Information & Ethics Committee on May 10th, 2007

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Chairman, interpretation is not instantaneous. I had not understood your question. If you're asking whether there is unanimous consent to accept the amendment, my answer is no. Please call the question on his motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

All right. There is no unanimous consent to amend the motion, so the motion stands as currently worded.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, are you telling me that Mr. Wallace can't make an amendment to his motion?

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Without unanimous consent.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

No, quite the contrary. I believe there can be an amendment made to any motion by any member of this committee and that amendment would be voted on. If it fails, it fails. If it's carried, then there would be a vote on the motion as amended.

I've never heard of such a thing, that you get unanimous consent to approve an amendment. He's moving an amendment to his own motion. There's nothing wrong with that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

My information is that if you're moving an amendment to your motion at the committee without previous notice, you have to have unanimous consent. That's my ruling.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

I challenge the chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Okay, there's a vote to challenge the chair. There's no debate. My ruling is that you need unanimous consent to amend the motion.

Is the chair sustained? “Yes” means the chair is sustained; “no” means the chair is not sustained. Call the vote.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Is it “yes” to sustain the chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

“Yes” is to sustain the chair. “Sustain” means to support the chair.

(Ruling of the chair sustained)

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

The chair is sustained.

The vote is on the motion as currently before the committee.

Mr. Reid.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

On a point of order, there was no debate, so I had to kind of make my own judgment on what I thought the rules might be without having them in front of me. I therefore voted to sustain your ruling because I suspect you're probably right. Mr. Wallace was trying to amend his own motion.

If the rules permit--I won't pursue this if they don't--I now would like to propose the same amendment that he was proposing. I stand to be corrected, but I think I could, as another member of the committee, propose an amendment to his motion, and we could debate it in a normal fashion.

So if that is the case, then I am indeed proposing the amendment that Mr. Wallace had made to his own motion. I'm proposing, as another member, that amendment to his motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

That's an interesting point. And that is in order.

[Jim Peterson, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

I'll second that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Mr. Reid has moved that the words “any and all” be substituted with the word “current”, which, as I said, I'm interpreting as today.

Is there any discussion on that motion, which is debatable? Hopefully not....

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

I'll just say briefly, Mr. Chair, that essentially I did agree with the substance of what Mr. Wallace and the other speakers in favour of that motion had said. I'd not spoken at the time, but I want it to be clear that I am moving it with that line of thought.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Thank you, Mr. Reid. We understand that. All the points that have been made apply to the case.

We're now voting on the motion to amend Mr. Wallace's motion by changing “any and all” to “current”, as moved by Mr. Reid.

(Amendment agreed to: yeas 9; nays 2)

(Motion as amended negatived: nays 6; yeas 5)

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

We now move to committee business, item two.

To the witnesses, it's now 10:16, so if I see anybody request debate on the next motion--assuming it's moved--I'll let you guys go. Otherwise, what's the point? But if we proceed relatively quickly, we still have perhaps 40 minutes that we could ask some questions of you.

Madame Lavallée, are you prepared to move your motion?

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Yes.

You have all received a copy of the motion. It reads as follows: “It has been stated in the House of Commons and in the media […]”

[Jim Peterson, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

You can dispense with reading the motion.

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Fine. Thank you. There is no need to read the motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Madame Lavallée has moved the motion that is currently before us. There's no need to read it into the record, since it's in front of us in both official languages.

Is there any debate?

Mr. Tilson.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chairman.

I'm going to submit the point that the motion is out of order, and for a number of reasons.

I am going to read at least the preamble to the notice of motion that is before us:

It has been stated in the House of Commons and in the media that the Conservative government has denied the existence of the internal report by the Department of Foreign Affairs entitled Afghanistan 2006: Good Governance, Democratic Development and Human Rights, and that the government then took every step to prevent its release but was finally forced by the Information Commissioner to reconsider and then published the report, but in a highly censored form.

Carole Lavallée therefore moves:

And then there's the motion.

Mr. Chair, I'm now going to refer to Beauchesne's, page 174, paragraph 565, the first paragraph under motions:

A motion should be neither argumentative, nor in the style of a speech, nor contain unnecessary provisions or objectionable words. It is usually expressed in the affirmative, even when its purpose and effect are negative.

Now, reading this motion, I would submit to you that it is argumentative. And it certainly uses objectionable words--i.e., “the government then took every step to prevent its release”. That's pretty objectionable.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Let me just interrupt you. That is not part of the motion.

The motion before the committee is:

That the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics urgently address.....

--etc.

The preamble is not part of the motion.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Mr. Chairman, you can say that, but you acknowledge that the piece of paper that was put in front of us was the motion, and that's the motion.