PCs promise changes to restore relevancy of public accounts committee
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Claudia Chender, the NDP House leader and MLA for Dartmouth South, said committee reform is desperately needed.
‘Since that change happened a couple of years ago now, when they (Liberals) unilaterally changed the public accounts committee, we have been consistent and vocal on the need to broaden the agenda, setting the process back to what it formerly had been which was not restricted to reports of the auditor general and to increase the frequency of the meetings,’ Chender said Friday.
Chender, a member of the public accounts and other standing committees, said in general, ‘many of our committees could use something of an overhaul.’
She said there are a number of committees, including public accounts, health, community services, natural resources and economic development and veterans affairs, but they rarely have a direct impact on legislation that moves through the House.
‘They are educational and helpful,’ Chender said, noting that it’s a privilege to hear from different stakeholders but standing committees at the federal level and other jurisdictions have a more direct impact on legislation.
‘There’s room for improvement but I would agree that the first order of business is to restore public accounts to its former state.’
Chender said public accounts is the only committee that’s not controlled by the government, with all other committees in a majority situation being chaired by a government member with a majority of government members sitting on the committee.
’As a result, the will of the government is done in those committees,’ Chender said. ‘Public accounts is chaired by a member of the opposition and as such has different opportunities both to set agendas and to call witnesses and to conduct its business.’
The House will sit next Friday to select a Speaker and Chender said House leaders and a handful of other members will then get together to form the committees with each caucus submitting proposed membership lists.
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Chender said the government’s commitment to reforming committee operations is encouraging.
‘As with every government commitment, we wait until it is fulfilled before we celebrate,’ Chender said. ‘We’ll soon see, but certainly, subsequent to the election, we have heard specifically that the (public accounts committee) agenda will broaden. …. That’s important because at any given moment we have issues that are very germane and important to the province that may or not be the subject of a current auditor general’s report, issues like housing and so many issues that we are seeing in health care. We want the opportunity to be able to canvass those topics.’
Chender said she’s still waiting to hear something concrete on a greater frequency of public accounts committee meetings, ‘but I’m cautiously optimistic.’”