Information & Ethics Committee on June 16th, 2011

[The Chair, NDP, Nathan Cullen]

Thank you, Dara and Sebastian.

For new committee members—and forgive me if I'm over-explaining things—these folks work for this committee, so if you need some research or you have questions about some of the testimony we hear, these are the people we rely on. On the procedural side, we're looking to Chad to see that the rules we adopt and the rules that govern the House and committees are being followed as well.

I'll be relying on them tons, and I know other committee members will use them as well. These folks are excellent. We are well served in the House of Commons by the incredible staff and knowledge that sit at this table.

Let's talk about the subcommittee.

Committees of the House of Commons often strike a subcommittee in order to do an initial stage of planning, setting out the agenda and the topics. Ultimately, it always has to come back to the committee to be adopted, so for a vote of the full committee. But the subcommittee is an easier place at which to have a conversation. You can get through topics more quickly than you can when you have as many members involved as we have here.

I recognize Mr. Del Maestro. Do you want to say a couple of things about this?

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

To be frank, I'd prefer not to have a formal subcommittee. I don't see that we need one. I think generally speaking, among members of the committee, including you, Mr. Chair, we can informally discuss items as we need to. I don't see that this committee actually requires a subcommittee. Typically speaking, we didn't have one on the heritage committee, for example, and we never really needed it. We just discussed things right at the committee of the whole.

[The Chair, NDP, Nathan Cullen]

Mr. Angus.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Definitely we had a long-standing tradition at heritage of not having a subcommittee. But I do know that many members who came onto the committee were very uncomfortable with that. I certainly have an excellent working relationship with Mr. De Maestro, and I expect that working relationship to continue in this committee.

My only concern is that if things change and become complicated, we may need to consider this. I'm willing to go without a subcommittee if we can find a way within our business each session or maybe each month to put aside time to talk about upcoming business. I've seen how other committees get “motion sickness” and end up spending a lot of time fighting about whose motion is going to be where, and a subcommittee could handle that. My one concern is that we not end up diverting a lot of time to doing committee business, but we need to have some process to make sure this thing is steering.

[The Chair, NDP, Nathan Cullen]

Ms. Davidson.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would concur with what Charlie just said. I've sat on both committees with and committees without a subcommittee. I think not having one works well. I think everybody then has the opportunity for input. On the committees that had a subcommittee, we ended up rehashing everything anyway. So it was rather a duplication.

I think it's best to start without the subcommittee and see how that works. I think Charlie has made a good point that we certainly don't want to take up the entire committee time with discussions that a subcommittee could be doing. I think we can all converse well together here at this table, so I would certainly support not having one.

[The Chair, NDP, Nathan Cullen]

Sure.

Charlie.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

I have not heard from our Liberal member, and I'd like to hear from him, because what I do not want to have happen is.... Being that he's one on the committee, he's swamped by other votes.

I know that he's substituting, but I'd prefer to hear from them before we make our final decision.

[The Chair, NDP, Nathan Cullen]

Mr. Casey.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

You understand that I'm pinch-hitting today. Scott Andrews became a father last week--

[The Chair, NDP, Nathan Cullen]

Yes, and we extend our congratulations.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

--and is otherwise detained.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, NDP, Nathan Cullen]

Detained? That's a perfect expression for it.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

I don't have any objection to what's being discussed, and I hope Scott doesn't say that I'm in trouble for saying that.

[The Chair, NDP, Nathan Cullen]

We'll find out in short order, but I think that's fine.

Thank you for that, Charlie and Mr. Casey.

Not seeing anything else, I'll say that essentially what we can do is to proceed as a whole committee in making the agenda and priorities. If we find that there are interruptions in that process or we get bogged down or mired down and a subcommittee would serve us, we can look back to this same text, strike a subcommittee, and get on with the planning. Does that seem okay to everybody?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, NDP, Nathan Cullen]

Okay.

I don't need a motion to not adopt that. Okay.

The next point is on the reduced quorum. Do we want to take a second for that?

[A voice]

Yes.

[The Chair, NDP, Nathan Cullen]

Dean, do you have something on that?

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

I do. I'm always concerned when we get into talking about reduced quorum whenever there's a potential for a vote.

I note that the routine motions of this particular committee indicate that you only need one member of the opposition present and only three members of the committee in total. We would amend that to say “provided that there are at least four members present and one member from each recognized party” for reduced quorum.

I think Charlie can probably understand this, but I wouldn't want to see the committee proceeding without representation from the Liberal Party here. I think that would be disrespectful. The way it's written would allow the committee to proceed without them being present.

[The Chair, NDP, Nathan Cullen]

Yes, but just for our process here, this motion hasn't been moved yet, so you're moving an entirely new motion rather than an amendment.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

No. I'm amending the motion.

[The Chair, NDP, Nathan Cullen]

All right. So essentially we're going to move this motion and then have it amended.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

That's right.