CommitteeWatch: Get your gavel ready, Chairman Martin ...

... by all indications, your tenure as chair of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates (OGGO) is about to get off to a rousing start.

Late last Friday, the House agreed to a not-quite-routine motion that would put the much beloved OGGO (chaired by NDP MP Pat Martin) in charge of considering -- or, in this case, reconsidering -- the full set of main estimates for the coming year.

Those estimates were re-tabled at the same time, complete with a Royal Recommendation that the new Parliament pick up where its predecessor left off when the government fell in March -- as well as any subsequent supplementary estimates that may be tabled between now and the scheduled summer recess:

By unanimous consent, it was ordered, -- That, in relation to the business of the House and notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House:

until June 23, 2011, Standing Order 81 be amended as follows:

(a) Section (4) be replaced with the following:

"In every session the main estimates to cover the incoming fiscal year for every department of government shall be deemed referred to the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates immediately after they are presented in the House. That Committee shall consider and shall report, or shall be deemed to have reported, the same back to the House not later than three sitting days before the final sitting or the last allotted day in the current period.";

(b) Section (5) be replaced with the following:

"Supplementary estimates shall be deemed referred to the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates immediately after they are presented in the House. The Committee shall consider and shall report, or shall be deemed to have reported, the same back to the House not later than three sitting days before the final sitting or the last allotted day in the current period."

Normally, the estimates -- main and supplementary -- are divvied up amongst committees according to their respective mandates, and it is before those committees that the relevant ministers and senior officials appear to take questions and provide a full overview of the nitty-gritty details of their spending plans.

As the previous Parliament did manage to work its way through most of the main estimates before the election, one could argue that very little additional study should be required, and that reducing the role of the 12 members of OGGO to something not unlike a rubber stamp is not necessarily an abrogation of their collective and respective oversight duties, but merely a time-saving trope to ensure passage before the summer break.

But what if there's a new batch of supplementary estimates emanating from the imminent budget -- or, alternately, as a result of unforeseen expenses that arose during the period of time between dissolution and the opening of the 41st Parliament? Not to mention the possibility that a non-estimates-related matter that would ordinarily fall within OGGO's jurisdiction could surface over the next few weeks, only to find itself added to the bottom of a very long to-do list.

Wouldn't it make more sense to get the full roster of committees up and running so that any such after-the-fact asks from the government get the full attention -- and scrutiny -- to which the expenditure of public money is entitled?

Yes, it could very well delay the summer break, although not likely for more than a week or so, but still: What would Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page -- or, for that matter, former Auditor General Sheila Fraser -- say about MPs putting their vacation plans ahead of their parliamentary duties?