Evidence of meeting #94 for Canadian Heritage in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was point.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
NDP
Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC
No, Mr. Chair.
With respect, when the chair is challenged, it has been the practice in this committee.... The chair of the committee, with all due respect to her, has allowed those challenges on points of order, which come primarily from Conservatives. This has been a practice ingrained in our committee and our committee practices.
With respect, I disagree with your interpretation, and I would like you to submit that to the committee. That is your responsibility as chair.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Kevin Waugh
Mr. Julian, I'm going to override you here. The decision was.... We're going to go back. We—
NDP
Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC
I have a point of order.
Mr. Chair, you cannot override a challenge to the chair. You simply have to ensure that the question—
Conservative
NDP
Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC
Yes, you can, and this has been our practice throughout this time. I believe, Mr. Chair, that you yourself in the position of vice-chair have challenged on a point of order a chair's decision. This is something that has been our practice in committee.
I am challenging your ruling. Respectfully, I will ask again. Will you ask the committee whether or not they sustain your ruling?
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Kevin Waugh
I was conferring with the clerk for a second.
I know that we've had a lot of suspensions. I'm just going to suspend for two minutes to get the official.... We've gone through the green book, but thank you, Mr. Julian. Just give me two minutes to collect our thoughts here.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Kevin Waugh
We will now resume.
We have a couple of decisions to make here, as we're going around in circles. Thank you, everyone, this morning. I really appreciate this.
The green book on page 1059, under “Decisions of the Chair and Appeals”, states the following:
One of the primary responsibilities of a committee Chair is to determine the procedural admissibility of matters raised in committee and whether the committee business is conducted in accordance with proper procedure.
This is what we've been talking about.
The Chair makes such decisions on his or her own initiative or following a point of order raised by a Member.
Decisions by the Chair are not debatable. They can, however, be appealed to the committee. To appeal a decision by a Chair, a member must inform the committee of his or her intent immediately after the decision is announced. The Chair then asks the committee the following question: “Shall the decision of the Chair be sustained?”
Then, as we were just discussing, this is what it states on page 1062:
the motion is not a substantive motion or a subsidiary motion where such a motion is already being debated (a committee is required to deal with such motions one at a time);
the member has the floor to move the motion and is not doing so on a point of order
NDP
Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC
What you've just read out confirms what I have been saying, which is that—
NDP
Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC
No. I'll come to practice in a moment.
Immediately after the decision of the chair, Mr. Champoux raised a point of order. You declared your decision. Immediately after that decision, I challenged the decision of the chair.
As you say...and you just read it out. You just read it out. It's exactly what I was saying—
NDP
Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC
It's immediately after, and then you go immediately to the committee to ask whether the decision of the chair should be sustained. That has been our practice.
You'll recall, Mr. Chair, that at our last meeting the Conservatives did it a number of times on points of order. This has been a practice of our committee since the beginning. It is confirmed by the green book.
I ask again. I am challenging your ruling for a number of, I think, very valid reasons, and I would ask that you ask the committee whether or not your decision will be sustained.
Conservative
Rachael Thomas Conservative Lethbridge, AB
There's a motion on the floor that I moved with regard to the CBC spreading dangerous disinformation pertaining to Hamas and Israel.
Conservative
Liberal
Taleeb Noormohamed Liberal Vancouver Granville, BC
The question with respect to the ruling of the chair is not one that can be debated. There should be a decision put to the committee. The committee has the will to sustain the chair's ruling or not.
I don't know why we are afraid of doing that, given that we did it three times at the last meeting alone. We could perhaps dispense with this, get it over with and then go back to whatever we need to do.
Conservative
Rachael Thomas Conservative Lethbridge, AB
The motion on the floor was brought forward by me. The motion is to call on the CBC—