Evidence of meeting #38 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was information.
A recording is available from Parliament.
3:50 p.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
You said that this had to do with a recusal from this issue, from votes related to this issue, and I didn't know there was a vote on this issue anywhere.
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
The motion? No. The recusal I was referring to was the recusal that may be imposed on a public office holder in the event that they report a matter on which there may be a conflict of interest. The consequences would be that a member shall not participate in any debate or any votes, as you could understand, on a matter of conflict of interest.
I raise the point from the standpoint that if there is another statute of Canada under which there is an alleged infringement, there may be a reporting requirement and the commissioner may, parallel to how they handle conflicts of interest, require a recusal of that member on matters relating to the item they reported.
I give that simply as an example of some items that I found very interesting in reading this. I should also indicate--
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
Sorry, Chair, I simply have no idea what that has to do with this case at all. It seems to me that you have rambled through a lot of documents that were prepared for you that have absolutely nothing--
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
Order, please.
I'm sorry. We're into debate. This is not a point of order.
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
And I've made a ruling that the motion is in order. Mr. Hubbard's motion is in order.
June 3rd, 2008 / 3:55 p.m.
Conservative
Russ Hiebert Conservative South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC
Can you clarify? You said earlier that we would be moving to the witnesses at this point. Is that the intention?
3:55 p.m.
An hon. member
Call the question.
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
No, no. I'm sorry. The member has rights. He has asked for a point of order, and I want to hear from Mr. Tilson.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
Mr. Chairman, I want the record to show that you made a ruling without allowing members of this committee to debate whether this motion was in order or not in order. I can assure you that members on this side would be arguing very strenuously that this motion is out of order.
You never gave us a chance to do that. You simply went willy-nilly with your ruling without giving us a chance to speak. Accordingly, Mr. Chair, I would challenge your ruling.
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
The decision of the chair that the motion is in order has been challenged by Mr. Tilson. It is not debatable. I must put the question immediately.
(Ruling of the chair sustained)
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
3:55 p.m.
An hon. member
Yes.
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
And I agree.
If I may, in respect to Mr. Tilson, if I were to allow everybody to debate admissibility, we'd be going for days. I made a ruling. There is still going to be a debate on this thing.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
It's exactly the way we handled it with the Mulroney-Schreiber issue. The first thing I did was rule on admissibility.