Environment Committee on April 9th, 2008

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

I must provide further clarification, because you have not answered my question.

Might a clerk listen to me in order to try to answer my question?

If this motion is debated upon and passed by the House of Commons, which would, from my understanding, lead to the referral of the matter to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, would the consequence of that be, given that that committee is presently faced with a filibuster, to put an end to the filibuster in order to study this matter?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Bigras, the mention of a special committee is a guarded suggestion, I guess, to the House. We can't predict what the House will do with something, but that's where we would be sending it. Now, where they send it.... The Speaker has already indicated, as I've quoted, that he's concerned that what is happening could ultimately end in anarchy, so I think there's already a veiled suggestion about what the Speaker might do.

But we can't determine what the Speaker might do at this point, as we can't determine what the House will do when it gets this. This would move us forward, hopefully, and would hopefully solve a much bigger problem that could well plague other committees.

I have Mr. Watson next—and I'll get back to you, Mr. Cullen—and, I believe, Mr. McGuinty.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

And remember, this is for questions, not debate.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

I have a brief point first, and then a question or a comment and your thought on that.

With respect to rules, the rules working in a majority situation, the rules aren't intended for majorities; they're actually to protect minorities within even a majority situation. More to the—

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

That's debate, not—

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Well, I told you I had a point to make and then a question.

To the question now, this ruling, if adopted, or a motion brought forward and approved simply sends it to the House to make a decision on where to send it. Our guidance to them would be to which committee, not that we're directing it to a particular committee. Is that correct? We'll be sending it to the House. They will decide or the officers of the House, however it's done, will decide which committee it ultimately ends up in or whether they need to strike a new committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

I guess by these comments and by documenting it the way I've done here, hopefully accurately, we're in effect agreeing with what the Speaker has also observed. It will be between the Speaker and the House leaders, the whips, to determine exactly how this is going to proceed, but ultimately it would be a matter of debate.

That gives some leeway, rather than specifying a committee. So that's the purpose of having that special committee, which in fact is a suggestion that's already floating around.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

That's right.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

That's where that comes from.

Mr. Cullen.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

There was a direct question put to me by the parliamentary secretary for the environment in terms of moving this motion. The one exception I might make to this is my question to you earlier about the committee that you're suggesting the House send it to also being in filibuster. I'm not sure the government today can give us any insurance at all that that committee would not also end up in a logjam.

We've been at this one part of the bill for seventeen and a half hours now. In order to facilitate our moving beyond this and getting back to the environment, which this committee is meant to do, I would like to move a motion to strike out “the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs” and just allow the House and the chair, the Speaker of House, to select a special committee in order to do this.

Without the assurance of that other committee not also being delayed, I don't think it actually meets the recommendation that comes from you, Chair, which is to try to break this logjam.

I'm prepared to move the motion, if you understand my direction with what I'm trying to do.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Sure. Can we say “appropriate committee”?

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Okay. You're starting to help out.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

That gives that to the Speaker. You know, all his statements, which we reviewed very carefully, indicate that he wants action as well.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Chair, as you have indicated—just to be clear on this process—you would like this motion moved, and once the motion is moved, that's the end of debate.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Once the motion is moved, that ends it.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

So the language that you've suggested is “the appropriate committee”?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

I'm suggesting “That the committee report to the House inherent difficulties in the practice, procedure and rules of House which allow procedurally sound rulings of chairs to be overruled, and that the committee recommend that this matter be referred to the appropriate committee”.

Do we want to leave “the special committee”?

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Yes, please.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Then, “or possibly a special committee to consider whether changes to the Standing Orders might alleviate current difficulties in committees”.

By saying “committees”, of course, we're acknowledging—

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Other committees.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

—the fact that it's not just us.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Chair, in order to facilitate our getting back to Mr. Layton's legislation and hopefully finishing it today—I believe we're only some minutes away from actually finishing it; we've been at it for 20 hours, but I swear there's only 30 minutes left to go—I will move the motion as you've just repeated. I don't think I need to repeat it again.

So I move that motion, which began with, “That the committee report to the House inherent difficulties” and ends with “alleviate current difficulties in committees.”

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Everyone has heard Mr. Cullen's motion with the correction. That correction the clerk has, and we'll make those changes. We'll send the background, as we have presented here, and we will deliver that, then, to the House. That's what the motion is. We're advising the House to choose the appropriate committee to send this on to, to help solve this problem with committees.

That's correct, Mr. Cullen. I'm calling for the vote.

(Motion agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

No one is opposed, so it's unanimous.

We will send this back to the House, then, as amended, and we will now proceed back to where we were when we suspended that portion.

Mr. Cullen.