Procedure and House Affairs Committee on March 25th, 2011

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

I guess it's a point of order then. Might I suggest on a point of order that this be saved for after we've dealt with the question of “departmental”, and we can come back to that as a side issue?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

I'll do it that way if you like.

So a motion is on the floor to change the last sentence of paragraph 38 by striking “administrative” and putting in the word “departmental”, and doing whatever would need to happen also en francais.

(Motion agreed to) [See Minutes of Proceedings]

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Mr. Young, you have suggested a second change in that sentence. Please give it to us.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

On page 46 of the blues, Mr. Rob Walsh was quoted. He goes to great length to talk about the difference between what a department's decision is, what it means in Parliament, etc. A little further down there's a paragraph that begins, “I don't think one should, however, allow this way of talking--'CIDA decision, departmental decision'--to be used as a shield”, etc. Then he says towards the bottom, “coming from the professional level, the departmental level, and the ministerial decision, which is political.”

He is equating a ministerial decision with a political decision. So why don't we just change that word “political” to “ministerial”, because it has so many other meanings. Anyone reading this would be confused. So I would like to make a motion to change the word “political” to “ministerial” decision.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

All right.

Mr. Reid, on that point?

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

Yes.

Mr. Chair, I have two concerns about making that change. The first one is that in French I think we would now have a situation in which you say “ministériel” and “ministérielle”, which presumably would be problematic. That's problem number one.

Problem number two is the fact that the word “political” is used elsewhere, back in paragraph 33. I raised concerns at the beginning of this meeting about using consistent terminology. You'll remember that at the time I wanted to amend paragraphs 33 and 38 at the same time, which turned out procedurally to be somewhat difficult. I would hate to have us starting to depart.

My concern was over the fact that “departmental” was not being used, but we've corrected that. But if we now abandon the word “political” here, we've created further complexity.

What I would suggest, if I could....

I have a third concern, which is this.

[An hon. member]

Are you talking to yourself, Scott?

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

We're moving forward and then we're going backwards.

[An hon. member]

You're confused because you're not used to listening to him.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Gentlemen, Mr. Reid has the floor.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

What Mr. Walsh says specifically is.... Forgive me; I had it here a second ago. He uses the word “ministerial”, but he doesn't use it on its own. He talks about the ministerial or political decision. That's what I'm trying to find right now.

I'm going to suggest, once I find this.... I wish you hadn't written all over this, Mr. Young.

Okay, here we are.

I'm going to quote from the paragraph. He says:

I don't think one should, however, allow this way of talking—“CIDA decision, departmental decision”—to be used as a shield to obscure the distinction between a decision taken or a recommendation coming from the professional level, the departmental level, and the ministerial decision, which is political. There is an important distinction there.

I think he uses the same pairing, “ministerial” and “political”, together.

So if we want to do this, what I would suggest is that we amend Mr. Young's motion so that it leaves the word “departmental” in, as it is here in paragraph 38, but say “between a ministerial or departmental decision”, or else actually incorporate, if you like....

Let's do this: “ministerial decision, which is political”, in place of the words “political decision”.

So it would read: “a distinction must be made between a 'ministerial decision, which is political'”--and we can quote it because of the fact that it actually is, in Mr. Walsh's testimony, a very precise thing—“and an administrative one”.

Do you see how I divided it up? I'm making a suggestion that this amendment be made to Mr. Young's amendment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Okay.

Mr. Young, are you all right with that?

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

So putting it the way Mr. Reid said—

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

I'll speak to my proposal, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Certainly.

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

This actually comes back to the whole problem of having quotes—

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

It is getting a little loud for me to be able to hear Mr. Reid.

Thank you.

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

I'm sorry, what was that?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Don't be sorry; just be quieter.

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

I couldn't hear you. I don't know what you were saying.

Go ahead. Take some time. You'll have a breather and a glass of water and then you'll be back in shape.

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

I could have more of that excellent House of Commons coffee.

The point here is that we have quote marks on this. I raised an earlier concern about the use of quotes around the word “political”. I want to explain that this is different. My concern was that the use of quote marks might imply sarcasm. It might look like ironic quotes, the print version of air quotes. But the opposite is going in here—this is quotation for precision.

I've long maintained, and I think today is a good chance to reiterate this important point, that when you can quote, it's always preferable to paraphrasing. It's something we sometimes forget about, and we find ourselves making paraphrases that lose a bit of the precision that was there initially. They also cause us to lose the ability, as readers, to be certain of whether this was intended as a precise repetition or a general summation of what was being said.

In this case, putting the actual quotation in allows for absolute certainty of precision, and ensures that this paragraph is an accurate reflection of what had been said by Mr. Walsh. It's pretty important, because he is our legal counsellor for the House of Commons.

Those are my thoughts on the amendment to the amendment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Super.

On Mr. Reid's amendment, is there further discussion?

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

What was the amendment, by the way?

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

For Mr. McKay's benefit, what I said was—