Moved second reading of Bill C-18, An Act for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the federal public administration for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2021.

He said: Honourable senators, I am pleased to speak today at second reading of Bill C-18, An Act for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the federal public administration for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2021.

Bill C-18 is the government’s second interim supply bill for the 2020-21 fiscal year. Esteemed colleagues, I’m sure you remember that, at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the first interim supply bill, Bill C-11, received Royal Assent on March 13. Bill C-11 authorized spending $43.9 billion to cover the government’s expenses for the first three months of the fiscal year, April to June.

On April 20, the other place unanimously passed a motion to temporarily modify Standing Order 81, which pertains to order of supply. The Standing Orders of the House of Commons is the procedural authority that governs the practices of the other place, which are equivalent to the Rules of the Senate. This resulted in extending the study of the Main Estimates until December 2020, seven months later than in previous years.

As a result, the government has presented a second interim supply bill to receive Parliament’s approval to cover additional spending from June until December.

Honourable senators, it’s important to note that Bill C-18 doesn’t introduce any new expenditure proposals for Parliament to consider. In fact, these interim supplementary estimates represent part of the expenditure plan presented by the government in the Main Estimates.

The study of those estimates will continue until December of this year, but during that time, government departments need access to additional payment authority in order to maintain operations and continue delivering important services and programs, as well as payroll. The amount presented in Bill C-18 will be deducted from the full supply amounts to be presented for approval in December.

Extending the Main Estimates until December was an unprecedented step made necessary by the extraordinary circumstances of responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. Typically, as part of the normal supply process, organizations receive full supply from Main Estimates in June, and a second interim supply is not necessary. If this were a typical year, a full supply bill of approximately $81 billion would have been presented for approval at this time.

Bill C-18 will provide $55 billion of the operational funding amounts in the Main Estimates to federal organizations, with a balance to be provided in the December supply period.

Honourable senators, this pandemic has greatly affected Canadians and their families, both directly and indirectly.

At the same time, it’s putting real pressure on many federal organizations not only so they can provide the essential programs and services Canadians count on, but also, in many cases, so they can implement social, economic and public health measures to address the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Over the past few months, Parliament has passed a number of bills giving the government substantial spending powers intended to address the many problems this pandemic has caused in people’s day-to-day lives.

The delivery of services cannot be accomplished with only the three months of supply that was received at the beginning of the fiscal year. It is therefore necessary that Parliament provide federal organizations sufficient funding to continue all of these important functions until the next opportunity for supply this fall.

The proposed $55 billion in Bill C-18 will provide 122 organizations with critical funding for the six-month period until full supply is studied and passed.

I want to assure all honourable senators that the government does not take the magnitude of these spending needs lightly. The estimates are an essential aspect of ensuring that public funds are used by the government in a responsible and transparent manner. Parliamentarians have the right to know and scrutinize how all public funding is spent and they must be held accountable for that spending.

That is why the government is seeking approval of the additional interim supply bill in a transparent manner in order for Parliament to take the time necessary to study and vote on the Main Estimates.

Without this funding, many federal organizations would be unable to continue providing the programs and services that are relied on by many. To cite some concrete examples: critical programs providing safe and nutritious food for at-risk populations that may run out of funds in the face of excess demand; important early learning and childcare support that would be cut; and needed support for home care and mental health service programs, just to name a few.

As part of the accountability function I referenced earlier in my remarks, the government has published a detailed listing of the expenditure authorities approved by Parliament through other legislation as well as a complete breakdown of planned expenditures by standard object, such as personnel, professional services, transfer payments and more.

At the end of this fiscal year, the government will report on actual spending through the public accounts. Furthermore, our Standing Senate Committee on National Finance was given an order of reference in March to study the 2020-21 Main Estimates, and is now playing an important oversight role during the COVID-19 pandemic by examining the government’s economic response and the spending authorities that were set out in Bill C-13, An Act respecting certain measures in response to COVID-19, and Bill C-14, A second Act respecting certain measures in response to COVID-19.

The current environment is exceptional as Canada and, indeed, the rest of the world, responds to the global COVID-19 pandemic. The government introduced responsive measures to help Canadians, businesses and communities from all regions during these challenging times and is helping Canadians get through the pandemic.

The new spending plans proposed in Bill C-18 will continue to provide support to Canadians and ensure stability and predictability in the government’s financial operations during a period of economic uncertainty.

In addition to the special measures being put in place to meet these challenges, Bill C-18 will help ensure that Canadians receive the services and programs they expect from the federal government.

Honourable senators, I urge you to pass Bill C-18 and I thank you for your attention.

Thank you very much, Senator Gold, for your comments on Bill C-18. I must say I have to disagree with some of your comments with regard to transparency, and, as a member of the Finance Committee, I must say that the way we’ve been treating the money bills the last several months is very concerning to me.

Regarding Bill C-11, the first interim supply bill you referenced in your opening remarks, Senator Batters mentioned it during Question Period, and that one flew through the Senate in March. It was for $44 billion and there was no debate. As members of the National Finance Committee, we take it upon ourselves to thoroughly study all the money that the government is planning to spend and we never spent a minute on that, and it was assented to. It’s $44 billion, and it’s part of the $300 billion in the Main Estimates, and I know that that $300 billion is going to be a lot larger by the end of the fiscal year.

Now we have the second interim supply bill, and, again, that hasn’t been studied and there has been no debate except what’s happening here in this chamber, and that’s for $55 billion.

That’s really easy money for the government. They’ve got it and they’re spending it. We haven’t had the opportunity to ask what I would call good questions on it. I must say that the way the money bills are being treated is very concerning.

The other point I would like to make is that I spend a lot of time outside of the Senate Chamber reading and going through the finance department’s website, the government website and things of that nature to try to figure out what’s going on. It’s come to the point where government is spending and they’re doing so much financially and fiscally that you can’t keep track of it. You need a piece of paper and a pencil now to try to figure it out.

This is the second interim supply bill, but I would expect there will be a third because we don’t have the report back on Main Estimates until the end of the year, so there will be most likely another interim supply bill. That’s very concerning.

The year will be practically over before the Main Estimates are finished reviewing and before we can review back. The money will be spent, so what’s the point?

One of the prime purposes of parliamentarians is to oversee government spending plans. What’s the point of giving us the spending plan to study once the money has been spent? It just seems like it’s a waste of time.

This is all a small piece of the financial puzzle. Like I said, you need your pencil and paper and you need to do a lot of research now to figure out what’s going on in government financially.

We haven’t had a fiscal update, so we don’t know where we are. We don’t know what the deficit is. I know the Parliamentary Budget Officer is doing his best. He’s giving us some numbers, but we can’t figure out the impact on revenues, like the pandemic. What’s the impact on expenditures? We have had some departmental officials in to testify, but I find a lot of times that the departmental officials don’t provide the information to us. Sometimes I think they have the information, but they’re just not providing it. I know sometimes they don’t. There are a couple of examples in the past where I know they’ve had the numbers and they just won’t give them to us.

We don’t know what the deficit is. The Parliamentary Budget Officer is doing his best. I feel that the Parliamentary Budget Officer is doing things and telling us things that the Minister of Finance should be talking about.

So we don’t know the deficit, the revenues or the expenditures. We don’t know the borrowings. What’s the government borrowing now? All of this spending, even what is in this bill, that’s borrowed money. So how much is the government borrowing? You have to be like a detective. You have to be CSI to try to figure it out because you have to look at what the Crown corporations are borrowing and trying to figure that out. What’s the government borrowing?

Now, the government puts out this COVID-19 financial report every two weeks, and they indicate what their borrowings are, but you can’t tell if it includes the borrowings of the Crown corporations. There is a total number there, and it is new borrowings plus refinancing of borrowing, so you can’t split it out. You can’t find out what the incremental borrowings are. I can’t find it. Maybe it’s there, but I’m trying. I do talk to the Library of Parliament and the Parliamentary Budget Officer, but I can’t figure it out.

As I was saying, the Parliamentary Budget Officer has been answering questions that I thought the Minister of Finance should answer. Just figuring out what the government is spending, what they’re borrowing and what they’re doing is just absolutely impossible to find out.

And some of the sources of information that you go to — I think it’s terrible. We should be able to go to the Department of Finance and get the information. We have to go to the reports of the Parliamentary Budget Officer. We have to go to the Bank of Canada website. They provide more information than the Department of Finance.

At CMHC, you’re scrounging through their annual reports. You’re looking at what the C.D. Howe Institute has on their website, and the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and the reports of the International Monetary Fund. I had two part-time researchers hired — one is an IT person and one is a policy person — to try to figure out what is going on financially in the government. I just find that it’s a real challenge, and the way the government is not providing information is very disappointing.

We’re going to talk about another bill tonight, which is Bill C-19, and that’s Supplementary Estimates (A). We’ve studied them for four hours. I’ll talk about them when we get to that.

Minister Qualtrough was testifying this morning, and I had to ask her this because it’s been on my mind for a while. The government wants to reopen the economy. We’re looking at all these small businesses and the private sector. We have the wage subsidy. We’re trying to get people off CERB. Let’s get people back into their workplaces. But it seems like the government wants everybody back in their workplaces except parliamentarians.

I’m absolutely amazed. But people want to see their parliamentarians back at work. Those are just a few remarks; I do have a speech for tomorrow.

When you talk about transparency, I don’t agree with you. I find it very difficult. I would like to see the government disclose more. Those are my initial remarks. Thank you.

Would Senator Marshall take a question?

I certainly would.

First of all, thank you for your comments. All of us here are grateful to you and the other hard-working members of the Finance Committee who spend so much time on this, especially you, Senator Marshall. You’re a former Auditor General, and we all understand how much time you put in on this and that you bring your expertise to bear for this chamber and all Canadians.

I have two questions. First, in your research during these times, is there any country that is covering themselves in glory in the way in which they are disclosing their finances on the fly, or are we all part of a pack that is behaving in the same way?

Second, have your researchers been pointing to anything alarming as to who might be buying our bonds? Who is giving us the money that we are out borrowing?

Thank you. I can’t answer whether any country is disclosing financial information, but I can tell you that other parliaments around the world are meeting. They’re putting on their masks and they’re meeting. You can watch TV, the BBC and other countries. At least the opportunity is there to ask questions.

Right now, if I have questions, I have no one to ask. My official sent an email to the Department of Finance for information on some borrowings, but they’re busy with COVID-19, so we don’t get the answer.

Who is buying our bonds? That’s a really good question. I look at the Bank of Canada website and they disclose all the borrowings, and the graph goes up like this. I won’t venture to say who I think is borrowing the bonds because it’s scary.

The other point about buying the bonds that is we don’t pay enough attention to the Crown corporations. CMHC is a big corporation that’s borrowing. They borrow a significant amount of money, and they insure mortgages. The last couple of years, I’ve been asking CMHC about the risk, because there’s an exposure there for the government. They’re also raising money through the Bank of Canada, so they’re borrowing, and that’s a concern.

I have to be honest, I haven’t got all the pieces. It is a puzzle, and you have all the pieces and you’re trying to put it together. I just know that the signs aren’t good.

We haven’t had Mr. Evan Siddall from CMHC come to our committee yet, but he did testify over at the House of Commons Finance Committee. His testimony was very concerning because they’re borrowing money, they’re insuring mortgages. He’s saying now with high unemployment and the pandemic, right now people are deferring their mortgages. I have a part of my speech talking about this. People are deferring their mortgages, but at some point in time, the deferral will come to an end and they have to start paying their mortgages. Canadians are highly indebted and if people can’t pay their mortgages — CMHC have insured a lot of mortgages and they’re holding a lot of mortgages. He stated it could be up to $9 billion that may have to be absorbed by CMHC, which is a Crown corporation. That $9 billion will roll into the government’s deficit.

I can’t answer your question directly, but there is enough information there that makes me nervous, but I haven’t got it all figured out.

Honourable senators, I have a question for Senator Marshall. I too was on the committee meeting this morning and due to some technical difficulties, I know the time with Minister Qualtrough was limited.

As a former Auditor General, if you have been collecting pieces and you’re trying to make sense of it, I’m trying to imagine how those of us who are not experts would make sense of this. Are there certain pieces that you haven’t been able to find? Are you going to be talking about this in your third reading speech or are there some pieces you can talk about at this time?

The borrowings are a concern for me. I’d like a fiscal update, I would like to know about the borrowings and the Crown corporations. I have to say this because I am an auditor; I spent half my career in auditing. I was also a deputy minister for a couple of the government’s large departments. What I found when I was with the provincial government — and I probably shouldn’t say this publicly, but I will anyway — is that sometimes when governments borrow, you don’t want it to show up on your own balance sheet, so you can just maybe it park it over in the balance sheet of a Crown corporation.

You have Export Development Canada, Farm Credit Canada and some of these Crown corporations that are heavily involved in the COVID-19 programs and they’re borrowing. How does that fit into the overall picture and how is it going to affect the deficit?

I would like for somebody to come in from the Bank of Canada and explain to us what’s happening. We had the governor in, but you almost need something a bit more basic, what’s happening at the Bank of Canada? He was saying, “Fear not, everything is good.” But when you look at their balance sheet from week to week — and we follow it week to week — the numbers are still going up like that. In fact, it goes up like that.

Senator Marshall, I really like what you were saying about the debt of the different Crown corporations and the government’s debt, and how it’s financed. My question might not necessarily be on this bill, but rather a question about the mandate of the Finance Committee.

I’d like to hear your comments. Would it be time to change the mandate of the National Finance Committee to have that committee look at the cycle of indebtedness in this country so that the Finance Committee could get the information back to the Senate and we get a full picture of how Canada’s finances are working?

I have to go back and look at the mandate of the Finance Committee. I think the existing mandate would cover us off, but it would be an interesting exercise.

However, I find with a lot of those projects, it’s almost educational for the members. People keep saying “because of your expertise,” but all I do is follow numbers, read articles, read the budget book and things like that, which anyone could do. But, yes, it would be an interesting exercise, and we could come out of it better informed.

I can’t tell you if I’ve looked at it or not because I’ve read and looked at so much. If anyone sends something to my email saying that they are issuing publications and it looks like something I’d learn from, then I sign up for it. I’ve read a lot of articles by David Dodge, and he would be a good witness. I enjoy hearing from people outside of government, because they round things out and give you a different perspective.

I know people are saying we’re doing well fiscally, but Newfoundland was doing well fiscally a while back and they are not in good fiscal shape now. The tide can turn pretty quickly. We see how quickly this pandemic came up on us and the way the expenditures are ratcheting up. Things could change pretty quickly.

There were signs that problems were coming. Canadians were highly indebted, and we knew that. People had large mortgages and weren’t saving. Even three years ago I was meeting with people like David Macdonald and trying to get a handle on where we were. We knew something was coming — we just didn’t think it was going to be something like this, this big or this bad.

Is it your pleasure, honourable senators, to adopt the motion?

Some Hon. Senators: Agreed.

An Hon. Senator: On division.

(Motion agreed to and bill read second time, on division.)

Honourable senators, when shall this bill be read the third time?

(On motion of Senator Gold, bill placed on the Orders of the Day for third reading at the next sitting of the Senate.)