Evidence of meeting #94 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 use.
A recording is available from Parliament.
November 27th, 2023 / 5:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
The amendment from Mr. Kurek to the motion moved by Ms. Khalid is to remove paragraph (c).
Is there any discussion on the amendment? Please keep in mind that we have until 5:45.
Go ahead, Mr. Barrett.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
Mr. Chair, I guess it would be helpful to know the number of witnesses who have declined to appear. That would be important information. If you could provide that information, then I would like to speak further to the amendment.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
I'm just going to go back to last week. I believe the clerk sent out a list of where we were with the witnesses.
Was that sent to all members of the committee?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
We can certainly send that out to you, if you're looking for information on that now. Would you prefer that we send that out to you, Mr. Barrett, or...?
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
It would be well received, but the number of witnesses, if you could....
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
That would be great.
The Clerk
Nine have declined, but some of them are double, because some of them were suggested by both the Conservatives and the Liberals.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
Nine in total have declined of those who were asked. Some of them were on multiple parties' lists.
Can you just clarify what that yellow line is there?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
Okay, we are waiting for an answer.
We have roughly, by my count, about five or six from whom we haven't heard back at this point. Nine have refused, have said “no”, and we're still waiting for a response from, roughly, five.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
I'll just clarify. Some of those nine are listed in my motion.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
The clerk just reminded me that some of them were not invited at this point because they were not part of the work plan that was approved by the committee.
I'll just remind members, as well, that the reason the RCMP commissioner is coming on December 11 is that he made himself available to appear on that date. We had agreed to start the SNC study after the social media study, but the RCMP commissioner said that he was available on December 11, so that's why we agreed to have him come on that day. Obviously, we have to accommodate his schedule, too.
Mr. Barrett.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
Being mindful of the time, Mr. Chair, I would be interested to know if you sought, from committee, consensus to action item (a) of Ms. Khalid's motion—just on consensus—and to fit those folks in based on the work plan that was approved by the subcommittee. If you have time to do that in the remaining three minutes that we have before we run out of resources, then we can deal with Mr. Kurek's amendment and the main motion.
Instructing the chair to just send invitations to everyone on the witness list does not, I think, require a motion. It can be done on consensus.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
We were going to get to that point anyway.
The problem we have right now is that we have an amendment we need to dispose of or deal with.
If it's the consensus of the committee for us to send—
Conservative