Canadian Heritage Committee on May 16th, 2006

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

No, he said local....

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Okay. But is that not surrounding the fact that there is going to be a formal committee meeting there? One of the concerns I want to report about that is that I have conferred with the Conservative Party whip, and our feet are glued to the floor of the House of Commons.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Will that be the case for all committee travel, Mr. Abbott?

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

I only asked him about ours.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

If this committee can't travel, then surely to God none of the others can travel.

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

I don't know what his position is on the issue of committee travel. I can tell you what his position is on Conservative Party members.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Mr. Chairman, if indeed the motion we've adopted should proceed, with a budget that is reflecting the actual costs.... I think this is not reflecting actual costs, because it's not six days, it's three days. I went through this. If you need translation for one day, surely to God you can get it for less than $27,000.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

It's just $2,000.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Is it $2,000? That's fine. Okay, the total is $27,000.

But if you skip the registration fee, then you're looking at a budget cost of half that, or even less. That's quite normal, quite in the parameters that our committee is used to, and we should submit it. If the House leaders--because the prerogative of committee travel rests with House leaders--refuse to have this committee travel, then they will find out among themselves and we'll act accordingly. But that's a decision that rests with House leaders.

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

I agree completely. I just wanted to report. The process has been put in place by this committee by a majority vote and the process will come to its logical conclusion. I just wanted to report that from the perspective of the Conservative Party whip, we aren't going anywhere.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

If the Liaison Committee, which you'll go to, Mr. Chairman, agrees to free up the money and the House leaders agree, the whip will have to live with that, whether it's the Liberal whip or the Conservative whip. I'm sorry, but that's the way it's been and will presumably continue to be.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

I was surprised to see that we were going for five or six days. My sense is that we were going to go to Banff...I would prefer maybe two full days, where we were sitting in hotels inviting people to come to see us, and a bit of time to also see some of the work they're doing, and then we would leave.

It also seems to me the standard order of business is that we would make the recommendation, and then the whips would come back and tell us if they're going to support it or not. So I don't think we should be self-censoring.

My concern is that I'd like to get an answer soon enough, because if the Conservative Party are going to stay in Ottawa, I'm certainly going to be going to my whip and asking for time to go to Banff regardless, just to meet people, because I do think it's very important, as a critic, to be there. I would prefer that all critics were there, but we shall have to see.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Mr. Fast.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Chair, just for the record, whether my whip or my House leader authorizes the expenditure of these funds, I will not be attending, so you can already knock the budget down by whatever the proportional share is.

I did listen to Mr. Angus earlier in our meeting talk again about not having much time to get the business of this committee done, given the fact that June is just around the corner. Now we're talking about using up perhaps two of our committee meetings for that trip. On top of that, some of us serve on two committees, so that's four committee meetings I would be missing. It's just not justifiable at this point in time. I made that point last time, and I haven't changed my opinion.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we had that debate. I would be curious to know if the minister is going or not. If it's important enough for the minister, perhaps it is for others as well.

May I bring up another matter?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

I think we'd better settle this one first.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

I thought we'd settled that already at the last meeting.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

What we will do is ask our clerk to give us a revised budget and get it to each one of us as quickly as possible. Again, we're off next week.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Mr. Chairman, I thought you had the authority to proceed. This is very nice, but I--

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Yes, okay. We'll get a new budget and I will go to the Liaison Committee. We will proceed that way. But we will get it to everyone, and if there are any other problems with that, get back to me. Okay?

Thank you.

Yes.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

On another topic, are we under...?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

You're under another topic.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

I'm going to pick up on something Mr. Angus said and Mr. Fast has commented on, which is the lack of time and the overwhelming amount of work we do. We had agreed that this particular meeting would deal with two items: a series of motions plus the review of appointment or nominee. Could we possibly, Mr. Chairman, entertain that at the next meeting on May 30...? You told us that the nominee will be present. Could we also entertain receiving someone else for the second half of that meeting? Could we entertain that? I will have a suggestion at that point.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

One thing that is on the agenda already is Mr. Kotto's motion. How long is it going to take us with the...?

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

I would have thought we might want to hear from CBC/Radio-Canada, and to see any views.... We could have, first of all, them responding to some of the past requests of the committee in terms of regional programming and what not, and their views and concerns, hopes and aspirations vis-à-vis this mandate review in preparation of our exercise at reviewing and commenting on and offering modifications to the terms of reference of the mandate review.