Evidence of meeting #38 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was information.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
You said that this had to do with a recusal from this issue, from votes related to this issue, and I didn't know there was a vote on this issue anywhere.
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
The motion? No. The recusal I was referring to was the recusal that may be imposed on a public office holder in the event that they report a matter on which there may be a conflict of interest. The consequences would be that a member shall not participate in any debate or any votes, as you could understand, on a matter of conflict of interest.
I raise the point from the standpoint that if there is another statute of Canada under which there is an alleged infringement, there may be a reporting requirement and the commissioner may, parallel to how they handle conflicts of interest, require a recusal of that member on matters relating to the item they reported.
I give that simply as an example of some items that I found very interesting in reading this. I should also indicate--
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
Sorry, Chair, I simply have no idea what that has to do with this case at all. It seems to me that you have rambled through a lot of documents that were prepared for you that have absolutely nothing--
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
Order, please.
I'm sorry. We're into debate. This is not a point of order.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
And I've made a ruling that the motion is in order. Mr. Hubbard's motion is in order.
Conservative
Conservative
Russ Hiebert Conservative South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC
Can you clarify? You said earlier that we would be moving to the witnesses at this point. Is that the intention?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
No, no. I'm sorry. The member has rights. He has asked for a point of order, and I want to hear from Mr. Tilson.
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
Mr. Chairman, I want the record to show that you made a ruling without allowing members of this committee to debate whether this motion was in order or not in order. I can assure you that members on this side would be arguing very strenuously that this motion is out of order.
You never gave us a chance to do that. You simply went willy-nilly with your ruling without giving us a chance to speak. Accordingly, Mr. Chair, I would challenge your ruling.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
The decision of the chair that the motion is in order has been challenged by Mr. Tilson. It is not debatable. I must put the question immediately.
(Ruling of the chair sustained)
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
And I agree.
If I may, in respect to Mr. Tilson, if I were to allow everybody to debate admissibility, we'd be going for days. I made a ruling. There is still going to be a debate on this thing.
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
It's exactly the way we handled it with the Mulroney-Schreiber issue. The first thing I did was rule on admissibility.