Evidence of meeting #50 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was amendment.
4:30 p.m.
Conservative
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
Don Bell Liberal North Vancouver, BC
Can I suggest that we interrupt the debate on the motion and start hearing our witnesses?
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Mr. Chairman, I may have a suggestion. If you seek it, you might find unanimous consent to proceed to hearing our witnesses. You may or you may not, but if you sought it, you might find it. In terms of willingness to cooperate, I certainly would agree to that.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
Are you prepared to do so upon the condition that with five minutes left to go, we'll vote on this motion?
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
You're anti-democratic, that's what you are. You just don't want the will of this committee to prevail.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Joe Volpe Liberal Eglinton—Lawrence, ON
I think everybody understands where we want to go on this. I'm not for taunting anybody to do anything. We have a motion on the floor; it's a dilatory motion. I'm going to ask you to find ways to deal with it as expeditiously as possible and then I'm going ask you to find ways as expeditiously as possible to vote on my motion, because I would like to see what the will of the committee might be on it. I'd like you to move along with the committee's business.
There are going to be occasions on which people disagree, and that's fine, but disagreement shouldn't stand in the way of our getting on with our jobs.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Mr. Chairman, if there's unanimous will, I am prepared to accept flipping this around and going to our witnesses right now. I thought we were going to hear our witnesses first, and I'm quite prepared to do that if it's the will of the committee. That shows some good will; but if it's only if the will of others is accepted, then we may have a difference of opinion.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Merv Tweed
The motion on the floor to defer, Mr. Bélanger, is a debatable motion until debate ends. At that point I will call a vote. If the debate has terminated, I will call a vote to defer; if not, the floor is open. If there's no one else left to speak on this, I will call the question; if not, the floor is open.
Go ahead, Mr. Julian.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
On a point of order, I was hoping you could perhaps seek unanimous consent to move on immediately to hear witnesses and leave this whole thing in abeyance right now.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB
Excuse me, Mr. Chair, I have a point of order. I don't understand how Mr. Bélanger, who has the floor, can call a point of order on himself. He's either calling a motion or he's not, but he can't call a point of order to interject on himself.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Merv Tweed
The motion by Mr. Bélanger is on the floor. As long as there is debate on this motion, the floor will remain open, and we will debate it until the committee decides they no longer want to debate it and vote on the motion. There is no procedural interference that I can come forward with to prevent that from happening. The floor is open. If there is no more debate, I'll call the question.
Go ahead, Mr. Jean.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
I have a question to clarify, Mr. Chair.
Once this particular motion is dealt with by way of a vote, either yea or nay, do we then get on to the point of again debating Mr. Volpe's motion?
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
To vote to defer it—you're not seeking if there's unanimous consent, are you?
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Merv Tweed
I can ask.
Is there unanimous consent to hear the witnesses and defer the debate?
Let me be clear. I'm asking if there's unanimous consent to defer debate to hear the witnesses for one hour, and then we will come back to this debate until the debate is finalized or until there's a motion that's acceptable unanimously to adjourn.
Mr. Volpe has a comment.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Joe Volpe Liberal Eglinton—Lawrence, ON
You know that we're going to be called to votes in 40 minutes. So unless everybody around the table is prepared to skip those votes, this is not a tenable position.
I'm cognizant of the fact that the people from Canadian Pacific—I think they still have the word “Canadian” in their system—have come here and have been patient, but they've now had their time reduced by at least ten minutes and are likely to get it reduced even more.
Short of being inhospitable, I guess I'm going to say that we either deal with this—This is the second time I've brought this motion forward. I want my motion dealt with, so I want to move in the direction that gets to it.
We've dealt with this motion to defer and to reverse. We did that with a vote at the beginning of the meeting. I don't want to be a party to decisions that ask for the same vote in different ways. So we're already dealing with this. We're dealing with Mr. Bélanger's motion to defer to whenever. So I'm going to go back to what I said earlier: deal with that motion and find a way to have us vote on it, because it's going to come to a vote. Then I'd like to deal with my motion.
4:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Merv Tweed
Well, I would advise the committee again that if there's no further debate, we will call the vote on Mr. Bélanger's motion. The current rule that exists is that as long as that motion is open and on the floor, it supersedes the bell call for the vote in the House and we stay here until such time as it is determined, unless we have unanimous consent of the committee to adjourn debate.
