Evidence of meeting #3 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was data.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:05 p.m.
Bloc
René Villemure Bloc Trois-Rivières, QC
There is also the addition of one word. The committee reports back to the House
“—with recommendations on the adoption of this motion.”
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Pat Kelly
Thank you.
The subamendment is in order. We now have a subamendment, the amendment and the main motion. I have debate now continuing on the addition of the subamendment.
Go ahead, Ms. Khalid.
12:05 p.m.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
From my understanding, there are two changes with the amendments and the subamendment proposed. If you don't mind, Mr. Chair, for clarity I'd like to read the whole thing as proposed by Mr. Villemure, so that members and I can understand it. It would read as follows:
That the committee call upon the government to suspend the PHAC cellular data tender upon adoption of this motion, and that the tender shall not be re-offered until the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics reports to the House that it is satisfied that the privacy of Canadians will not be affected, and that the committee report back to the House with recommendations on the adoption of this motion at the earliest opportunity.
Did I read that properly?
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Pat Kelly
Yes. Give me one moment.
I understand that we have it correctly. I will allow the clerk to address your question.
12:05 p.m.
The Clerk
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My question is for Mr. Villemure.
I want to make sure that I understand. Based on your suggestions and the French document that I received, we would remove the word “duly”.
12:05 p.m.
The Clerk
Pardon me. We would remove the word “unduly” and leave only the word “affected”. According to the document sent to me, we would write “and that the committee make recommendations to the House on the adoption of this motion”.
12:05 p.m.
The Clerk
That is what I received.
12:10 p.m.
Bloc
René Villemure Bloc Trois-Rivières, QC
I know, I just saw it too.
I am basically getting back to the initial motion, in other words, “that the Committee report back to the House on the adoption”. No, sorry, I will do it over: “reports its findings and recommendations”. As the motion is currently worded, the idea of a report is there but not of recommendations.
12:10 p.m.
The Clerk
So, if I may, in the case of this kind of a motion, a report to the House would be just a report on the adoption of this motion.
12:10 p.m.
Bloc
René Villemure Bloc Trois-Rivières, QC
That is what was unfortunately written in the motion sent to you.
I would like the committee to submit its report and its recommendations to the House.
12:10 p.m.
The Clerk
Okay.
I just need a moment to speak to the chair.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Pat Kelly
Just to have a little more clarity around what this motion would do, it doesn't contain a study. It simply makes a recommendation, so there really wouldn't be any recommendations to report other than the motion itself, which would be that the committee moves and recommends the suspension of the tender. There wouldn't be other recommendations that would need to go with it. We would merely report to the House that the committee has passed this motion, if it does, to suspend the tender.
Does that help you, Monsieur Villemure?
I'm just clarifying the issue of reporting, and what we would report to the House. The committee would simply report to the House that this motion has been adopted, because this motion doesn't call for a study that would then create a report that would contain recommendations. This motion would be reported on its own.
12:10 p.m.
Bloc
René Villemure Bloc Trois-Rivières, QC
That is not the case. I apologize to my colleagues about the lack of clarity or coordination. The original motion states, “until [the Committee] reports its findings and recommendations to the House”. That is the missing sentence.
Mr. Fergus's motion talks about reporting to the House, but it does not mention reporting and making recommendations to the House. The recommendations that were in the original motion are not included in the amendment. I don't want to waste everyone's time, but that part of the sentence was removed, and I want members to be aware of that removal's impact.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Pat Kelly
Thank you.
We will continue the discussion on the subamendment. I have Ms. Khalid first, and then I have Mr. Fergus as well.
Go ahead, Ms. Khalid.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
My apologies for just trying to seek clarification. I know some of our colleagues are perhaps getting a little antsy with the elongated debate, but obviously we take our motions and the work we do in our committee very seriously to ensure we're doing it properly.
I have a couple of questions around clarification. When we remove the word “unduly” to say that the House is satisfied that the privacy of Canadians will not be unduly affected, are we talking about specifically the company that will receive this RFP, or are we talking about, in general, all privacy concerns that Canadians may have?
Mr. Chair, I think you did a really good job clarifying the issues about recommendations and reporting back to the House. My understanding is that the way Mr. Fergus drafted his amendment, it made it very clear what was expected of the committee, whether we're satisfied or not satisfied.
When we start talking about recommendations, for me after my six years here in the House—compared to many more tenured and more senior folks in our Parliament—it seems that when we're talking about recommendations, we're also talking about a report, a study, which is not mentioned at all in this motion.
Please forgive me for being a bit confused. I'm just trying to find some clarity as to what exactly we're trying to do with this motion, and to narrow the scope of it a bit, because I find the language to be a little on the vague side.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
I will be brief, Mr. Chair. I would like to put a question to you. Is the objective of the motion to carry out a study or to make recommendations to the House of Commons? Could you get clarifications on that from the clerk please?
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Pat Kelly
This committee indeed already passed a motion to study the issue of data collection. This motion itself does not create a new study.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
That is what I wanted to clarify. I proposed amendments to clarify Mr. Villemure's motion.
We are talking about his motion. Mr. Chair, I once again ask that you clarify whether Mr. Villemure's motion implies that the committee would conduct a second study.
Is it rather a matter of giving our approval or not, of making recommendations to the House of Commons and of indicating whether the committee is satisfied or not?
I agree with removing the word “unduly”, but I would just like you to clarify this, Mr. Chair.
Once again, I thank you for your consideration.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Pat Kelly
The comments from members are going increasingly toward statements of clarification from the chair, so I'm going to suspend for a moment and confer with the clerk.