As the Conservatives accuse the government of abusing its new-found majority powers, government House leader Steven MacKinnon is saying the Liberals want to ensure committee meetings are “transparent” and “open.”
Since the Liberal government officially became a majority on Monday, its MPs have moved to go in camera at several committee meetings and moved to adjourn unilaterally in one instance.
At a press conference Friday, MacKinnon said committees are vital to the parliamentary system and the government is responsible for ensuring accountability and transparency.
“We’re determined to continue to extend our hand across the aisle and to work with opposition parties to keep those committees transparent, open and doing their work in public as they mostly always have,” he said.
MacKinnon said the opposition also has a role to play and that if they cause delays, that will provoke a counter-reaction.
“Committees have jobs to do, they have work to do. And when opposition MPs seek only to impede and obstruct the work of committees, then obviously there has to be some order and balance brought to that situation,” he said.
“But I accept that the burden of the government is to ensure that this work remains virtually entirely done in public.”
MacKinnon said he doesn’t necessarily accept the argument that if Liberal MPs reject an opposition MP’s request to explore something, they’re acting in a non-transparent way.
“I think you have to take these issues one by one,” he said. “I think we’re also going through a period of adjustment, one that is pretty unprecedented inasmuch as we haven’t gone from a minority to a majority. Adjustments will need to be made on both sides.
“I think the Conservatives in particular might have some thinking to do with respect to how they approach committees in this situation. And I think in fairness the government needs to consider how it may always, or virtually always, work transparently and in public.”
Last week, the House of Commons human resources committee debated a Bloc Québécois motion to have the government produce documents about a $6.6-billion IT project that has gone far over budget.
While the project to modernize the systems the government uses to deliver benefits to Canadians, such as old age security, launched in 2017 with a $1.7-billion budget, the cost is now more than three times that sum.
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When the committee convened Thursday, the Liberals pushed forward with clause-by-clause consideration of an unrelated bill, without providing any notice to the rest of the committee of that plan.
Conservative MP Garnett Genuis said he was disappointed the Liberals used their new majority to end that debate and move on to another topic entirely.
At the veterans affairs committee earlier this week, the chair moved to adjourn unilaterally — a move that Conservative MPs said shut down debate on a Conservative motion to study the effects of budget cuts on veterans.
Speaking to reporters on Friday, Conservative House leader Andrew Scheer said the Liberals’ actions have amounted to an abuse of power.
He said the first thing the Liberals did when they got a majority was stack committees to allow themselves to shut down investigations.
“That’s what we’re seeing at many committees throughout this week,” he said. “This is not what Canadians voted for. This is an abuse of power that flows out of backroom deals and secret negotiations rather than power that was granted at the ballot box.”
Majority governments typically hold majorities on committees — places where the opposition can really slow down legislation.
Committees study legislation and other government business and have the power to call witnesses and require the production of documents.
After securing a majority, the Liberals passed a motion to restructure committees to give them a majority of seats. The Liberals held less than half the spots on each committee following the 2025 election, when they won a minority government.
There are now 174 members on the government benches after five MPs — four from the Conservative benches and one from the NDP — defected over the last six months.
Scheer said Friday that the Liberals are hiding facts and information from Canadians.
“This move to in camera is completely undemocratic because when a committee is in camera it means the cameras are actually shut off. It means they stop transcribing the remarks and the public and the media are kicked out of the room, so nobody knows what actually happens,” he said.
“That is not a way to run a government.”
Scheer said the issue has “come right out of left field” without any kind of discussion.
“We’re going to have to get innovative in the way we raise the alarm,” he said. “We are going to need a lot of people to shine a light on this.”
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