Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Oct. 24th, 2013

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

I apologize to Mr. Cullen for interrupting.

My point of order is simply this. I've heard both the official opposition and Kevin speak of the fact that the study we should be engaged in right now is the study on MP transparency. We do have a House order that suggests we have a deadline of December 2, 2013, on that. So with the greatest respect—and I would need some cooperation from Nathan on this—I think I might have something that can resolve this. I hope I do. It would require unanimous consent, but for me to move that motion, I would need Nathan to cede his time to me.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

That would work if that happens.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

It's difficult. I want to hear what the motion actually reads first, but I think that's what Mr. Lukiwski is suggesting.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

You have a bit of permission. Go ahead.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Let me read the motion, just so we can try to put a cap on this.

The motion is that further debate on the current motion, amendment, and subamendments be deferred to the next meeting, provided that the chair put all questions necessary to dispose of the motion to the committee prior to 12:59 p.m. on that day.

Quite frankly, what that says is that we defer the debate on this. We have a few moments left. We might be able to start at least talking about witnesses and things like that in the few moments we have left for the transparency study. We can go back to this discussion at the next meeting, provided that by the end of the next meeting, if it takes that long, we have a vote on the question before us.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Just quickly on your motion, Mr. Lukiwski, it's fine and I'll say it's in order, but there is no subamendment. We have a motion with an amendment, no subamendment.

Mr. Cullen, you still have the floor, sir.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Very briefly, Chair, I think this is something we can see with some significant reluctance. This is not a great process we're engaged in right now. I appreciate the attempts of the government to try to at least advance the study on MPs' expenses, because that is of greater importance I think to all of us, to have consistent rules and to get on with that work.

I will reiterate that all of this could have been avoided. There's no need for this. You simply talk to each other and try to figure out what's best for Parliament and for Canada. That's what gets done. But I will cede my time to allow this motion to be tabled so that we can get on with some other business today and perhaps at our next meeting.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

If you wish, if he's ceding his time to me, may I present the motion?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Yes, please.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

I sincerely mean this: I thank Nathan for doing that.

I move that further debate on the current motion and amendment be deferred to the next meeting, provided that the chair put all questions necessary to dispose of the motion to the committee prior to 12:59 p.m. on that day.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

First of all, does Mr. Lukiwski have unanimous consent to propose this motion?

Seeing nobody saying no, great. Now, on Mr. Lukiwski's motion.

(Motion agreed to)

That gets us off the motion that we were on.

We're now back to a couple of minutes of business, if I can do that.

Madam Turmel, I think I know what you're about to do, but just before you do, I have a couple of pieces of business I'd like to carry on with under the routine proceedings that we were trying to deal with.

First of all, with our study on the Board of Internal Economy and the transparency of MPs' expenses that is coming up, there are a couple of things I have to get out. One of them is the briefing notes that were mentioned earlier that were prepared. I'd love to have the permission of the committee to distribute those. Is anyone opposed to our doing that? I need to ask you because the independent members of our House are mentioned in the motion and these briefing notes are going to them as well, not just to members of the committee but to all the independents because they are truly, while we are discussing it, members of this committee. Great.

I have prepared a letter to the independent members as to what role they will play or how they will participate in the study of the Board of Internal Economy. I know you'd love to see it and that's what I've been trying to get to. The letter simply asks the independents to negotiate among themselves, meet with each other, and decide who is going to sit at this table.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Well, I can't talk to this guy.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

I know that, but we can't talk to these guys either.

That's basically all the letter says, that the independent members of the House of Commons will decide on their own who would be represented on which day of the committee, that it will only be one member, and those types of things. They would be governed by all the rules of the House. If one is sitting at a meeting in camera, well that's going to be really tough to share with the other members, but those types of things will take place.

Could I have permission to send that letter out to the independents so that we can get this back, because we really can't start until then?

Also on routine motions, this one sounds really silly, but the chair would like permission to be able to get a coffee without putting somebody else in his chair each time, as long as I pay attention in the room.

[An hon. member]

You're going too far.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

That's too far? Okay, then the sandwiches and coffee are going to be behind here—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

—and I'll just roll over.

As you know, our study was really to have started by now, and as it has been said, the December 2 deadline is fast, fast approaching. We need to get started. We believe the study needs to start with the Clerk of the House and we've scheduled the Clerk's appearance on November 5. Other people may accompany her that day.

The motion mentioned the Auditor General, so we've taken the liberty of trying to arrange for the Auditor General to be here. We're having some difficulty with the date, but it could work. We'll continue to work on that.

I still need a witness list from all on who else might appear. As you'll notice, we're into a November 5 start with a December 2 finish. This means that the report has to be written and back to the committee by November 28, which means that really, we must finish this before then. We have a very tight timeframe.

Mr. Julian, on that point.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Chair, we've already indicated that we're very favourable to having additional meetings on this. We think that the Canadian public wants to hear back. That means accelerating the meeting schedule as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

That may very well be, but that will take consent of the whole committee to make sure it can happen, including who's available.

We recognize that next week we do not have a meeting on Thursday. I know that for Tuesday, we've now put a motion in place to eat up Tuesday.

[An hon. member]

Mr. Chair—

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Yes.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Mr. Chair, again, I just remind all my colleagues that the motion says that the question to dispense has to be done prior to the end of the meeting. It doesn't mean that we have to take the entire meeting to debate this. If we can dispense with this within the first half hour, then we would have one-and-a-half hours left to get into things like witnesses and how we want to structure the study.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

I would like to use part of that meeting, if it's available to us, for steering, for us to know how we're going forward on this study, but it will be up to the committee, of course, as to how we do that.

There are a couple of other pieces of business that I want to cover during that. There is the whole ATIP thing we still have to pass, which we haven't done. We have to do that.

There is the motion of privilege that has come to this committee recently on Elections Canada, which matters, so we need to find time to do that.

It's our role to handle those as quickly as possible.

Mr. Lamoureux, very quickly. We're really running out of time today.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Very quickly, Mr. Chair, how many witnesses do we actually have that we can invite?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Two.

Right now, the Auditor General and the clerk are the two who were mentioned in the motion. Nobody else has been invited, because they're still awaiting the final list.