Evidence of meeting #1 for Canadian Heritage in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
Here is how I would write it:
That, unless otherwise ordered, each committee member be allowed to be accompanied by one staff person at an in camera meeting, as well as one additional person from each party.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Schellenberger
I have to get this down before I forget it.
Mr. Rodriguez.
Liberal
Pablo Rodriguez Liberal Honoré-Mercier, QC
I just want to make sure that it's one person per party, not another one per MP. Right?
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
No, it is one person per party. It is so that someone from the whip's office, for example, could attend.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Schellenberger
Okay. The amendment is the following, after in camera meetings: “as well as one staff person from each party”.
(Amendment agreed to)
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Schellenberger
The amendment is carried. Now we have the motion as it is amended, which is that unless otherwise ordered, each committee member be allowed to be accompanied by one staff person present at in camera meetings, as well as one staff person from each party.
(Motion as amended agreed to)
Conservative
Dean Del Mastro Conservative Peterborough, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The committee didn't have anything in its routine motions that would deal with the priority of legislation. I'm just curious. Has it been commonplace in this committee not to have anything that would deal with the priority of legislation?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Schellenberger
I've been instructed that most committees don't have that, because when a bill is presented to the committee, it's your duty to delve into it.
Conservative
Dean Del Mastro Conservative Peterborough, ON
We do have a specific recommendation to make with respect to priority of legislation in the committee. I'd like to bring it forward. Certainly we can discuss it and see if the other members see merit in having that written into the actual routine motions of the committee.
Conservative
Dean Del Mastro Conservative Peterborough, ON
Thank you.
With respect to priority of legislation, consideration of and examination of any bill, government or private member's, which falls within the express mandate of the committee shall take precedence over any study or non-legislative examination other than questions of privilege. In such circumstances, the non-legislative study shall be deferred until such time as the bill is reported back to the House.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
I am not really in favour of a proposal like that, Mr. Chair. It would mean that anything we were studying could be suddenly interrupted by a government bill. That would completely disrupt our work and mess up the agenda and the action plans that we had set up.
Anyway, there are rules about bills. You have to study a bill within two months, if I remember correctly. Then a committee can ask the House for a 30-day extension. Then, if it has not been studied, the bill goes back to the House as if it had been passed.
So government bills are already protected and that gives them a degree of priority. But I think that our committee has to keep control of its agenda and its action plans, and that we should study government bills when it suits us. As well, it has to be said that this could be a way for the government to interrupt a study that we were in the middle of.
For all those very good reasons, I am going to vote against the proposal.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Schellenberger
I need a little clarification on that one. When you talk about how we'll deal with a government bill if the government sends it to the committee and we'll deal with it whenever we feel we're going to deal with it, is it not this committee's purpose that if there is a bill directed to this committee we have to deal with it? It doesn't matter what study we're doing. Am I not correct there?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Schellenberger
It's an order of the House that it would come to this committee and we would deal with it.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
Yes, you are perfectly right, Mr. Chair; it is one of our purposes, but it is not the only one. You can ask the clerk to clarify that for you. It is part of our mandate to study government bills, even private members' bills. The other part of our mandate is to take some initiative and do studies ourselves. The committee has to be the master of its own agenda and action plan. Of course, we do not intend to systematically reject government bills, quite the contrary. We just want to take our time and decide for ourselves the order in which we are going to study bills or do our own studies.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Thank you.
I think we're somewhere down the middle on this, in that if a substantive piece of legislation is brought before the committee, that becomes the priority. I think that's an understood fact of this committee. That's the way it has always been, and that's the way it always will be. I don't know if we need to enshrine it further at this point, because we can find time with a private member's bill to bring it in. When we deal with estimates, we decide to deal with it, as opposed to being told that this is now government business and we're going to study estimates for the next four weeks. That could certainly throw off our agenda.
So I think it's understood that if the government needs legislation, we will be looking at it. But I don't think we need to further enshrine it with this motion.
Liberal
Pablo Rodriguez Liberal Honoré-Mercier, QC
I've heard that this committee did work very well in the past, and that's also good for the future. So I don't necessarily see why we should go ahead with that. I think we should stay with the status quo. It has been working up to now.
Conservative
Dean Del Mastro Conservative Peterborough, ON
I'm happy to defer to the will of the members and withdraw the motion.
The motion extends from the last Parliament, when there were all kinds of extensions needed to be given on private members' business in particular, because committees weren't getting around to dealing with it, which meant that the private member's bill was never getting reported back to the House. I speak on that from experience with other committees that I sat on in the last Parliament. This would actually give them some precedence so they would actually be heard before the committee, rather than just being systematically delayed so they never go back to the House.
That's the reason it's there, but I'm happy to withdraw it if it's the will of the members that it be withdrawn.