Finance Committee on Oct. 31st, 2012

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

Yes.

Since the schedule that the subcommittee established says that the fifth meeting to deal with the other bills, including Bill C-45, would be held on November 29, but that Ms. Glover's motion mentions November 21, and since November 21 will be the day after the deadline set for receiving amendments from the various committees, I propose:

“that paragraphs (d), (e) and (f) of the motion be sent to the Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure for study at its meeting of Wednesday, November 1, 2012”.

That is so that the subcommittee can decide the schedule of meetings and discuss the dates on which the clause-by-clause study of the bill can take place.

We will then be able to vote on the rest and make a decision about the other committees.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

So your amendment would be to....

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

It would be to refer (d), (e), and (f) to the subcommittee.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Do you mean tomorrow morning?

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

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay.

Then we'll have debate on the amendment.

I have Mr. Brison and Madam Glover on the amendment.

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

It was actually on the specific referrals to committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Do you want me to leave you on the list and come back to you?

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

That's fine. There are motions before these various committees currently to study parts of this legislation, and there's a delta between those motions and what we're proposing to send to those committees, so I was just proposing that we could perhaps....

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

We always look for deltas at this committee.

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

Or omegas, where possible.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

We'll go to Madam Glover, please.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

On the subject of Mr. Caron's motion, I feel that he is seeing the subcommittee's responsibilities backwards. It is really the subcommittee that studies the proposals, with a view to reducing the time over which the committee has to discuss those matters. That is why questions are referred to the subcommittee. Thereafter, the committee makes a decision on the proposals that the subcommittee has discussed.

Basically, because we are in committee, we should make the decisions here. The subcommittee will just be able to bring it back here to the committee. We have the motion in front of us and everyone is here. I move that the committee vote on the motion instead of doing things backwards in terms of the reason why we have a subcommittee.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay.

Thank you, Ms. Glover.

Mr. Caron, the floor is yours.

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

Actually, I do not think I am suggesting operating backwards, quite the opposite. The committee is not the body that establishes the schedule of our meetings and agrees on the topics we are going to discuss. The subcommittee prepares the schedule that then comes to us. We have not had a meeting in order to discuss the dates on which we are going to study various things. We do not deal with that at the committee. It is dealt with first and foremost by the subcommittee, which then provides us with a recommendation.

Unless I am mistaken, what was decided was that we were going to have a meeting in order to study the bill clause by clause. That is also going to be quite a long meeting, since there are more than 450 clauses to study. It was also scheduled to be done on the 29^th, well after the last meeting, so that we can have the time to come to grips with these matters.

With a November 20 deadline for committees to come back to us with amendments, we will need time to look at the ones the various committees send. We do not see doing it the next day as reasonable.

We could spend half an hour on the matter. But the subcommittee would be in a position to see the implications on the rest of our work calendar and also on our ability to analyze and examine quite a massive bill in a proper way and in an appropriate time.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay, thank you.

We'll go to Ms. McLeod, please.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

I think the subcommittee, then ratified by the committee, did a quite remarkable job with our schedule in terms of just having one meeting. I think it's important to point out, when we are looking at the budget implementation act, that we knew it was coming. We managed to book in a number of dates. It is also important to recognize that within this motion we are looking at having 10 other committees do substantial work, so we're in a much better position than we might have been.

Again, we will speak against the amendment. It is time to move forward and have our conversations with officials and with witnesses.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

I have four speakers. I have Madam Glover, Mr. Hoback, Monsieur Caron, and Ms. Nash.

Go ahead, Madam Glover.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

With regard to sections (d), (e), and (f), the reason they need to be voted on today is that we have a very tight timeline.

I disagree wholeheartedly with Mr. Caron, and if the clerk would like to clarify the reason we have a subcommittee, it is not so that they make all decisions outside of the committee. We try to streamline so that it can come back to committee. Mr. Caron is absolutely right that we don't always come back and put it to a vote, because there is an indication from all parties that there is consensus and we take that legitimately when we can. However, it is the committee as a whole that decides things, not the subcommittee. If they're doing so, it's by consensus, in my understanding. Again, it would be back and forth.

Nevertheless, with regard to sections (d), (e), and (f), if we do not provide the bill in the timeline that is proposed, it will not have time to go back to the House and then into the Senate and be completed by the time that we rise around the Christmas break. That's why it's particularly important that we get this done as quickly as possible.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

The comment I have here, Chair, is about the impression that the finance committee needs to restudy things that we assigned to committees to do.

You made a comment that there are recommendations that come back to this committee and that you need more time to analyze those recommendations. I disagree with that. You have NDP members on all of those committees who will be involved in all of those recommendations. It's not as if you need to reinvent the wheel and restudy what your colleagues have already studied.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Please go through the chair.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Of course. I am going through the chair.

I don't buy your argument that you need more time. You don't need more time.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

That's their argument.

Monsieur Caron is next.

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

What Ms. McLeod is saying, basically, is that we all knew this was coming.

We just learned at 3:30 this afternoon, through the motion that was served, that we would not be doing the clause-by-clause study on November 29; we would be doing it on November 21, which is one day after the deadline for amendments, which we also only learned about this afternoon.

Basically, you're asking us to vote on a timeline that was never discussed and to replace a timeline that was discussed and agreed upon by everybody. This is why I'm saying that we should take that part and discuss it. That's why I'm suggesting that the subcommittee could meet tomorrow. The subcommittee can actually bring its recommendation tomorrow. There's not much time lost. I don't know why that would be a problem. We can move the rest.

It's a bit unfair to say—well, it's very unfair—that we all knew this was coming. We just got the timeline suggested by the government this afternoon at 3:30. This is the part we have a problem with. We'd like to have a bit more time to discuss it. As for the rest, we can actually vote on it right away. I can assure you that the rest can be discussed and adopted by tomorrow, so there won't be much time lost. We're talking about something that's going to happen three weeks from now.