Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Oct. 24th, 2006

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Shall I report the bill to the House?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you.

Members, I just want to congratulate you all. First of all, I did hear arguments today from members who have obviously done a lot of work. Arguments were presented that I did not hear from the experts, so I want to commend you all for being very thorough in your work.

We have a motion by Mr. Dewar that was presented earlier in the meeting.

As well, I want to remind members that we might want to discuss the government's response to our thirteenth report, and then I want to have some time to talk about a code of conflict of interest, as I call it, a code of ethics.

Shall we speak to Mr. Dewar's motion first?

I'm sorry. My apologies, witnesses. You are dismissed.

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

With our appreciation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you very much for everything.

Thank you, Mr. Hill.

Madam Jennings.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

May I just clarify? Mr. Dewar, are—

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Madam Jennings, could we just give thirty seconds to the witnesses? I have two ears, but it's hard for me to hear.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

I'm sorry to interrupt, but perhaps just to help, this isn't something we have to debate today. The report has just been passed around, circulated. It's not a pop quiz.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

That's fine. Thank you very much, Mr. Dewar. I appreciate that very much. We will look at this motion in due time.

Members, I want to just bring to your attention the government's response to our thirteenth report. You all received that. I don't think we need to deal with that today because, again, it was just received, probably yesterday, by most members. I simply want members to look forward to that.

Congratulations, again, on that. There was a lot of work done. It looks like there will be a bill coming forward; however, not all of our amendments were put forward in legislation. There are some we've been asked to consider looking into in far more detail. Perhaps the steering committee of this main committee can consider whether we want to do that at some future time, but I'll leave that to committee members for the next time.

At the next meeting we will be beginning our study of the conflict of interest code. You should have received--if you haven't already, you will today--some of the conflict of interest codes from the different provinces, which the committee had requested. You'll receive that tomorrow. We can't begin that discussion today, nor, perhaps, should we.

Is there any further business?

Yes, Mr. Hill.

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

There is no further business other than to ask--I'm sorry if I'm the only one who has had a lapse of memory--what our order of business is going to be for the upcoming days. Perhaps you could refresh my memory.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

That's no problem whatsoever. On Thursday we are beginning our study of the conflict of interest codes.

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Is that all we have before the committee at the moment?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

That's all we're starting on Thursday. That's correct.

Perhaps I should add a preamble to that. I will allow time at the beginning of the meeting to discuss the response to our thirteenth report, if the committee chooses to respond to the response.

Yes, Monsieur Guimond.

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

We received the government’s response to the 13^th report. That is the purpose of my question: will we respond to the response? Will we ask Mr. Kingsley to appear before us to get his opinion on the government’s response? I again ask whether there will be legislative changes to the Elections Act, at least on the points everyone agrees on?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Yes, we did. We can do that Thursday. I see nods of heads around, and I'm getting the impression from Monsieur Guimond that we call Mr. Kingsley in first thing on Thursday to respond to the thirteenth report. Is that a good idea? I'm seeing a lot of yeses, so the first order of business on Thursday will be to have Mr. Kingsley here to give us--

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

That's if he's available. It's pretty short notice.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Then leave the discretion to me; that's either our first order of business or we'll move into conflict of interest. Is that acceptable? I'm seeing nods around the table. Thank you very much.

Go ahead, Madam Jennings.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

To provide you with flexibility, if Mr. Kingsley is available but just for the second half, let's say the last hour, we can move to conflict of interest codes first and then move over to him.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Perfect.

Yes, Mr. Dewar.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Notwithstanding the need to have some time to reflect on the motion I tabled today, I'm assuming I'll be able to have that on our agenda for our next meeting, which is Thursday, if that's agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

We got it in writing, but it's not translated. We're going to do that. We'll make sure we have that for the next meeting as well.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Okay, thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Is there any further business? Congratulations, members. I appreciate your diligence.

The meeting is adjourned.