Government Operations Committee on June 9th, 2011

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Yes, explain it.

[The Clerk]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The third motion on the list of routine motions pertains to this committee in particular. It deals with cases where witnesses from the same organization attend the same hearing. If the group of witnesses appearing in the first hour and the group appearing in the second hour both belong to the same organization, this motion will require the chair to consult with the committee on whether to start all over again with the round of questions during the second hour or whether to resume from where it left off at the end of the first hour. In light of the motion that has just been carried, I am not sure whether that motion is still relevant, but I remember that the chairs were supposed to consult with the committee under circumstances like that. This only applies to instances where witnesses in a two-hour meeting belong to the same organization.

I clearly remember the reason behind this motion. At the time, the president of the Treasury Board, Mr. Stockwell Day, had appeared alone during the first hour, then he left and the Treasury Board officials took over in the second hour. So the members of the committee asked the chair whether they had to start all over again with the rounds of questions or continue from where they stopped when Mr. Day left.

It is up to the committee. The motion could be set aside for this session.

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Thank you, Marc-Olivier.

Mike.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

My experience over the five years has been that it is a new meeting with new people. For example, from my own perspective, particularly on estimates, I don't bother with the minister because that has included more political questions than I've been interested in, and we've started a completely new round on estimates, during which sometimes I get more than my share of the slots. I don't see that as carrying through. I think the first hour with the minister is part of that meeting, and with officials it's a new meeting.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Peter.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

I think the clerk's recommendation is to leave this up to you, Mr. Chair. You can then talk to the people in the government, the official opposition and the Liberal Party. I feel that is a wise move.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

I can assure the committee that I would do that, in consultation and cooperation with committee members, and I don't really see it as being a big deal, frankly.

Is it necessary that we pass this motion, or are these just recommended motions?

[The Clerk]

It is in the form of an instruction to the committee chair to canvass the committee if this situation arises or happens. In my experience, it happens very rarely because mostly you will have a set of witnesses for the first hour from one organization and for the second hour it's going to be an entirely different organization appearing before you. You will start the round of questioning from scratch at the beginning of the second hour.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

It would be bad scheduling to have two groups that were so similar. I don't think we would schedule witnesses like that.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Don't you canvass for the motion?

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

We have moved the motion.

(Motion agreed to)

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Now, regarding the subcommittee, this is always contentious. We need to decide for planning future business whether we want to do that as the committee as a whole or strike a planning subcommittee. Most committees have a smaller planning committee--it's just easier--with the knowledge that anything the planning committee decides needs to be brought to the parent committee to be ratified and approved anyway. There's that comfort to the majority of the committee.

Mike, do you have some suggestions about this?

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

I actually like the operations of subcommittees, as someone who sat on other committees where the subcommittee did the work and then hopefully came to an agreement. We normally saved the time of the committee to do committee work other than subcommittee work. I am very positive about a subcommittee approach.

I am also under the assumption that the chair would be there to break ties and would not be voting on subcommittee concepts. What is the practice?

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

You and I have talked about this before.

I don't even see the subcommittee dealing with majority votes as much as trying to come to a consensus. Seeing as it's meaningless anyway if whatever the subcommittee decides has to be approved of at the main committee, I would hope that the subcommittee would meet and agree on everything that's possible to agree upon and leave anything that we can't agree upon for the main committee to decide.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Based on the information in front of me, it's you, me, and Mr. McCallum. Can we add the parliamentary secretary?

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

It's up to the committee.

My personal view is the parliamentary secretary is an agent of cabinet and has no real role. Otherwise it's sort of contrary to the independence of committees. They're welcome here, of course, but in terms of planning future business, you like to keep the non-partisan aspect of committees as prominent as possible, I think.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

The only thing is that in my experience, Mr. Chair, sometimes the parliamentary secretary knows more about what's going on than the members do. It's helpful to know what's happening in the departments they represent, and that helps in determining what we do.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

There certainly isn't any harm in having as many members as you want at it.

The biggest argument against subcommittees is that they are just one more meeting in your week, and that gets to be a nuisance. That's the reason we're trying to keep it down to a minimum. You and I get paid extra money to be the chair and the vice-chair, and these other poor MPs don't.

Peter.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm inclined to agree with you that keeping the committee to you and the two vice-chairs is the best way to function. Of course, if you add the parliamentary secretary, you have to add a member of the official opposition, which means we're moving from a subcommittee of three that is essentially on priorities to a subcommittee of five. That then begs the question that if your subcommittee is that large, why would you move forward with a subcommittee at all? There are two ways to go here. One is to keep it narrow and focused with three individuals, one of which represents each party. The other is to enlarge it to a group of five. I think for a whole range of practical reasons, it's smarter to keep it with the proposal that's here for us.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Ron was on the list even before Peter here.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

It's okay.

My experience with subcommittees is that if they aren't representative of the percentage of the main committee, then they are basically a waste of time. So you need to have a microcosm of the macro committee. That would mean the same percentage of representation on the subcommittee.

Otherwise, you would be the tie-breaker, Mr. Chair. The way it's set up, if there were two Conservatives, one NDP, and one Liberal, which are the vice-chairs, it would be the chair. So you would need one more Conservative in order to have a proper representation of the main committee.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

I'm not arguing with you, Ron, but that's sort of taking the idea that you need to win votes at the planning committee stage. Again, it really doesn't matter what happens at the planning committee because the first item of business at a main committee is to ratify and approve the decisions.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

I'm just saying in my experience it does matter, because we've had those discussions, and we've lost them at the subcommittee, and they've come back to the--

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

And you tie up the main committee with the same argument?

I see.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Exactly.

You spend a whole committee debating the whole issue of the subcommittee.