David Christopherson

Mr. Speaker, the Auditor General regularly exposes government negligence and incompetence, and today is no exception. The latest report also reveals that the Liberals refused to give the Auditor General the information he requested. The power to access information is crucial to the AG's independence and is, in fact, protected in law. After being elected on promises of openness and transparency, the Liberals have deliberately stonewalled the Auditor General.Why is the government undermining the Auditor General, and what exactly is it trying to hide from Canadians?

Mr. Speaker, this is the first time in the history of Canada that the government of the day has failed to adequately fund the work plan of the Auditor General. Given that one of the planned audits being killed is on cybersecurity, how can the government possibly justify this unprecedented attack on the work of the Auditor General and the work of oversight and accountability?

It really is Groundhog Day all over again, Mr. Speaker. Another Auditor General report, another scathing indictment of the previous government.Today the Auditor General reported on how that federal government made a complete mess of the CPP disability program: long wait times, a needlessly complicated 42-page application process, and no consistent standards for decisions.The Conservatives may have been the ones to make this mess, but it is up to the Liberals to fix it. What exactly is the new government going to do to fix it?

Mr. Speaker, this goes well beyond an innocent discussion paper. The government House leader should not insult our intelligence by claiming otherwise.However, if she is serious about that, if she is really truly sincere that her motives are pure, will she now stand in her place and tell this House that she accepts that her government has no mandate to change the rules of democracy over the united objections of the opposition? If she will not, then it is pretty clear that her protests of innocence are even more shallow than they sound.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to take a couple of minutes to make a couple of personal comments.Last Friday, the House had the historic opportunity to debate the words of our national anthem. It was historic in terms of the presentation of the debate and certainly historic in terms of our friend, the member for Ottawa—Vanier, who was able to come from his hospital bed directly here on Friday. That alone warrants special recognition. However, I want to point to the camaraderie that day. We all know that the partisan fighting we have every day is part of what we do. However, we do have the ability to rise above that and when we do, it is important to underscore it. That is what this moment is.I want to thank my colleagues in the Liberal caucus. Some will know that the member for Ottawa—Vanier and I are particularly close. I asked to go into the salon to say hi to him before he came in. The member for Don Valley West first expressed the opportunity, if I wanted, to join their caucus and sit behind him. The chief government whip, the member for Orléans, insisted that I also be given the opportunity to escort the member in. Lastly, my new BFF, the member for Hull—Aylmer, offered up that great seat of honour over his right shoulder. I appreciated it so much that I wanted to underscore it. I thank my colleagues. I want them to know how much it meant to me and how much it—

Mr. Speaker, another day, another scandal involving KPMG. It appears it was not enough for KPMG to just advise clients on how to evade paying taxes, now it has been caught devising schemes so clients could dodge their support, divorce, or alimony obligations.Just how many more scandals do we need before the government finally launches a full investigation into the actions of KPMG?

Mr. Speaker, Canadians gave the previous government the boot for its many failures; now we want to know how the current government is going to undo the damage. For example, the previous government completely failed in the transition to Shared Services Canada: missing deadlines, failing to communicate with partners, data left unsecured, and millions misspent.Exactly what concrete steps is the minister going to take to ensure that Shared Services actually works and that information is actually protected?

The first step. You know it's just the first step.

Mr. Speaker, today, the Auditor General reported that Canada is treating our army reservists like second-class soldiers. They are underfunded, under-equipped, and undertrained. In fact, our reservists were sent into combat without first receiving the proper international mission training. This is all unacceptable.Will the minister today commit to give reservists the training they need, the support they are entitled to, and the respect they deserve?

Madam Speaker, Bill S-201 is legislation designed to protect the rights of Canadians to the privacy of their own genetic information. Currently, Canadians who receive genetic testing on a variety of medical issues are at risk of being denied insurance coverage if they fail to turn this information over. Could the chair or the vice-chair of the justice committee update the House on how many expert witnesses testified and how many meetings were devoted to the study of Bill S-201 before the bill was reported back to the House?

Mr. Speaker, it is actually a question of privilege. Once again I find myself joining others who are rising to raise an issue of my rights being infringed. I rise, believe me, much more in sorrow than in anger, because the incident that happened occurred within less than an hour of my being at a PROC meeting where we were dealing with exactly this issue, privilege being denied in terms of access to the Hill.I want to say at the outset that I would ask for just a couple of moments to describe what happened. In the interest of time and in fairness, because we are dealing with this at PROC, I will not be asking you, Mr. Speaker, to rule on whether this is a prima facie case, but I will be asking my colleagues at PROC to accept this as one more example of a challenge that we have to overcome.Very briefly, I left my office in the Justice Building on my way over here. I did not lose a vote nor did I lose a chance to speak, but I did have a side meeting set up at the request of the Minister of Democratic Institutions, and I did miss that. There were implications for this.I came out of Justice Building. I went to get on the green bus, and the driver said something to the effect that there was hardly any point getting on because the bus could not get up on the Hill because of demonstrators. I said that we should get on the bus and see how far we could go, and we would take it from there. There was one other colleague on the bus.We got as far as the “car wash”, the vehicle security area, and we were stopped again. Another bus was in front us. After a few minutes, the driver had no idea when things were going to be freed up, so I got off the bus. I went over and talked to the immediate staff, the person who was doing traffic control. He did not know but said that it could be a delay of five to 10 minutes.The driver had mentioned that all the people were walking up where the bus goes, and it was only just as we were arriving that security was putting up the fencing so that people could walk along on the Hill parallel to Wellington Street, but still leave room for the bus to go. Once that was in place, once we went through a bit of traffic management, we did finally get under way.My point is this. Over and over, ad nauseam, we have raised the issue of the lack of planning. Once again, had that fence already been in place to accommodate the Canadians who are entitled to be on their Parliament Hill, there would not have been any stoppage. It again speaks to making the planning of member of Parliament's access to Parliament Hill a priority. We really are getting tired of saying this over and over again.Mr. Speaker, I will conclude now, but I just want to say to my colleagues on PROC, by virtue of my not taking a lot of time to make this a big issue here, that I hope they will allow me to make this part of our review so that when we are looking at recommendations for change, it is both the case that you referred to us and this incident that has happened to me here today.

Mr. Speaker, the 2015 Liberal platform promised this: “We will ensure that all of the officers [of Parliament] are properly funded and accountable only to Parliament.”Now the public accounts committee has unanimously called for the Auditor General's $10.8-million underfunding to be reversed.The government promised to respect Parliament, respect its officers and respect its standing committees. I ask the Prime Minister, where is this respect, and, more importantly, where is the money?

Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today to pay tribute to a friend and Canada's Auditor General, Michael Ferguson. Canada has lost an exemplary public servant. On behalf of the NDP and myself, I want to begin by expressing my sincere condolences to Michael's family and his colleagues at the Office of the Auditor General. A true professional who understood the importance that oversight has on the performance of government, Michael was a leader in the field of auditing and highly respected across Canada and around the world. I would like to begin my short remarks by reading quotes from Michael Ferguson to us, to Parliament. This is actually from a report entitled “A Message from the Auditor General” in 2016. This is Michael talking to us. I believe that the Office of the Auditor General of Canada is uniquely equipped to support Parliament in its oversight role. Indeed, in our work, it does not matter who sits on which side of the House of Commons. Our business is to examine the activities and programs of government, and to provide parliamentarians with impartial information about what is working and what is not. The report goes on: Despite those good outcomes, I believe that government could get more value from our audits if it used them differently—if departments and agencies focused on becoming more productive and put more emphasis on what they are delivering. After all, in one way or another, everything that government does is intended to serve Canadians. As such, government should “do service well,” to benefit Canadians, both individually and collectively. That “do service well” was a main theme that he instilled in the current public accounts committee: the idea that at the end of the day, all of the measuring, all of the performance audits, all of the accountability are about Canadians receiving the service that they are entitled to. That is what Michael was all about.I was actually the chair of the public accounts committee during the transition from Sheila Fraser to Michael Ferguson. I am going to be honest with colleagues: the only thing that was on my mind when Sheila's term was up was who on earth and where on earth were we going to find anybody who could fill Sheila Fraser's shoes. I mean, Sheila was a force of nature. The world knew about the work that Sheila Fraser did.Then along came this name. I had met him at Canadian Council of Public Accounts meetings, but I did not really know him. He was a long drink of water named Michael Ferguson, the Auditor General from New Brunswick. He did not speak French, which was a problem politically. He did not speak French at that time, as my friend from Quebec is emphasizing. I think the important end of that story is that he made commitments to ensure that he was as fluent as he needed to be in our second official language, our equal official language, and from all accounts he did that. It was another commitment that he kept when he made it to Canadians. However, those things were working a bit against him, as members can imagine, given the politics of the day, and I did not really know where to go. I had heard he was pretty good, but we had this French problem, and what were we going to do? Then I got a phone call from Sheila. I knew Sheila well. We worked together for seven years on the public accounts committee. I do not think I am betraying any confidences at this point now, given where we are. She said to me, “Look, David, I know that there is the issue around the French, and you have to deal with that. I won't speak to that. That's not my role, but I am here, David, to say that if you believe that I have any credibility and you respect my word as the former auditor general of Canada, then please do everything you can to make sure Michael Ferguson becomes the next auditor general.” Boy, did she have that right. Michael Ferguson was our auditor general. By the time Michael was done, Michael was the people's auditor. The people in Canada knew that they had a friend, an ally, in Michael Ferguson, just as they had with Sheila Fraser, and that his sole purpose was to provide accountability and transparency regardless of what party was in power, knowing the importance of working with a non-partisan public accounts committee. Those who have served on it know that it is a special calling. One does not perform the same way one does on other committees. One's job is to leave one's membership card at the door, go in and deal with the Auditor General's report findings as a parliamentarian. That is what Michael was about. He was about making sure the system worked for Canadians. In closing, I would like to quote Michael. He said: Parliamentary committees play a crucial role in challenging departments. I believe that there is an important role for parliamentary committees, whether those of the House of Commons or the Senate, to use our audit reports not just to understand what has happened, but also to make sure that changes take place. Committees should invite departments and agencies to appear before them multiple times, until it is evident that they have made the changes needed to improve their services to people. In a few years, when this government is at the end of its current mandate and I am nearing the end of mine, I wonder if I will find myself repeating these words, or if I will be able to talk about real improvements in government services built around people. I thank Mike for everything he has done for our country. He has left behind an incredible legacy and challenged us to do service better. It is now up to us, colleagues, to rise to that occasion.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the Prime Minister for taking so many questions today. I would also like to point out, again, that he managed to do this without changing a single rule. No need to unilaterally use the power to ram through the changes. He was able to do it within existing rules.Will he now commit in this place that he will continue that spirit of co-operation? Will he agree that he will not use his unilateral majority to change the rules in this place and change how democracy works? Will he do that now, today?

No, no, that's all talk. You're not doing it.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the chair of the public accounts committee tabled “Report 11: Chapter 1, Implementing Gender-Based Analysis, of the Fall 2015 Report of the Auditor General of Canada”. In this unanimous report, our committee recommends that by April 1, 2017, gender-based analysis be made a mandatory requirement for all federal departments and agencies. Given that both government and opposition members support this report, will the government commit today to implement the committee's recommendation on mandatory gender-based analysis?

It really is Groundhog Day all over again, Mr. Speaker. Another Auditor General report, another scathing indictment of the previous government.Today the Auditor General reported on how that federal government made a complete mess of the CPP disability program: long wait times, a needlessly complicated 42-page application process, and no consistent standards for decisions.The Conservatives may have been the ones to make this mess, but it is up to the Liberals to fix it. What exactly is the new government going to do to fix it?

Mr. Speaker, Canadians gave the previous government the boot for its many failures; now we want to know how the current government is going to undo the damage. For example, the previous government completely failed in the transition to Shared Services Canada: missing deadlines, failing to communicate with partners, data left unsecured, and millions misspent.Exactly what concrete steps is the minister going to take to ensure that Shared Services actually works and that information is actually protected?

Mr. Speaker, it is actually a question of privilege. Once again I find myself joining others who are rising to raise an issue of my rights being infringed. I rise, believe me, much more in sorrow than in anger, because the incident that happened occurred within less than an hour of my being at a PROC meeting where we were dealing with exactly this issue, privilege being denied in terms of access to the Hill.I want to say at the outset that I would ask for just a couple of moments to describe what happened. In the interest of time and in fairness, because we are dealing with this at PROC, I will not be asking you, Mr. Speaker, to rule on whether this is a prima facie case, but I will be asking my colleagues at PROC to accept this as one more example of a challenge that we have to overcome.Very briefly, I left my office in the Justice Building on my way over here. I did not lose a vote nor did I lose a chance to speak, but I did have a side meeting set up at the request of the Minister of Democratic Institutions, and I did miss that. There were implications for this.I came out of Justice Building. I went to get on the green bus, and the driver said something to the effect that there was hardly any point getting on because the bus could not get up on the Hill because of demonstrators. I said that we should get on the bus and see how far we could go, and we would take it from there. There was one other colleague on the bus.We got as far as the “car wash”, the vehicle security area, and we were stopped again. Another bus was in front us. After a few minutes, the driver had no idea when things were going to be freed up, so I got off the bus. I went over and talked to the immediate staff, the person who was doing traffic control. He did not know but said that it could be a delay of five to 10 minutes.The driver had mentioned that all the people were walking up where the bus goes, and it was only just as we were arriving that security was putting up the fencing so that people could walk along on the Hill parallel to Wellington Street, but still leave room for the bus to go. Once that was in place, once we went through a bit of traffic management, we did finally get under way.My point is this. Over and over, ad nauseam, we have raised the issue of the lack of planning. Once again, had that fence already been in place to accommodate the Canadians who are entitled to be on their Parliament Hill, there would not have been any stoppage. It again speaks to making the planning of member of Parliament's access to Parliament Hill a priority. We really are getting tired of saying this over and over again.Mr. Speaker, I will conclude now, but I just want to say to my colleagues on PROC, by virtue of my not taking a lot of time to make this a big issue here, that I hope they will allow me to make this part of our review so that when we are looking at recommendations for change, it is both the case that you referred to us and this incident that has happened to me here today.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the Prime Minister for taking so many questions today. I would also like to point out, again, that he managed to do this without changing a single rule. No need to unilaterally use the power to ram through the changes. He was able to do it within existing rules.Will he now commit in this place that he will continue that spirit of co-operation? Will he agree that he will not use his unilateral majority to change the rules in this place and change how democracy works? Will he do that now, today?

Mr. Speaker, another day, another scandal involving KPMG. It appears it was not enough for KPMG to just advise clients on how to evade paying taxes, now it has been caught devising schemes so clients could dodge their support, divorce, or alimony obligations.Just how many more scandals do we need before the government finally launches a full investigation into the actions of KPMG?

The first step. You know it's just the first step.

Mr. Speaker, this goes well beyond an innocent discussion paper. The government House leader should not insult our intelligence by claiming otherwise.However, if she is serious about that, if she is really truly sincere that her motives are pure, will she now stand in her place and tell this House that she accepts that her government has no mandate to change the rules of democracy over the united objections of the opposition? If she will not, then it is pretty clear that her protests of innocence are even more shallow than they sound.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to take a couple of minutes to make a couple of personal comments.Last Friday, the House had the historic opportunity to debate the words of our national anthem. It was historic in terms of the presentation of the debate and certainly historic in terms of our friend, the member for Ottawa—Vanier, who was able to come from his hospital bed directly here on Friday. That alone warrants special recognition. However, I want to point to the camaraderie that day. We all know that the partisan fighting we have every day is part of what we do. However, we do have the ability to rise above that and when we do, it is important to underscore it. That is what this moment is.I want to thank my colleagues in the Liberal caucus. Some will know that the member for Ottawa—Vanier and I are particularly close. I asked to go into the salon to say hi to him before he came in. The member for Don Valley West first expressed the opportunity, if I wanted, to join their caucus and sit behind him. The chief government whip, the member for Orléans, insisted that I also be given the opportunity to escort the member in. Lastly, my new BFF, the member for Hull—Aylmer, offered up that great seat of honour over his right shoulder. I appreciated it so much that I wanted to underscore it. I thank my colleagues. I want them to know how much it meant to me and how much it—

Mr. Speaker, the 2015 Liberal platform promised this: “We will ensure that all of the officers [of Parliament] are properly funded and accountable only to Parliament.”Now the public accounts committee has unanimously called for the Auditor General's $10.8-million underfunding to be reversed.The government promised to respect Parliament, respect its officers and respect its standing committees. I ask the Prime Minister, where is this respect, and, more importantly, where is the money?

Madam Speaker, Bill S-201 is legislation designed to protect the rights of Canadians to the privacy of their own genetic information. Currently, Canadians who receive genetic testing on a variety of medical issues are at risk of being denied insurance coverage if they fail to turn this information over. Could the chair or the vice-chair of the justice committee update the House on how many expert witnesses testified and how many meetings were devoted to the study of Bill S-201 before the bill was reported back to the House?

Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today to pay tribute to a friend and Canada's Auditor General, Michael Ferguson. Canada has lost an exemplary public servant. On behalf of the NDP and myself, I want to begin by expressing my sincere condolences to Michael's family and his colleagues at the Office of the Auditor General. A true professional who understood the importance that oversight has on the performance of government, Michael was a leader in the field of auditing and highly respected across Canada and around the world. I would like to begin my short remarks by reading quotes from Michael Ferguson to us, to Parliament. This is actually from a report entitled “A Message from the Auditor General” in 2016. This is Michael talking to us. I believe that the Office of the Auditor General of Canada is uniquely equipped to support Parliament in its oversight role. Indeed, in our work, it does not matter who sits on which side of the House of Commons. Our business is to examine the activities and programs of government, and to provide parliamentarians with impartial information about what is working and what is not. The report goes on: Despite those good outcomes, I believe that government could get more value from our audits if it used them differently—if departments and agencies focused on becoming more productive and put more emphasis on what they are delivering. After all, in one way or another, everything that government does is intended to serve Canadians. As such, government should “do service well,” to benefit Canadians, both individually and collectively. That “do service well” was a main theme that he instilled in the current public accounts committee: the idea that at the end of the day, all of the measuring, all of the performance audits, all of the accountability are about Canadians receiving the service that they are entitled to. That is what Michael was all about.I was actually the chair of the public accounts committee during the transition from Sheila Fraser to Michael Ferguson. I am going to be honest with colleagues: the only thing that was on my mind when Sheila's term was up was who on earth and where on earth were we going to find anybody who could fill Sheila Fraser's shoes. I mean, Sheila was a force of nature. The world knew about the work that Sheila Fraser did.Then along came this name. I had met him at Canadian Council of Public Accounts meetings, but I did not really know him. He was a long drink of water named Michael Ferguson, the Auditor General from New Brunswick. He did not speak French, which was a problem politically. He did not speak French at that time, as my friend from Quebec is emphasizing. I think the important end of that story is that he made commitments to ensure that he was as fluent as he needed to be in our second official language, our equal official language, and from all accounts he did that. It was another commitment that he kept when he made it to Canadians. However, those things were working a bit against him, as members can imagine, given the politics of the day, and I did not really know where to go. I had heard he was pretty good, but we had this French problem, and what were we going to do? Then I got a phone call from Sheila. I knew Sheila well. We worked together for seven years on the public accounts committee. I do not think I am betraying any confidences at this point now, given where we are. She said to me, “Look, David, I know that there is the issue around the French, and you have to deal with that. I won't speak to that. That's not my role, but I am here, David, to say that if you believe that I have any credibility and you respect my word as the former auditor general of Canada, then please do everything you can to make sure Michael Ferguson becomes the next auditor general.” Boy, did she have that right. Michael Ferguson was our auditor general. By the time Michael was done, Michael was the people's auditor. The people in Canada knew that they had a friend, an ally, in Michael Ferguson, just as they had with Sheila Fraser, and that his sole purpose was to provide accountability and transparency regardless of what party was in power, knowing the importance of working with a non-partisan public accounts committee. Those who have served on it know that it is a special calling. One does not perform the same way one does on other committees. One's job is to leave one's membership card at the door, go in and deal with the Auditor General's report findings as a parliamentarian. That is what Michael was about. He was about making sure the system worked for Canadians. In closing, I would like to quote Michael. He said: Parliamentary committees play a crucial role in challenging departments. I believe that there is an important role for parliamentary committees, whether those of the House of Commons or the Senate, to use our audit reports not just to understand what has happened, but also to make sure that changes take place. Committees should invite departments and agencies to appear before them multiple times, until it is evident that they have made the changes needed to improve their services to people. In a few years, when this government is at the end of its current mandate and I am nearing the end of mine, I wonder if I will find myself repeating these words, or if I will be able to talk about real improvements in government services built around people. I thank Mike for everything he has done for our country. He has left behind an incredible legacy and challenged us to do service better. It is now up to us, colleagues, to rise to that occasion.

Mr. Speaker, the Auditor General regularly exposes government negligence and incompetence, and today is no exception. The latest report also reveals that the Liberals refused to give the Auditor General the information he requested. The power to access information is crucial to the AG's independence and is, in fact, protected in law. After being elected on promises of openness and transparency, the Liberals have deliberately stonewalled the Auditor General.Why is the government undermining the Auditor General, and what exactly is it trying to hide from Canadians?

Mr. Speaker, today, the Auditor General reported that Canada is treating our army reservists like second-class soldiers. They are underfunded, under-equipped, and undertrained. In fact, our reservists were sent into combat without first receiving the proper international mission training. This is all unacceptable.Will the minister today commit to give reservists the training they need, the support they are entitled to, and the respect they deserve?

Mr. Speaker, this is the first time in the history of Canada that the government of the day has failed to adequately fund the work plan of the Auditor General. Given that one of the planned audits being killed is on cybersecurity, how can the government possibly justify this unprecedented attack on the work of the Auditor General and the work of oversight and accountability?

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the chair of the public accounts committee tabled “Report 11: Chapter 1, Implementing Gender-Based Analysis, of the Fall 2015 Report of the Auditor General of Canada”. In this unanimous report, our committee recommends that by April 1, 2017, gender-based analysis be made a mandatory requirement for all federal departments and agencies. Given that both government and opposition members support this report, will the government commit today to implement the committee's recommendation on mandatory gender-based analysis?