(Ottawa) The President of the Treasury Board, Anita Anand, warns that if the House of Commons does not resume its usual work, certain departments could find themselves in financial difficulty.
Published yesterday at 7:31 p.m.
Nick Murray
The Canadian Press
Monday, Mme Anand filed a request for a $21.6 billion supplemental budget to fund programs such as housing, dental care and the national school feeding program.
One of the largest items is $970.8 million for civil servant pay adjustments resulting from collective bargaining agreements.
But part of the money requested by the government is to reimburse departments for what they have already spent, and it must be voted on by December 10 according to House procedures.
Pay adjustments for civil servants, for example, included one-off lump sum payments made between 1is April and July 31 of this year.
“Smaller ministries would be disproportionately affected sooner,” Ms.me Anand on Tuesday to journalists.
We agree for the next three to four weeks, but we need to make sure that the money goes to these small ministries and then to the larger ones, which also fuel a lot of the activities of the government and the country.
Anita Anand, President of the Treasury Board
Mme Anand said $3 billion of the supplemental estimates tabled Monday comes from legislated funding requirements — such as $400 million in financial aid to Ukraine — and does not require a vote. These expenses are not threatened.
The problem, however, is that the House of Commons has been deadlocked for nearly two months, with the Conservatives pressuring the Liberals to turn over documents relating to hundreds of millions of dollars in wrongful spending in a fund of green technologies.
The issue is at the center of an ongoing privilege debate, which conservatives have vowed to pursue until they get what they want. Questions of privilege take precedence over all other business of the House, so government business does not progress.
On Monday, Liberal House Leader Karina Gould said the Conservatives were “holding the government hostage,” noting that the government had handed over nearly 29,000 pages of documents.
But on Tuesday, conservatives quickly accused the Liberals of not being transparent.
Conservative House Leader Andrew Scheer shared with journalists a letter from Michel Bédard, law clerk and parliamentary advisor, addressed to Speaker of the House Greg Fergus, in which he claimed that the government had withheld and redacted certain pages, relying on provisions of the Access to Information Act.
PHOTO PATRICK DOYLE, THE CANADIAN PRESS
Conservative House Leader Andrew Scheer
“Obviously the government chooses which documents it turns over,” Scheer said.
“We are once again faced with a situation in which the Trudeau Liberals choose to paralyze Parliament with this scandal. They would rather paralyze Parliament than hand over documents related to this scandal to the RCMP. »
Liberals ordered to hand over documents
While opposition parties could side with the Liberals to end the privilege debate, neither the NDP nor the Bloc Québécois appear willing to do so. They both asked the Liberals on Tuesday to hand over the documents.
“What we are seeing in the House right now is deplorable. But the Liberals are not transparent and do not provide documents containing essential information. The fact that documents are completely redacted is not responsible,” said New Democrat MP Alexandre Boulerice.
PHOTO SPENCER COLBY, CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVES
New Democrat MP Alexandre Boulerice
And then we have the Conservatives, who engage in systemic obstruction, who refuse to vote on their own motion and who continue to make amendments and subamendments to delay the work of the House.
Alexandre Boulerice, New Democrat MP
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Mrme Gould said she is still talking with the NDP and Bloc, but she did not say whether the government was trying to build support to end the privilege debate.
The Bloc said it had had no meaningful discussions with the Liberals on the matter.
” Not really. Not much happens about it. It’s rather calm,” declared the parliamentary leader of the Bloc, Alain Therrien.
PHOTO ADRIAN WYLD, CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVES
The parliamentary leader of the Bloc, Alain Therrien
We don’t know what’s going to happen with the supplementary estimates. We are in total impasse, in total darkness. As for negotiating so that we can open Parliament, [les libéraux] just need to provide the documents.
Alain Therrien, parliamentary leader of the Bloc
Last month, Mr Fergus ruled that the government “clearly did not fully comply” with a House order to provide him with documents relating to a now-defunct foundation responsible for the distribution of hundreds of millions of federal dollars for green technology projects.
The Liberals have said ordering the production of documents to be given to the RCMP blurs the lines between Parliament and the justice system.
The RCMP said it would likely not be able to use the documents in an investigation if they were obtained that way.
Conservatives argue that police should have access to all the information before making a decision.
