Evidence of meeting #37 for Foreign Affairs and International Development in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was point.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Rachel Bendayan Liberal Outremont, QC
The witness had sat down in the member of the committee's chair, which I understand is contrary to the rules. The witness is not a member for the time that he is testifying.
Liberal
Liberal
Liberal
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Thank you.
My concern is that if we suspend the date on this, the Conservatives are asking us to just pass this piece of legislation that would change a law without criminal intent based on the fact that Mr. Genuis says it's a good bill. I don't see how we can go to clause-by-clause study if we haven't finished our work on this.
Are they willing to suspend clause-by-clause consideration to get to this motion? If they're not, I am in no position to go to clause-by-clause study, based on the fact that I haven't even been able to ask questions of the witness who brought the bill.
I just want clarification from them. Are they saying we're going to suspend this legislation because they have other things they'd rather talk about? I understand that. They're Conservatives. They can talk about whatever they want, but if this legislation is so important and if I can't do due diligence, I am not willing say that I'm willing to suspend questions and at the next meeting move to clause-by-clause study. That would be a ridiculous undermining of our work as parliamentarians.
Are they suspending the legislation and putting it to the side for some future date in order to debate the motion they have?
That has to be clarified now, because if we are not going to finish this bill, it cannot be brought forward for clause-by-clause study unless we vote on whether or not we're ready to send it to clause-by-clause study. At this point, we have not had a chance to ask the questions or to say we're ready to go to clause-by-clause study.
I'm asking the Conservatives this question: Will this motion that they're going to bring supersede and erase the work that's been done on this bill, and will this bill be set aside for a future date when we can then vote on whether or not we accept it and are ready to go to clause-by-clause study?
Liberal
Rob Oliphant Liberal Don Valley West, ON
Is that a new point of order or is it on this point of order?
I think if you raise a point of order, you're allowed to debate that point of order. Is that not correct? If a point of order has been raised, you're allowed to comment on that before the new points of order are brought up.
I think what Mr. Angus is pointing to is exactly what the Conservatives are trying to do. They're trying to suspend debate on this to allow the time to elapse where it is deemed reported to the House and would then go for a third reading without consideration by the committee, truly. This is odd when we have an agenda that has hours dedicated to witnesses, when we had an agreement on a calendar by which we would take witnesses and have clause-by-clause study to finish our work on time before it goes back to the House, reported as deemed accepted.
Mr. Angus may want to comment on his point of order, but I think that's what they're doing. It's to just suspend the whole democratic process and push it back to the House.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ali Ehsassi
That seems like it's more debate than a point of order, Mr. Oliphant.
We now go to Mr. Zuberi—
Mr. Hoback has a point of order.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
I just want to clarify. Yes, that's exactly what we're doing. We're actually saying that it's in the best interest of Canadians. It's in the best interest of the people who are impacted by not having legislation in place to get this bill through—
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
But Mr. Angus had asked for a Conservative member to explain to him what was going on. I just want to do that, if you'll let me, Mr. Chair. If not, then I'm sorry, Mr. Angus; the chair won't let me.
If you will, just give me a minute, and I'll try to explain—
Conservative
Conservative
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
Mr. Angus, the idea is to get this into legislation as quickly as possible. If this was a new bill that hadn't been properly studied in previous Parliaments or in the Senate or in any other location, in fact, if it had been severely debated in the House or there were concerns in the House before it went to the Senate, then I'd probably be agreeing with you 100%, saying, “You know what? You're right. We need to take a step back. We need to do clause-by-clause study. We need to make sure we properly vet this,” but this is a unique situation.
This bill has actually been taken to task over and over again, and due to situations beyond its control, it has never gotten to the point of legislation even though every party agrees with it and every party has had input into it. There have been no amendments other than what the House wanted to see in amendments when it was originally brought forward. The Senate approved all those amendments, so it has gone through a very strong vetting process.
I do recognize that you're new to the committee in regard to this file, so it would be new to you and new to a lot of people, but in the same breath, we've seen it in the House before. You probably even debated it in the House before, and you probably debated in favour of it before.
We're trying to get it into the House as quickly as possible and to get the legislation passed as quickly as possible, in light of the fact that the committee didn't give it the time at the start of the time clock. If they had said three weeks ago, “Okay, this is a priority, and we're going to actually deal with it”, we could actually have spent a little more time getting a lot more witnesses.
The reality is that we're at the end of the time clock, and now we're trying to ram it through, and we're not going to be able to do anything except possibly delay it or make it even worse and end up in the situation of not getting this legislation through in a timely manner, seeing it end up in a minority Parliament going into the next year and possibly not passing.
The quickest path to get it back into Parliament is to let it time out and then actually let it come back to the House.
Liberal
Sameer Zuberi Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
On a point of order, this mini-speech here has nothing to do with the motion in front of us. We are debating a motion that Mr. Hoback brought in front of us. I am now speaking to a point of order, which I have not been able to get to, and you have admitted that you are subverting the democratic right of members to be questioning the witnesses here.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
No, you don't. I haven't ceded the floor to anybody yet. You have no right to take the microphone. In fact, your microphone should be turned off.
Liberal
Sameer Zuberi Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
—want to fast-track this bill to stop any form of debate or conversation or questioning of the witnesses who just arrived here—
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
I don't know why your microphone is even on, because you haven't even been acknowledged as having the floor.
