Evidence of meeting #1 for Public Accounts in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was amendment.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Bonnie Crombie Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
Mine was the corollary of that, actually. If one of the vice-chairs happened to be sitting in the seat of the chair that day, could we send a different representative? There might be an occasion where the chair would be absent.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
Andrew Saxton Conservative North Vancouver, BC
In the interest of time and in the interest of cooperation, I would suggest that we move ahead with Mr. Christopherson's proposed resolution, if you could just add that the chair will not break ties.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
I will just read it again: that the subcommittee on agenda and procedure be established and be composed of a non-voting chair and one representative from all the parties.
(Motion agreed to)
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
The next one should be a little quicker. It is that the chair be authorized to hold meetings to receive evidence and to have that evidence printed when a quorum is not present, provided that at least three members are present, including one member of the opposition.
I'll just explain this. The normal quorum for voting in a meeting such as this is 50% plus one: six members. It's anything over half, and six members is the quorum. This is the reduced quorum; to hear evidence, all we need is three.
Madame Faille.
4:10 p.m.
Bloc
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Bev Shipley Conservative Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON
I'd like clarification on it. When it says there would be three members, does that include the chair?
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Bev Shipley Conservative Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON
So out of a committee of 12, we would actually have just two members present to receive evidence. I don't know how well that represents the committee in its objective of having people, even if there were four members on it. It just seems really slim. You have the chair and two people. I'm not so sure it reflects very well to the witnesses in terms of our being able to receive their presentation.
4:10 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
My question concerns this reduced quorum, which was put in under the previous committee. Was there a reason? There are times when members are not available and witnesses have already been asked to come before the committee. Have there been occasions when this has happened? Perhaps a history would help us.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
If I may, before I go to Mr. Christopherson, there are such occasions now and then, late in the meeting. A meeting starts, we're hearing evidence and something else is going on in the House. Of course, if it's a vote, we'd suspend, but there might be a reception or something else. I've seen it go down to two or three members around the table.
Mr. Shipley is quite correct. It doesn't reflect well on Parliament and it doesn't reflect well on the committee, but if we have to adjourn, bring the witness back at another date and the witness is from another part of Canada, that doesn't reflect well on the committee either. It's a fine line.
Mr. Christopherson.
4:10 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Thanks, Chair.
There have been incidents--two types I can think of. One occurs when there is something going on and there are a whole lot of people rushing out and we don't want to just dismiss the meeting. Let's say everybody is having an emergency caucus meeting, but we have all these witnesses we've brought in from who knows where.
This is a fail-safe, that's all. It's a last-ditch effort to prevent the money and the time spent to arrange the meeting from being lost. The reason it's one member of the opposition is, again, just to prevent government members from a situation where all the opposition is gone and the meeting is happening without anyone knowing it. As we do in all places, it's a check and balance, just to make sure we don't have that.
As for the only other time it's happened, there was a caucus in a meeting, the largest caucus at that meeting, that had reasons to boycott the meeting. It happened at the last minute. It's only happened once that I can recall, but that left us with half the committee. If we'd had a few people away for any reason, we'd have lost the day again. This allows a caucus to make the political statement they want by not being here and protesting something of substance or procedure, but again, it still allows the committee to not lose all that time and money. That's what it's really all about.
As you know, the public watches people coming here. People spend a lot of time making their presentations. They bring staff and support people. They come here, and then, through no fault of their own, the whole bloody committee dissolves in front of them all of a sudden and it's over. At best, they get to redo the whole thing, often on the taxpayer's dime.
This just allows the committee, in those circumstances.... No decisions can be made. It doesn't matter whether we're here or not, because everything that happens will then be on the Hansard, available to everyone. It lets us save face, quite frankly, as a committee and as a Parliament, when we spend money and time to bring people in as witnesses. It's pretty innocuous.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Bonnie Crombie Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
I concur. It is the same point as I was going to make. These witnesses take the time and trouble to come here. The solution is that we should just be present and attend the meetings.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Bev Shipley Conservative Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON
[Inaudible--Editor]...I still go back. I'm not going to die on it; I'm just going to make the point, just to follow up.
I agree with you, Mr. Christopherson, that we have the responsibility to be here or have someone else be here. If I had come from across Canada or from somewhere else, had brought my resource people, was sitting as a witness, and there were the chair and one person on each side, I'd think that maybe my contribution wasn't that important to the committee.
I think the obligation actually reflects back to us. We have an obligation. Should an emergency come up that shuts us down, then we have to do it; I mean, if a vote shows up. But if a caucus decides to have something for its members, they have to make the decision on whether they're going to leave somebody at an important meeting or not. It won't affect everyone, whether it's your caucus or ours.
My point is that I just don't think we're reflecting to the public and to our witnesses the sincerity that we've talked about here in terms of being receptive to hearing people who come to us with their issues. I just think expanding this one where we have the chair, because we have said the chair should be non-partisan in all the subcommittees and here....
I don't think ending up with two people reflects well. I would move that we add one person and leave the wording as it is--“and one member of the opposition”--so that it doesn't get into those concerns you raised, David. That's all.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
Right now it says, “provided that at least three members”. Are you increasing that to “four”?
