Evidence of meeting #32 for Public Safety and National Security in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was report.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:05 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
I'd like to bring this meeting to order. This is the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security and our 32nd meeting.
I am a bit pressed for time today, so I can't be here the whole time.
You have before you the orders of the day, starting with committee business. I'm going to turn the floor over to Ms. Barnes, who can explain the motion she has before us.
11:05 a.m.
Liberal
Sue Barnes Liberal London West, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I talked to most of you last week. My understanding is that this committee is now getting the report. We don't have the full contents of the subcommittee report; the minority pages haven't been given to us. I just got them at my office last night, but we're still lacking part of them.
The House order, as I currently understand it, says we're supposed to have the full committee report back to the House by Wednesday of next week, which would give us one day to review a report that I haven't even received yet in full. Even though I will probably spend most of this weekend working on it, not everybody on the full committee, including me as critic, was a part of the deliberations of the subcommittee. And although I've read the Hansard, I think it will take some time to go through the work people have done. I would like to do it as fast as possible, but we have a break week the following week. What I've done will give us until the Tuesday, or three meetings after the break week, to get it back. Hopefully we can easily do so in that time. It might even be possible to do it before then; I just don't know at this stage.
Garry, I just wanted to put some things on the record. We're going to have a Supreme Court decision coming down tomorrow that could potentially impact whatever is in this report. It may or may not; we don't know. We may or may not decide that our report will take that decision into account. I don't know at this stage of the game, and neither does anybody else.
I just think people have spent time on this and we should do it properly. Even though all the critics and the parliamentary secretary have said they're amenable to this, they may have changed their minds; I don't know. I want to stress that the full committee's report deserves some attention and should not be done in a way that we don't understand what we're doing here.
Also, Garry, I know that the House order has to be done, so if we pass this motion and the House leaders don't give us the extension, we'll still be working on Tuesday.
11:05 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
I don't remember your putting the motion before us, so I'll just read what you have here.
11:05 a.m.
Liberal
Sue Barnes Liberal London West, ON
It is that the committee request an extension from the House of Commons so that the committee be authorized to continue its deliberations relating to its review of the Anti-terrorism Act beyond February 28, 2007—which is the date now—and to present its final report no later than March 27, 2007.
What I would point out is that it is really only three meetings, because of the House break.
11:05 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
I just wanted to make sure that's in the record, because some people will only have the written record.
Monsieur Ménard and Mr. Comartin, you have finished your minority report, but we don't have it as a committee. Apparently it's at the translators. Is that right?
11:05 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
Friday, or maybe Monday, is what I am told.
Phil, do you have any comments in regards to this whole process?
11:05 a.m.
Philip Rosen Committee Researcher
Thank you, Chair.
What I can tell you is that there's a parallel exercise going on in the Senate, as you know. There's a special Senate committee that has also been looking at the Anti-Terrorism Act. Its mandate ends on March 31; however, it will be tabling its report on the same subject matter this afternoon. It will presumably do other things until its mandate runs out on March 31.
As I said, it's a parallel exercise to what the subcommittee is engaged in.
11:10 a.m.
Conservative
Dave MacKenzie Conservative Oxford, ON
Mr. Chair, I have spoken to our House leader and we have no objections from this side in accepting the recommendation or motion here, and we would support it.
11:10 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
Okay.
Well, if there's agreement all the way around, we probably don't even need a vote. Do I see any other objections to this?
11:10 a.m.
Bloc
Serge Ménard Bloc Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
I completely understand why one would agree to this... We must realize that this is one of the most difficult laws to read. Only fiscal laws are more complicated. I think that M. Mackenzie and M. Norlock, who had to read the law this summer, have a good understanding of the needs that are expressed.
I find this request reassuring because it shows that other Committee members want to form their own opinion. If I understand correctly, we would have until March 27th to discuss this matter.
11:10 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
Yes, and if we adopt this motion, I assume it would almost answer the second part of our meeting, the future business of the committee. This is what we're going to deal with until that time.
I think, Sue, you've counted the days. There are only three or four days that we would have to consider this, because of the break.
11:10 a.m.
Liberal
Sue Barnes Liberal London West, ON
If you present your final report on March 27, that's only three days after the break. We might not be ready next week to talk about this, unless we want to start on it; it's a matter of studying it. Do we want to have a conversation before we've had a chance to really impact on it?
There are some things I've seen that we may want to look at. We're in an open meeting right now, so I'm not sure I want to put them on the record right now. I've just had a chance to skim the recommendations, but....
11:10 a.m.
Conservative
11:10 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
Can I get agreement from everyone around the table to ask for the extension?
11:10 a.m.
Some hon. members
Agreed.
