Page 1, introduction.
Evidence of meeting #17 for Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) in the 39th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was make.
Evidence of meeting #17 for Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) in the 39th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was make.
Bloc
Benoît Sauvageau Bloc Repentigny, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am at page 1 of the French text, which reads as follows:Review of Bill C-2 Federal Accountability ActIntroductionThe purpose of this review is to identify those aspects of Bill C-2 that impact the constitutional position of the House of Commons and its members or that otherwise violate provisions of the Constitution Act, 1867, pertaining to the House of Commons. This review, therefore, is limited to parliamentary law issues.
Furthermore, if you turn your attention to the summary on the previous page, you will see the following headings: “Secret Ballot Votes”, “Debates and Votes in the House”, “Conflicts of Interest and the Ethics Commissioner”, “Requests to the Ethics Commissioner”, “Members and Trusts”, “Parliamentary Budget Officer”, and “References to Parliament”.
This document is referring to clauses of the proposed legislation that are contrary to the Charter, the Constitution, or the Parliament of Canada Act.
Some members may still wish to fast track Bill C-2 even after having studied this document; however, I do not think that Mr. Walsh or Mr. Denis would advocate such an approach. I think that they would be more inclined to advocate the respect of parliamentary procedure and parliamentary law. This document leaves us with no choice but to hear testimony from Mr. Walsh and the Speaker of the House of Commons, unless we want to amend legislation that has not been touched since 1867, and which would involve amending the Constitution.
There comes a point when you have to say that enough is enough. We have been given an important document. It is all very well to debate motions seeking to complete our study of the bill on the double, but the document that has been provided to us by the office of the law clerk leads me to believe that would be irresponsible, dangerous and disrespectful of parliamentary tradition. Of course, the committee can opt to make it a partisan issue.
Conservative
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
Mr. Chairman, I will make just one point about the brief statement you opened with.
What you read out loud was that the Speaker—or in your case, the chair who was acting in the same role as the Speaker—would feel compelled to vote with the status quo in the event of motions.
My argument would be that the Speaker actually has an obligation to vote in such a way so as to continue the debate, or allow the debate to carry on, if the gathering—whether it's the House or this committee—is unable to come to a conclusion. In other words, if we're split and divided, your obligation would be to allow that motion to continue to be debated further: to get to the House of Commons and be debated at the report stage.
So I would say that in the event of a tie, the Speaker should vote for any amendment, in order to allow debate to continue on that amendment in the House. If you voted against and that amendment went down, after the fact it would not be allowed to be reintroduced in the House. So I think the inverse of what you read would be more to the point.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
As for this document, so it's that we have another submission.... If members want to make amendments—I think we've had 60 submissions now from people who like some parts of the law and don't like other parts—and members seem to agree or disagree with the submissions we've had and....
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
They can make an amendment at any time.
Am I still on here?
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
I'm glad that we had this submission and some more opinions about the law, and I hope they can all be taken into account. The only way we can really act on the opinions we have here is by amending the law, and the only way we can amend the law is to get into clause-by-clause.
There might be an attempt by some to use someone's opinion--of which we've already had 60--to create some sort of constitutional crisis that will now necessitate our sitting here for the next 30 years to have a constitutional debate. Some people enjoy having 30-year-long constitutional debates.
It justifies their existence.
But the people sent us here to get a job done, and that's what we're here to do. If the Bloc or anyone else has an amendment to the bill that flows from an opinion they've seen, let's get down to the clause-by-clause and let's do some amending. Let's do our jobs.
Thanks.
Liberal
Marlene Jennings Liberal Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC
Chair, I have taken cognizance of this document very quickly, but as you yourself said, it's a very important document. I think at the very least, given the issues that are being raised within this document by the Office of the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, this committee should invite the law clerk and parliamentary counsel to appear before the committee to explain the significance--beyond what's in the document, because, as I said, I came back from the break between the witnesses and this was sitting at my place. With the debates that have been going on and the comments, etc., I've had possibly a total of three to four minutes to actually read it.
But from what I have seen, the passage Mr. Sauvageau read out, and your own statement that this appears to be a very important document, I would suggest that our committee invite Mr. Walsh to appear before it so that we can get a better understanding of the points he is raising and their significance.
The only thing I would add to that is that I had the honour and privilege of actively participating in the debates and the work on developing the Office of the Ethics Commissioner, the independent ethics commissioner, the actual code of conflict of interest for members of Parliament. In fact, when the House of Commons committee that was charged with developing that was doing its consultation, it invited the then-members of Parliament to appear before it to come and discuss it. I was the only member of Parliament who was not a member of that committee who actually showed up, and because--
Conservative
Rob Moore Conservative Fundy Royal, NB
I'm sorry. The points Ms. Jennings is making are substantive and thoughtful, and I respect that.
The document that Mr. Sauvageau has just circulated is interesting and helpful, but it's strictly to the order of this committee, and what's--
Bloc
Conservative
Rob Moore Conservative Fundy Royal, NB
Okay, I'm sorry. I thought it came from you. Settle down. I'm not accusing you of any crime.
Conservative
Conservative
Rob Moore Conservative Fundy Royal, NB
This document has been circulated, and as I understand it, we are now at the business of the committee. The business of the committee is the consideration of motions.
Conservative
Rob Moore Conservative Fundy Royal, NB
Mr. Poilievre has put forward a motion. Ms. Jennings has a motion, and Mr. Martin has three motions that we're voting on.
This document has been circulated. That's fine. But as per the order of what we are considering, we're not debating this piece of paper.
If Ms. Jennings wishes us to have Mr. Walsh before the committee to discuss this, Ms. Jennings can move a motion today, and we'll vote on it in 48 hours. But right now the order of business of the committee is to vote on the motions that are before the committee.
We're not debating this document. That's not what's on the agenda.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Tilson
That's true, although I've muddied the waters by giving it to you.
I think Mr. Moore is correct about a motion. Unless there is unanimous consent--