Environment Committee on April 1st, 2008

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Okay. Mr. McGuinty was asking a specific question on the number of hours I'm going to be speaking. I'm not sure. I want to make sure that I express my concerns. We've seen a report from the Speaker of the House on two committees, about how some committees have become quite dysfunctional.

What has happened is that previously, Chair, and I have the blues here, we had a motion moved during a point of order, which is totally against the rules. It wasn't too many meetings ago that those rules were broken, and the House and this committee went into utter chaos. We don't want that to happen.

What we have is a report from the Speaker, and this is what the Speaker ruled. The Speaker said: “I am now prepared to rule on the point of order raised by the hon. member for Mississauga South on March 3”—

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Warawa, I'm going to interrupt you.

I think you have your answer. He doesn't know how long he's going to speak, and I think that's the answer. That's the question that was asked; that is the answer.

I want to get to clause 10.

Mr. McGuinty.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

This is a separate point of order. But I'd like to put it through you to the clerk, who's with you.

Could you tell us, Clerk, or you, Chair: are you at liberty, and do you have the discretion as chair of this committee, to sequence the speaking order here? Are you not at liberty? I find it strange, and so do Canadians watching, that four Conservative MPs are listed in order to speak to this bill and have been speaking to this bill now for—I think it's 14 hours, and I stand corrected—14 hours non-stop, without any significance.

Do you have the discretion, Mr. Chair—or Clerk, does the chair have the discretion—to actually diversify the speaking order?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Always the pattern for the chair has been, during clause-by-clause, to accept to not have the sequence we have when we have witnesses. That's established. We've all agreed to it, and it works pretty well.

In clause-by-clause, what is traditionally established is that people have comments about the clause and are free to make those in the order that they raise their hands with the point they want to make. That's what we've been following. I don't know whether it's written. We are masters of our own fate.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Do you have the discretion, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

I don't know whether I have the discretion to say that we will take one from here and one from there; I doubt very much that I do. I think that has to be set up by the committee when we establish the procedure here, and I don't believe I have the power to simply make rules.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Well, ask the clerk to help us understand this. In fact, I think you do have the discretion, Mr. Chair, and I think it would be incumbent upon you to break this cycle of uninterrupted filibustering by the government.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Basically, the clerk agrees with my understanding that unless the committee specifically sets it down in the rule book, I do not have the discretion to simply arbitrarily say that these will be the rules by which I'll run the committee. As I have committed to you, I will run it as fairly as I possibly can, and I think you believe that.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Then on that same point of order, Mr. Chair, do you have the authority and the discretion to limit the amount of time when four members of a government caucus are running out the clock deliberately?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

That is the same answer. The committee can decide that.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

The committee can decide that? How do we do that right, Mr. Chair?

[An hon. member]

Ask the clerk.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

You do it by motion, which is debatable, when you have the floor.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Do I have the floor?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

You do not have the floor. On this point of order, you do not.

Mr. Cullen, you can go right after him and certainly put that motion

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

So on this--

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

There is a question already before the committee, and the question is, of course, on clause 10.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Then let me put a more generalized question in the same point of order to you, Mr. Chair. What remedy is available to this committee to stop this nonsense?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Get the floor.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Is that the only and exclusive remedy open to parliamentarians here?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

When rules are being set, obviously that should be considered. When we set the time limits and all of those things, that would be the appropriate time to do that.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

I'm looking to you and the clerk. There is no single remedy available to this committee right now to get control of the government's filibuster. Is that right?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

That's how I understand it. We're masters of our own fate. We can't look to the Speaker. We can't look to the clerks. We can't look to anybody but ourselves.

Again, as has been pointed out to me--and I guess I should have known the answer to this--closure within the House can be used and has been used, but it would be very unusual on a private member's bill to have the House interfere with a committee. I've heard Speaker Milliken's rulings many times before on stepping into a committee and trying to sort it out.

I think, like it or not, solving any problems within our committee is within our committee's jurisdiction to do. As frustrated as we might become sometimes, I think that's the way it works.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

So you're saying on this point of order that there is a remedy available to this committee through the House of Commons.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

There is, through the House of Commons, using a motion of closure, but that would be rather unusual, and I don't know, historically, whether that's ever been done on a private member's bill. We could certainly ask our Library of Parliament--and they cringe--to research whether that's ever been done. At least we could get the answer.

I have Mr. Godfrey on this point of order.