Evidence of meeting #189 for Finance in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
It's simple, I guess. This committee can't order another committee to do something, but we could ask another committee, as I believe we have asked three committees to take sections of this bill, and report back to us. We can ask them.
Banff—Airdrie, CPC
Given that, Mr. Chair, could I move a motion that we request the committee on human resources, skills and social development to complete its report and present it to the House prior to the Christmas recess?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
That motion is in order. Give me the wording again, because it has to be an ask, not an order.
Banff—Airdrie, CPC
Yes, that's understood. It would be something in the order of that our committee ask the standing committee on human resources, skills and social development—and I'll let you fill in the rest of the name—to complete their report, and that it be tabled by the chair in the House by December 13, prior to the Christmas recess.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
I don't want to take away from the debate here, but, as was suggested by the legislative clerk, there is another approach you could take. You could resubmit the amendment at report stage, arguing “exceptional circumstances” with the Speaker. You can consider that.
Banff—Airdrie, CPC
You're talking about the amendment that was just defeated?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Yes, once it's defeated, you can't resubmit it at the House, but you could argue “exceptional circumstances” in the discussion we had here.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
There's no guarantee it will happen. It's the Speaker's ruling.
Could we have the clerk read the motion? Then we will go from there. The motion is in order.
The Clerk
The motion is that the committee ask the HUMA committee to complete their report by December 13...in a sense, I think.
Banff—Airdrie, CPC
It's to complete their report and present it to the House of Commons by December 13.
Banff—Airdrie, CPC
I know we have a time situation. I'll speak very briefly to it.
This was raised at HUMA. There was—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
I don't want to interrupt you, Blake, but do we have unanimous consent to carry on this discussion? We might be able to get through it before votes.
Banff—Airdrie, CPC
I want to keep it brief, because there's not a need to go on and on at this point.
I do believe that there seems to be some support on the other side for wanting to see them complete their work, but I hope there's an understanding of why the urgency is there.
I will make it clear that the timeline being proposed, although there has been some push-back on it, certainly is within the time we have. I've seen it happen in a number of committees. In fact, that committee brought forward a report in the exact same amount of time that it's suggested they do this one. That would be a much longer report than this one.
It's certainly something that's within our ability to do. I ask, in a genuine sense, that members on the other side understand the importance of this issue. I'm certainly hopeful that we can at least ask the committee to do this, so that it could be addressed in a timely fashion and not just used as an excuse.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
It is the understanding that it's not an order to committee; it's an ask. They will decide, in their own wisdom, what to do.
The motion is before us.
Mr. Fergus.
Liberal
Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
Could I seek clarification?
I thought the House had directed HUMA to take a look at this.
Banff—Airdrie, CPC
Correct. That is what's happened.
The motion indicated that the committee should complete its work and have recommendations by December 8. With the timeline they're currently on, that will not happen. They've refused to consider a new timeline to enable that. There's really no reason they can't do that. It was made clear that it was possible.
All I'm asking is that we, as a committee.... I think there seems to be a fairly unanimous belief that this is something that should be looked at and dealt with. All I'm asking is that we write a letter to that committee asking them to do this. We can't order them to do it, but we can ask them, if we all believe that it's something that should be done and should be done in a timely fashion. The witnesses have been heard. We're simply asking that they complete that work prior to Christmas. It's something that's within their ability to do. This is just something that I think we as a committee could do to further the issue.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
We're not out of order here by dealing with this motion prior to dealing with the rest of the BIA, are we?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
We haven't voted on clause 470 yet.
As long as we're not out of order in doing that, we'll deal with this motion and then come back to complete our work on the BIA.
Mr. Kmiec.