Public Safety Committee on April 28th, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Yes. It would be an opening statement of ten minutes. That should be in the amendment.

No further discussion?

(Amendment agreed to) [See Minutes of Proceedings]

Now we go to the main motion.

Mr. Holland.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Yes, if I still have the floor, Mr. Chair, there are two other points of clarity. The first one is the date. I know all committee members are aware that we have to report back by June 11. Therefore, because there's no prescribed date--

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

You're not speaking to your motion. Can we deal with the motion?

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

This is to the main motion, Mr. Chair, about when we're going to be hearing witnesses.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

So you're amending it now?

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Well, no--potentially, if there's a consensus.

What I'm saying is that we haven't established when we would hear these witnesses. Right now, we are scheduled to deal with clause-by-clause on this bill. We have the first Tuesday and the first Thursday in June scheduled to deal with clause-by-clause.

So to ensure that we are going to meet that timetable, and maybe it's necessary--because we have more meetings now--to have a couple of special meetings, I would give you an amendment that we would hear all witnesses no later than the dates already established for clause-by-clause consideration of the private member's bill.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Let me inform the committee that there are only six meetings left, according to the calendar. There are only six meetings. So we'd have to do away with the rest of the agenda that you set previously.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

We would have to push those meetings down to the other side of this. There are meetings that are in June, so that would push these meetings into June.

I would add, by the way, that there are six meetings. I think we have agreed today to five, if I'm not mistaken?

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Six. We have agreed to six.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

We've agreed to six?

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

No, we haven't. The motion is not passed yet.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

But should the motion pass, Chair, we've agreed to six? And we have six free days?

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

No, we have six days until we have agreed to clause-by-clause on June 1.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Okay. The reason I make that point is that if we wait longer than that, we will then be in a situation where we endanger not reporting back to the House by the date prescribed for this committee to report back to the House.

So I'll leave that as an amendment. If somebody wants to make a subamendment that they're willing to have special meetings, as opposed to pushing those meetings that we already have scheduled into later June, then I could support that. But I think it's imperative that the committee has this out by the time we had previously scheduled.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Mr. MacKenzie, please.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

The whole thing has gotten a little convoluted. I hope the clerk has lots of notes, because I'm not sure exactly where we are.

I think we haven't passed Ms. Mourani's original motion. Is that right? So now the amendment is how do we fit it all in if we pass the motion? I think that's what you're trying to say. We've got to get it fit in, and how do we do that?

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Just to answer the question, I'm being prescriptive because I can agree to this as long as we're ensuring that we're dealing with it in time to deal with clause-by-clause. That's why it's an important part of my support of the overall motion, because if we're hearing witnesses on June 11 and we leave no time for clause-by-clause, then we won't report back to the House in the prescribed time.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

I can't add an amendment, but I would have suggested that you maybe wanted to make your motion to move May 11, May 25, and May 27 into June and deal with this.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

That's my point.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Why didn't you make that as a motion?

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

That is effectively the motion. I was suggesting that the things we currently have scheduled that are not related to Bill C-391 be pushed to the first available opportunities after we're finished consideration of Bill C-391 and that we dedicate the remaining six meetings to Bill C-391. That ensures that we hit the clause-by-clause dates that we had previously established.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Let's just hang on a minute here.

Let me make a suggestion, and I presume it's going to be an amendment to the motion that we have before us. We've had a lot of difficulty scheduling the CSIS people in for May 11. We can hear witnesses on Bill C-391 on May 4, May 6, May 13, May 25, May 27, and June 1 if the committee wishes. Then we can go to clause-by-clause on June 3.

Would the committee agree to that timetable? It means we would still hear the people we've had a very difficult time getting hold of on May 11.

Go ahead, Mr. Holland.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

I have no problem accepting that, Mr. Chair. I think it's good that we're doing this by amendment so we can keep clear of what we've been doing, and if you're amending the amendment, I would simply suggest that the day for clause-by-clause have an unlimited timeframe; in other words, we would continue sitting until such time as we're finished clause-by-clause consideration.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

We might have votes.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Then we would come back after the votes.

We've got to report it out. You guys want to report it back as much as we do.