Declaration of Emergency Committee on March 14th, 2022

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

It is moved by Ms. Bendayan that all documents submitted for committee business—

Pardon me, committee members. We have adopted the amendment, so now we will put the question on motion 14 as amended. Do we have agreement?

(Motion as amended agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Okay. We will move to motion 15, which was moved by Ms. Bendayan: “That all documents submitted for committee business that do not come from a federal department, member's or senator's office or that have not been translated by the translation bureau be sent for prior linguistic review by the translation bureau before being distributed to members.”

Is it agreed to adopt the motion?

(Motion agreed to)

Thank you.

On motion number 16—

[The Joint Chair, NDP, Matthew Green]

Madam Chair, it might be a minor thing, but we may want to add—

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

Is this dealing with number 16?

[The Joint Chair, NDP, Matthew Green]

This is dealing with number 16. That's correct.

We may want to say, “That the interim budget of $50,000 be adopted and sent to the Board of Internal Economy of the House of Commons for approval.” We may want to add “for approval”. It might be a minor thing.

[The Joint Co-Chair, Bloc, Rhéal Fortin]

This item is already included in the French version. I agree with my colleague, Mr. Green. It's simply a matter of consistency.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

Okay.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

I have a question, Madam Chair.

I appreciate that $50,000 is the standard committee budget, but should the committee retain legal counsel, we may need to adjust this, or am I right in understanding that it would be a separate budget line from this $50,000?

Very good. Thank you.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

For those on the screen, I am seeing that it is correct.

Mr. Green raised the question of adding “for approval”, for clarity and to bring it in line with the French version.

It's been moved by Mr. Green that an interim budget of $50,000 be adopted and sent to the Board of Internal Economy of the House of Commons for approval.

Do I have agreement?

(Motion agreed to)

That ends the motions that have been tabled so far.

Go ahead, Mr. Motz.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Is this where committee members can introduce additional motions that we want considered?

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

We can do that now.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Could I get someone to hand these out for me, please?

I would propose the following motion, “that during questioning of witnesses at all future hearings, the chair of the committee—

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

I have a point of order, Madam Chair.

I apologize, Mr. Motz.

I was just wondering, in the order of things—I see that my colleague Mr. Virani's hand was up—if a committee member has a routine motion, should we go to complete the routine motions first, or should we move on to this motion?

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

I believe this is a routine motion.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

This is a routine motion for me. I'm sorry, Madam Chair.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Okay.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

For clarity, Mr. Motz is introducing a routine motion.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Madam Chair, my hand was raised. I'm not sure who was first in the order of precedence, but mine is fairly routine and probably is going to engender less debate than Mr. Motz's.

I'm in everyone's hands. The clerk has been provided a copy of the text of what some other Liberals and I are proposing.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

Okay.

Would it be agreeable to let Mr. Virani go first?

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

I'll do anything for Arif. Absolutely.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

Do we have that distributed, Mr. Virani?

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

It was sent by one of our staff to the clerk and it's marked “Additional routine motions one and two”.

Mr. Clerk, can you confirm you received it? I think it was Ms. Bendayan's staff who sent it to you.

[The Joint Clerk, Mr. Paul Cardegna]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Yes, we received that document. If you consent, we can distribute it to the members of the committee now electronically, which is what I will do in a moment.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

Could we suspend for five minutes while he does that?

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Sure. Thank you.