Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 9th, 2012

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Okay, we are going to call the meeting to order.

This is the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, meeting 42, Wednesday, May 9, 2012. This meeting is televised.

The order of the day, pursuant to the order of reference of Monday, April 23, 2012, is Bill C-31, an act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and other acts.

I appreciate, Ms. Sims, that you've indicated you wish to address the committee, but before you do, I just want to say a couple of things.

There are 83 amendments, just to encourage you. There are bells ringing at 5:30. There are four votes, and the votes start at 6 o'clock.

The second part of today's meeting is scheduled to go until 7:30, so I need some guidance. We obviously will have to rise at 5:30. We can just not come back, or we can come back and sit for the time lost. So I'll leave you with that. I need some guidance on that. This would be for the second meeting, but I'll need some help on that as to what you want to do.

There will be a number of staff from the departments sitting in, and there are three departments: public safety, immigration, and transport, I believe. Someone is nodding his head; there's one person from transport. If we have technical questions on this legislation, the members of the departments are here to assist us, and four of them are sitting at the end of the table now.

Go ahead, Ms. Sims.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Chair, I have two things.

It would be our position that we should extend adjournment time today, so we do not lose the time. We have very limited time to do clause-by-clause. That would be our suggestion.

And I do, as I said, have a procedural motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Let's deal with the first item first.

Do we have to have unanimous consent to go past 7:30?

It appears we need unanimous consent.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Could I hear what the routine motion actually says?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

She hasn't spoken on that yet. The motion....

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

She has, actually.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Well, she hasn't, because I stopped her. The issue is what we do tonight. Do we come back?

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

That's what I'm talking about.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

The issue is that Ms. Sims has indicated that the official opposition would be prepared to come back after the vote for whatever time was lost.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

I was asking, Chair, to hear what the routine motion on the time allocation for the two days of clause-by-clause said, because it may provide us with a little guidance on this issue.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

It's not a routine motion; it's a motion the committee made in which it was agreed we would sit on Wednesday, which is today, from noon until 2 o'clock and from 3:30 until 7:30. So if we come back we would be sitting past 7:30, and we will need unanimous consent to change that. So I need—

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

How much time are you talking about, approximately?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I have no idea. You know what these votes are like.

Mr. Lamoureux.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Chair, I know that the original thought was that we would have today and tomorrow to go clause by clause. Did we put any limitations as to tomorrow after midnight, if it hasn't passed?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

No. It ends at midnight. It ends at 11:59.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

At 11:59. Now, at that time, was it decided that all questions then would be put?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Yes. It says “...the Chair shall interrupt debate and put the question on all remaining clauses and amendments, as well as all other questions necessary to dispose of this stage of the bill”.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

I can't recall. Was that in camera, that portion?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

It was a subcommittee report that was adopted by the full committee. Someone else must have been in the chair. Maybe you. I wasn't here. Ms. Sims was.

I need guidance as to what you want to do tonight.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

You'll get unanimous consent for an additional 60 minutes, or whatever it takes, whatever the amount of time was up until an additional 60 minutes. So if we have four votes and it takes 38 minutes, we'll add 38 minutes to the 7:30. But if for some reason it ends up taking two and a half hours, we're only going to add a maximum of 60 minutes. That's what we'll agree to unanimously.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Agreed?

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Mr. Lamoureux?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Done.

Ms. Sims, you still have the floor.