Canadian Heritage Committee on Oct. 23rd, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Yes. I'm not diminishing it, but it's almost like in today's world you want to create a Heritage Minute, produced by Historica, that will play on television. Nevertheless, I digress. My apologies. It's Friday.

All those in favour of the motion? This is where you show your hands.

(Motion agreed to)

It's unanimous. Thank you, folks, for working on that.

Before I get to the scheduling of the said study, I would like to go over what was brought back to us, or resurrected, from the last session. There are some motions here that are pertinent, and some not so much, as they've already been dispensed with.

I'm not going to read the whole motion, but I'm going to read the motion to the point where I think it will jog your memory, and for those of you who weren't here, it should illustrate exactly.... If you have any questions, I'll stop at each motion. Ask me. I just want to give you an idea of what we're looking at.

Motion number one is:

That the Committee invite the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review Panel to present the report “Canada’s communications future: Time to act

I think we dispensed with that one. Is that the case?

That's when we brought in Ms. Yale, if you recall, and the Yale report. That's there. I can't take it off the chart, but I guess, like a typical hanging chad in southern Miami-Dade County, it'll just hang there for a while.

The next motion is:

That the committee undertake a study of the creation and implementation of new measures for online media platforms and internet service providers requiring them to monitor, address and remove content that constitutes hate speech and remove any other content which is illegal in Canada or prohibited by the Criminal Code....

It continues. I'll leave it at that, but I think you know what I'm talking about, that being what we commonly call the “online hate study” or the online hate motion.

That would be number two.

Next we have number three:

That the committee undertake a study of how best to ensure a national culture of safe sport consisting of both physical safety and sporting environments free of harassment, abuse and discrimination

Tom, could you jog my memory? Was that from Madame Bessette?

Yes, it was.

The next motion is:

That the committee invite the Minister of Canadian Heritage, at his earliest convenience, to present and answer questions on his mandate letter for Canadian Heritage.

This is about the mandate letter. We've done that, at least for that time. I'll just leave that there.

There are two more. The next is:

That the committee undertake a comprehensive study of access to sport activities and facilities in rural and remote communities in Canada; that the study include, but not be limited to, the current state of sports infrastructure in rural and remote communities....

It continues.

My sincere apologies. That was Mr. Waugh. Yes, there you are, Mr. Waugh.

The final motion is:

That the committee undertake a study on the process through which Indigenous institutions receive accreditation as a museum in Canada, that the study determine what impact accreditation as a museum has on the repatriation of Indigenous cultural artefacts, that the committee hold no fewer than two meetings on this subject, and that the committee report its findings to the House.

Those are the motions resurrected from last session, so the choice is this. We now have one new motion.... We actually have two, one with the minister talking about the main estimates. We're done with that on November 6. The second one is the one we just unanimously passed. Then, of course, we have these motions, with the exception of two that we've already dealt with.

Can I call for any discussion on what we would like to do first?

I see you Mr. Aitchison, and I apologize. I'm going to go to Tom first before I go to you.

Tom.

[The Clerk]

Quickly, Chair, I want to mention that previously Monsieur Rayes had his hand up while you were making your interjection. I want to flag that. Next, I had Ms. McPherson in the room, then Mr. Aitchison after Ms. McPherson, and now Mr. Champoux as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Monsieur Rayes, go ahead.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Chair, before you listed the six motions, I had raised my hand.

I have two questions.

The first concerns what will happen when we unanimously adopt the motion regarding the study on culture, sports and so on. We don't have much time. Can we propose witnesses before we talk about the other motions or at some other point in the meeting, so that the clerk and his team can quickly call the witnesses?

Second, when we last met, we unanimously adopted all the old motions that you listed.

Mr. Clerk, I believe that a member of my party asked you whether it was appropriate for the motions to have been adopted all at once rather than one at a time. I don't know whether you have any information to give us, but I think that we should have adopted the motions one by one. That way, we would have known which motions we wanted to prioritize.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Okay. I'm going to go to the list before I address that. I think Madam McPherson was next.

Ms. McPherson.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The only thing I was going to say in the discussion of this is that when we were working on that motion we passed today, we had discussed the idea of making that our very first order of business, of course, and that we would then have an option of people to putting names forward by, I believe, next Wednesday. I would like to suggest that this is what we could do.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Okay. Before we go any further, I feel I should address Mr. Rayes' issues.

Mr. Rayes, we did receive notice—yes we did and I apologize—about the fact that it was in order, and we made the ruling that it was in order at the time. I mean, this is fairly common. Is there a reason why you feel it wasn't in order?

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

There's no specific reason, but I know that some members were concerned about it. I just want to know what decision was made before we establish how we want to prioritize each of the six motions that were grouped together.

We were told that we couldn't adopt the motions all at once, and some people were concerned about this. That said, it's now up to you to decide.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

There are two ways of doing it.

I think the appropriate time to do one at a time was probably at that point back then. Because the motion was straightforward to bring all the motions from the past up to the current docket, the motion is there and that's what we have to vote on. It's not out of order. It's somewhat common and, therefore, we had to accept it.

However, in saying that, I understand your points, because that's why I brought each motion forward. You're right that I didn't ask for comments between the motions. I'm used to people just rushing to the microphone and I keep forgetting that we're meeting virtually, so I apologize for that.

The glaring, obvious examples would be that there are two that are just not pertinent any more. As for the others, we have to make a priority list of which studies we'd like to do first, whether it's sports, indigenous.... or online hate. Yes, it was in order, but that's why I wanted to unpack this today just for us to get in our minds what we'd like to do as a priority.

Ms. McPherson just said that she feels from discussions the priority should be on the unanimous motion that we just passed.

I hope this makes it clearer regarding what you asked.

Madame Brière.

[Élisabeth Brière, Liberal, Sherbrooke, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I've just joined the committee, but I agree with my colleague Ms. McPherson.

Since the start of the pandemic, I've had the chance to speak with various people involved in the culture sector here in Sherbrooke, such as people from the Théâtre Granada or the Parvis. These people really need a boost, given everything that they're going through right now. This would give us the opportunity to make informed recommendations to the House, which could lead to assistance or other things. I believe that we should address this motion first.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Okay.

Thank you, Ms. Brière.

Just as a reminder, everyone, before I go to Mr. Housefather, when we're talking about the current topic, can we use our “raise hand” function? If you have a new topic that you'd like to bring up, then you can wave at me and I'll write that down.

Mr. Housefather.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Basically, I think if you seek it then you'll find unanimous consent to move first to the motion that was just adopted on the pandemic. As opposed to continuing to prolong the discussion, can I just move that we agree that it be the first study, as well as hearing from the minister on the estimates, which we've agreed to for November 6?

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Mr. Housefather, thank you.

I notice, Mr. Champoux, that you have taken yourself off the list. I am assuming that you agree with Mr. Housefather.

Rather than doing a motion, with the acceptance of all, I'm assuming that we can go, as our first study, to the study that was just passed unanimously.

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Yes. Okay. That's great.

Would you like to discuss the other motions that we unpacked from the last session, or do you want to leave that to a future date?

Mr. Waugh.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Yes, we're getting along fine. I think because of the effects of COVID that we've seen in the last seven or eight months, and we're bringing the minister in on November 6, I would like us to concentrate on the two motions that we have. One, we're getting the minister and the officials in on November 6, and then there's the motion that's been adopted by all parties around the table.

Let's focus on these two things. That could even bring us to the break in December. Then we can have a fresh start in the new year, if you don't mind. That's just a thought.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you.

Monsieur Champoux.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

I agree with my colleagues. I think that we should prioritize the motion that we just adopted. We should be discussing this issue. We should start talking about the lists of witnesses whom we want to invite and the logistics of the upcoming meetings regarding this motion. We should start discussing this specific topic right away.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

All right, sir. That's a valid point. Thank you very much.

That means that now that we've taken the decision, we will start this study. Perhaps down the line, if time grants it, we can address the other issues we discussed in the last session.

This brings us to the point where next Friday we do have a meeting. It is not the designated day for the minister to come in to discuss main estimates, so perhaps you would like to get it started, as far as the study is concerned, with officials from the department, as we normally do. Or perhaps you have another witness in mind that you'd like to bring in to start this.

I'm looking for comments.

I see Tom with his hand up.

See, Tom, you didn't use the “raise hand” function. Can you use that?

[The Clerk]

I'm not sure I'm worthy of the “raise hand” function, sir.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Ah.

[The Clerk]

Just as a quick reminder, typically when we get down to the nitty-gritty of discussing potential witnesses for meetings, it is often a discussion that we do in camera. It is entirely up to the committee how it wishes to proceed, but when getting into specifics of the budgets or the witness lists for studies, often those discussions are in camera.

I just wanted to flag that. This seemed to be the most efficient way of doing that, sir.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Tom illustrates a good point. In the virtual world, sometimes we forget whether it's in public or in camera and so on and so forth. Perhaps it's just me; maybe you already knew.

Go ahead, Tom.

[The Clerk]

I would just flag, too, that Ms. McPherson has her hand raised.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Ms. McPherson, my apologies. Please go ahead.