Evidence of meeting #65 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bob Mills
That we continue to get these guys on the line and that we are going to listen to them.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
Mark Warawa Conservative Langley, BC
A point of order.
There is a very easy solution, Chair. If Mr. McGuinty removes this motion, then we can move on. To move forward is to try to bully you into making an apology, Chair, and it's not appropriate.
So I would again ask Mr. McGuinty to remove the motion, and then we can get on to the witnesses.
Would Mr. McGuinty remove the motion?
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bob Mills
It's now before the committee, so it's really not Mr. McGuinty who makes that decision. It would be the committee that would have to make that decision.
Obviously you could decide to do that. The point is, what's my guidance for these two gentlemen? Get them on the phone?
12:55 p.m.
An. hon. member
Yes.
12:55 p.m.
An hon. member
No.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bob Mills
We'll carry on, but we have a motion to get hold of them, and that's what we're attempting to do.
12:55 p.m.
An hon. member
We have a motion.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
Maurice Vellacott Conservative Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK
As much as I, myself, have questions about whether this would truly and strictly be a confidence issue, I defer to you, Mr. Chair. As I said before, I seriously think you'd want to get some significant input from somebody else before you judge it such.
The kind of language that's written into this motion I think needs to be understood against the backdrop of what Mr. McGuinty said earlier.
Mr. Rota, I think you were here at the time.
Mr. McGuinty sketched a fairly interesting conspiracy theory, short of phone logs and whatever. He was pretty precise in impugning the integrity of the chair of the committee regarding how this happened: that it wasn't just an accident, that there was fairly malicious intent. That was the way he portrayed it. He got a call from the Prime Minister's Office, and so on. You can go back to the Hansard record and check it. That's the specific backdrop to the motion here.
If that hadn't been loaded into the situation prematurely, well before we got into the actual discussion of it, maybe we would be at a different point here. But until Mr. McGuinty is prepared to either withdraw those remarks or apologize for the interesting conspiracy theory that he sketched at the very beginning to impugn the integrity of the chair.... That's why we have loaded into it that very full detailed chronology of events of Mr. McGuinty.
I am of the view that we should probably amend this motion to read, “That Mr. McGuinty apologize, make a fulsome apology, to the chair of the committee for impugning his integrity”. That would be my offering or my suggestion, because I think you have some major problems with what's here. If you want to understand it in some stripped-down kind of version, which I'd even still have a problem with, I think I would want to move that Mr. McGuinty make an apology to the chair of the committee for impugning his integrity. That's the amendment to the motion I'm putting forward at this time.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bob Mills
We have two gentlemen on the telephone holding for us, and we have a motion on the floor that we are debating. The only way we can proceed is to carry on debating the motion and leave the guys on the telephone, or we can have a motion to listen to these two gentlemen and come back to the motion. Or we can adjourn the meeting.
We still have people talking to the motion, and now we have an amendment. That'll be a separate motion when we get to it.
1 p.m.
Liberal
John Godfrey Liberal Don Valley West, ON
In order that we don't collapse at one o'clock--and we're not going to as long as this is being debated--what is it we need to do procedurally? We want some assurance that after we've voted on the motion we will be able to hear the witnesses. In other words, how do we extend our sitting?
1 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bob Mills
Mr. Vellacott, did you want to make an amendment to this motion? Is that what you were proposing?
1 p.m.
Conservative
Maurice Vellacott Conservative Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK
I think he should apologize. I think the way he's carried on is despicable, absolutely.
1 p.m.
Conservative
1 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bob Mills
Okay. The clerk will get the wording. We'll debate that motion, or that sub-motion. Now you see why the UN has so much fun.
I'm going to ask the clerk to read what Mr. Vellacott has put forward as his amendment.
1 p.m.
The Clerk of the Committee Mr. Justin Vaive
That Mr. McGuinty apologize to the chair for impugning his integrity.
1 p.m.
Bloc
Bernard Bigras Bloc Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC
I would like to have the clerk's opinion on this, but it seems to me that this amendment is out of order. It goes beyond the spirit of the original motion. Mr. Warawa could propose a new motion, but I have questions as to whether the amendment is in order.
1 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bob Mills
What I'm advised, Mr. Vellacott, is that you can remove the word “chair”, and put in the word “McGuinty”.
1 p.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
1 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bob Mills
That's called a reverse whatever.
Our new ruling here from the chair is that we carry on with the original motion that we're discussing and that after that one passes or fails, we would then entertain a motion from Mr. Vellacott on the other item, as a separate motion.