Finance Committee on May 25th, 2023

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Okay.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

I have a point of order, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

You have no headset. You cannot be recognized.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Even on a point of order....

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

No. You have no headset. You cannot be recognized.

Please mute the member.

I have MP Lawrence.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Because I have a recognized headset on, perhaps I could speak for the member. That member is a bit shy at times, so perhaps it's good that I speak for him.

Even on a point of order you must have a headset. Is that correct?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

MP Lawrence, as you know, health and safety are paramount for all of us. For any intervention, you need a recognized headset. That's for all members and for anybody who comes before our committee.

This is a good opportunity to make sure that everybody is well aware of that. Mr. Genuis should know that, but now he will know that he needs a headset.

Go ahead, MP Lawrence.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Thank you very much.

We obviously understand the importance of that and that some of the interpreters have had serious issues. My apologies for not shutting off my mute in a quick way earlier in the meeting. I'll give a big thank you to them for everything they are doing. They work extremely hard, and we appreciate it. I suspect that perhaps they weren't even scheduled to work, as it is a constituency week. They may not have scheduled this, so I really do appreciate them working today.

Once again, my apologies for not muting earlier in the meeting. I think I have improved here, and I will continue to keep that up as we go forward.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

MP Lawrence, better is always possible.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Thank you very much. It certainly is, given this government.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

I have just a quick point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

We have a point of order from MP Blaikie.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you very much.

Sorry, I'm trying to manage a couple of things at the same time here, not because I'm not interested in what Mr. Lawrence is saying, of course, but because they're imperatives of the job and all that.

In any event, I was going to belabour a point about the report that he likes to quote, but I think I may just wait, actually.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Blaikie.

It's back to MP Lawrence.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Perfect. Thank you. I look forward to Mr. Blaikie's point of information going forward.

I appreciate the chair giving Mr. Blaikie his latitude, and I support him in that.

Let's go back. It's 4:31. We might have people coming home from work and just tuning into the finance committee to see what's going on.

Just to summarize where we are right now, it was the Conservatives' belief that we would be having 20 hours of testimony, 10 hours of that before the break week and then—

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

MP Lawrence, I'll just let you know—sorry for interrupting there—where we are right now. We've gotten through two clauses. We've been here for about five and a half hours, and this is your second motion, which you've been speaking to for a number of hours. That's just so everybody is clear on where we're at right now.

We're going to suspend this meeting until tomorrow.

Thank you, everybody.

[The meeting was suspended at 4:33 p.m., Thursday, May 25]