Procedure and House Affairs Committee on March 22nd, 2011

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

That's what I needed to hear to move forward.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

--and the obligation now is to take a vote.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Great.

The vote is that we sustain the chair....

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

A recorded vote.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Michelle Tittley]

Members are voting on the motion that the decision of the chair be sustained.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Let's finish this piece and we'll go on to discussing. Either way we'll have a motion to discuss.

(Ruling of the chair overturned: nays 6; yeas 5)

It was not sustained.

We'll now go back to the original motion, Mr. McKay's motion.

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

Mr. Chair, I'd like to move an amendment to Mr. McKay's motion. The second paragraph, the one that I noted, is problematic because it's based on other evidence. I'd like to move that this be deleted, and when you're finished doing that I'll then speak to the motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

All right. We have an amendment from Mr. Reid to remove paragraph 2 of Mr. McKay's motion.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Do you consider that to be in order, sir?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

I do.

Mr. Reid, on the amendment.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Let me just read what the second paragraph says, and you'll see, I think, why I think it should be removed. By the way, there are some odd capitalizations and there's a grammatical error in here. I think it should be a lower-case “s” in “speaking”.

That the parliamentary secretary, speaking for the minister, was himself misled when he spoke in the House on behalf of the minister, saying that “the Kairos application did not meet agencies' priorities”. We now know this also to be untrue. The parliamentary secretary has done the honourable thing and apologized to the House, as he too was misled.

We don't know that he was misled. I suspect if he was brought before this committee he would say he wasn't misled. He might say he misunderstood. You can see the distinction there. And because I know I'm going to be challenged on relevance or something, the reason I mention the distinction is that “misled” involves an outside agency.

If, Mr. Chair, you misled me as to the location of today's meeting by telling me it's in Room 112-North, then it is--

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Which I may have....

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

No, actually, in all fairness, the reason I was late was based on my having misunderstood. That's actually a good example.

So the thing is, you misled me by telling me that. Now, you might have done it intentionally: I think I'll play a joke on Scott, so I'll tell him it's 112-North. You could do it--

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

He's discussing his point here.

Mr. McGuinty, is that a point of order?

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Yes, I have a point of order.

Maybe, Mr. Chair, we could ask Mr. Reid whether he intends to filibuster until 1 p.m., because then we could all get on with other business.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

You're the one bringing all the points of order.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

I have a number of people on the speaking list. I'm certain that after Mr. Reid there will be plenty.

Thank you so much.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

So he's not filibustering, sir, or...?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

You know, that's the mind-reading skill that I haven't quite yet developed, Mr. McGuinty. It's getting there, but....

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

I had the floor when you interrupted it so many times, Mr. McGuinty--

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I appreciate it. Thank you for your indulgence.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Mr. Reid.

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

Thank you.

If we all had the mind-reading skills that Mr. McGuinty expects the chair to have, writing this would be so much simpler. We'd be able to find out whether or not Mr. Abbott had been misled. We could look into his brain, find out those answers, and come back and say, “Based upon our mind-reading skills, we've discovered how he feels.”

We don't have those skills. We rely upon testimony. We rely upon certain rules we have, accepting everything that is said by a member in this place as being truthful.

We don't have him here. We don't have that information, right? So we are relying upon our imaginations to say that he was misled.

Now, in all fairness, this does not say “deliberately misled”, so there's no suggestion, as worded, that it...misled by Minister Oda, or who he was misled by. Nor is there an implication....

Well, there is, of course, an implication a mile wide that it's deliberate, but there's no.... It's not stated overtly that...misled deliberately as opposed to not deliberately.

The point is that “misunderstood“ is a completely legitimate alternative meaning.

Now, given the fact that it's not possible to make an amendment to paragraph 2 that says “misled or misunderstood” without essentially obviating the purpose of paragraph 2, which was to be a list in the “bill of wrongs”, the list of wrongs--

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Surprisingly enough, I have another point of order.

Mr. Proulx.

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

Maybe it's not a point of order but more a point of information.

I just want to make sure that this is being recorded. I'm sure Mr. Reid will want to listen to himself again.

Is this being recorded, Mr. Chair?