Evidence of meeting #1 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was routine.
A recording is available from Parliament.
The Clerk of the Committee Mr. Michel Marcotte
Honourable members of the committee, good morning.
I see a quorum.
I must inform members that the clerk of the committee can only receive motions for the election of the chair. The clerk cannot receive other types of motions, cannot entertain points of order, nor participate in debate.
We can now proceed to the election of the chair.
Pursuant to Standing Order 106(2), the chair of our committee must be a member of the official opposition.
I'm ready to receive motions for the chair.
The Clerk
It has been moved by Mr. Joël Lightbound that Mr. Blaine Calkins be elected as chair of the committee.
Are there any other motions?
Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the motion?
(Motion agreed to)
I declare the motion carried.
Mr. Calkins, congratulations on being elected as the new chair. You can come here if you want.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Blaine Calkins
Thank you very much.
At this point I think it's standard practice to allow the clerk to continue on with the election of the vice-chairs of the committee, so I will turn it back to the clerk to do so.
Thank you very much for your confidence, colleagues. I look forward to working with all of you constructively on this very important committee.
The Clerk
Pursuant to Standing Order 106(2), the first vice-chair must be a member of the government party.
I am now ready to receive motions for the first vice-chair.
Mr. Jeneroux, you may go ahead.
Conservative
The Clerk
It has been moved by Mr. Jeneroux that Mr. Lightbound be elected as first vice-chair of the committee.
Are there any further motions?
Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the motion?
(Motion agreed to)
The Clerk
I declare the motion carried and Mr. Lightbound duly elected first vice-chair of the committee.
Pursuant to Standing Order 106(2), the second vice-chair must be a member of an opposition party other than the official opposition.
I am now prepared to receive motions for the second vice-chair. Are there any motions?
The Clerk
Mr. Raj Saini moved that Mr. Blaikie be elected as second vice-chair of the committee.
Are there any other motions?
Seeing none, is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the motion?
(Motion agreed to)
Congratulations, Mr. Blaikie. You're now elected second vice-chair of the committee.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Blaine Calkins
Colleagues, I don't know if we have much more to do on the agenda today or what we can do, other than perhaps moving to routine motions.
Mr. Clerk, are we prepared to move to routine motions? Do we have any documentation from the previous version of these?
The Clerk
We can, for sure, if it's the desire of the committee, and I have paper copies for those who don't have them.
Just for your knowledge, with this new Parliament, committees have started to be paperless committees. More and more, we'll be inviting you to use your iPad, go to the website, and consult the documents, but since we're working on routine motions, I have copies here of those motions that were adopted by our committee in the previous session.
Conservative
The Clerk
Standard practice is to proceed motion by motion, but if you would like to change the order, you may. We go through each motion. A member moves one of the motions, the committee discusses it, and then we proceed with a vote.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Blaine Calkins
Colleagues, as the clerk has indicated, I'll try not to be talking too much. I'll leave that up to you guys for further discussion. I'm looking around the table and I think I'm the only one who's been here before.
I would advise that we go through these one by one. These things aren't terribly complicated.
Because of the change in the composition of the House and the change in the size of the committees, committees that used to have 12 members now have 10. That was the way we ended in the last Parliament. As we go through the routine motions, because parties have changed their positions around the table—as a matter of fact, every party has changed its relative position around the table—we're going to have to take a look at those paragraphs in particular dealing with speaking orders. We're going to have to ask ourselves what we would normally like to do.
I've been a member of the ethics committee before. The ethics committee does receive witnesses, but not the way a natural resources committee or a justice committee does that normally receives three, four, or five witnesses at a time. Typically, the ethics committee is dealing with one of the commissioners or is doing a study and is dealing with one or maybe two witnesses.
Typically, when we have witnesses, we have them speak for about 10 minutes each. If we're going to have one witness, and we divide our committee time up so we have one witness for the first hour and one witness for the second hour, that gives us about 50 minutes remaining that we need to divide up among the political parties and among the members of this committee. I've always been critical in the past, because I think every member of the committee at some point in time should have an opportunity to ask questions of a witness. I don't like it when somebody has a question and wants to engage.... It's our privilege as members of Parliament to talk to a witness if we choose to. Every one of us here is elected, and no matter how much we won by, we won. So I'll be fairly strict when it comes to making sure that every member who wants to ask a question has an opportunity to do so. That being said, I'll be fairly flexible to make sure that everybody has an opportunity to get their questions in and receive answers. That's kind of my style, and I'll seek your guidance and your counsel on that as we go along if there's something that I need to change or something that I need to do differently to make the committee more harmonious. I'm a big advocate of protecting our privileges as members of Parliament and making sure that we have an opportunity to discuss and debate. That's very important to me.
I think there are a bunch of routine motions here that are not contentious in any way, shape, or form. One that we need to take a look at is number four, on working meals. This is very important. Experience tells me that we're going to be quite busy, and there's a good chance that you're going to be very busy before you even get to a meeting that starts at 8:45 in the morning. I would advise that we take the opportunity. As much as I'm not a member of Parliament who likes to go after the largesse of government in any way, shape, or form, I do appreciate convenience, and we're all going to be very, very busy as time goes on, and this will be a matter of convenience.
The other one we need to look at is on rounds of questioning. This is one that follows routine motions from the previous iterations of this committee. It allots time to members as to when they will have an opportunity to ask their questions. I know the procedure and House affairs committee has already adopted their routine motions, and I think several other committees have adopted the same practice that the procedure and House affairs committee has. My advice would be that we give that a try to see how that goes at the start. If we choose to change it, we can change the routine motions anytime we want to or anytime the majority of the committee members want to. That would just be my advice. I think it's a pretty fair and reasonable way to proceed. At this point in time, I'll leave it up to the members of the committee to discuss this business. We'll then make plans moving on from there.
The only other part I think we might want to take a look at, which changes from time to time, is on the notice of motions, number 8 in this particular document. This is fairly standard, but sometimes at committee meetings there is debate on how it is implemented. Perhaps the clerk would like to advise us on this. This particular issue is about how information or how issues can be brought before this committee. There are certain things that the committee can discuss at any point in time that it chooses to. There are certain things that require notice of motions to be brought so there are no surprises at the committee table.
Those would be things such as motions that would significantly change how the committee does its business, what its schedule is, who the witnesses are, and things like that. We might want to have some discussion on that, but at this particular point in time, I'm going to stop talking and take my direction from you.
Is there anybody who would like to speak to any of this?
Mr. Kelly.
Conservative
Pat Kelly Conservative Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB
Thanks, Blaine.
Again, are you looking for a motion and for a vote on each of these items one by one?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Blaine Calkins
I would entertain a motion.... I think what we should do is look at them one by one and adopt them individually. If that's the will of the committee, I think that's how we should go through it.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Blaine Calkins
Why don't we start with number one, if that's okay.
Is everybody happy with the services of analysts from the Library of Parliament? That's fairly important. They're sitting back there. I'm sure they would like to join us at the table.
Liberal
Liberal
Wayne Long Liberal Saint John—Rothesay, NB
You were saying that for working meals it was number four, and I think it's number five. You talked about another one, and you were off by a number, so I just want to make sure we have the same thing.
Liberal
Rémi Massé Liberal Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC
I'm going to propose an amendment. That's why there would be some desynchronization of the correct numbers.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Blaine Calkins
Yes, I'm working off a different document than you are, Mr. Long.
I'm fairly versed in Roman numerals, so—
