Subscribe to our Newsletter

Subscribe to our Newsletter

Government Motion 5 - Referral of Supplementary Estimates

Ms Blakeman: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I’m happy to concur with Government Motion 5, which is to refer the supplementary supply estimates to the Committee of Supply.

I think that what is also important as part of this process on supplementary supply – and I have put this idea forward a number of times with my colleague the Government House Leader, but I would also like to put it forward in the context of the supplementary supply referral request today – is that we do come up with some sort of a formula by which we can determine the number of days that we take out of this Assembly to debate supplementary supply in the future. We’ve had a very uneven history of this over the time that I’ve served in this Assembly, and we have reached the point of extreme difficulty for the Official Opposition and, I’m sure, the third party to be able to try and bring meaningful debate to supplementary supply estimates debates when we are looking at almost a billion dollars and, I think, last time 14 different departments. We were not able in the time allotted to debate each and every one of the ministries that had money added into its budget.

I would argue that is a requirement of this House that we do allocate enough time to thoroughly debate what is in front of us. I know that at the time the President of the Treasury Board and myself had quite an extended exchange on policy, and then later he took me to task as I raised this very same request for a formula for having wasted all that time on policy discussion. In fact, I think that was an important part of what we were trying to do. Who says that we’re not allowed to discuss policy as part of this?

As part of my concurrence and, I’m sure, my caucus’s concurrence with referring these estimates to Committee of Supply, I would ask the House to please consider developing some kind of a formula and, if I may, suggest that we look at something that would be more than one day’s worth of debate if the amount were over a billion dollars or if more than six departments were involved in receiving additional funds.

Thank you for allowing me to add that into the concurrence motion on the referral. I appreciate that opportunity, and I’m happy to support the government motion. Thank you.