Finance Committee on May 22nd, 2024

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

I'm in favour of what's agreed to because it's been agreed, but I'll just note that when we are voting on clauses, we are giving preference to those without amendments, such that we could be in the situation that we won't be debating clauses that do have amendments, because we're going to start to run out of time.

In a roundabout way, we've given preference to first reviewing clauses that have no amendments. I'm not proposing any changes; I'm just highlighting a potential downside of the agreement, such that when five o'clock comes on Tuesday, we may still have clauses with amendments that we have not discussed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Chambers.

Is that it for members?

Go ahead, MP Davies.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Are you saying that it might make sense, then, to start on Monday with clauses that have amendments?

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

I don't want to open it back up. I'm just pointing out the situation.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I'm sorry. It's on Tuesday. I'll just leave that open.

Did you mention—and I'm sorry if I missed this—that parties should get their witnesses in by 5 p.m. today and prioritize them?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Yes.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

We also talked about having four witnesses per panel. I think that was something that wasn't mentioned, which we should try to accommodate.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Is that one hour per panel?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

It's one-hour panels, but four witnesses per panel, so they'd each have five minutes to talk.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Okay.

Go ahead, PS Turnbull.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

I'll just make a short comment in relation to Mr. Chambers' very good point.

In conversation with other committee members, we discussed the possibility of having a Monday night meeting in order to deal with all clauses that did not have amendments. The preference was to deal with those clauses swiftly, recognizing that there may still be some that members want to vote against. We would try to ensure that those could be identified so that we could group clauses with no amendments and dispense with them fairly quickly. It would be possible to pull out any that we need to have a short discussion on. Dispensing with those first would be helpful for dealing with the bulk of the bill. Then we'd move on to any amendments that have been submitted.

That was the intention expressed. To me, it made sense. That's why we changed and avoided that Monday evening meeting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Before I go to MP Garon, I want to say that on part 4, we didn't hear from officials. We didn't finish with officials for parts 1 to 3.

Would members be interested in having those officials in the first couple of hours? We would bring in the officials again for the first hour. Also, in the second hour, we'd have the part 4 officials.

Can we hear from MP Davies on this?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I'm okay with that.

I'm wondering if my colleagues might prefer hearing from the officials on part 4. We did hear from officials on the other parts, although it wasn't totally complete.

I suggest we take one hour and have the officials on the other parts so that we have maximum time to hear from stakeholders. I'm in my colleagues' hands on that, if people feel differently.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

We could have officials for the first hour on part 4.

MP Garon, did you...?

You're good. Thanks.

Is everybody good with this?

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

I want to confirm.

Are we still doing the four, four and four hours on Thursday, Friday and Monday?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Yes, it's 12 hours.

Do we have unanimous consent?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

The motion goes forward.

I think we are done for the day.

Are you ready to adjourn, members?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

We're adjourned.