Go ahead, Ms. Hoeppner.
Evidence of meeting #28 for Status of Women in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was documents.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #28 for Status of Women in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was documents.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Candice Bergen Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
Actually, a lot of what Madame Boucher said is what I wanted to say.
My only question, though, to your comments, Madam Chair, is that I understand some documents that were accessible to the Auditor General are not accessible to us. We will only have those documents that we are able to access, and that's why I say we are not going to get the full picture of what she looked at and what she didn't look at. That was my point on why we will not be able to see the full picture.
I'll go to my other point. We heard for one day about human trafficking. I think all of us in this room know what a huge problem that is. We have women right now who are out of work. We need to get things moving on the economy and continue to work on the economy, and there are a lot of other issues that we need to be looking at. I see that we want to send a message, but is it our job to be sending messages to departments? I think our job, first of all, is to make sure that we're working on behalf of women.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Anita Neville Liberal Winnipeg South Centre, MB
I'm going to enter into this. I think it's precisely because we are working on behalf of women that it's important that we send a message to departments that the gender-based analysis counts.
I agree, Madam Chair, that this is an improved motion in terms of the wording that's been used, and I think it's incumbent upon any committee to call for full disclosure. By passing this motion, we will not in any way be derailing or impeding the work of this committee. We pass the motion, the documents are sent. What's done with the documents is up to individual members of the committee who want access to them, but in no way does this slow down the work of this committee.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
I would like us to move on and deal with the document we have in front of us, so I'm going to end debate, because we're just going around in circles here.
I would have Mr. Desnoyers finish up any final comments he may have to make, and then I'll call the motion.
12:20 p.m.
Bloc
Luc Desnoyers Bloc Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
As I already said, this is an important issue for women, in my opinion. When we receive these documents, each one of us will be able to judge the situation for himself or herself. However, once we have seen and analysed the report, we will be in a position to make appropriate recommendations to these various departments. And in order to do that, we need to familiarize ourselves with everything connected with this issue.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Thank you.
I will call the question now.
All right, we have a tie vote.
I will vote in favour of the motion, and I will explain why.
Any committee could and should, if it wishes to, ask for full disclosure and for certain documents available under Standing Order 108(1) that are available to committees. What the committee does with that is going to be, as Ms. Neville said, decided on by whoever wishes. If members wish to read all the documents and eventually feel that something will come out of doing so, that is going to be told later on. But committees have the right to seek documents that are available to them. So I will be voting in favour of this motion.
(Motion agreed to)
We are now moving in camera.
[Proceedings continue in camera]