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Request for Emergency Debate: Budget Debate Process

Ms Blakeman: Pursuant to Standing Order 30 I would like to move a motion.

Be it resolved that the ordinary business of the Legislative Assembly be adjourned to discuss a matter of urgent public importance; namely, the failure to provide written responses to questions posed during debate on the 2009-10 main estimates obstructs opposition Members of the Legislative Assembly in their review and evaluation of the budget, preventing them from making a fully informed decision on the vote.

I am aware that the motion has already been distributed in hard copy.

What brings us to this point today, Mr. Speaker, is the fact that during the estimates process 24 departments were involved in scrutiny by the opposition members and others. A number of questions were not able to be answered at the time. We have documented at least 10 instances where ministers agreed to provide written responses to the questions that we had asked. In fact, as of yesterday, the day before the votes are to take place, we had received responses from the Minister of Energy. Just today I’ve had some correspondence from the minister of finance, who I think did attempt to supply answers. I don’t think it actually got to the individual she was trying to get it to, that being our finance critic, but she did try. A total of 3 out of the 10 that we identified in Hansard as promising responses were in fact tabled either yesterday or today. We’re still far short.

Our ability to make a decision and vote on behalf of all Albertans, filling our role as the Official Opposition, has been severely compromised. That’s the crux of the debate today. It’s our belief that the government’s failure to provide adequate written responses for the information we requested during the estimates process places severe limitations on informed debate and jeopardizes our ability to accurately assess the budget.

Let me talk about urgency because that’s what we’re here to argue. This is the first year, Mr. Speaker, that we have not received a significant number of responses for answers that were not able to be given during the regular debate. In fact, I often commented on the promptness of the former minister from the constituency of Drumheller with her alacrity in providing written responses to the questions that had not been answered during her debates. We even at one point had a standing order, which was then numbered 59.05(1), that the vote not be held until answers had been tabled. Now, that standing order was in fact removed by the committee examining the standing orders, a committee that has a government majority, I might note.

We have a situation where there is no requirement on the government to provide those written responses, but there’s certainly an expectation that we would receive it. As I said, in Hansard is recorded the ministers’ agreement to that in a number of cases.

Mr. Speaker, today is the last day of the estimates process. These amounts are to be voted on in the Committee of Supply. I’m going to work my way through some of the tests that are generally used in assessing Standing Order 30. Marleau and Montpetit in 584 ask that it be specific, and I think I have been very specific. Our concern and the request for an emergency debate is because we have not been able to receive answers to questions that were outstanding from the estimates debates. It is urgent and important and, I would argue, requires urgent consideration.

M and M 585 asks that it be immediately relevant and of attention and concern throughout the province. Well, certainly, the budget and the vote on the budget is of concern to the province, a particular concern to a number of projects to be able to move forward or not. This is not a chronic issue, which is one of the tests under M and M. As I say, prior to this year we even had it in standing orders, but it had not been an issue. One or two departments might have been remiss, particularly the ones that were immediately prior to the vote, but not most of them. I mean, at best we got four responses out of 24 ministries, Mr. Speaker, so this was more of a wholesale abdication from providing us with the answers we were looking for.

Referring to the parameters set out in Beauchesne 387 to 398 on emergency debates, 387 and 389 are indicating that the primary issue is the urgency of the debate and whether there has been opportunity for debate under the rules and provisions of the House. Well, yes, Mr. Speaker. But this is about the information being provided in time for us to analyze and go forward on a vote, and that time has not been given to us.

What are the other opportunities? What else would we have to do to try and get that information? Do we have time to do it before the vote, which is scheduled for this afternoon? We have no time to go through a FOIP process at this point. As the Speaker well knows, once a written question or a motion for a return is on the Order Paper, there is a three-week delay, so that is not a possibility for us to try and get this information through some other source since it wasn’t supplied prior to today. We have very limited caucus research support. You know, again, the government has been careful to deny our request for that, certainly, through their membership on the committees that would have been able to grant us additional funds for that support. So our ability to go out and try and somehow find these answers between when we realized yesterday we weren’t going to get the answers and our ability to vote on the budget today is severely compromised. So it’s urgent, and we have no other opportunity to recoup and reassemble ourselves to do this.

The Speaker has set a test on the 28th of February of ’06 in which he talks about other opportunities for a member of the Assembly to discuss this matter, and in fact I’ve just set out that it’s not so much about the discussion; it’s about the receipt of the information for us to be able to go forward and make a decision on a vote. But, further to that, the appropriation bill next week limits us in a way that we can’t have a further discussion on it. There is nothing that compels the ministers to respond to any questions we might have if we were able to dig up the information and go back and say: “Well, here’s the answer. Can you respond to me now?” There’s nothing that compels the minister to respond. Our opportunity to seek that information has passed.

This is a genuine emergency. The budget debate is this afternoon. I would argue that when we look at that test set out by the Speaker, this is both the earliest opportunity for caucus to raise this issue and ask for an emergency debate but also the final opportunity for us to do that. The vote has been scheduled for this afternoon, Mr. Speaker.

I believe I have met the tests that are required here. We are talking about budget debates, so the usual test that would apply to an opportunity to debate a bill doesn’t come into consideration here, and I’ve already talked about that the opportunity for debate in appropriation does not compel ministers to respond to us at all. Most times they don’t, as a matter of fact. I think we have been put in a position by the government – I don’t know if it was deliberate, but it was certainly effective – where the members of the opposition are here today without the information that they need to be able to proceed, and I would ask that we suspend the ordinary business of the day and allow for that emergency debate. Perhaps we’ll be able to get some of the answers that we’re lacking before a vote is finally called.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to present that.