Fisheries Committee on Nov. 14th, 2007

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Thank you.

As is the custom within the committee, when an outgoing chair leaves and we get a new chair, it's usually customary—and I hope the committee will agree—that at your discretion we write a letter to the previous chair thanking him for his service to the committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Is that in the form of a motion, or do we need a motion right now?

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

We've never had a motion before.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Okay, we won't need one now.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

The leaving chair has to buy the beer.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

That's a debatable motion.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Usually after an election you thank the previous chair. In this case, he'll still be here. But I thought Gerald did an okay job when he was the chair, and we should as a committee unanimously—I can't speak for others—just offer our thanks for his work and carry on.

[Bill Matthews, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

So there you go.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Thank you, Mr. Stoffer. I think we all have agreement on that.

In regard to Mr. Byrne's comment, my family is a distributor for both breweries in Newfoundland. I'm sure we can arrange for that.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

We'll be in your office tonight.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Those are the motions that are before us.

I guess the question now is whether anyone has any other motions to put forward or discuss besides the ones we have on the list.

Mr. Kamp.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

It might be helpful to have a motion about minority reports. I know some committees have such a motion on their books. I don't see it on this list. If I missed it, I apologize. But it would be a motion something like that every party shall have the right to attach as an annex a dissenting opinion on any report to be presented to the House of Commons by the committee, and that this dissenting opinion shall be submitted to the clerk of the committee within 72 hours of the passing of the report by the committee. I know we've operated with that practice in the past.

I have a couple of other motions as well that we could consider.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

We have a motion here that I think is along the same lines as what Mr. Kamp is putting forward. It's a proposal of a motion that's used on some committees: that every party shall have the right to attach, as an annex, a dissenting opinion on any report to be presented to the House of Commons by the committee, and that this dissenting opinion shall be presented to the clerk of the committee within 72 hours of the passing of the report by the committee.

Go ahead, Mr. Byrne.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

There's a technical issue about the exact result of describing a minority report as an “annex”, and whether or not that impacts on the minority report actually being a part of the committee's report to which the government must respond, or simply an attachment—in other words, not actually a part of the committee's report. The system we were under allowed opposition members, if they had a dissenting view from that of the majority of the committee members, to include a dissenting report as part of the text of the majority report, but to actually differentiate it accordingly so that the government would still be tasked with the responsibility of responding to both the majority report and the minority report.

So unless there's a clear definition of what an “annex” is and whether or not that requires the government to still respond, and whether or not it's actually still part of the report, that would be very helpful. Without that clarified, I don't think I'd be able to support this.

If the issue here is just providing support to the clerk after the formulation of a report—there's a certain desire by all committee members to get it tabled in the House—it does take time for a minority report to be given. If the spirit of this is just simply to say that minority reports must be transmitted to the clerk within a 72-hour period, I don't think that's unreasonable. But the whole notion of the definition of an “annex” or an “attachment” to a report I think is very relevant and needs to be explored a bit further.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Thank you, Mr. Byrne.

The clerk has informed me that there's no such thing referred to as a minority report now, even though that's how it's titled here. So basically it would be an annex to the existing report.

[The Clerk]

Mr. Chairman, the Standing Orders only permit a dissenting or a supplementary opinion to be annexed to a report. “Minority report” is not parliamentary terminology.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Okay. That doesn't necessarily address what Mr. Byrne was saying.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Mr. Clerk, would you be able to advise the committee as to whether or not the government still has a responsibility to reply to the minority report, to the minority annex?

[The Clerk]

The government has a responsibility according to Standing Order 109, Mr. Chairman, simply to table a comprehensive report. The standing order reads this way:

Within 120 days of the presentation of a report from a standing or special committee, the government shall, upon the request of the committee, table a comprehensive response

No mention is made of a dissenting or a supplementary opinion, and the Speaker has never made any pronouncement on the nature of the response or what is in the response.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Okay.

Mr. Lévesque.

[Yvon Lévesque, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Mr. Chairman, if I understand correctly, this is a new motion being tabled with the committee today. But based on what we have just adopted, a notice of motion must be tabled at least 48 hours in advance, in both official languages. If our colleague wants to present such a motion, he should perhaps send it to us in both official languages and we can discuss it at a future meeting.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

That sounds fair enough.

Mr. Stoffer, would you care to make comment?

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

One clarification I have is that usually when this or any committee does a report, other committees are doing their reports as well, and there's a mad rush to get the translation done. My concern with the 72 hours' notice is, to be very clear, that if I presented or if anybody presented a minority opinion or a supplementary opinion to a report and we gave it to the clerk within 72 hours, either in French or in English, normally you'd have to have the French or English report translated within the 72 hours. Sometimes that's very difficult to do because the people who do that are usually strained and they don't have enough time to get it done. If you can't get it translated within the 72 hours, according to our motions here, you wouldn't be able to submit that report.

So I'm asking for clarification. If a person submits a minority or a supplementary opinion to a report to the clerk, can it be in English or French, or must it be in both?

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Chairman, I have a point of order.

Given what Mr. Lévesque has just said, what I heard you say, and the fact that no notice of motion was tabled, all further discussion on the issue would be out of order.

I don't mind discussing topics that could help us prepare for next time, but in this case, we are discussing issues that are out of order on a topic that has not been presented as such.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Mr. Calkins, speaking to the point of order.