The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee is, by tradition, chaired by a member of the party that is the Official Opposition. And so, for that reason, the individual who chaired this committee for the last nine years — Edmonton-area MP John Williams — can no longer hold that job for he is now on the Government side of the House.
And so Liberal MP Shawn Murphy (Charlottetown) (left) was acclaimed as chair of this committee. Murphy has been on the committee for more than 5 years and was one of Williams’ vice-chairs in the last Parliament. Of course, the irony of this is that this is the very committee that did much of the investigation into matters raised by the Sponsorship scandal.
That’s why Williams, who is still on the committee, raised an objection at the committee’s first meeting this morning, immediately after Murphy’s election, that a Liberal ought not to be the chair of the very committee whose primary task for the last two years and for at least the next several months will an investigation of Liberal Party financing. Williams was joking — but only slightly.
In truth, as members of each party affirmed at this morning’s meeting, the Public Accounts Committee is among the more non-partisan of committees. “When it does get partisan, it’s big-time and usually follows what’s going on in the House,” David Christopherson, the lone NDP member of Public Accounts, told the committee. That said, Christopherson also noted that most of the decisions taken by the committee in the last Parliament were unanimous ones.
Murphy will be assisted by committee vice-chairs Brian Fitzpatrick (Prince Albert), a Conservative, and Benoit Sauvageau (Repentigny), of the BQ.
For this Parliement, the Committee will get a new researcher. He is Alex Smith and he joins committee veteran researcher Brian O’Neal. The Committee’s work is co-ordinated by clerk Danielle Bélisle.