Information & Ethics Committee on March 6th, 2012

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Madam Chair, I take a little bit of umbrage with the fact that you've made a decision on behalf of a member, present or otherwise.

The reality is that in the Standing Orders and the rules and procedures of this place, there is no such thing as a friendly amendment. If the honourable member across the floor wishes to propose an amendment to the motion, then he should be proposing an amendment. He is simply playing games, and they're childish games. We've seen these kinds of things from time to time, but the reality is that he either means his amendment and wants to propose it and debate it and discuss it before this committee, or he doesn't.

Madam Chair, I would be remiss in my duty as a member of Parliament to think that should I, as a regular member, not be at this committee some day and somebody were here in my stead, you would take a decision on my behalf when I wasn't here. I'm a little bit concerned with your comment.

[The Chair, NDP, Jean Crowder]

Mr. Calkins, I wasn't taking a decision on behalf of the member. But in the absence of the member, this motion will now be debated, because there is no ability for the member to provide consent for the amendment. I actually require—

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

You would need unanimous consent.

[The Chair, NDP, Jean Crowder]

I would require unanimous consent to accept that motion.

Do I have unanimous consent to agree to Mr. Andrews' motion?

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Chair, NDP, Jean Crowder]

Mr. Andrews, continue with debate.

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Madam Chair, I would argue that we probably should suspend the committee until the mover of the motion returns to see whether this is friendly or not.

To Mr. Calkins' point of order, I'd just like to refresh his memory from about 25 minutes ago, when we had a friendly amendment from Mrs.—

[The Chair, NDP, Jean Crowder]

Mr. Andrews, let me interrupt.

I erred on that. I should have sought unanimous consent from the committee to agree to that change. Actually, Mr. Calkins is quite correct: there is no such thing as a “friendly amendment”. I apologize. The clerk has informed me that the decision could have gone to debate concerning the date, but we have moved beyond that.

So there is no such thing as a friendly amendment. Proceed on your motion to amend.

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Since we didn't have an opportunity to debate Ms. Davidson's motion on pushing this out until March 16, I'd like to come back to it. We didn't have an opportunity to even debate that, because we just thought it was a friendly amendment and that one could do friendly amendments to motions and carry on.

So I'm a little bit confused here, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, NDP, Jean Crowder]

Mr. Andrews, given that nobody challenged my acceptance of that amendment, it has now been decided.

I now have on the floor your motion to amend the amended motion of Mr. Del Mastro, so we can debate your amendment, which is before us.

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Okay. I'll come back to the amendment by Ms. Davidson afterwards.

It gets to the point of what government resources are being used for Twitter. These are not just House of Commons resources that are being used for government business. We have government members over there on their BlackBerrys as we speak, putting out tweets. Tweets are being used all over the place for government business, as such.

[The Chair, NDP, Jean Crowder]

We have a point of order from Mr. Dreeshen.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

On a point of order, I'm just curious. I see no one over here who is putting out tweets, and I think a comment like that is completely unnecessary.

[An hon. member]

Unsubstantiated, just like everything else coming out--

[The Chair, NDP, Jean Crowder]

Mr. Andrews, would you continue with your motion, and perhaps don't make any references....

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Okay. Often when I'm in the House of Commons during question period I see the Minister of Industry using his BlackBerry to tweet unsubstantiated claims and rhetoric, and he's using government resources at that particular time to put out tweets.

Mr. Mayes, I don't find this very silly at all. What I find silly--

[The Chair, NDP, Jean Crowder]

Order.

Gentlemen, I have a speakers list. If you wish to be on the list, please signal your wish to the clerk.

Mr. Andrews.

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

It's funny how some things are regarded as silly, but when they put motions like this they are not very silly, so we'll take this very seriously.

We're talking about government resources, House of Commons resources. If you want to go down this road, let's talk about all government resources.

Quite often ministers' parliamentary staff, ministers' executive staff, are using tweets on an ongoing basis to promote their minister, and often they take on attacks on members of Parliament as well. Just recently I was attacked by a member of a minister's staff on Twitter, and I don't see myself getting my knickers all in a knot in regard to what he was saying. I found it quite interesting, though, and so did a lot of other people on Twitter, that he was doing it anonymously. He had not disclosed himself as a ministerial staffer out there contradicting and challenging a member of Parliament on Twitter.

When someone uses Twitter anonymously, as the motion says, we need to look at the broader problem and the broader scope, and why ministers' offices, often on directive, have guys sitting down at computers all day long putting out tweets on their minister and then turning their resources to attacking a member of Parliament over this.

If the government members want to go down this very serious road, we need to look in depth at how rampant this particular issue is.

Getting back to the amendment made by Mrs. Davidson a little while ago, to push this out another week--

[The Chair, NDP, Jean Crowder]

On a point of order, Mrs. Davidson.

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

I believe we're debating another amendment. We're not debating an amendment that was accepted and has been over with for quite some time.

[The Chair, NDP, Jean Crowder]

Thank you, Mrs. Davidson.

Could you stick to the amendment before the committee, Mr. Andrews?

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Maybe we could talk about this. When I read out my amendment, I think I used both dates, March 8 and March 16. I wonder if the clerk could clarify which one I actually said, since we now want to talk about the date of the appearance.

[The Chair, NDP, Jean Crowder]

The date in the motion is the 13th, Mr. Andrews.

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Okay, that was the amended motion?

[The Chair, NDP, Jean Crowder]

Yes.