not to be punitive to individuals, not to go on witch-hunt exercises and not to be the judiciary. The role of our committee is to review the Auditor General's reports and to find better ways for Parliament and the government to be accountable to the public in the spending of taxpayer dollars.

With what has happened here, from my reading of the recommendations of the Auditor General, there needs to be better due diligence. There needs to be better accountability within organizations. There needs to be a big differentiation between people and organizations. We cannot and should not be maligning our government and our public service for the faults of a few bad apples.

What we should be doing is focusing on how we can improve the process. That is what the role of our committee is. We should be focusing on how to make sure we are doing our best to improve the processes and make sure the recommendations of the Auditor General are being implemented by the various agencies she has audited. SDTC is one of them.

I'm just reading report reference number 6.26. The recommendation of the Auditor General is:

Building on a recommendation made in 2017 by the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Sustainable Development Technology Canada should [develop] its challenge function over projected sustainable development and environmental benefits.

SDTC partially agreed, as it said in its response:

Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) employs a robust process to quantify projected potential environmental benefits across 12 impact areas, at three different points during a project lifecycle. The process follows recognized standards. A 2018 Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada evaluation found that SDTC had a substantial review and challenge process for assessing proposed environmental benefits in project proposals.

During due diligence, the best information available is used to quantify environmental impacts and is thoroughly reviewed and challenged by SDTC staff trained in environmental benefits quantification. After approval, SDTC uses external experts to quantify benefits and refine estimates two additional times as the project progresses.

Inherent uncertainties exist in projecting the environmental benefits of novel pre-commercial technologies. Information is often limited and involves estimating impacts 10-15 years into the future. Substantial increases or decreases in estimated benefits are expected as the technology gets closer to commercialization.

The milestones that have been described in this report, I find, are something we need to explore more as a committee. As to those milestones, SDTC says that it will further strengthen its due diligence documentation to clearly outline the environmental benefits challenge function process. If this motion had not been moved, I would have loved to talk to the SDTC folks about what they specifically mean by that. Then they gave themselves a deadline of September 2024 to achieve this milestone. SDTC continues to say that in December 2024, it will implement the enhanced processes, including any enhanced environmental benefit challenge function process.

Having gone through this report, I think what really matters in this committee, which is really the function of this committee, is not to be a judiciary, and not to dictate nor demand. It is to make recommendations based on the testimony we hear from the Auditor General and the relevant departments about how we improve the processes of our public service and how taxpayer dollars should be spent, and how we continue to work together in a better way among ourselves to make sure we are holding the government to account.

The biggest challenge I have is that when we bring partisan politics and shenanigans into the public accounts committee, we derail the important work of the Auditor General and the important work of each and every one of us individually and us collectively as a committee. If we take the politics out of the work we're doing, we will be more successful. We will continue to build better trust in our democratic institutions. At this point in time, though, with this motion, I know exactly what the objectives are. Those are not in—

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

It's accountability.

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

I love that you're heckling me, Mr. Perkins. It's quite unfortunate.

As I was saying—and you proved my point, Mr. Perkins—we need to take the partisan politics out of this. We need to ensure that the work of the committee continues in a proper function and manner to make sure we are achieving the objectives of it.

I know exactly what the Conservatives are trying to do. They have looked under every rock, every stone and—

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

There's a point of order, Ms. Khalid.

Mr. Perkins, go ahead.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

I don't think the Liberal member is psychic and understands all the intricacies of the internal operations of the Conservative Party.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Mr. Perkins, that is not a point of order.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

If she would like to, she should join it. Then she would understand why.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Ms. Khalid, you have the floor again.

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

Thank you, Chair.

As much as I've been disrespected by members of his party, I will continue to talk about what matters to Canadians.

What we are doing here this evening is using our parliamentary House of Commons resources to push forward a narrative by the Conservatives that says, “Look, it's a scandal; something is wrong here.” The member across the way, who is continuing to chirp at me, has said there is a conspiracy and the conspiracy continues.

We need to be better for Canadians. This is the public accounts committee. We need to find better ways of building consensus and need to find ways to review the work of the government. When I said “government”, as you will have noticed, I did not say “Liberal government”. I am referring to governments that preceded ours and governments in the future—holding all of them to account. If we are not able to do that, and if we start, as I have seen over the past number of months and years, using committees to push forward conspiracies, we're in trouble. I think our country is in trouble with that kind of narrative. The politics of agitation is the biggest corroder of our democracy.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Mr. Duncan, go ahead on a point of order.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt, but the Auditor General was just here. We're talking about her report, and Ms. Khalid just referred to conspiracies. Is she suggesting that the Auditor General or a witness we had here is into conspiracy theories?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Mr. Duncan, that is a comment, not a point of order.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

It's about decorum. It's completely disrespectful to the Auditor General.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

You'll be able to point that out—

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

She says her report is a conspiracy theory.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

—if you'd like me to add you to the list.