Agriculture Committee on Feb. 3rd, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

I think the parliamentary secretary can attend a réunion, as we have him here today.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Grande Prairie—Mackenzie, AB]

They don't attend the agenda and procedures—

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Oh, you mean the agenda meeting.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Grande Prairie—Mackenzie, AB]

Members who are not members of the committee cannot attend that meeting unless we make a special provision that they can.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

I understand what you're saying, but the idea for having two members of the government was actually to have the parliamentary secretary convey information to one of the members if there's information that the subcommittee should be informed about. That was the idea behind having two members of the government.

As you know, in the past the parliamentary secretary sat on the subcommittee, but he no longer does. However, I think the parliamentary secretary was to convey that information to one of the members, and that was the idea for having two members of the government.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you.

Are there any other comments? No.

I will read the motion again. It is “That the Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure”—

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Grande Prairie—Mackenzie, AB]

Sorry. I do apologize. I think we understand. The proposal, then, disallows the parliamentary secretary from attending those meetings. Is that the proposal the Liberals are submitting?

Okay. Very good.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Okay, we'll continue with the motion. It reads:

That the Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure be established and composed of the Chair, two Vice-Chairs and 2 members of the government

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Grande Prairie—Mackenzie, AB]

I think we'd prefer it to say “one member of the New Democratic Party, one member of the Conservative Party, and two members of the Liberal Party”.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

That was the last version that we had. This is the new—

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Grande Prairie—Mackenzie, AB]

We should not speak to the vice-chairs or who those members would be. The allocation should be in terms of those specific parties. We don't want to speak to which members of—

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

So you want them named in here?

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Grande Prairie—Mackenzie, AB]

No, we want them not named. We want them simply as members of the respective parties.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Do we need to change the motion?

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

No, I think the motion is fine. It's the chair, two vice-chairs, and two members of the government.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Grande Prairie—Mackenzie, AB]

No.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

That's not the one I have.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Grande Prairie—Mackenzie, AB]

The one I have says, “That the Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure be established and composed of the Chair, one member of the New Democratic Party, two members of the Liberal Party, and two members of the Conservative Party”.

Sorry, it's one member of the Conservative Party, so one—

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

I think we've got two different versions of a document, because ours has “That the Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure be established and composed of the Chair, two Vice-Chairs and 2 members of the government”.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Grande Prairie—Mackenzie, AB]

We don't want that. We just want it to be members generally.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

The last one that was just given out was the one that Mr. Warkentin just read. Just for clarification, we've got to be talking on the same page.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Should we bring in an amendment?

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

I guess the motion that we will go with is the one that I've just read:

That the Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure be established and composed of the Chair, two Vice-Chairs and 2 members of the government

Is there any—

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Grande Prairie—Mackenzie, AB]

We would prefer that it simply be “one member of the New Democratic Party, one member of the Conservative Party, and two members of the Liberal Party”. We'll leave it to the parties to determine who among their members shows up at that meeting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Are there any other comments on the motion?

Yes, Mr. Shipley.