Finance Committee on March 9th, 2010

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Jean-François Pagé]

Honourable members of the committee,

I see that we have a quorum.

We can now proceed to the election of the chair. I am ready to receive motions to that effect.

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

Mr. Chair, I nominate MP James Rajotte for the position of Chair of our committee.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Let's debate it.

[The Clerk]

Are there any other motions?

Are there any further motions?

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

There are no other motions.

[The Clerk]

Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the motion?

(Motion agreed to)

I declare the motion carried and James Rajotte duly elected chair of the committee.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear!

[The Clerk]

Before I invite Mr. Rajotte to take the chair, if there are no objections, we will now proceed to elect the vice-chairs.

I am now prepared to receive motions for the first vice-chair from the official opposition.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

I'm going to move that Massimo Pacetti be the first vice-chair from the opposition.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Do you think we could get a seconder?

[The Clerk]

Are there any further motions?

It has been moved by Mike Wallace that Massimo Pacetti be elected as first vice-chair of the committee.

Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the motion?

(Motion agreed to)

I declare the motion carried and Mr. Pacetti duly elected first vice-chair of the committee.

I am now prepared to receive motions for the second vice-chair.

Monsieur Carrier.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

I would like to nominate Mr. Daniel Paillé.

[The Clerk]

It has been moved by Mr. Robert Carrier that Mr. Daniel Paillé be elected second vice-chair of the committee. Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the motion?

(Motion agreed to)

[The Clerk]

I declare the motion carried and Mr. Paillé duly elected second vice-chair of the committee.

[An hon. member]

Indeed.

[The Clerk]

I now invite Mr. Rajotte to take the chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much, colleagues.

Congratulations, Mr. Pacetti and Mr. Paillé, on being elected vice-chairs.

I'll just read the following. On Wednesday, March 3, 2010, the House of Commons adopted the following order:

That, for all standing committees, routine motions in effect at the time of prorogation of the previous session be deemed to have been adopted in the current session, provided that committees be empowered to alter or rescind such motions as they deem appropriate.

Accordingly, the routine motions--which all of you should have in front of you--that were in effect at the time of prorogation are reinstated. The clerk will reflect the House order in the minutes of this meeting. The committee can, if it chooses, amend any of these motions.

Finally, for information purposes, the clerk has obviously distributed a copy of the motions to all committee members.

Do we need a motion to that effect? No?

Colleagues, I just need to know the will of the committee as to whether we want to proceed to committee business today or do so on Thursday. We do have three motions by Mr. McCallum. I believe we can deal with them fairly quickly.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

I think they're not controversial.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay. Let's move to the motions by Mr. McCallum.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The first motion--and I think others had proposed this earlier--is that we do a study on retirement income security. I've suggested we have one meeting on the health of federally regulated pension plans, two meetings on the adequacy of retirement savings for Canadians at large, one meeting on issues involving the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, and one meeting to compare Canada's retirement income security systems with those of other OECD countries. I'd like to put this on the table. I'm certainly flexible in terms of the details regarding the meetings, but this is my proposal.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Mr. McCallum.

Monsieur Mulcair, s'il vous plaît.

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

I second Mr. McCallum's motion. It is in line with what this committee was working on last fall. I had moved a similar motion and we had decided to wait until the meeting in Whitehorse. I think the number of meetings being proposed is fine. It will give us a good idea of the direction in which these studies will be taking us.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay. Merci.

Mr. Wallace.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

I have no problem with the motion, Mr. Chair, but the mover has identified how many meetings are needed and we may need more meetings on different items.

Are you really bent on having the number of days specified or just leaving it open?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

So are you asking if he's open for more meetings?