Evidence of meeting #48 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 39th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was amendment.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
—and I'm talking about two or three minutes, not ten or fifteen.... If people think that would be useful, then I would be prepared to do that.
It doesn't appear that we have unanimous consent for that.
Mr. Stanton, are you prepared to move a subamendment?
Conservative
Bruce Stanton Conservative Simcoe North, ON
I propose that the amendment be changed to reflect the witness order as being Jeff Esau and Paul Koring in first position. If you wish, we can put Professor Amir Attaran in second position, followed by the Information Commissioner and other such witnesses, and the sections...etc.
So we would reorder paragraphs (1), (2), and (3).
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
So your subamendment is to change the order of the amendment so that it would read:
in the following order:
(1) Jeff Esau, and Paul Koring of The Globe and Mail;
(2) Professor Amir Attaran;
(3) the Information Commissioner, and such other witnesses
—etc.—
(4) Jocelyne Sabourin; and
(5) such other
and so on. That's your subamendment.
I just want everybody to understand what the subamendment is. The subamendment would, if it carried, amend the amendment to change the order of witnesses, so that Jeff Esau and Paul Koring would be first, Professor Attaran would be second, and then the Information Commissioner and others would be third, and so on.
That's the subamendment. Is there any debate?
Mr. Dhaliwal.
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Newton—North Delta, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I would like to thank Bruce Stanton, my good friend on the other side, who's always very reasonable.
But on this particular question, could he change his sequence a bit? Professor Attaran is here now, and Mr. Esau is here as well. If we can just move Professor Attaran right to the front and get going, I think that would be very appropriate. They've been waiting since this morning, and we have to respect their time, because in fact they are the true servants of Canadians, when we consider their volunteering time to come here. We are trying to filibuster. It's not fair to Professor Attaran.
This is a suggestion I would make to my good friend Mr. Stanton.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
Mr. Stanton, you have a friendly suggestion. My interpretation was going to be that we call Mr. Esau, and then we call Mr. Koring—and if he isn't here, he isn't here—and then we call Professor Attaran, and if he's here, he's here.
I don't want any trickery. To assure everybody, we know for a fact that Mr. Koring isn't here.
I am asking Mr. Stanton whether he would consider that his amendment be that the first witness be Mr. Esau, followed by Professor Attaran, followed by Mr. Koring, followed by the Information Commissioner.
Conservative
Conservative
Bruce Stanton Conservative Simcoe North, ON
That just happened to be the order. I didn't want to mess it up any worse than it already is, but if that's what we have in front of us....
I would say, though, Mr. Chair, that we still need to keep Mr. Koring on the list, even though he's not here. But if the effect of this is to accommodate the witnesses we have here today, then that's great.
On the second point, Mr. Chairman, I don't know how, but can we just reach a friendly agreement that, whatever copies of this report are in play here today, at least we all have it in front of us? It would just seem to make sense. We're dealing with bits and pieces of everything here and we need to have that in front of us.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
Whatever that document you're referring to may be, I as your chair do not have it. I have not seen it. I don't believe the clerk has it. If individual members want to provide things to other members, they can do so.
Obviously if something came to the chair that was in order and in both official languages, I would as a matter of course instruct that it be distributed. I don't know what you're talking about; I haven't seen it.
Okay. Do we understand?
The subamendment would essentially—and I don't want to waste time by repeating it—allow us to hear from the witnesses who are here today, while continuing to provide structure to the types of witnesses we hear in the future and the order in which we hear them.
All those in favour of the subamendment.... Is there debate?
Mr. Reid.
Excuse me. Madame Lavallée.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
You said they want to now hear from the two witnesses who are present.
Is the word "now" in the motion?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
The word “now” is not in the proposal, but in my opinion it follows, because if this amendment were to be called, then we are to hear these people. The date....
Unfortunately, everybody is so distrustful of everybody that we have to make sure the wording is exact.
No, the word “now” is not here. There's nothing specifically in the motion, even as amended, even as subamended, that would indicate that the witnesses would have to be heard now.
Mr. Dhaliwal.
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Newton—North Delta, BC
I was speaking to this earlier, Mr. Stanton. It's my understanding that those two witnesses are here and we will hear them now and then we go. I just want to clarify the point I made earlier. Those two witnesses are here now, and because they've been here since this morning, we must hear from them now.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
All right. I want none of the committee members to feel that they've been somehow tricked. Let's try it again.
Would Mr. Stanton be prepared to have the motion amended so that witnesses be heard in the following order: Jeff Esau and Professor Amir Attaran, now; then Paul Koring of The Globe and Mail and the Information Commissioner and other witnesses.
The reason for that suggestion is clear: they're here. We don't want any trickery. We don't want an objection to calling them as witnesses because of anything else. You asked committee members to consider this in good faith. Good faith is rapidly diminishing in this committee, so that's why I'm trying to be clear.
If this subamendment carried, and if the amendment carried, and if the report then carried, then we would go to the witnesses now.
Conservative
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
The only question I have, Mr. Chairman, is this. The remainder of the amendment then still says that the next witnesses would be the Information Commissioner; whereas--
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
Paul Koring, all right.
We've already got Jocelyne Sabourin scheduled, I believe, for the 29th, which is the next ordinary meeting of this committee.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
She would be available during the week of the 28th, but she's not actually scheduled for a particular day.
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
The reason I ask for the floor, Mr. Chair, is that I feel strongly that she is the next logical witness to be heard in an orderly sequence. It's exactly what we tried to achieve today, in fact, is to have these two witnesses and then hear from Jocelyne Sabourin to explain why she denied the existence of the very documents that we have here today, the main substance of the whole investigation at this point.
I would like to make it clear that we should keep that sequence. I have no objections to adding Mr. Koring and the Information Commissioner, although I think it will be fruitless. It doesn't matter. I believe that the sequence should be maintained that we arrived at in our steering committee, which is Esau, Attaran, Sabourin.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
I'm being put in the position of trying to broker a deal here, and I'm not comfortable with it. We're dealing with specific motions and specific amendments and subamendments. I'm trying my best to see if we can have some consensus. Every time we get close to consensus, somebody raises something else. I'm not saying it's not legitimate, but I don't know where we're going to go from there.
To try to conclude this, I'll ask the mover of the subamendment if he would be prepared to consider including in his amendment Jocelyne Sabourin before the Information Commissioner. That's something you have to consider, Mr. Stanton. If not, then we can get back to voting.
I think the point is that the fourth report calls for three witnesses. The amendment that has been put forward calls for other witnesses. Admittedly, it did call for them in a specific order. I'm getting the sense that the committee would be happy to have the other witnesses who are put. But the consensus of the committee is that they would like to have the three witnesses that the fourth report identified come first. I think that seems to be what I'm hearing. If we could have some agreement in that regard, fine. If not, then we go back to the actual motion as proposed.
I'm going to ask you, are you prepared to consider that friendly amendment?
Conservative
Bruce Stanton Conservative Simcoe North, ON
I appreciate the efforts by the honourable member to raise that point.
As I've argued earlier today, I do feel very strongly that the Information Commissioner needs to be early into the process here. The honourable member Martin may not need that, but my preference is to have the proper context. Because of the sensitivity of this information, we need that. I'm quite willing to try to make some compromise to move this thing along.
I note that Madame Sabourin will be in the order here. All we're really talking about here is the Information Commissioner. That's the only difference. I don't think it's a big enough point to stall our process here, to try to move along. I think we've been trying to be accommodating here. I think my proposal is.... Look, we're considering--