Health Committee on Feb. 5th, 2009

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Say that again.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

I think that's the part, Judy, that you said you would agree to, that each member would have a staff assistant.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Can I just read the whole thing out, so there's no confusion?

It reads:

That the subcommittee on agenda and procedure be established and be composed of the chair, the two vice-chairs and a member of the other opposition party.

So what we had for the opening of our session is no different from what we had last year.

In addition, what Mr. Carrie is saying is:

That each member of the subcommittee shall be permitted to have one assistant attend at any meeting of the subcommittee on agenda and procedure.

So that's what we're talking about right now.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Carrie is presenting three changes. Number one, he is suggesting that the makeup of the subcommittee be changed by adding the parliamentary secretary. That makes it—

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

[Inaudible--Editor]...parliamentary secretary. The idea, Judy, would be to allow the chair to remain impartial.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

I know that; I'm arguing against it. You're talking about having five members on the subcommittee, one of whom is a chair and another a parliamentary secretary from your side. That would destroy the balance of the subcommittee. That would destroy the nature and purpose of this steering committee, and I vehemently disagree with it.

I also disagree with your second amendment, which is the establishment of a quorum requiring that one member be present from the government and one from the opposition. That totally skews the makeup of our decision-making process, and it is not acceptable.

The only thing I could agree with is that if you want to limit the number of staff who come to subcommittees, I don't care. I only have one anyway.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

That being said, Mr. Carrie.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

I think I understand what you're saying, but again, my experience from another committee is that we actually did make decisions in the subcommittee. On what I was proposing, the opposition would outvote us three to one or three to two, so you would still have the say on that. What it does, though, I would suggest, is save our actual committee time to do the committee work.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

We don't vote.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Then you know what? That's fine. The committee operated a little differently. We were able to make some decisions at the subcommittee. It was very time efficient. It didn't take up the time of the full committee.

[An hon. member]

No.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

No? That's okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

With your permission, having heard that, can I read out what we can vote on right now? Just from listening to what you're saying, I'm hoping I have it right. If I haven't, correct me. I think we are going to vote on only this:

That the Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure be established and be composed of the Chair, the two Vice-Chairs and a member of the opposition party; each member of the subcommittee shall be permitted to have one assistant attend at any of the meetings of the Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure.

That is the only thing we're voting on.

(Motion agreed to)

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you. That's the same as last year's. The only thing that's changed is that we can bring a staffer.

On reduced quorum, we had the same motion last year and the year before. I'll read it out:

That the Chair be authorized to hold meetings to receive evidence and to have that evidence printed when a quorum is not present, provided that at least three (3) members are present, including one member of the opposition.

Mr. Carrie, you had another reduced quorum suggestion, which I handed out to everybody. Do you want to read that out? There was a change.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

There was. It reads:

That the Chair be authorized to hold meetings to receive evidence and to have that evidence printed when a quorum is not present, provided that at least four (4) members are present--

--so instead of three, there would be four, and it continues--

--including one member from each recognized party. In the case of previously scheduled meetings taking place outside the parliamentary precinct, the committee members in attendance shall only be required to wait for 15 minutes following the designated start of the meeting before they may proceed to hear witnesses and receive evidence, regardless of whether opposition or government members are present.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Dr. Bennett.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

I normally would agree with this, but I'm afraid that the behaviour last year was so appalling at other committees that I am not prepared to give any party a veto, which is, in effect, that if they don't show up, it doesn't happen and there's no quorum.

This is a group. Hopefully, we are all looking after the best interests of the public good, but we can't have one party decide that they don't like the witnesses who are coming, or they don't like the activity that's going on, and then in effect veto the meeting by not showing up. I'm afraid I think it should stay where it was, at three members.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Is there any other discussion?

Mrs. Wasylycia-Leis.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Sorry, I can't support it, and I couldn't support it under any circumstances, whether or not there was good behaviour last year, because in fact it has a couple of ramifications. The most serious from my point of view is that as a single member on this committee, I juggle House duty and committee duty, I go out to do some media or go to the bathroom or whatever, quorum isn't maintained, and I'm the one to blame.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

Cloning: we banned it.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Yes.

So just on that basis alone it doesn't make sense.

I also think it could become leverage. It could become a lever by the government to say that if you don't like something that's happening, you just decide not to attend, and then we can't proceed. That happened to us sometimes last year, right? I think we would be well served just to maintain it as is.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Is there any discussion?

Mr. Carrie.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

I've heard the viewpoint of the opposition, and if that's the way we want to move ahead....

If there are travel issues, or anything along those lines, and we have witnesses and people can't make it, we could still hold meetings and things like that, no problem.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Yes.

I think what has coloured us, in a sense, with this whole committee is that we had an excellent, smooth-running committee last year, so we're trying to prevent bad things from happening.

Right now we're voting on the reduced quorum. I'll read it out:

That the Chair be authorized to hold meetings to receive evidence and to have that evidence printed when a quorum is not present, provided that at least three (3) members are present, including one member of the opposition.

(Motion agreed to)