I call this meeting to order.
It's a pleasure to be here with you for meeting number 42 of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development. This is a public meeting.
This is a reminder of headset safety for those here in person.
Bill C-241, an act to establish a national strategy respecting flood and drought forecasting, is undergoing clause-by-clause consideration today. I'd like to provide members of the committee with a few comments on how committees proceed with clause-by-clause consideration of a bill. Many of our committee members will be doing this for the first time today, so hopefully this will be helpful to everybody.
This is an examination of all the clauses in the order in which they appear in the bill. I'll call each clause successively, and each clause is subject to debate and to a vote. If there are amendments to the clause in question, I'll recognize the member proposing it, who can explain it. The amendment will then be open for debate. When no further members wish to intervene, the amendment will be voted on.
Amendments will be considered in the order in which they appear in the package each member received from the clerk. Amendments have been given a number in the top right corner to indicate which party submitted them. During debate on an amendment, members are permitted to move subamendments.
In addition to having to be properly drafted in a legal sense, amendments must also be procedurally admissible. The chair may be called upon to rule amendments inadmissible if they go against the principle of the bill or beyond the scope of the bill—both of which were adopted by the House when it agreed to the bill at second reading—or if they offend the financial prerogative of the Crown.
If you wish to eliminate a clause of the bill altogether, the proper course of action is to vote against that clause when the time comes, not to propose an amendment to delete it.
Once every clause has been voted on, the committee will vote on the title and the bill itself, and an order to reprint the bill may be required if amendments are adopted, so that the House has a proper copy for use at report stage.
Finally, the committee will have to order the chair to report the bill to the House. That report contains only the text of any adopted amendments, as well as an indication of any deleted clauses.
I thank the members for their attention and wish everyone a productive clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-241.
Pursuant to Standing Order 75(1), consideration of clause 1, the short title, and of the preamble are postponed.
I am now calling clause 2.
(Clause 2 agreed to)
(On clause 3)
We have some proposed amendments to clause 3. Is there a member who would like to move their amendment?
Monsieur St-Pierre, go ahead.
