Evidence of meeting #24 for Canadian Heritage in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was flag.
A recording is available from Parliament.
3:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Schellenberger
Welcome today to meeting number 24 of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. We're going to work on some committee business here today.
First of all, I'd like to welcome our new member, Mr. Coderre, who is joining our committee.
With Mr. Bélanger vacating the position, the Liberals now do not have a vice-chair, so I'm going to vacate my chair and the clerk will run the election so we can get a new vice-chair.
3:35 p.m.
The Clerk of the Committee Ms. Catherine Cuerrier
I am now ready to received motions for the position of first vice-chair. Pursuant to Standing Order 106(2), the first vice-chair shall be a member of the official opposition.
3:35 p.m.
Liberal
3:35 p.m.
The Clerk
Mr. Coderre moves that Mr. Andy Scott be elected first vice-chair of the committee.
Are there any other motions?
3:35 p.m.
Some hon. members
No.
3:35 p.m.
The Clerk
Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the motion?
3:35 p.m.
Some hon. members
Agreed.
3:35 p.m.
The Clerk
I declare the motion carried. Mr. Scott is duly elected vice-chair of the committee.
3:40 p.m.
Some hon. members
Oh, oh!
3:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Schellenberger
I've two items I want to bring forward. The national chair of the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council provided us with a number of recent examples of announcements that broadcasters are obliged to make, following the CBSC upholding a complaint and rendering a decision against a broadcaster. The examples provided eight that have been made in either English, French, or Chinese, in accordance with the original language of the broadcast in each case. Since the committee has a routine motion that authorizes the clerk to distribute documents to the members of the committee only when they exist in both official languages, we need unanimous consent to distribute the CDs.
I have looked at one CD, and I think there's one in Chinese and two or three in English. I ask for unanimous consent to distribute that, just so you can have an idea. I think it was Mr. Scarpaleggia who suggested he might not have seen some of these things on any of these stations.
Can I have unanimous consent to distribute that disc?
3:40 p.m.
Some hon. members
Agreed.
3:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Schellenberger
There's no one against. Thank you for that.
Another thing is that Mr. Bélanger suggested we might get some CDs on our report, “The Role of the Public Broadcaster in the 21st Century”. I do have some costs here. I don't know whether we want to go ahead and get them or not, or how many. Black and whites are $2.37 each, ones with a coloured cover are $3.06 apiece. If you get 250, they'd be $600 for black and white, and $765 for 250 of the report done with a coloured cover.
Do you think it's money we need to spend in this particular case? Does everyone have enough of the reports? Are these going to be used or are they going to sit on a shelf someplace?
Mr. Malo.
3:40 p.m.
Bloc
Luc Malo Bloc Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC
Mr. Chairman, Mr. Bélanger's suggestion was to replace paper copies with electronic copies. Now that we actually have a printed paper copy, I really don't think we need an electronic copy. For other reports, under different circumstances, we could opt directly for an electronic copy, but we would have to agree to that before undertaking our study.
3:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Schellenberger
Thank you.
Would anyone else like to speak on that?
Mr. Siksay.
3:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Schellenberger
Can we dispense with this item then? We will not get the CDs.
(Motion agreed to)
Thank you.
As we sit around here today at this meeting, we have a new person sitting at the end of the table. It's Marc Toupin. He's a legislative clerk. If we have any questions of how we go forward in our clause-by-clause, if there's anyone who wants to make any amendments, he might be able to give us the answer. I think our clerk has already notified everyone that if you have amendments, there's a procedure to follow.
I might let Marc just explain how we would go about doing amendments--if you could, sir.
3:40 p.m.
Marc Toupin Legislative Clerk, House of Commons
Well, essentially, Mr. Chairman, very briefly, I'm here to answer any questions members may have in preparation for the clause-by-clause review of the bill. I think the clerk of the committee has already done so by way of a memorandum.
Just as a reminder to members, if they wish to have amendments drafted, there is legislative counsel available to draft the amendments. The sooner they get the instructions from the members, of course, the sooner they can forward these amendments, and then the members can forward them to the clerk of the committee so they can be put in a package and distributed to members, so members have an opportunity to look at them prior to the clause-by-clause meeting.
3:40 p.m.
Conservative
Jim Abbott Conservative Kootenay—Columbia, BC
Without prejudging where the members of this committee are going to go, I wonder if we could get your advice on the options we have. If it was the desire of the majority of the committee to just say the bill doesn't work, that we don't want it, what is the process for that? I know there is a way of sending back an empty shell to Parliament, but that in its own way creates its own set of problems.
Is there a way for the committee, if it was the determination of the majority of the committee, to say we don't want to proceed with this bill? Could you describe that process to us?
3:45 p.m.
Legislative Clerk, House of Commons
Sure, Mr. Chairman.
Essentially the Standing Orders provide for the possibility, should the committee so decide, to submit a report to the House that would recommend the bill no longer be proceeded with. This is all spelled out in the Standing Orders of the House.
If the committee were to agree to that type of motion, it would then be reported back to the House. The House would then have an opportunity to debate that report for one hour and it would then be subjected to a vote in the House. If the House agreed with the recommendation of the committee that the bill not be further proceeded with, the bill would effectively be killed. If it disagreed with the recommendation by the committee, then the bill would be deemed to have been reported to the House without amendment. This is one of the options that is available to the committee, if it so wishes.
The other option I think Mr. Abbott referred to is the option of actually going through each and every clause of the bill and voting against it. That has been done in the past, and the two options are possible. In the case of the latter, if the committee decided to vote against each and every clause of the bill, it would then give the opportunity to any member of Parliament in the House at report stage to put forth a motion to restore the clauses that have been deleted in committee.
So these are two options, two different processes, that are available, and as Mr. Abbott pointed out, it is really up to the committee to decide.
3:45 p.m.
Conservative
Jim Abbott Conservative Kootenay—Columbia, BC
I have one quick supplementary question.
I'm assuming that the vote of the committee would be a vote of the majority of the committee.
