Opposition MPs are calling on Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government to make public the documents that govern three special agencies it has created to manage billions of dollars for major projects, defence procurement and the construction of affordable homes.
New Democratic Party interim Leader Don Davies said MPs have a right to know what guardrails and guidelines will govern the new special agencies.
“It’s alarming and it’s unacceptable,” Davies said in an interview. “These entities are anticipated to be used to fund massive amounts of money — which is not what they historically have been used for — but we expect them to have a lot of money flowing through them and the framework agreements that govern how they work have traditionally been made public.”
Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc Québécois critic for supply and government operations, also called for the documents to be made public.
“Mark Carney’s Liberals are continuing their culture of secrecy and opacity with the creation of new agencies and by refusing to reveal their functioning,” she said in a statement.
“Taxpayers have the right to know how the government spends their money, more so because the Liberals gave themselves the power to bypass laws with the [Major Projects Office].”
Conservative House leader Andrew Scheer also criticized the government’s secrecy.
“We’ve seen this track record before from this government — massive new costs that drive up the cost of living for Canadians without any transparency or accountability.”
The calls for the documents that will govern the Major Projects Office, the Defence Investment Agency and Build Canada Homes to be made public come after CBC News revealed that the government is refusing to reveal their framework agreements and business plans.
The government argues that special operating agencies can be more flexible and move faster.
While the special agencies are housed within government departments and follow many of the same rules as those departments, they can also benefit from exceptions to those rules — exceptions that are laid out in their framework agreements.
In the late 1990s — after the federal government created more than a dozen special operating agencies, a Treasury Board website described the framework agreements as key elements of the accountability of special operating agencies.
The site, which has been archived, says that framework documents “are generally treated as public documents and are made available, on request, to any Canadian.”
However, attempts by CBC News over the past couple of weeks to obtain copies of the framework documents for the three agencies have been unsuccessful.
Public Services and Procurement Canada, which houses the Defence Investment Agency, confirmed its framework agreement and business plan exist and were approved by the Treasury Board. However, it maintains the documents are secret.
The Privy Council, which houses the Major Projects Office, and the Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Department, which houses Build Canada Homes, have yet to provide copies of the documents.
Davies said he was also alarmed that a government “so early in its mandate” was setting up structures that resist scrutiny.
“Mr. Carney may be importing some of the practices that work in Brookfield or in private entities but this is taxpayer dollars and there is a different atmosphere of accountability when you’re dealing with government spending and democratic scrutiny,” he said, referencing the investment firm where the prime minister previously worked.
Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre’s office questioned the creation of the three agencies in the first place and called for them to be “scrapped.”
“The solution to end obstructive government bureaucracy is not to create more bureaucracy,” said a statement from Poilievre’s office. “Instead of getting out of the way, the Carney Liberals are making things worse with new bureaucratic offices.”
Duff Conacher, co-founder of Democracy Watch, said the government argument that the documents must remain secret is a “false claim.”
“Under the federal open government law, it’s clearly illegal to create a new government agency and then keep its key startup records secret,” Conacher said in a statement.
“This excessive secrecy denies the public’s democratic right to know and is also a recipe for waste of the public’s money, corruption, covering up wrongdoing and other abuses.”
