Evidence of meeting #40 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 point.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
I challenge the chair, and it's not debatable. He's ruling your motion out of order.
Conservative
Conservative
Russ Hiebert Conservative South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC
I apologize for Mr. Poilievre. I'd like to hear your ruling.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
I'm sorry. I have tried very hard to be patient, to listen to members, and to be respectful, but the language I'm hearing from Mr. Poilievre I find totally unacceptable.
I demand an apology, Mr. Poilievre. There must be respect for the chair. You can't say, “What the hell are you talking about”, and be critical of me in the middle of giving a ruling on--
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
I'll get to it. I'm in the middle of ruling on the amendment that Mr. Hiebert presented.
We're on the amendment proposed by Mr. Hiebert to Mr. Van Kesteren's amendment. We refer to it as the subamendment. I tried to explain that the intent or the action of an amendment to anything should be to provide greater precision to the motion it's amending, not to add on to it more elements to do more things. When it reaches that point, it goes beyond the scope of the motion or the amendment that you're trying to amend.
The reason for the inadmissibility of the amendment is that it's going beyond the scope of the Van Kesteren amendment, because it's doing a whole new set of activities not contemplated, not referred to in the Van Kesteren motion. So I rule the amendment out of order.
Mr. Tilson, on a point of order.
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
Mr. Chairman, you have been repeatedly attacking Mr. Hiebert and Mr. Poilievre for their conduct. You don't have the right to do that. I'm going to refer you to Marleau and Montpetit. Page 858 says:
In the event of disorder,...
--which is what you're suggesting when you attack these honourable members--
...the Chair may suspend the meeting until order can be restored or, if the situation is considered to be so serious as to prevent the committee from continuing with its work, the meeting may be adjourned. Neither committees nor their Chairs...
--that's you, Mr. Chairman--
....have the authority to censure an act of disorder or misconduct.
So I say to you, sir, you don't have the right to demand an apology from members, to be critical of members of this committee. If you're losing control of this meeting, you know what to do, and that's not to criticize members.
Liberal
Marcel Proulx Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
I don't understand how asking for an apology from Mr. Poilievre is an act of censure, through you, Mr. Chair, to Mr. Tilson.
It's a normal, reasonable request of a member who has been using improper vocabulary against the chair.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
Order.
The chair has been subject to a lot of abuse, but when it gets personal, an honourable member will withdraw unparliamentary remarks and criticism, particularly of a chair. That's not censure; it's a request to do the right thing. The only censure can come from the House, and that would be pursuant to report. If I wanted to do that, I suppose I could do a report to the House and attach the transcripts of the meetings. I don't intend to do that. I don't have to, because we have to try to work this out. But it's deteriorating.
I'm in the middle of rulings, and members start debating or start being critical. I'm sorry, but we have made no progress. This has been repetition, irrelevance. It has been frivolous argument. There have been motions that clearly are way beyond the scope. Now this is growing into a monster. It's not getting smaller; it's getter bigger. This whole process has to get smaller.
Mr. Van Kesteren made his pitch in faith that this terminology, the language, was to parallel the meaning and the intent in that, and that we would deal with it. But it's just deteriorated from there. To get into argument about whether or not a political party is a public office holder is moot. There is a definition; it's in the Conflict of Interest Act. A public office holder is a cabinet minister, a parliamentary secretary, or an order in council appointee. So we don't have to go there, but we do have to make progress. When I ruled on this matter, this amendment, it was because it's a matter of scope. It goes beyond the scope of the Van Kesteren amendment.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
What was the amendment?
That's why we should have them in writing in advance. Do members have the Van Kesteren amendment before them?
At the end of that, you would add the words:
...and to determine why Elections Canada has applied a double standard in sanctioning Conservative MPs and not any of the myriad of other MPs from other parties who have undertaken the same actions involving their past campaign expenses.
The point is that we're not dealing with Elections Canada. Now we're being asked to judge or to assess Elections Canada about a double standard.
Now, on the concurrence....
Order.
Conservative
Liberal
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
No.
The Van Kesteren amendment is there. This subamendment to that amendment has just been put forward. I've consulted with the clerks. It is beyond the scope, and I've ruled it out of order.
Conservative
Russ Hiebert Conservative South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC
Mr. Chair, I hear you saying that subamendments have to make the amendments smaller. That's what I wrote down when you said that.
I'm sorry, I've been here for four years...and I'm not going to debate this, but I'm just saying I have never known a subamendment to be restricted to making an amendment get smaller. I thought there was unlimited scope to how these things could be debated, but I guess not.
I'd like to move a subamendment.