Evidence of meeting #8 for Declaration of Emergency in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was documents.
A video is available from Parliament.
Senator, Ontario, PSG)
I agree with what Mr. Virani has said, and I was going to say the same thing. With that understanding, I'd be happy to vote on this.
Bloc
The Joint Chair Bloc Rhéal Fortin
Do you want the committee to vote on Mr. Virani's proposal?
You want us to vote on Ms. Boniface's motion.
Senator, Ontario, PSG)
With the understanding that it is written, I would suggest we move to a vote, Chair.
Bloc
The Joint Chair Bloc Rhéal Fortin
I do want us to vote, Mr. Harder, but we are going to have to agree on the translation before voting. Otherwise, I'm going to declare the motion out of order.
I propose to suspend the meeting for a few minutes.
Bloc
The Joint Chair Bloc Rhéal Fortin
We are going to resume our work, please.
Ms. Boniface, we have worked on an in‑house translation of your motion. I'm going to read it in French and the interpreters will interpret it. I'm going to read it slowly to make sure we are all on the same wavelength:
Que le Comité sollicite un avis conjoint auprès du légiste du Sénat et du légiste de la Chambre des communes afin de savoir quels renseignements le comité peut obtenir, compte tenu du serment de secret prévu à l’annexe de la Loi sur les mesures d’urgence et auquel fait référence le paragraphe 62(3) de cette loi; et que l’avis conjoint soit soumis aux greffiers du comité mixte pour qu’ils le distribuent aux membres au plus tard le 13 juin 2022.
We will discuss proposals to amend, but I would like to know, first, whether the original motion that I have just read is agreeable to everyone. Do we agree on the translation? I see we do. That's good.
Mr. Virani has proposed that the joint opinion be a written opinion. We have to vote on that amendment before voting on the motion.
Personally, I would like to propose that it be two opinions rather than a joint opinion.
We will start with Mr. Virani's proposed amendment, that the opinion be a written opinion.
Does anyone want to speak about this proposed amendment?
Claude Carignan Senator, Quebec (Mille Isles), C
I'd like to speak about the idea of a written opinion. In fact, I'm wondering about the idea of an opinion itself, whether written or not.
I think we're putting the clerks in an extremely delicate position, because this is a very theoretical question. It's a bit abstract. When we ask what information the committee can obtain from the witnesses, we're asking a very broad question. We don't have any facts, any type of information or particular situation to put to them in order to obtain an opinion.
As a lawyer, I have given this kind of legal opinion. Normally, you want a certain factual basis and you want to talk about some information in particular. I'm afraid that this is a bit of a theoretical exercise when you're not asking for an opinion about a precise document or fact.
As was said earlier, I believe this request is premature, as long as we don't have the documents in front of us and as long as we can't ask for something specific.
Bloc
The Joint Chair Bloc Rhéal Fortin
Thank you, Mr. Carignan.
Does anyone else want to speak to Mr. Virani's proposed amendment?
Is there unanimous consent, or do we have to vote on the proposed amendment that it be a written opinion?
In French, it would read: "le Comité sollicite un avis écrit conjoint auprès du légiste du Sénat".
Is everyone agreed on this proposal? Right.
I'm going to propose an amendment of my own.
Rather than a joint opinion, I propose that "the Committee seek opinions from the Law Clerk of the Senate and the Law Clerk of the House of Commons".
Mr. Green, the floor is yours.
NDP
The Joint Chair NDP Matthew Green
I understand the intention and the direction, but I don't know if it's fair of this committee to ask the two houses to potentially be at odds in this particular scenario. I think we're asking a lot of them as it is, for the same reasons Senator Carignan has raised and for the issues that I've brought up. I'm cautious around that. I think if we have them work together to get to whatever their legal opinion is....
I'm going to presuppose that they're going to come back to talk about the specificity of the special orders under the act that were secret, which I'm to understand didn't exist. I'm not sure there's going to be much that actually comes of this, but I also don't want to put them into a scenario where they go in completely separate directions and then we're left holding the bag on that.
Bloc
The Joint Chair Bloc Rhéal Fortin
Mr. Harder would like to speak, but I just want to note that I have been informed that the senators must leave at 9:20.
Is that right, Ms. Boniface?
Bloc
Senator, Ontario, PSG)
Thank you, Chair.
I would be against your motion for the reasons that Mr. Green has cited, but I would also make the point that it would not surprise me if the opinion had a range of understandings that might be nuanced and not necessarily narrow and prescribed. It could incorporate different perspectives, but it would be useful to have it in one document without going through the parsing out of one chamber's view versus the other chamber's view.
Bloc
Liberal
Arif Virani Liberal Parkdale—High Park, ON
I just think that if we asked five different lawyers, then we would possibly get five different opinions, so the notion of asking for more than one is probably a dangerous proposition. I agree with Mr. Green, for what might be the first time this evening.
Bloc
The Joint Chair Bloc Rhéal Fortin
I agree with you, Mr. Virani: if we ask five lawyers for their opinion, we will probably get five different opinions, and two, if we ask two. I'm just thinking that we might benefit from having two. In any event, I understand that the committee members aren't interested in having two opinions. So I withdraw my proposed amendment.
Does anyone else want to speak to the proposal amended by Mr. Virani, and amended by the corrections in French that I read before, for us to ask for a written opinion? Senator Carignan has said that the motion is premature, but does anyone else wish to speak to the motion as a whole or can we proceed with the vote now?
Do you wish to speak, Ms. Burke?
Bloc
The Joint Chair Bloc Rhéal Fortin
Is there unanimous agreement to the motion? So I'm asking for a standing vote.
(Motion agreed to: yeas 9; nays 2.)
Bloc
The Joint Chair Bloc Rhéal Fortin
We have ten minutes left. I was asked to clear the room at 9:30, as scheduled. There are votes in the Senate and the senators have to leave at 9:40.
In my opinion, we have exhausted the agenda.
The meeting is adjourned.