Canadian Heritage Committee on May 10th, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Before we do that, I just had a request from the legislative clerk to have a conversation, so I'm going to suspend literally for just two minutes. Please don't go far. It will be a quick suspension.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

We have received the proposed subamendment and the legislative folks have had a look at it and we just had a discussion. They brought up a good point.

On the first part, about content, we're fine. Providing Dr. Michael Geist as an extra guest is fine. The problem is with number 3. If you're proposing to go back to do this, you know that unanimous consent is required. What this tries to do is seek a majority decision to revisit these points. Unfortunately, that's not how it works. In the spirit of co-operation, I don't know if you would like to have another run at that, but obviously since number 3 is inadmissible, it makes the amendment inadmissible.

Before I go to Ms. McPherson, I'm going to go to Mr. Waugh to seek his opinion, since it is his amendment, but as I've just noted, it is inadmissible because of number 3, and we cannot circumvent a requirement of unanimous consent.

Go ahead, Mr. Waugh.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks for the clarification from the clerks here this morning.

Yes, that's a good point.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Would you like some time, sir?

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

Yes, I actually need a little time. To us, number 3 was very important.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

I understand.

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

That was our arguing point, actually, when Mr. Housefather brought this motion last week. I hate to say it, but I think it is admissible by virtue of the “notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice”.

I don't know. Do we need another five minutes, Alain? I'm speaking out loud here, and I know I shouldn't be, but this was our hill to die on, so could we get a pause?

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Yes. Also, I'm going to consult about what you just brought up about the “notwithstanding any other practices” phrasing. I will consult about that as well, and you go back and consult and have a chat.

Again, folks, turn off your cameras. We're going to suspend. When you're ready to come back, please turn on your cameras once more.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Welcome back, everybody.

It is as I suspected. I did check with the legislative staff here, and I want to point something out. I understand that within the House there are many times when we use the term “notwithstanding” in reference to certain Standing Orders or usual practices. In other words, we put aside certain rules because we want to put something forward. Let's bear in mind that at committee, things run differently.

If the rule had been made by the committee, then we could do as you asked, notwithstanding a certain provision created by the committee. However, there is this thing, our bible. This is what is dictated to us by the bible, so we cannot do the “notwithstanding” because it is part of the Standing Orders, and the House—not the committee, but the House—will not allow us to do that. Therefore, it remains inadmissible.

I see that Ms. McPherson is next, but Mr. Waugh, we broke with you when you asked whether it was admissible. With the patience of Ms. McPherson, may I return to Mr. Waugh?

I'm going to ask you to please keep it brief. I don't want to start arguing your point of content. Try to keep it just to what you discussed before we broke.

Thank you.

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

You're ruling that our current point 3 is out of order, right?

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Correct.

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

May I propose that points 1 and 2 stand, and that point 3, then, would read “suspend clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-10 until the completion of both points 1 and 2”? It's very simple.

I hope the clerk has notification of that by now. Points 1 and 2 would still be the same. Point 3, because you've made the ruling, would be that we suspend the clause-by-clause consideration of this bill until the completion of both points 1 and 2. That's as short as I can make it for you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

I don't want to proceed without giving indication whether this is applicable or not. I think I know where this is going, but since I am not an expert, I'm going to ask Mr. Méla, if he has a copy, to come on board and have a quick discussion.

[Philippe Méla, Legislative Clerk]

Mr. Chair, I don't have a copy right in front of me.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

My apologies. When I said Mr. Méla, I meant to say you or the clerk, or whoever would like to talk to us about what was just requested by Mr. Waugh.

Go ahead, Mr. Méla.

[Philippe Méla]

I'll take a shot at it.

What Mr. Waugh indicated would make sense, in the sense that it's admissible and it may achieve what he wants to achieve, in a way. It's not going to achieve the point of reopening any clauses, since we know that requires the consent of the committee.

The way it has been spelled out would do what Mr. Waugh is looking for. That's pretty much all I can say on that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Let's go to our clerk.

Aimée, would you like to add to that?

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Aimée Belmore]

No, I agree with Mr. Méla. It's very clear what the consequence of this new provision would be, and it wouldn't be in conflict with any of the rules about taking and reopening votes.

As a side note, just in the last 30 seconds I received the amended version, but I have it unilingually. I will need to arrange translation before I can distribute it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

I wanted to go to both clerks. I wanted to get both of their opinions on this to make sure everyone was clear about what is happening. We will get you the copies in just a few moments, but I wanted Mr. Waugh to illustrate the points. I think that's sufficient right now. He now has a new amendment on the floor that we are going to discuss.

That said, we will go back to our originally scheduled program.

Ms. McPherson, you have the floor.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It is really nice to be here today and to have us all working collaboratively to get some work done on this legislation and to actually start to do our jobs. It's also nice that we are hearing from more than one or two members of this committee today.

I have a couple of questions about the subamendment that Mr. Waugh has brought forward.

First of all, I'm wondering whether or not it is necessary for us to do those meetings separately. That seems to me like a very big waste of time. If we could have one meeting for the ministers to come, that would be preferable, from my point of view. I feel that as we try to move forward with this, to hold three solid meetings aside for this seems excessive. It seems a bit—if I'm feeling cynical—like maybe a delay tactic, so I would be interested in hearing from Mr. Waugh, perhaps, about why he feels that there need to be three separate two-hour meetings.

The other question I have is that if the ministers aren't able to come next week, for example, would that mean that we would just completely stop the work we're undertaking within this committee? That seems problematic to me as well.

I'm wondering if the clerk, the analysts or anyone could provide some clarity on whether or not we could use unanimous consent to pass the original number 3 that Mr. Waugh had put forward and if that might be a way that we could get around this so that we could continue to do our work. We could continue to look at the legislation but also make sure that we are addressing the concerns that are being raised in Mr. Waugh's amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Just so I'm clear, Ms. McPherson, before we move on, there are two things. Number one, you would like to see number 3 dealt with from a unanimous consent perspective. You would like to put that question to the committee. Is that correct?

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

I'd actually just like to put that question to the clerk to see if that is a way in which we could in fact deal with it, if that would meet what Mr. Waugh and his colleagues were trying to achieve in the initial amendment. This is getting a little complicated and a little bit into the weeds, so I'd like some perspective from some of the specialists that we have on this call, but I'd also like to just encourage us to continue the work and find a way to do that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

I can provide some clarification, because I've had this discussion already. There is a way by which you can.

I'll do this very slowly so that everybody understands.

Ms. McPherson was asking if we can seek unanimous consent to go back to other amendments that we've already covered under Bill C-10. There is a path to do that, and I'll go to the clerk in just a few moments to seek clarification, but this is how it can work.

You could adjourn the motion with a clarification. If you adjourn this motion—the debate on the motion—provided that you also have a clarification that you want to seek unanimous consent, it's not a dilatory motion. We can debate it if you wish, and then go to that very thing that you want to get to. Then, upon that, following that, we can go back to Mr. Housefather's motion or the amendments that have been proposed.

I hope that was somewhat clear.

I will ask the clerk. Go ahead, Aimée. Rescue this poor man.

[The Clerk]

Thank you, Chair. You're doing quite well.

What Mr. Simms was saying is that if it's the desire of the committee at this point to deal with the unanimous consent provision in order to allow itself the latitude to reopen decisions that were already taken, you can't really circumvent that without having unanimous consent. It can't be decided by a majority decision.

One way to get to determining whether or not there is unanimous consent would be to adjourn the debate on the motion currently under consideration and any proposed amendments, deal with the unanimous consent issue and then resume debate on the motion. The way to do that in the same meeting is to not propose a dilatory motion.

On the difference between a dilatory motion and not, voting to adjourn debate on a motion is a dilatory motion. You can't go back to it on the same meeting. By voting to adjourn debate on a motion provided that we do these other things afterwards, it becomes debatable and amendable. The minute you put a qualifier in there, it no longer becomes a dilatory motion. When you've satisfied the terms of the qualifier, when you've dealt with the unanimous consent provision allowing you to reopen provisions of the bill, you would then return to consideration on the motion before you, if that is the condition that you have put in.

If we require more clarity on this, I'm happy to provide it. Honestly, it's the difference between dilatory and non-dilatory and debatable and non-debatable. If you choose to put a qualifier in, it's not dilatory. It is debatable and amendable, and you would be able to return on the same meeting to what you are currently considering.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you.

Ms. McPherson, we're going out to deal with that, and we'll come back in following that. We can do that in the same meeting. Sorry if this is taking too long, but this is what you were asking, correct? About getting to—