Declaration of Emergency Committee on March 14th, 2022

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

Just to clarify for my purposes, Mr. Motz, you're reversing the order. The Conservatives are first and the Liberals are second. Is that intentional?

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

It's in line with the first round. The first round is Conservative, Liberal, Bloc and NDP. The second round would follow the same rotation of Conservative, Liberal, Bloc and NDP.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

Okay.

Are there any comments on the amendment?

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

Madam Chair, I have a comment.

It's Arif Virani. I'm online.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

I apologize, Mr. Virani. When your hand goes up, I don't see it at this angle because of the tree. I'm not ignoring you.

Go ahead.

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

Madam Chair, I wish it were a tree. This is my rented condo and that's a pretty fake tree, which will always be green. Thank you, and I'm sorry about that.

In terms of the allocation of the time and the order in round two, again, I'm not privy to Senate practice, but pursuant to House of Commons practice, I believe we normally do invert it. The official opposition goes first in round one, and the government usually goes first in round two. That's my understanding of the practice.

The second point is that I guess we're in sort of a special situation here, and that is because it is a committee of two Houses. Among the Senate group, in the past there was such a thing known as a “Liberal” Canadian senator. There no longer is. The same does not apply to all of the other parties, including the official opposition.

The unfairness I'm pointing out here is that when we allocate additional time to the senators, that includes Senator Carignan, who's a member of the Conservative caucus. That would present, in my respectful submission, undue unfairness. You would have multiple opportunities for Conservative members of that party's caucus to speak, including two members of the House and the Conservative senator. The same cannot be said for any of the other senators. We can't create equality by propping up the amount of speaking time of the Liberal senator, because there are no Liberal senators.

I raise that for the committee's consideration. I do think it renders some unfairness with respect to my party and the speaking time we are being allotted.

Thank you.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Green.

[The Joint Chair, NDP, Matthew Green]

Perhaps by way of finding some kind of common ground here, I would suggest that maybe we consider having a Senate rotation and a fifth slot. Rather than having all of them, perhaps we could rotate through the groups.

I can state with assurance that we do not have a New Democratic senator, although maybe some are close. We certainly do not officially have a New Democratic senator.

Maybe one way to find common ground between the two alternatives would be to provide slot “e”, where we could have a rotation through senators. That could be determined by the senators, notwithstanding the fact of having to exclude somebody in a way that wouldn't allow them to participate. It would be my suggestion that there are probably Liberal-leaning senators, and there are probably other senators who tend to lean in different partisan ways.

That would be my suggestion as perhaps a way forward to find that common ground.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

Next is Senator Carignan, to be followed by Mr. Brock.

[Claude Carignan]

I want to point out that we must be careful not to give political labels to senators. There aren't any senators from the Bloc Québécois, either. We can't start making these types of arguments in terms of the Senate. We won't have the committee members take a blood test to find out whether they're red or blue.

I think that Mr. Motz's motion makes sense and provides some balance.

I think that everyone will agree that all the senators on this committee are very ideologically independent.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

Thank you, Senator Carignan.

Go ahead, Mr. Brock.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

I want to start off by indicating my support for my colleague Glen Motz's suggestion with respect to the second round of witnesses. With all due respect to my colleague Mr. Virani, my understanding from my brief experience as a parliamentarian sitting on the justice committee, and occasionally on the public safety committee, is that in the second round, the opposition party goes first, not the governing party. I'm not sure if his committee work is a little different, but at least in the two committees I sit on, the second round is always led by the Conservative Party.

Thank you.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

Go ahead, Ms. Bendayan.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

In the spirit of collaboration, I would be very comfortable with and happy to support the proposal that the official opposition goes first in the second round.

I would like to pick up on a point that Mr. Green mentioned just a few moments ago, to indicate that, quite apart from any partisan reasons or purposes, it is important for each member to have the opportunity to ask questions, but that is not the case. Quite simply, we are three members on this side and we only have two slots. The way the committee will operate de facto is that not every single member will have an opportunity to ask questions at every single panel.

It is something to keep in mind, in the spirit of fairness, that we try to give equal weight to that argument as well.

[The Joint Chair, NDP, Matthew Green]

I appreciate those remarks. In the same spirit of how the governing side will likely have to rotate within their own coordination, that lends weight to my suggestion that the Senate do the same, notwithstanding the fact that we understand the Senate tends to work fairly well in that regard and would likely be able to figure out a rotational basis, in the same way that we're figuring out a rotational basis as the chair.

I want to remind people of the unique nature of this committee and the way in which we're constituting, hopefully, a very collaborative and non-partisan blueprint for other committees like this, should this ever have to happen again, to work on a move-forward basis. From what I'm hearing, maybe there's that spirit that the Conservatives would get the lead in the second round and we would not have every senator, but a senator in the second round. I think that's a vast improvement on what was proposed in the original draft and it finds us in that agreeable space.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

I have Mr. Virani, Mr. Brock, and then Senator Harder.

Mr. Virani, please go ahead.

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

In response to Senator Carignan, I would simply say that the facts are the facts, sir. There's one senator on this team who sits as a member of a party caucus, and that is you. That's for Canadians to verify themselves.

On the second point, I would say that I am in complete agreement with Ms. Bendayan that we either keep the extra three minutes that were allocated to us, so that every Liberal on this committee—not on rotation, but in every meeting—has a chance to ask questions, or we ensure that the Senate goes into a rotation. As proposed by Mr. Motz, you could have a situation where two out of the three Liberals in a given meeting get to ask questions—one does not—and every senator gets two opportunities to ask questions. That is a patent unfairness that is, to my mind, not acceptable.

Thank you.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

Go ahead, Mr. Brock.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

To address my colleagues, Mr. Virani and Ms. Bendayan, they raise interesting issues and it's a trend that I've been seeing on the justice committee. We have to ensure equity. We have to ensure that every party has an equal opportunity to ask questions. There is a simple solution to this, and that is our ability to control the number of witnesses per session.

Thank you.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

Next is Senator Harder, to be followed by Mr. Motz.

Senator Harder, go ahead.

[Peter Harder]

Not speaking for any other senator, I'd be happy to accept the notion of rotation among senators for witnesses.

Thank you.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

Mr. Motz, go ahead.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

In light of the discussions, I would amend my own motion to read as Mr. Green has suggested: three minutes, Conservative; three minutes, Liberal; two minutes, Bloc; two minutes, NDP; followed by four minutes, two for each rotated senator, to be determined by the Senate group themselves.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Gwen Boniface]

Is the amended motion agreeable to everyone? That incorporates all of the discussion.

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

Madam Chair, could I just get clarification from Mr. Motz on the last piece? It was four minutes for the Senate.... Could you just repeat that, please?