Evidence of meeting #45 for Finance in the 39th Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was clause.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
What I'm hearing is that we need unanimous consent to proceed with the motion that's on the floor, because each clause needs to be considered. So we need unanimous consent for it.
What I'm suggesting is that we go up to clause 100—it looks as though we have unanimous consent for that part—and then proceed from there.
NDP
Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON
No, I did not say that. I was specifically speaking on the motion that is in front of us. I was moving an amendment to that motion.
NDP
Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON
We could vote on the amendment. If we do not support the amendment, then we could carry on with the other motion.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
So what I'm seeing—correct me if I'm wrong—is that you're putting forward an amendment; you would agree with the amendment.
NDP
Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON
To Mr. Crête's motion? Yes, of course; I moved it. I moved that motion. There is an amendment to the motion in front of you, and therefore that amendment should be voted on first.
Conservative
Bloc
Paul Crête Bloc Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
Mr. Chair, I have a clarification. From what I understand, the clerk or the legal counsel says that the motion is out of order. If so, let us just forget it and review all the clauses. I do not intend to do anything illegal here this morning.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
Let me attend to this. What I'm hearing as a consensus is that we would go from clauses 2 to 100. If we have unanimous consent to accept those, then we'll proceed from there.
I see a consensus on that. I hear no objection to that. Let's start with clause 101.
NDP
Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON
Mr. Chair, do you not need a motion to have clauses 1 to 100 adopted? I would imagine you would need such a motion--not that I'm moving it.
Conservative
NDP
Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON
No. I think the consent was for whether we would deal with that piece first and do it separately. There was no motion on the floor to accept clauses 1 to 100, to be very precise. I did not hear such a motion.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
That's what I thought I was doing.
All right, let's try this. Do we have a motion to go from clauses 1 to 100? I have a motion over here. All in favour?
NDP
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
Okay. To proceed in that fashion, we need unanimous consent. I'm not seeing it, so we're going to have to go one at a time. We have to examine each one. Let's do it the hard way. That's not a problem.
Would Ms. Chow agree to this? The motion was on division, so your objection would be recorded.
NDP
NDP
Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON
--to say very clearly that we do not support those motions. I just want to make sure that we don't support what is in front of us. I want to have the opportunity to vote against clauses 1 to 100.
If there is a motion for us to batch them together and have one recorded vote for clauses 1 to 100, I have no problem with that. Someone else could move that. It wouldn't be me.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
Let's try this. Let's vote on clause 2, and then we'll have that applied from clauses 2 to 100. Is that fair?
NDP
Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON
Why don't we have one recorded vote? Can I record the first one? I'm asking for a recorded vote.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
All right. We'll let the clerk do this on a recorded vote and then we'll apply it.
(Clauses 2 to 100 inclusive agreed to: yeas 4; nays 3; abstentions 3)
(On clause 101)
NDP
Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON
Mr. Chair, this is a clause that deals with the Canada Student Financial Assistance Act.
It looks as if, finally, a structure that was set up by the former Liberal government, which is highly unpopular, is now being deleted.
Mr. Chair, just as a question to you, I see that we have staff here. Is it possible, even within my five minutes, to actually have a very clear explanation of what this clause would or would not do? There is some confusion as to what would be replaced after the scholarship is deleted. Therefore, in terms of the student loan, how would it be applied and how much? And there is a grant--what kind of grant? I think there should be some very precise clarification.