Thank you very much, Chair.
My understanding is that we're debating something here today that was literally dropped within the last minute of this committee's sitting. I was packing up my purse and my bag. It is a little irregular for this to be happening.
I know that committees do committee business. I know that the different committees I've sat on will have committee business and decide on committee business. It sounds like there's a desire to change that in a public forum like this, as opposed to when you're normally doing committee business.
There really hasn't been a lot of explanation given for to what the ask is. Quite often, there will be.... For other chairs I've worked with, they'll sort of have their intention as “we're going to do this and then I'm going to put aside five minutes at the end because there's some committee business that we need to make a quick decision on”. That hasn't happened at this meeting. I'm not normally a member of this committee, but this sounds like something that doesn't normally happen. It sounds like there's a lot of confusion here. There needs to be more discussion and thought.
I'm a little bit unclear.... I still haven't seen anything in writing. I'll just check my inbox here. I haven't seen a motion circulated in both official languages, unless something has come through. I'll look to my colleagues to see. The motion that was brought forth wasn't specific to the business of the committee. Therefore, there should be something that we should have in writing, in both official languages, and that doesn't exist. It sounds like it wasn't just a sort of friendly motion, where it's a matter of “we're going to make this one smaller amendment”. It sounds like something that needs a little more thought.
Chair, I'm not sure if the mover of the motion has put that together and has that in writing and it's being circulated.
I'll look to the clerk to see if anything has been received and is being translated. Not that you're aware of...?
The mover of the motion.... I'm not sure if it's being circulated, but I would think that we should suspend this until we have the motion in writing in both official languages, because it's not on the business of the committee that we're dealing with right now. It's not like it's just a three-word motion. It's more substantive than that. I think it's normal protocol, if we have motions that are out of the committee business, to have them in writing.