I want to apologize. My asthma seems to be acting up today, and then I ran, which I shouldn't have done, so I'm having trouble breathing.
We are resuming meeting number 112 of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, suspended on February 27.
I would like to acknowledge that this meeting is taking place on the unceded traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people.
I'm going to go through the usual stuff about the fact that the public health authorities do not mandate masks, but please wear one because they are excellent tools for preventing you from getting respiratory diseases and from giving it to others.
I remind you that you are not allowed to take screenshots or shots of any kind of the meeting. You can get the proceedings on the House of Commons website.
I remind you about the audio and the sensitivity of audio. If you have any devices, keep them as far away as possible from the mics when you are speaking. Also, keep yourself as far away as possible from your next door neighbour's mic.
We're resuming where we left off, because the meeting had been suspended. We have on the floor a motion from Mrs. Thomas. We are going to resume debate on the motion.
Before we do, at the last meeting, if you recall, we decided not to go forward until we had some information about the motion itself—who gave what to whom, etc., and whether this motion was in order.
I asked the analysts to check the information, and they did. From what they told me, I'm going to have to rule this motion inadmissible, mainly because in this motion we are asking the Minister of Canadian Heritage to come and speak about giving money to a conference that was a racist conference. While the Department of Canadian Heritage did give money to SSHRC, it gave money specifically, and only in the last two years in the year mentioned, for sports activities and in relation to research on sport. They cannot answer questions on this particular fund because they were not responsible for it. Another department did it.
One may want to consider if one can deal with that department in an admissible motion.
I'm going to have to rule this motion inadmissible because while the issue of racism falls under the mandate of this committee, the actual grant falls under the mandate of the committee on industry and technology.
The main intent of the motion focuses on this study, and it's one of the core responsibilities under the Department of Canadian Heritage's framework. At the same time, this grant was not given for this conference by the Department of Canadian Heritage.
I did not research it myself, just in case you were wondering about the credibility of it. I had asked my analysts to do this, and they reported back to me on this issue.
Thank you.
Go ahead, Mrs. Thomas.