Justice Committee on Nov. 19th, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqra Khalid]

I call this meeting to order.

Good morning, everyone. Just before we get under way, given the way things were going on Tuesday and given that we agreed to two meetings for clause-by-clause study, I used my discretion to convene this meeting at 10 a.m. Thank you. In reference to the green book, on page 1095 we see “Committee meetings are convened by the Chair acting either on a decision made by the committee or [at] the Chair’s own authority.”

Here are just a couple of housekeeping rules as we continue clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-7.

Note that we are in a hybrid format. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. The person who is speaking is the person who will be appearing on the webcast. It won't be the entirety of the committee.

As always, members and witnesses, please speak in your official language. Interpretation is available for you at the bottom of the screen.

I'm the only one appearing in person today, it seems. I'll be following the health protocols as required.

I'll ask members to please wait before speaking until I recognize you by name. Unmute yourselves using the microphone icon. When you're not speaking, just make sure you're on mute. When you are speaking, please speak slowly and clearly so that interpretation is available.

With regard to the speaking list, as always you can raise your hand. I see there are a couple of hands raised already. You can raise your hand with the blue “raise hand” function on your Zoom screen. There are no members in the room, but the clerk and I will do our best to maintain a good speaking list and speaking order.

Our witnesses today from the Department of Justice are Joanne Klineberg and Caroline Quesnel, and from the Department of Health we have Abby Hoffman, Sharon Harper and Karen Kusch.

We had left off at the last meeting in the middle of debate on BQ-3. I had Mr. Kelloway as the last standing speaker before the meeting was adjourned on Tuesday, so we shall go to Mr. Kelloway.

Then I see that Ms.—

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Madam Chair, I have my hand raised and I had it raised.

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqra Khalid]

Yes, I see that. We're just continuing from the meeting from last—

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

I have a point of privilege, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqra Khalid]

You have a point of privilege. Okay. Please go ahead.

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

I am, frankly, very distressed about how this meeting today has been handled. I feel, as a member of Parliament, that this is a matter of privilege for me.

I had a notice of meeting at 5:51 a.m. I am a British Columbia member. At 5:51 a.m. yesterday, I received a notice of meeting that said this meeting was going to proceed at the normal time, which for you in Ontario may be 11:00 a.m., but for me in British Columbia is 8:00 a.m.

To have it moved to an hour earlier at the end of the day.... The second notice of meeting came, in my time, at 2:18 p.m., which is 5:18 p.m. Ontario time. I wasn't expecting, after the normal close of the business day to receive from Ontario another notice without consultation, without discussion, without any kind of warning. In fact, my whole day from early in the morning—6:30 a.m., in fact, yesterday—was all scheduled right up until 7:00 p.m. in the evening. I didn't see the second notice of meeting requiring me to be here a whole hour earlier, which I wasn't expecting, until last evening.

I am in my constituency office now, where all my binders are, because this is important committee work. I can't just plug in and listen; I have to have my binders ready, as you all do. I have to have all the amendments in front of me. I have to be ready to go.

Just to put that in context, from the time I get up until I arrive at my constituency office is over an hour, so to be at a committee meeting a whole hour early with extremely short notice means I'm getting up at 5:15 in the morning.

I realize there are some other people here on this call who are from British Columbia as well. I don't know their personal circumstances. I don't know how far they live from their constituency offices. Maybe they have this all set up at home, but I don't have all this set up at home.

You go through a long monologue before every meeting about hybrid sessions, and we have agreed in the present circumstances to be sitting in a hybrid session. There should be more flexibility and more courtesy paid, frankly, to those of us in a time zone that's three hours earlier with respect to how we attend these meetings, how we prepare for these meetings, and what is required of us.

I want to be prepared. I want to be ready. I don't want to waste time once I'm here. This is the way one has to be.

With all due respect, Madam Chair, you may have the ultimate authority to do this. I don't even know if you do. You're telling us you do, but to do it on such short notice, to do it after a notice of meeting with the normal time was already sent out and people's schedules are set....

I'm three hours earlier. I know there are people on this call who are an hour later or an hour and a half later, perhaps. Everyone is busy. Everyone has schedules. By doing what you have done in this arbitrary fashion—I don't believe there was a subcommittee meeting, or even a request for one—you have left me at a distinct disadvantage.

My understanding is that the whole idea here should be that we work together, we co-operate together, we recognize that it is necessary to do certain things for us to carry out our duties and our responsibilities. This is a very big country. There are a lot of people watching these proceedings who are vitally interested in a piece of legislation that is going to dramatically change the health landscape of living and dying for Canadians from coast to coast to coast. To take a unilateral action announced at the end of the day and expect us to adjust everything and be ready to go, for me, very early in the morning—

Mr. Manly said something about maybe the sun coming up. He's from Nanaimo—Ladysmith—which, by the way, Mr. Manly, is my hometown—but when I looked out the window, it was completely dark, with a very empty parking lot here, because obviously the sun comes up on Vancouver Island before it hits the mainland.

These are the realities of trying to do these committee meetings in hybrid settings. We're all doing our best. With all due respect to those of you sitting in Ontario right now, you can't just do this and expect people in a time zone with a three-hour difference to just adjust on a moment's notice. It's not fair. It's a huge barrier to my full participation in committee meetings. It interferes with and impedes my ability to participate fully as a member of Parliament. It is my right and privilege as an elected official to voice the concerns of my constituents, and particularly on this bill there are many, as we've heard in witness testimony and in our discussions so far.

I appreciate that on the government side you want all this to happen really quickly, but this is a very, very important piece of legislation. It was your party, with all due respect, that prorogued Parliament. You did not do the review in June that you should have. Our colleague Mr. Garrison is completely right that this should have gone ahead, and should now go ahead, in an expedient manner, because you're now trying to push us—even to the point of, in my view, a breach of my privilege—to get something through that there was time to deal with. There was time to hear more witnesses. There was time to do this in a proper way. Now you're acting as though you can just do what you want.

I sat on the justice committee in an earlier Parliament. In fact, I had Mr. Virani's role. I know it's a tough one, so I send Mr. Virani my heartfelt sympathies. It's a big job. I did it for two years. Never once in those two years did the chair of the justice committee at that time do something like this, and that was when we were all able to be there in person.

This is not the way to foster co-operation. It's not the way to have us move forward in a timely, co-operative fashion. Frankly, once a notice of meeting is sent, I don't think anyone is sitting by their computer waiting, 12 hours later, to get a different one. I could very easily have missed this. The reason I didn't was that my colleague Mr. Moore sent an email about it, and I looked at his email. I had no reason to look at a further notice of meeting, thinking that there would be a different one. As I said, because it was so late in the day, I didn't even see it until yesterday evening.

I want this point of privilege to be regarded, and I want to, frankly, hear some discussion, because I don't think we can continue in this manner.

There are two things I'm looking for from you. I will move a motion to report this matter of privilege to the House to report your actions. I really don't want to do that, because it could delay important proceedings before this committee. I'd rather deal with it here and now by having you un-breach my privileges with the following three actions.

First, I think you should apologize for unilaterally impeding my ability to fully participate in this committee by your end-of-day, short-notice readjustment of the committee's meeting time.

Two, you should agree publicly, right now, to never unilaterally move the start time of a committee meeting unless so ordered by this committee. That at least should be a matter of prior discussion, and the time should not be earlier. It's one thing when we're getting into it and you canvass the committee and we say that we're all willing to sit another 15 or 30 minutes, but to make it earlier, in a hybrid setting, when you have British Columbia members, isn't right.

It is our duty and our job to have everything set up. We've been told this over and over again. If I don't have proper Wi-Fi, if I don't have a proper set-up, that's on me. In my case, I have to go to my constituency office because I cannot always rely on my connectivity at my home. I don't have that option.

The third thing is that you confirm on the record, at risk of contempt of Parliament if you do not provide the full truth, that you had zero conversation with the Minister of Justice or his staff, the Prime Minister or his staff or the House leader and the respective staff in which the topic of moving this committee meeting to 10:00 a.m. was discussed.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqra Khalid]

Thanks for that, Madam Findlay.

I have Mr. Maloney next on the list. Go ahead, Mr. Maloney.

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

In response to what Ms. Findlay said, let me start by saying thank you for your comments and expressing your concerns. Thank you for highlighting the need to be flexible and to work together, because I couldn't agree with you more. It's absolutely vital that we do so on a regular basis, but it's particularly heightened now when we are in the midst of a pandemic and we are working in a hybrid situation.

One of the consequences of the hybrid situation is that we have to deal with time zones, which is something we don't have to deal with when we're all sitting in Ottawa.

I regularly remind my caucus colleagues from British Columbia, who represent ridings in beautiful British Columbia, that one of the penalties for living in such a beautiful place is that sometimes you have to get up earlier than I do. I say that jokingly, but we all have to be flexible and we've all had to adapt.

We've had votes at one in the morning in this session already, which are much more difficult for those of us in Ontario or for people like Mr. Moore, in New Brunswick, than they are for people in British Columbia.

What I am saying is that I understand where you're coming from. I'm grateful for your comments and I thank you, but the chair does have the right to call a meeting at her discretion and at the time she chooses.

You also pointed out, and reminded us, how important this legislation is and that we have to deal with it on an expedited basis because of the court-imposed deadline. You also mentioned that if we get involved in a process of dealing with points of privilege and whatnot, it could delay that process, which would be very unfortunate, to say the least. You're here now, for which we are all grateful, and Mr. Manly, the same applies to you. I know it's very early in the morning.

Given that we're here in these very highly unusual circumstances, I would hope that we can get down to work and start discussing the matters at hand. Perhaps at future occasions, during committee business or at a subcommittee meeting, we can have a more thorough discussion about timing of meetings and whatnot, but for today's purposes I'd like to move forward.

We all appreciate your making the effort, Ms. Findlay, so thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqra Khalid]

Thank you, Mr. Maloney. I have Mr. Moore next on the speaking list on this same point of order.

Go ahead, Mr. Moore.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I believe Ms. Findlay—

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Excuse me, Madam Chair and Rob; it is a point of privilege, not a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqra Khalid]

Thank you for that clarification.

Go ahead, Mr. Moore.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

On this point, we've spent some time together as a committee, and I appreciate the efforts of everybody on this committee. We're all representing different parties and have different views on things; however, within Parliament, this is where some of the real work can take place. I hope we come to the committee with an open mind and a willingness to work together, away from the cut and thrust of what happens in question period. Here we can behave in a collegial manner with each other within the rules that this House sets out, within the rules that we establish as a committee.

One of the things that was set out very early when we came together was that the committee would meet from 11:00 to 1:00 EST. I appreciate Ms. Findlay's intervention that eastern time means something different here in the Atlantic region, and it means something way different in British Columbia. I appreciate the efforts everyone makes to participate. We are in uncharted territory as all of us learn to do Zoom.

I appreciate Mr. Maloney's comments. One of the key things—and we hear this from our speaker as well—that is going to enable us to move forward constructively as a House of Commons and as a committee is that we have a rules-based system. Late yesterday I was participating in another committee and received this notice. To be honest, I didn't even realize the time had been changed. There had been no effort whatsoever.

Madam Chair and all committee members, if you have a regularly scheduled meeting and something happens that the meeting time has to be delayed or changed in some way, it's a basic courtesy in the notice that would go out to say, “Members, this is just a notice that the meeting is starting an hour early.” That's without even getting to how this came about. Common courtesy was overlooked. We all have each other's emails.

Last night when this came out, Madam Chair, I sent you an email. I've raised this issue before when the meetings go overtime. We have agreed. We're working constructively on Bill C-7. We had a great discussion at the last meeting on the amendments, and presumably we're going to have a discussion on the bill and the amendments today.

I presume, having been an MP for a number of years, that each and every one of you, as members of this committee, have busy schedules. That's one of the things we accept as members of Parliament. Whether it's with constituents, whether it's our Parliamentary duties, whether you are a parliamentary secretary or a chair or a member of a committee or a minister, whatever role you play in this Parliament, we're all busy.

One of the things we do is we balance that. We balance our personal life, the role we have in our constituencies and the role we have in Ottawa. The way we balance it, most of us, is with our calendar. If my calendar says a meeting is from 11:00 to 1:00.... This is how it works in the business world. It's how it works everywhere. In my experience as a parliamentarian, as a former chair of a committee, as a former parliamentary secretary, 99% of the time that's how it works. The meeting starts when you say it's going to start, and when it ends, everyone usually scurries off, because we all have something else to do.

For example, this morning I had a meeting scheduled for 10:00 EST, which is 11:00 Atlantic time. When that notice came out to bring the change in the meeting time to my attention, I didn't see it when I received the notice in my email. When it came to my attention that the meeting had been changed, my staff—after hours, after some of them had already gone home—had to make adjustments and let the people that I was meeting at 10:00 know that I couldn't have that meeting because something had come up outside of my control. It's just basic common courtesy.

I wouldn't want anyone to be under the illusion that manipulating things at the last minute would somehow move things along faster. I think, if anything, if we can't trust each other around the table.... I get that we have different roles to play. I get that some of us like this bill and some of us don't. I hope that we're all working in the best interests of Canadians, and we're going to get to that. We may be together as a committee for who knows how long. I don't know. We don't know when the next election will be. We don't know how long we're each going to be in our respective roles, but we may be working together as a committee. The only way this is going to work is that when we agree on something like this, it doesn't change at the last minute.

Madam Chair, I want to draw your attention that I've heard from other chairs and I've heard from the whips that when these meetings are set, there are limited House resources, and that when these meetings are set, it's done with the whips' approval. The whips of our respective parties make the decision on when our meetings take place. We abide by that. I spoke personally with the whip of the Conservative Party, who told me that this was the first he was hearing about it. He didn't know that the meeting time had been changed.

I refuse to believe that maybe everyone was in the dark. I don't think everyone was in the dark. I know the Conservatives were in the dark. I know that we just barely would have even been here had it not been brought to my attention that the meeting was starting an hour early. Frankly, I would think that there were discussions among some members of this committee about moving the meeting at the last minute to an hour earlier. That is not respectful of the people around this table, this virtual table, and it's not respectful to one another as colleagues.

I endorse what MP Findlay has said in her question of personal privilege, We can't conduct ourselves this way. This is why we have Marleau and Montpetit. It's why we abide by a certain set of rules. It's why speakers make rulings and we abide by those rulings. It's why we make decisions together. We have a rules-based system.

Am I to believe on days when the justice committee is scheduled, or perhaps even days when it isn't scheduled, that I should book the whole day off, that I won't know when the meeting will start and I won't know when the meeting will end? We cannot operate that way.

I want to endorse what's been said and I want to say that I'm willing to work together with everybody. I think we all have our nation's and our constituents' best interests at heart, even though our views are different on different things. In this committee is where we have the opportunity to put a lot of the things aside that happen in the chamber and in the media and get some real work done. We have a willingness to work together, but we have to abide by the rules and the schedules that we set out.

As of today, my schedule says that this meeting ends at one o'clock, so this meeting needs to end at one o'clock. If there's unfinished business, we could all look at why there is unfinished business. It could be because the House was prorogued. It could be because the government is looking at this deadline that was imposed and that's been extended a number of times.

I know that we, as parliamentarians, have all been receiving.... I've received emails from people who would have liked to have spoken at committee. It became very clear to me as we heard committee testimony on Bill C-7 that it's a complicated issue—we all knew that when we went into it—but we heard some very interesting perspectives from physicians, from people in palliative care, from specialists who deal with people, from persons with disabilities who spoke through their organizations unanimously and who spoke as individuals before this committee. Rather than talking about the fact that we may have had a breach of our privilege as parliamentarians, it would have been good to hear from more witnesses. Instead, we haven't heard enough from witnesses, and now we're spending time on this wrangling.

I think it's important that we have this conversation now, because this is going to impact how we work together going forward. I do want to say that I'm completely willing to work with everyone, but we have to have good faith and we have to have a rules-based system. Sending out a notice without any kind of red flag to take special notice because there's a different time.... If it hadn't been brought to your personal attention, I suspect that many of us wouldn't be logging on for another 20 minutes and then we would find out that the meeting was already taking place. I think there were conversations. I believe there were.

As well, Madam Chair, I would like an answer to MP Findlay's question. Did you have those conversations with either the parliamentary secretary, the whip's office, or the office of your party's House leader and not even make a courtesy call or send a courtesy email or a courtesy text to members of the Conservative Party?

As I mentioned, Madam Chair, I emailed you last night with the suggestion that I was sure that, like me, many people already had things booked. If you ask me about tomorrow, I have things scheduled for tomorrow. So if something came up that I had to deal with, it would involve moving things around. Likewise, most of us probably had things scheduled this morning, unless we knew in advance that this was going to happen. I didn't know in advance.

I ask you to consider that, Madam Chair. I ask members of the committee to work together in good faith and to consider that how we conduct ourselves on this bill is absolutely going to impact how we work together going forward. We have the opportunity, I believe, to do some really good work together, some important work for Canadians and for this Parliament. That's what we've all been elected to do here. Contrary to what we've seen so often in other countries that don't have a rules-based system, that's one of the beauties of Canada. We have the rule of law. Parliament is the keeper of these laws. We make laws here, and we expect Canadians to follow rules. We wouldn't pull the rug out from under a Canadian. We wouldn't expect there to be one rule one day and then a different rule the next day. We expect Canadians to abide by the rules.

Likewise, we as parliamentarians have to abide by the rules. The way we conduct ourselves at the justice committee is to have our scheduled meetings. We don't take advantage of each other's time by extending a meeting without any notice or starting a meeting an hour early with barely any notice. We have respect for each other and we operate under the rules.

Madam Chair, if you or any other member of this committee or, as a matter of fact, any member from any other party, did reach out to me on an issue, I'd be happy to take a call, happy to take an email, happy to respond with my thoughts, happy to have that discussion. But we just can't conduct ourselves this way.

Madam Chair, I ask that you give some type of response to Madam Findlay's question of privilege as well. Thank you.

I certainly do look forward to working with everybody on this and other things in the future.

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqra Khalid]

Thank you for that, Mr. Moore.

Mr. Cooper, I have you next.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I wish to speak in support of the points that have been raised by Ms. Findlay.

I want to say, at the outset, that I have a lot of respect for you, Madam Chair. We served on the justice committee through the entirety of the last Parliament. I know you as a colleague and as someone who, I believe, is doing your best to try to work co-operatively with members and to make this committee work as best as possible.

In the last Parliament, in the justice committee, we dealt with some pretty significant pieces of legislation, including the predecessor to Bill C-7, namely Bill C-14. Throughout, there were certainly disagreements on policy and broad issues.

One of the things I really appreciated about this committee was that we could look at the issues and the legislation before us in a serious way. That didn't mean putting aside partisanship, because there are legitimate differences. However, we worked together in a collegial way. I believe all members of the committee, regardless of their perspectives, worked in good faith together.

I guess what is disappointing—again, with the greatest of respect I have for you—is that, as Mr. Moore said, we are based upon a rules-based system. We need to respect members' schedules and their time commitments.

In the five years now that I've been a member of Parliament, I have never been in a situation where the chair of a committee unilaterally called a meeting prior to the agreed-upon schedule. I talked to Mr. Moore last night, who served here for 11 years, from 2004 until 2015, and then since 2019. That's 12 years in this place. He noted that he had never seen anything quite like this.

In terms of my schedule, this has actually caused quite a bit of disruption. In fact, I had a press conference that had been scheduled for 10 a.m. It was ready to go. There were a number of stakeholders who were prepared to attend that press conference at that scheduled time.

I happened to find out about this scheduling change around six o'clock last night. I happened to find out from another member, whom I was working with to coordinate the press conference. As a result, we had to completely rearrange the schedules of multiple individuals, causing considerable inconvenience.

Had I not been moving ahead with a press conference, I might not have even heard that the committee schedule had been changed. It's true that you sent out an email, but I think there should be a reasonable expectation amongst all members that we shouldn't have to look at our email every 10 minutes or every hour, because somewhere out of thin air a committee meeting is going to be called.

Indeed, in terms of this committee's schedule, the whips of all parties had agreed that committees that fit within our time slot are to meet no earlier than 11 a.m. Part of the reason for that is time zone issues and the considerable issues they cause for members who are living on the west coast—a three-hour time zone change. Ms. Findlay had to be here at 7 a.m.. Had I not been here in Ottawa, it would have been 8 a.m. for me in Edmonton.

I guess what this illustrates—again, this is not out of any disrespect to you, Madam Chair—is the process involving Bill C-7. At every step of the way, the government has sought to ram this legislation through without meaningful consultation with experts, with physicians, with key stakeholders. We've had four meetings, which have provided limited opportunity to hear from witnesses on a whole range of concerns that have been raised, from the disabilities rights community, from many health professionals, from the UN special rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities.

We have seen, and in fact the press conference I held today.... This is a point I want to raise after we deal with the question of privilege brought forward by Ms. Findlay, about the voices of physicians who sought to submit briefs to this committee, but whose briefs were rejected because of an arbitrary deadline to submit briefs that no one knew about, other than perhaps the Liberals. This speaks to a process that is fundamentally flawed, and it cannot stand.

I hope, Madam Chair, you will take seriously the concerns that have been raised—I believe, in good faith—by my colleagues, in particular Ms. Findlay, who has raised a number of substantive points, and that going forward we will govern ourselves in such a way that we abide by schedules.

At the very least, in the circumstances, it would seem to me appropriate that the vice-chairs would have been consulted, but even that didn't happen. And so, here we are: members spread out across the country having to completely rearrange our schedules to deal with what is one of the most complex and important issues before Parliament.

I think the point of privilege raised by Ms. Findlay needs to be dealt with, and going forward I think there needs to be an assurance provided to all members that we will stick to the allotted schedule. If we simply stick to the allotted schedule, I think we will prevent these issues from arising.

We've had issues, as Mr. Moore noted, when the meeting went over schedule. I know that in part sometimes it was because of your effort to accommodate members; nonetheless, it creates issues.

Again, I hope that going forward we will abide by our schedules, and that with that understanding we can work in a collegial way—disagreeing when necessary, but having a level of respect that I think is so important if this committee is to function in a way that I think all Canadians hope it will as we deal with the very important issues that are before our committee.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqra Khalid]

Thanks for that, Mr. Cooper.

I have Mr. Lewis next on the list.

Go ahead, Mr. Lewis.

[Chris Lewis, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to this.

My heart definitely goes out to our good colleagues of every party on the west coast.

In my previous career, I travelled across Canada, and quite frankly, North America—obviously, by plane. Although I could do a lot of work over the phone, I did a whole bunch of work in one-on-one meetings with various stakeholders.

Being from Ontario, I went both east and west. The time zones certainly get to you. That's why I'm saying I can appreciate our friends to the west, as well as to the east, because our schedules are incredibly tight. When I was doing my sales job, I'd never quite know what time of the day it was.

The other thing I would never do, though, was change a meeting at the very last minute, the night before, unless a flight was cancelled. I found out about 7:45 last night from my chief of staff that this meeting had been changed.

Why is that important? I'll tell you exactly why.

I am disappointed this morning because I had the most amazing Zoom meeting with a young woman from my riding, as well as a teacher in her classroom. It was a meeting purely to say hi, but more importantly, to give inspiration, to say, “Everything is possible. Go change the world. Leave the world a better place than you found it.” It had been scheduled for a week, and I had to cut that meeting short because of this meeting. That's not fair. It's not fair to the grade six class that they didn't get more time to be with their MP.

There was a reason I booked it for that time. I didn't bring that up to the class, because I didn't want to show frustration, but with all due respect, it's the real cusp of disrespect to MPs when we're trying to reach out. Everybody is incredibly busy. I find it appalling that this is happening.

I had the pleasure and the honour to sit on the international trade committee prior to this. That was right in the heart of CUSMA. We sat for days, eight or 10 hours per day, to rush legislation through. Everybody on that committee agreed that we would sit for days and hours to rush the legislation through, because it had to be done.

The second piece of legislation, now, that I see being rushed through is MAID. However, there is one thing that never happened on the international trade committee: The chair never changed the times.

If we go back to an email that I got on November 6, I believe the whips all came together and agreed that the justice committee would be on Tuesday, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., and on Thursday, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Nowhere in there do I see anything different.

I have to be very honest with you. I think it's incredibly disrespectful that Mr. Moore did not get a response to his email last night that was sent out, be it from yourself or somebody else.

In closing, I guess it goes like this: If I did this to one of my constituents, if I just decided to turn the channel and do this to them, I would probably be out of a job. At the very least, Ms. Findlay deserves nothing shy of an apology on this front, as well as our other colleagues from the west.

Again, Madam Chair, I have the upmost respect for you. I truly do. I realize this legislation is very important, but at the same time we have to be methodical, we have to be strategic, and we have to have open conversation about this. That open conversation could have happened when government was prorogued, but to disrupt MPs and their schedules is completely disrespectful.

The last thing I would leave you with, and I think we can all agree on this, is that I'm supposed to have House duty this morning. At the eleventh hour, I have to find somebody to cover House duty for me. Each and every one of us knows exactly what that means. At eight o'clock last night, I was trying to scramble around to get somebody to cover House duty, not from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., but prior to that. That's the disrespect that I'm talking about. Usually after dinner I make phone calls to constituents. Instead, they don't get to hear from me because I'm trying to find somebody to cover House duty.

That's where I come from on this front, and I really appreciate the fact that you're giving me the opportunity to speak.

Madam Chair, thank you very much. Again, I have the utmost respect for you. I know you're trying to do your job, but I think it's important that collectively we all get Bill C-7 right, because when the next bills come forward we're going to be in the exact same boat again.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqra Khalid]

Thank you for that, Mr. Lewis.

I do have Madame Findlay's hand raised, and then I'll stop there and respond.

Go ahead, Madame Findlay.

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to mention a reality that is important to this discussion and my point of privilege, which I didn't mention before.

I happen to be in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. In the Lower Mainland, we have had a spike in COVID cases in both the Fraser Health Authority and the coastal health authority. We are actually, by provincial mandate, quite locked down here right now, which means that at the moment I'm not even supposed to travel. I couldn't go to visit Mr. Manly or Mr. Garrison on Vancouver Island, even if I wanted to right now. They haven't invited me, but if they did I couldn't say yes. On top of that, that means I have staffing issues. We're not running our offices as normal, with a full complement.

By putting a meeting unilaterally an hour earlier, there is no way I have anyone here in this office with me. I have no staff around me. I have no one able to take last-minute things. My staff didn't even see your second notice. I saw it as I stopped my car after a meeting, in the dark, at the other end of—

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Point of order, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqra Khalid]

Yes, Mr. Maloney.

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

We are—

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

No, that is not allowable, Madam Chair.

A point of order does not take precedence over a point of privilege. Please check with the clerk.

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqra Khalid]

Sorry, I am going to allow the point of order.

Go ahead, Mr. Maloney.

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

I challenge the chair on that. That is not allowed.