SIRP Committee Meeting

SUB-COMMITTEE ON IMPROVED FINANCIAL REPORTING TO PARLIAMENT OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON PROCEDURE AND HOUSE AFFAIRS

SOUS-COMITÉ SUR L'AMÉLIORATION DES RAPPORTS FINANCIERS AU PARLEMENT DU COMITÉ PERMANENT DE LA PROCÉDURE ET DES AFFAIRES DE LA CHAMBRE

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Wednesday, May 31, 2000

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[English]

The Chair (Mr. Paul Szabo (Mississauga South, Lib.): Resuming debate on the Sub-Committee on Improved Financial Reporting to Parliament of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, today we have Mr. Peter Dobell, founding director of the Parliamentary Centre, who conducted a forum with parliamentarians to cover a broad range of matters, much of which is relevant to this committee's work.

We welcome you, Mr. Dobell, and we look forward to your remarks with interest.

Mr. Peter Dobell (Founding Director, Parliamentary Centre): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Parliament's review of estimates has been an interest of mine for some 30 years. I guess it began when I staffed for 20 years the Senate national finance committee, which remains the sole body in the Senate for reviewing estimates. I was also commissioned to do a study for the Lambert royal commission on financial accountability and the role of Parliament. So it's a subject that interests me, and I'm pleased to have been invited to comment.

I read the testimony of the witnesses before your recess. I also reviewed the proposals before you. In reviewing your terms of reference, I'm struck by the fact that, to me at least, they comprise two distinct facets. Three of the four themes relate to improved information from several perspectives. Only one theme relates to strengthening the parliamentary review process.

Turning first to the improved information, I intend to say very little about that. The many proposals made are well thought out and comprehensive. I might add in passing that they should be if you calculate the tens of thousands of public service hours that have been devoted to developing these new procedures. There has been a lot of intelligent manpower devoted to this task. I mention that because it just shows what a big job it is. I do believe they will lead to better government.

In that connection, however, as Bob Marleau noted before you, governments report; Parliament holds government to account. So, in my view, the main beneficiaries of this improved reporting will be the central agencies and the interested public—that is to say, NGOs and academics who have the time and the specialized knowledge to be able to investigate and benefit from these improved reports. But I must tell you, I am doubtful that the proposals will lead to a more effective review process by committees or one that is more satisfying to members of Parliament.

For that reason, I propose to focus on trying to identify what's in this exercise for MPs and what might be done to make your role more productive. I'm going to begin by identifying some of the problems I'm aware of and suggesting what might be done to minimize those problems or to address them.

The first and the most serious is that you lack time to do the job properly. You have numerous conflicting demands on your time, important priorities. That's a point made by Marlene at an earlier meeting, and a point also made by Bob Marleau. The fact is, an effective review of estimates takes a lot of work, a lot of knowledge, and much time.

To make my point, I want to describe the most successful review in which I was engaged while working for the Senate Committee on National Finance some 15 or 20 years ago. We were looking at the employment creation programs of Manpower and Immigration. It was interesting—and this was the Senate, bear in mind—that the then deputy minister, Jack Manion, went to Paul Martin, who was then the Senate House leader, and urged him to block the committee's investigation because he said it was going to take much too much time; they just couldn't waste it on a group of senators, in this case.

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The Senate has a much more accommodating situation when it comes to committee inquiries, and there was no way they were prepared to accept it. So it went ahead.

The committee took testimony from industry, government, unions, provinces, academics, and the public, and to his credit, after the skepticism he had manifested at the beginning, Jack Manion was so impressed with the committee's report that he directed that it be sent to every manpower office in the country. He asked each manpower office—and a former secretary of mine was in a manpower office of two in Nova Scotia—to discuss and reach conclusions about the committee's recommendations.

They then were urged to meet regionally, then provincially, and finally nationally. What he found was that the committee had identified problems of which he was totally unaware and had proposed solutions. Even though the local offices of his department had complained for years of some of these problems and had made proposals, they didn't get through the central bureaucracy. The interesting thing is that he then proceeded to adopt a good number of the committee's recommendations.

But let me warn you, that report took two years to prepare. I know the Senate works slowly, but this experience proved to me that in this business of estimates review, serious estimates review, there is no quick fix.

I give you that example because I think it illustrates another point. You should not put your faith in reports prepared by the head office. They may be right, but no matter how good the system is, a committee should have the resources to check on what the head office is reporting in its reports to the House.

Given the time demands you face, which can't be resolved, to address this problem, if you're serious about committees investigating or working on estimates, they have to have substantial and capable staff resources, much more than they now have. This is critical if committees are to do a serious job. Ultimately it's your decision as a group of members as to what decisions you make, but you need the resources, the assistance of qualified, knowledgeable people with a certain memory of the problems.

The second difficulty is that reviewing estimates and performance reports is not the kind of work that appeals to all members of Parliament. In fact, I suspect it's work that attracts only a minority. It's work that requires special skills and talents. I think John Williams is one of those people who really enjoys that kind of work, but in my experience, there are a number of MPs who find that constituency work is most congenial; others are interested in policy analysis and development.

If one looks back, it's interesting that from 1968, when committees were first given the estimates taken away from the House, until 1983 to 1985, when committees were first able to decide on their agendas.... It was interesting, as one watched and as committees became experienced with what to do with the estimates, that gradually they ceased looking at expenditure and started using the opportunity to raise issues of policy. An early example was Keith Penner on the Indian affairs committee, who did an interesting report on the Northern Power Commission.

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It's significant that it's not unique to Canada. The same thing happened in Britain. Britain did have an estimates committee—one large estimates committee. They too were using this as an instrument for looking at policy rather than examining expenditure. When that committee was closed down—they call them a different kind of committee, but they are in fact standing committees—they too stopped looking at estimates and concentrated, as do our committees, essentially on policy, on legislation.

How do you resolve this problem? Well, it leaves me supportive of what was in the Catterall-Williams report: an estimates committee. I'm aware of its deficiencies, I'm aware of all of its problems, but in my view, that doesn't mean other committees can't look at estimates too. But it would be good to have one powerful committee with continuity, which would review some estimates each year effectively and would do a better job than any committees are now able to do.

Thirdly, I believe most members of Parliament come to Ottawa wanting to be constructive and creative, to propose new programs, to analyse and propose modifications to others. The problem is that when they're asked to review estimates, governments—and public servants, for that matter, of whom we have numerous representatives here and who, of course, are taking orders—have been unwilling to countenance reductions by committees, as you all are only too aware. Unless MPs have some impact on the allocation of funding, it's a fruitless exercise, as far as MPs are concerned.

I would say that the exercise, as it has developed, actually harms the development of cooperative relationships between government and opposition members in committees. They find themselves on two different sides.

The only change a committee has ever recommended that has been adopted in expenditure occurred during the 1973 minority Parliament. This isn't something that anyone on the government side aspires to, I'm sure, but the fact is that if and when we have a minority Parliament, there will be dramatic changes in the estimates process.

I now want to highlight some of the positive comments made during the earlier testimony that I think could be helpful to your subcommittee. I note first the adverse consequences of the rotation of MPs on committees that was mentioned by both Marleau and Barrados. In this respect, although opposition parties also have some responsibility, the lead for correction should come from the government side.

In another place, at a meeting on May 10, I have pointed to the serious consequences for effective committee work of rotation every two years of parliamentary secretaries, and, as a consequence, of chairpersons. If committees had continuity of membership, that would allow them to focus and develop goals and to pursue them. They would have corporate memories.

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I share Don Lenihan's emphasis on focusing on results, but with a slightly different twist. MPs have short time horizons and they're not ready, in my experience, to wait for a year or more to see if promised results are achieved. They may not even be on the committee by the time those results are or are not achieved.

Besides—and this is, in my view, a very critical point—there is little that's attractive for members of Parliament in focusing on results. Frankly, all that's being offered to them is a chance to understand better what the government has already decided it's going to do. As Don said, you'll be more able to go out to your constituents and tell them why the government is doing what it's doing. That may be okay for government members. It's pretty hard on opposition members. It still doesn't really address or provide a significant role for members.

Instead of limiting it to just focusing on results, I wonder if ministers, supported by departments, should be urged to come to committees, probably in the autumn, with options, with policies they're considering, not just reports on plans and priorities, but what the options are that they're examining at that point. They could ask the committees to review those options, to express preferences in their report. The government retains the power of deciding whether it wants to adopt the recommendations, but it's had the advantage of this input from a group of members.

The other thing that's important if that happens is that the department concerned should pay attention to the committee's report and not give it more or less the back of their hand. Six months later, by the spring, if the options recommended by the committee were to be in the estimates, the committee would then feel it had really made a contribution.

I realize this is a big change in approach. It would also involve stepping outside of the estimates timetable, although in the formal sense, bringing the options to committee in the autumn would not formally be an estimates exercise. It is consistent with the emphasis on results that Don has stressed, but the important thing is that it links results and estimates. I think that would be a huge step forward.

There were several references during the earlier meetings I read about to potential partnerships between members of Parliament and public servants. I would very much like to see this happen, but let me tell you that I've personally experienced the difficulties of moving in that direction.

Some 15 years ago I prepared a paper intended for public servants, coming from Parliament, on how public servants could better relate to MPs on committees. I thought I had devised a number of interesting ideas. On the parliamentary side, those I showed it to were enthusiastic. It was attacked and blown out of the water by the then PCO chairman, the secretary of cabinet. He considered that this was threatening to undermine the responsibility of ministers to Parliament.

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I brought along the most recent version of the instructions from the Privy Council Office to public servants on how to relate to parliamentary committees. In that document the PCO emphasizes that public servants have no constitutional responsibility to Parliament. It's a true statement; that's a minister's responsibility.

But in my experience, as a result of the emphasis on this point, all but the most self-confident senior officials, most knowledgeable, who at the same time have the full confidence of their ministers, will provide more than the minimum information needed in response to a question from a member in a committee. I know of some now retired senior officials, who were able, who did provide quite substantial responses and as a result there was that partnership. Most of the time, as you are all aware, you ask the question and the official will say, that's a question I can't answer; you'll have to put that to the minister. That makes it extremely difficult to develop a partnership.

It is my opinion that once cabinet has adopted a policy, in other words, the arguments have been thrashed out in Parliament and the decision taken, a capable official would not be undermining the responsibility of a minister if he came and provided, based on the argument in the cabinet document that was adopted, the rationale for the policy. I don't see that as being political. You just say, these are the arguments that were put to cabinet and that prevailed.

The problem is some ministers, as you are well aware, in fact pretty well prohibit their officials from dealing with members of Parliament. They are in effect directed to provide no more than the minimum. Other ministers with a great deal of self-confidence, not fearful of being driven out of office by other people in the government party, are prepared to tolerate a somewhat more active role by officials, and I'm sure when this happens one does move towards partnership.

As a former public servant, although it's a long time ago that I was one, I do believe that this is something to be pursued. I can remember—this would be 25 years ago—a committee that we were assisting, and it was on a fairly sensitive issue. We'd also had some of the officials from the same department come to an estimates meeting. There had been the usual to and fro, which officials find extremely unsatisfactory, just as unrewarding as members of Parliament find it. So then they came back later, and we decided to be a little bit unconventional. We arranged for an in camera meeting, and we asked senior officials—this was in fact the Department of National Defence—to come and review the report with us and to give us their personal reactions.

The thing I found fascinating is that after the event, when I went to the officials to ask them what they thought of the meeting, they said, that was a different committee; it wasn't the same committee. Of course, it was the same committee, but it was in a different dynamic.

I conclude by saying that I think in preparing your report you should reflect on some of the points that I'm immodest enough to think you should think about. Otherwise, I fear that the useful improvements in reporting that are being proposed and that would help if you did have staff resources.... In other words, I'm not against what's being proposed, but without some of these additional changes that would involve the role of members in the exercise, you will find in a few years that committees will not be helped to provide any more useful constructive role than they now feel.

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The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Dobell. I think your words resonate very strongly with members. We can all relate to those observations.

I would welcome members posing some questions or comments to you at this time. Who would like to start off?

[Translation]

Mr. Sauvageau.

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau (Repentigny, BQ): I don't have any questions, only a comment, Mr. Dobell. I'm happy to see you back here. We worked together on the Foreign Affairs Committee. I congratulate you for your eloquence which is still the same after all those years.

I also want to congratulate you for your concrete comments before we put an end to our activities. You are one of the last witnesses the Committee will hear before it starts writing its report. We will certainly get inspiration from your comments.

I just wanted to thank you. I have no questions.

[English]

The Chair: Marlene Catterall.

Ms. Marlene Catterall (Ottawa West—Nepean, Lib.): I have just a quick one. Let me first of all thank Mr. Dobell for his contributions to the report that was prepared on this. It was extremely valuable, and although we didn't recommend everything he proposed, he certainly helped formulate our recommendations.

Do you see any light at the end of the tunnel in terms of ways of encouraging members of Parliament to actually focus on this most central role they have, which is telling the government how much money it can raise and how it can spend it?

Mr. Peter Dobell: I reflected on it a bit. I think I found in Don Lenihan's presentation that he emphasized that results, rather than the analysis of figures, are what members are good at. I liked the idea of the reporting focusing on results.

If that happens, however, I think we have to recognize that the world, in terms of examination of estimates, has changed hugely. I know you come from municipal politics, and that is still a field where the individual elected councillor can get right into the centre of it, partly because you don't have as many conflicting demands on your time as a local councillor and, more importantly, because it's smaller—it's still big but it's smaller—and because you have a more collegial relationship with your staff, so you can benefit from their input.

I don't think you would be really well off if you went back to the way it used to be. Until 50 years ago the estimates were about public works and individual jobs and it was something that was closer to municipal estimates. Now government has become so integrated, so huge, I don't think you can aspire to a really exhaustive examination yourselves.

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What I do think you need, though, is staff who can do that, who can come to you and say, yes, those purposes, those objectives, are indeed adequately, correctly, funded. I think they even have to have the powers—which committees now don't have, even if they had the staff—to go out and do investigations themselves. It's something I recommended some time ago, to no effect, that committees should be able to send staff to do preliminary inquiries, particularly in this kind of area, to see—I put the emphasis on making sure—if what the head office is recommending is in fact what the local offices say addresses the problems they face.

One of the things members of Parliament do have the capacity to bring to the process is the fact that each of you has a constituency office and you can be in touch. I think if you had the staff who could point to certain problems, and then gave the members of the committee a checklist of things to inquire about when they're in their constituency, that would give you probably close to unique information to bring back to the committee for examination.

So the old-fashioned way is gone forever. I'm pretty sure about that. You'll never have the time to do it yourselves, but I do think there is ultimately an accountability that you would want to be able to say you'd exercised. I mean, frankly, there are many reasons I wouldn't want to be a member of Parliament. The life you lead is killing—

The Chair: We're not going there.

Mr. Peter Dobell: But what I do think is—

Ms. Marlene Catterall: You're lacking a slight streak of insanity.

Mr. Peter Dobell: All those perks.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: Yes, all those perks.

Mr. Peter Dobell: I do think...well, the fact is, to be honest, I've diverted myself. I can't even remember the point I was going to make. But it was a good point.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: I'm not looking for a magic wand, by any means, but I'd like to at least hear if you have any suggestions as to how we head in the right direction. I think there's tremendous power for members of Parliament and for Parliament as a whole in doing a good job on the estimates. It's a marvellous vehicle for promoting the policy issues that are important to them. And, yes, that whole group of reports from plans and priorities, to estimates, to results reporting....

Let me ask you, do you see much progress in getting to real results rather than just activities? That's what we seem to have seen reported on mostly—we did so many units of this, that, or the other thing. But as I see it, for many of the things that government does you aren't able to measure results on an annual basis. You may, in some cases, be able to measure results over a generation.

Mr. Peter Dobell: Yes, that's true.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: I mean, what does old age security accomplish in reducing poverty amongst seniors, for instance?

Mr. Peter Dobell: No, there's no doubt that's the case. I look at it from a rather special perspective. I'm now heavily engaged in parliamentary training abroad, and I spend a lot of my time with Russians. I have a Russian group here this week.

CIDA, under pressure from the Auditor General, has developed a matrix—the activity, the output, the outcome, and the result. The output also has indicators—you have to say, if we are successful, this is what should happen. I think that's a process that can be applied to other government programs.

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I sense from the documents that are put to you that there is a serious effort.... Now, as I said at the beginning, and I'll repeat again, the big beneficiaries of that improved reporting are going to be the central agencies. It's not just members of Parliament. But I think it's also true that parliamentary committees, if they were adequately staffed, would be able to do something.

I would like to stress that you think seriously about this idea of getting ministers to come with options. It's a real change, but the thing I keep saying to myself...and this was the main point of the May 10 meeting.

I'm going to make one appeal to all of you here. If none of you have replied to my questionnaire, I'm going to send it to you again tomorrow. I want you to reply, because it has been suggested to me that if there is evidence that a lot of members want to see change, some of the things I have identified, in particular, this musical chairs between chairs and parliamentary secretaries, could be changed. The only reason it's there is because Pierre Trudeau, in 1971, decided it would be good for morale in the government backbenches if more people could get the extra bucks that come with the job, and so—

Mr. Tony Ianno (Trinity—Spadina, Lib.): Do you know how much the extra hotel costs are that you take out of your own pocket?

Mr. Peter Dobell: Well, that doesn't mean that he wasn't still trying to make it feel good.

Mr. Tony Ianno: It comes out even if you're lucky.

Mr. Peter Dobell: Well, I accept that, but the fact is, he doubled the numbers, and he started rotating it.

I've talked to Mitchell Sharp about this, and he has compared how it differed previously, when a parliamentary secretary was intended to be a minister in training. As he said, the prime example is sitting at the top of the pile right now. I said, and he agreed, that one of the reasons many parliamentary secretaries are less than satisfied is because if you have the job for only two years, you're never going to be given—or it's a rare minister who will give you—the responsibilities that make the job interesting.

So, without rotation, it would be better, I think, both ways—better for chairs and better for parliamentary secretaries.

Mr. Tony Ianno: Was this discussion in the 1960s, or was it recently?

Mr. Peter Dobell: This is right now, May 10, and that's the question—

Mr. Tony Ianno: Did you ask him why he didn't change it?

Mr. Peter Dobell: Who, Mitchell?

Mr. Tony Ianno: Yes.

Mr. Peter Dobell: Mitchell can't change it. He wasn't the prime minister. You guys all know that there's one man in charge in this place. That's how changes take place. What he did feel was that this is not something a government would be concerned about, because it would actually make things stronger if chairmen were also compensated. That goes with it.

Anyway, I got diverted. What was the question you asked?

You've forgotten too.

The Chair: We're going to carry this on for a while yet.

Given, I think, what you've brought to us about the review processes, we've also been given a number of draft proposals related to the quality and form of information—whether there are narratives and the planning horizons are broadened, etc. In your view, is there a historic and ongoing deficiency in the quality of information we've been asked to do so that even if we were to provide a better review process, as you outlined, we would still not be fully achieving our potential?

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Mr. Peter Dobell: As I said at the beginning, I think the proposals are well thought out and would provide better information, and I've looked at them pretty carefully. I think you're doing the right thing in encouraging that. I like the idea of looking at it from time to time. But the reason I was pleased to come here is because it isn't going to help members of Parliament much. I read Don's section on what's in it for MPs, and I felt that was the only really weak part.

The Chair: Yesterday we had an interesting discussion about the whole concept of moving toward accrual reporting, which is going to commence with the next fiscal year. The issue was whether or not the estimates and the budgeting were also going to be able to be done on an accrual basis. Based on feedback from the departments, it appears that it may be too onerous for the departments to be able to tackle both in the same fiscal period.

But there was one question on which there was not a clear answer, and that was: is it essential or not an option that we keep accrual accounting for reporting purposes and continue on the same basis for the estimates? Do we have an option to do that, or is there in fact no option but for us to move to full accrual accounting on both budgeting and actual reporting?

Mr. Peter Dobell: I'm satisfied that accrual accounting is an improvement as far as government is concerned. I recognize that they probably are right when they say they couldn't do the estimates at the same time. If I were in your position, I would probably say, I'll take one bad year if I can get a guarantee that a year later the estimates will also be accrual. I don't think they want to move to accrual and then hide it. I think you might as well move and get some experience, and then they'll probably do a better job when they prepare accrual for estimates.

The Chair: Okay.

Marlene, did you have anything else you wanted to pursue?

Ms. Marlene Catterall: I had asked if you see any light at the end of the tunnel. Do you see some concrete steps that could be taken to—

Mr. Peter Dobell: I've tried to be as concrete as I can, having looked at this for years. I know you don't like the idea of an estimates committee.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: I love it.

Mr. Peter Dobell: I know you do.

I also happen to, but I realized there was no point coming to it. One of your other recommendations is about some opportunity for moving stuff around. In other words, unless members have some capacity to make change, what the hell is the point of spending any time on it?

But I think, Marlene, if you review some of these ideas and endorse them and if they are in turn adopted, even if you weren't to get some of the other things in your report, I think you would have made progress.

I'll conclude with a general observation. In this same meeting on May 10, and in the documents I prepared for it, I talked about the rotation. That's really an accident of the past we just stayed with, and it is seen now at the centre as one of the rewards open to the system. Every British type of Parliament has faced the same problem. I'm talking now about the general powers of members. What has happened? The most serious first development was polling. Until polling, members were the primary source of information on local opinion for their party leader. There were discussions in caucus and in the House. If you go back 50 years, Mackenzie King sat through almost every debate in the House, because Parliament was the real cockpit of policy development. So it was knocked out first by polling, which gave the government quicker and more accurate information on what people were thinking around the country.

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The second development was the enormous increase in the complexity of government. It used to be department by department and each one was kind of separate, so you could work on policy sequentially. But once it became totally integrated, and that's why central agencies really became important.... The big change started with Pitfield in 1976. He was the first cabinet secretary to begin to exercise the powers of the central agency. It was taken one step farther when Trudeau came back in 1980-81. Pitfield was still there, and Trudeau was no longer interested in the nuts and bolts of government. He was just high policy and focused mainly on the charter of rights. So Pitfield essentially ran the government. That stayed. Tellier was just as much the central organizer. The only change that has occurred now is that the Department of Finance has become another huge actor in the process. But it is central agencies. That is something that makes it very hard for the member of Parliament to penetrate because it's so complex.

The third fact—and I blame the media in part for this—is that the media has chosen to concentrate all of its attention on the party leader. If you go back, Mackenzie King, St. Laurent, and Pearson never talked about “my” government. They always said “our” government or the Liberal government or the Conservative government. It has become personalized now. That just means that power has been more centralized.

This is true in all democratic governments with the British system. It isn't true of the continental parliaments, because they're almost all proportional representation, which produces coalitions. Coalitions force compromise. Similarly, Australia achieves compromise because it has an elected Senate, and almost everything that goes through the lower House comes back with change.

In federal Canada we have gone farther than any other in centralizing power. Quebec, in my view, has the most advanced legislature in Canada, the one that gives the most power to members. It's still controlled from the centre, but there is a role for members. To me the interesting thing is that both Britain and Quebec concluded that in the circumstances they had to do things to enlarge the role of members, not things that would fundamentally change the power system—we're not moving toward an American system—but something that would give a role for members and would also improve the atmosphere in the House. They took the decision that committees would be appointed for two or even four years, and it's not uncommon in Britain that a committee chair sits for eight years. The Senate does that, too. In other words, there are two parliaments. If you have a good man or woman, you leave them there. They also recognized that you should give the opposition some committee chairs.

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In Quebec, it's four out of ten, and there's a formula for allocating them so that the government has the choice of the first two, and then the fourth, and then the sixth, and so on. That generates a somewhat more collaborative chamber.

They have in Quebec an absolutely fascinating practice, which is the double majority. In Quebec, a committee chair is elected by double majority. That means both the government members on the committee and the opposition members of the committee have to agree on the candidate. That doesn't mean the government has to accept someone they don't want, but it does mean they can't make the choice regardless of what other members think. They also decide on their business on the same basis in committee.

It's interesting that there is a Canadian history for that notion. In 1840, when Upper and Lower Canada were joined, the condition was that every decision required a double majority, one for Upper Canada and one for Lower Canada.

The important thing is that there has been a recognition that there must be a role for members and that they have a contribution to make. One of the interesting concepts the British have adopted is that about eight or ten bills have been referred to committee, not after first reading but before they have been adopted by cabinet. They are, in effect, draft bills. The huge advantage is that you are asking the committee to advise you on what they think and to hold hearings. It comes back to the government. The government still makes the decision; the power hasn't been lost. It has the advantage of receiving advice from a cross-section of members, and the dynamic of the committee in that situation is quite different.

I've particularly lived through the immigration committee in 1975. In that committee, the government had come up with a green paper. It was the last green paper we've ever had. Since then, they've become cabinet documents, and they're now classified. This was a document that recognized the problem, presented it, and provided certain options.

It went to committee, and the first problem was to persuade the opposition members—Jake Epp, Lincoln Alexander, and so on—that the government hadn't already made up its mind and just wanted the recommendations already decided on validated. They realized the government was genuinely looking to this committee for advice. They participated seriously. When we came to vote—I wrote the report—there were 300 separate votes and not one of them was on party lines. That persuaded me that if members are in an environment where the government hasn't taken a decision, so that government members are being asked to use their heads, to use their experience, that also changes the dynamic of the opposition, because then the opposition isn't attacking. There's nothing to attack. They too start to use their heads. Incidentally, it produces an entirely different relationship between the members who participate.

Incidentally, I was taking this idea a bit further when I put forward the proposal that ministers come to committee with options.

I do remember what I wanted to say, and I'll conclude with that point. One of the reasons I would be embarrassed to be a member of Parliament is that I believe you are right in saying it is your responsibility to review expenditure, to be accountable, and after having said on the platform “That's what I was responsible for”, I would be embarrassed to have to admit that I wasn't doing it and I couldn't do it under the system.

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Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Dobell. I think you will see much of your insights and words of wisdom reflected in the report, simply from an historical perspective, and we thank you very much for taking the time to provide us with your input.

Mr. Peter Dobell: As you can see, I care deeply, and if you do something, that will be my reward.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Peter Dobell: As the other reward, though, you're all going to get that questionnaire—please.

The Chair: Colleagues, I would like to suspend for a moment so that we can go in camera.

[Proceedings continue in camera]