Procedure and House Affairs Committee on March 21st, 2011

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Lukiwski, I am a bit upset that you are still putting the opposition in the same group. We gave you our support on the last sentence you were keen on. You should maybe use your earphones.

I fully support removing the last sentence, as Mr. Brison suggested. I was wondering if it was necessary. That's what I was pointing out, because the Canadian Federation of Independent Business did not testify before us. It is more a comment the Minister of State made. So I don't see the relevance of keeping those sentences in the report. They are irrelevant.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Mr. Godin.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

I will be quick, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Blaney says that it sometimes helps to attend committee meetings. However, had he attended this meeting, he would have noted that the minority was in favour of this suggestion, and that is why it is in French in the document.

I will make the same comment as Ms. DeBellefeuille. Mr. Lukiwski just said that this is factually correct, but we have never heard the other side of the argument. This organization never testified before the committee, and I also find that this has no business being in the report.

The issue is that we wanted to have two pages. Now, it looks as though we have something to hide. If we use the “blues” at this point, we will have over 10 pages. There are elements that should be removed or added, and I feel that it's our right to decide on the report's content.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

I see no further speakers.

Those in favour of Mr. Brison's amendment?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Okay, that carries.

Now, on paragraph 34, as amended by Mr. Brison.

(Paragraph 34 as amended agreed to)

(Paragraphs 35 and 36 agreed to)

Now, on paragraph 37.

All in favour of that?

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

I'm in favour of it. I just wonder if we could put his points into bullets, because they're hard to follow.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

You're looking for it to be structured in bullets rather than carried as a paragraph?

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Or it could be numbered. For the options you could have 1, 2, 3 all lined up, or something like that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Is everybody okay with that? That's just structural.

Fine, we'll take that.

(Paragraph 37 as amended agreed to)

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

That will be in English and French?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

It will be in English and French.

Now paragraph 38. All in favour? Great.

We have now come to the four options.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Mr. Chair, you jumped a little bit ahead there. I think paragraph 38 is the four options.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

I think so too.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

It is, yes. We've accepted all four options. Thank you very much. We're done.

Wait.... That didn't work?

I guess we have to discuss each option as we go. Who wants to defend which one first?

Let's take option A, and we'll go in order.

Mr. Godin, on option A.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

I though that a motion had already been adopted on option A. The clerks' and researchers' mandate is to draft the report and to come up with a recommendation. We have four recommendations this morning, but there were not four on Friday, when we gave our analysts instructions. I suggest that we go with option A.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

If I can speak to that, the motion said they would be part of the report; it didn't say they would be all of the report. But we'll ask the group.

[Nicolas Auclair]

Pardon me, but the analysts were instructed to include this option.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

To include it.

[Nicolas Auclair]

Or to have it contain only the findings.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

So, I suggest that we go with that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Is there discussion on the motion?

Mr. Reid, and Mr. Albrecht to follow.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Four options are being suggested here. It's a tiny bit confusing. Due to the nature of whatever computer programs are being used, they're given paragraph numbers 38, 39, 40, and 41. But in practice, any of them, I assume, would be 38.

Option A is the one that was pre-written for the committee by Mr. McGuinty, I think--the coalition. It comes to a series of conclusions that simply do not match up with the evidence.

Options B, C, and D are worth looking at as alternatives. They are what is typically produced by the analysts in preparation for such a report.

Looking down, the first one.... You'll see there's a gradual change as you go through these things. The first one is:

The matter referred to this committee on March 9, 2011, has been ongoing for over four months. The committee finds discouraging the lengths to which Parliament has been forced to go in order to receive specific documents....

And so on. You can read through that.

Option C:

To comply with the Speaker's ruling on March 9, 2011, the government asked officials in charge of the relevant portfolios to put before the committee and Parliament as much cost information in respect of the [finance committee] motions and the motion adopted by the House on February 17, 2011 as reasonably possible. Following the tabling of--

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Sorry, Mr. Reid.

Go ahead.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Chair, a point of order.

We have a motion on option A. I think that it doesn't consist in mentioning the four suggestions submitted. Pardon me, Mr. Chair, but we never discussed a document's confidential section. We talked about the fact that we were in a public meeting and not in camera, but the document is confidential. My motion called for us to discuss only option A.