Government spending in limbo as Tories, Liberals continue game of chicken in House

OTTAWA — Treasury Board President Anita Anand is warning that if the House of Commons doesn’t get back to regular business, some government departments might be in financial trouble.

On Monday, Anand tabled a supplementary estimates request for $21.6 billion to fund programs including housing, dental care and the national school food program.

One of the biggest-ticket items is $970.8 million for compensation adjustments for civil servants as a result of collective bargaining agreements.

But some of the money requested by the government is to repay departments for what they’ve already spent, and it must be voted on by Dec. 10 in line with House procedures.

The civil servant compensation adjustments, for instance, included one-time lump sum payments issued between April 1 and July 31 of this year.

“The smaller departments would be impacted disproportionately earlier on,” Anand told reporters Tuesday.

“We are OK for the next three to four weeks, but we need to make sure that money flows to those smaller departments and then ultimately the larger departments, which also fuel so much of the government’s and the country’s business.”

Anand said $3 billion of the supplementary estimates tabled on Monday are from legislated funding requirements — like $400 million in financial aid to Ukraine — and don’t require a vote. Those expenditures are not at risk.

At issue, however, is that the House of Commons has been deadlocked for nearly two months as the Conservatives press the Liberals to hand over documents relating to hundreds of millions of dollars of misspending on a green-tech fund.

The issue is the focus of an ongoing privilege debate, which the Conservatives have pledged to keep going until they get what they want. Privilege matters take precedence over all other House affairs, so government business is not proceeding.

On Monday, Liberal House leader Karina Gould said the Conservatives were “holding the government hostage,” noting the government has handed over nearly 29,000 pages of documents.

But on Tuesday, Conservatives were quick to accuse the Liberals of not being forthcoming.

Tory House leader Andrew Scheer shared with reporters a letter from Michel Bédard, the law clerk and parliamentary counsel, to House Speaker Greg Fergus that said the government withheld and redacted some pages — leaning on provisions of the Access to Information Act.

“Clearly, the government is picking and choosing which documents it hands over,” Scheer said.

“We are yet again faced with a situation that the Trudeau Liberals are choosing to keep Parliament paralyzed with this scandal. They would rather grind Parliament to a halt than hand over documents related to this scandal to the RCMP.”

Although opposition parties could side with the Liberals to bring the privilege debate to an end, neither the NDP or the Bloc Québécois seem willing — with each of them on Tuesday calling on the Liberals to hand over the documents.

“Right now what we see in the House is deplorable. But the Liberals are not being transparent and are not providing documents with essential information. Having documents completely redacted is not responsible,” said NDP MP Alexandre Boulerice, speaking to reporters in French.

“And then we have Conservatives, who are doing systemic obstruction, who refuse to vote on their own motion and keep making amendments and sub-amendments to delay House work.”

Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Gould said she’s always having discussions with the NDP and the Bloc, though she wouldn’t specifically say whether the government is trying to get support to end the privilege debate.

The Bloc said it has not had any meaningful discussions with the Liberals on that front.

“Not really. There’s isn’t much happening on that. It’s pretty quiet,” Bloc House leader Alain Therrien said in French.

“We don’t know what will happen with the supplementary estimates. We’re in a total impasse, total darkness. As far as negotiating for us to open up Parliament, (the Liberals) just have to provide the documents.”

Fergus ruled last month that the government “clearly did not fully comply” with an order from the House to provide it with documents related to a now-defunct foundation responsible for doling out hundreds of millions of federal dollars for green technology projects.

The Liberals said ordering the production of documents to be handed over to the RCMP blurs the lines between Parliament and the judicial system.

The RCMP has said it likely would not be able to use the documents as part of any investigation, if they were obtained in this way.

The Conservatives maintain the police should have access to all the information before they decide.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 19, 2024.

Nick Murray, The Canadian Press