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House Hansard - 169

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 20, 2023 11:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 169 - Mar/20/23
Mr. Michael Cooper (St. Albert—Edmonton, CPC)
  • Mar/20/23 3:26:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on behalf of the Conservative members of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to table three dissenting opinions in respect of the main reports of the committee regarding the reports of the federal electoral boundaries commissions for the provinces of Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Nova Scotia. I would like to take this opportunity to thank each member who appeared before the committee to testify with respect to their notices of objection, as well as to thank the clerks and analysts for their work and their support for the committee. We support and respect the work of the commissions and therefore broadly support the findings of the reports of each of the commissions. However, we do concur with the main reports of the committee with respect to the notices of objection of the members for Regina—Lewvan, Regina—Qu'Appelle, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman and Churchill—Keewatinook Aski.
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Context: House Hansard - 169 - Mar/20/23
Mr. Mark Gerretsen (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons (Senate), Lib.)
  • Mar/20/23 4:10:41 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member has indicated that the government has been trying to hide at every turn, which could not be further from the truth. As a matter of fact, we have had two ministers already come and answer questions by committee on this. We have told Canadians about a number of different measures we are going to take. The issue for me is inviting staff and requiring them to come to a committee, when at the end of the day, ministers are responsible, not staff. The member does not have to take this just from me; she should listen to her boss, the member from Carleton and the Leader of the Opposition. In 2010, he said: ...ministers answer questions on behalf of the government and not staff. We are not going to be changing 300 years of history all of a sudden at the behest of the coalition parties. We are not going to have the staff members appear in question period to answer on behalf of the government. We are going to do it the old-fashioned way, the way it has always been done right up until the last several months. We are going to keep ministers, the guys in charge, responsible for their duties. That was the member for Carleton, the Leader of the Opposition, who said that not staff but ministers come to committees. Why is it okay now to do this, but it was not for the member for Carleton back then?
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