Finance Committee on Oct. 1st, 2012

[Some hon. members]

On division.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Shall I report the bill to the House?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

That ends the clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-28.

I want to thank our officials for being with us here today. We appreciate your comments to the committee. Thank you.

I understand, Ms. Nash, you may want to address the issue of pre-budget consultations and the motion. The clerk had told me that.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Well, it was Mr. Hoback who raised the issue.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Sorry; let me just check this.

I'm going to suspend here for a minute.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

I call this meeting back to order. I want to thank members for their patience.

We have two very small housekeeping items to address.

Mr. Hoback had raised the issue with us regarding pre-budget consultations. Typically, the committee has adopted a motion that we not have substantive motions during pre-budget consultations to enable the committee to do its work and to not allow for interruption of witnesses. I'm going to move a motion that I recommend we adopt as a committee:

That the Committee, for meetings outside of its regular schedule, do not consider any substantive motions.

What that means is if members or parties want to bring motions forward, they would have to do so between 3:30 and 5:30 on Mondays and Wednesdays, and the motion would have to be addressed in that time as well. As you all know, we've added a number of hours especially for pre-budget consultations; this motion would not allow motions to occur from, say, 5:30 to 6:30 on Monday and Wednesday evenings or Tuesday and Thursday meetings.

Go ahead, Mrs. Glover.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Mr. Chair, when we have witnesses confirmed to attend even on the Mondays and Wednesdays, is it the case that we may have motions that will come forward and perhaps delay our hearing of the witnesses on pre-budget consultations who have travelled here from across the country?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

The way I've done motions in the past, which seems to work fairly well, is that if I have a motion and I know it's coming forward that day, I will allocate a time period at the end of the meeting. If a member really wishes it to occur during the pre-budget consultations session, first I would see if they'd want to do it at another meeting so that we'd be able to do it. However, if we had witnesses, my suggestion would be that we would hear witnesses from 3:30 to 5:00, and then deal with the motion, and then deal with the second panel of witnesses. Hopefully, if we can deal with the motion in 15 minutes, we wouldn't take too much time away from witnesses.

Does that answer your question?

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

It does, Chair. That would be my concern. Again, in pre-budget consultations the potential exists, then, that we would be interrupting witnesses who have travelled here a great distance. If they're lengthy, will we cut it off at 5:30, so we wouldn't go over? How are we going to deal with that? It's the process that I'm questioning here.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

If this motion passes, then we would have to deal with the motion by 5:30.

Now, I'm just saying that. In typical parliamentary procedure, a member can move a motion at any time they have the floor, so if an issue came up such that a member wanted to move it when the witnesses were sitting there, the member could do so. I would recommend they not do so, as the chair, but it's parliamentary practice that they can do so. We can't take away the right of that member to do that. That happens regardless of what study we're on, if we're sitting during our regular hours.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Right, except that we did have a joint motion and an agreement that we wouldn't put forward motions. I don't have a problem if our motion today says that we'll do it on those regular days but that we only have the half-hour window. I'd hate to see us say, “Yes, let's go ahead”, and then have a two-and-a-half-hour debate when we've got witnesses waiting. That would look bad on behalf of the committee.

I'm happy to do that if it is between the 5:00 and the 5:30 timeframe, but then it stops and the witnesses come forward. Sometimes filibustering happens, and I just don't want to see us bring people from across the country at an expense and be stuck in that position. That's all I'm concerned about, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

I don't want to see that either, but I'll just be very clear.

I as the chair can recommend, and I always have recommended, that we not do them when witnesses are here, but I cannot prevent a member from doing it, whether it's government or opposition. The clerk can comment if he wishes. We could write something that specific. Members are free to move motions unless you adopt something that says you will not deal with any substantive motions at any time, which....

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

May I move a motion, then?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

We can amend or we can have discussions offline and come back to it. I thought we had agreement. I don't want to get into a protracted discussion on it.

If there's not agreement, we can always come back to it on Wednesday. Why don't we discuss it and come back? I sense there isn't agreement here.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

We have an hour to discuss it.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay. We can keep going if the members want to keep going.

Go ahead, Monsieur Caron.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

That kind of resolution is more of an agreement between the parties to ensure there aren't any motions, especially during trips. That is my understanding. There could be a power imbalance. The fact is it's hard to have one member stand in for another in committee during a trip, somewhere else. That's also how it worked during prebudget consultations when we were on the road.

Since we are here now and we have the option of bringing someone in to replace us when we are away and motions are being introduced, I find the compromise that was suggested perfectly acceptable.

I also want to point out that it would be unfortunate not to hear from witnesses who come to make a statement. We certainly should avoid that to the extent possible. I am sure that other things will arise over the course of prebudget consultations. For example, afternoon votes are likely to cut down on the time we have. Unfortunately, it can't be helped.

So far, I think all the parties have acted in good faith. As I see it, we should continue in that spirit and follow the rules of compromise proposed. It doesn't benefit anyone to have witnesses, who have often travelled quite a distance to be with us, show up for nothing. We must hear from them.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mrs. Glover.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Can you read the motion for us again? I may have misunderstood it. I just want to make sure I got it right.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

It reads:

That the Committee, for meetings outside of its regular schedule, do not consider any substantive motions.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Then it does end at 5:30, which was my concern. Then we're fine with that. Thanks.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Go ahead, Mr. Brison.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Chair, just to clarify, this is identical to the motion we've had guiding our hearings in pre-budget consultations in other years, is it not?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

This was last year's. It says:That the Committee not undertake consideration of any substantial motion during the hearings in Ottawa, Ontario; in travel to St. John's, Newfoundland; Moncton, New Brunswick...

...and it does all the places.