Evidence of meeting #19 for Canadian Heritage in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was clerk.
A video is available from Parliament.
9:55 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
—and I will call the question to say, is the chair's ruling sustained?
Go ahead, Mr. Maguire. I will allow you—
9:55 a.m.
Conservative
Larry Maguire Conservative Brandon—Souris, MB
I'd just like to ask the clerk if he can inform us as to whether this committee has to have unanimous consent to suspend the committee rules.
9:55 a.m.
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
If I may comment, there's a presumption in there that there has been a suspension of the rules when in fact there had been a motion passed at the last meeting with an agreement.
9:55 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
I think I have repeated that over and over. What we have are members who do not wish to accept the ruling of this committee and proceed to decide that they will make the rules themselves and ignore the committee. The committee has the authority to decide how we will proceed.
9:55 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Mr. Van Loan, you continue to speak over the chair, and I will not allow that to happen any further.
Now, as a chair, I am saying that this committee decided by majority last Tuesday that we would proceed in this manner. That was 48 hours ago.
You brought up the question of the member for Nunavut. The committee heard it. The committee continues to agree that we should proceed to the orders of the day, which is to deal with clause-by-clause consideration.
Now, you asked the clerk a question. The clerk will answer your question. I will then move to orders of the day.
9:55 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
You have asked a question, Mr. Maguire. Will you allow the clerk to answer?
9:55 a.m.
The Clerk
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Maguire, for the question.
We have a motion stating what is required and how to proceed in terms of dealing with a clause-by-clause study when we have a bill. Although all of this motion has been adopted, as Mr. Van Loan rightly said, if you go to the end of the motion on point (b), we say as well at the very last sentence “provided that the Committee may, by motion, vary this deadline in respect of a given Bill...” and it goes on. We've adopted to go to the clause-by-clause study on Thursday, which makes a difference in this case.
10 a.m.
Conservative
Larry Maguire Conservative Brandon—Souris, MB
Madam Chair, I have no problem with the ruling we made the other day. We did, with our objection, pass that motion, and I have no question about that.
10 a.m.
Conservative
Larry Maguire Conservative Brandon—Souris, MB
That does not mean we forgo the rules of Parliament. All I'm asking here is whether the clerk can tell us clearly if this committee needs unanimous support to suspend the rules of Parliament.
10 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
This committee is actually working on a bill that is dealing with the rules of the committee. The rules of the committee are based on the decisions made by the committee, and there was a majority decision on Tuesday, 48 hours ago, to deal with this bill today.
We know that Mr. Van Loan, although he disagreed with the ruling, did give his list of witnesses with 48 hours' notice to the committee. The clerk responded. Currently the clerk has told you that we should proceed with the decision of this committee now.
10 a.m.
The Clerk
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Maguire.
To absolutely clarify the situation about the member for Nunavut, at the time I was not aware of his official independent situation. I have in front of me information from Journals branch, which is the official management of all the decisions and all the information from Parliament. I have the email now that at 1:16 p.m. yesterday it had been confirmed that Mr. Tootoo was now an independent member. The email regarding all the information for potential amendments to be sent was sent prior to that.
At the time that it was sent I didn't have that information. I'm sorry if it led to—
10 a.m.
Conservative
Peter Van Loan Conservative York—Simcoe, ON
But of course I do not fault you for that. It's just that the rules state “upon...receiving...an Order of Reference”. That is the trigger point for determining who independents are, and that of course was well after 1:16 p.m. yesterday.
10 a.m.
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
No, I'd like to speak to the clause-by-clause. We have gone around this several times. We have amended by motion at our last meeting....
10 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Ms. Dabrusin, we are actually going to be guided by what the clerk of the committee is telling us the rules are. The clerk of the committee said that he was aware yesterday at 1:30 p.m. that the status of the honourable member for Nunavut had changed. However, when the clerk informed everyone, the honourable member for Nunavut was still a member of a political party and therefore received the notices as all members did.
What is happening here is that this is really not something to be considered. He received it at the time that everyone else did. We know that the honourable member for Nunavut, at that time, was still a member of a political party.
10 a.m.
Conservative
10 a.m.
Conservative