Government Operations Committee on Feb. 7th, 2008

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Could I make a comment first? It's just about this motion on...

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

We are dealing with Mr. Angus' motion.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Perhaps the clerk can answer the question. Mr. Angus moved two motions, one of which was dated January 31 and focused on government operations and the Gomery Commission. Have we disposed of the January 25 motion, which dealt with appointments by order in council?

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Michel Marcotte]

The January 25 motion was passed at meeting 9, a week ago.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Forgive me. I was there, but I don't seem to remember.

With respect to the January 31 motion, I think it is on a very important issue and I think we should set aside at least three meetings. There are very many recommendations to consider.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Our clerk, in another life or in another era, has studied the recommendations and analyzed them. I think he could produce an update. It would be very useful. Would that be all right?

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

I move that we give him the time he needs.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Agreed. Thank you.

Mr. Moore.

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

I thank Mr. Angus for bringing forward this motion. We're interested to engage in this debate and we're glad to engage in this debate, particularly at this time.

With regard to Mr. Gomery's report and the recommendations he's made and the actions of our government with regard to Mr. Gomery's mandate, as Charlie points out, he made 19 different recommendations. What I wonder about, though—and perhaps Mr. Angus can help inform the committee on this—is that he said he wants to have three committee meetings on this. It's not outlined in the motion itself. Is that going to be a friendly amendment to the motion? How does he see three committee meetings as the best way of dealing with this?

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Mr. Angus, did you want to answer that?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Sure.

It has always been my preferred way of doing business to not lock in the motion the witnesses and the description, because you sit and argue the motion away. I'm open to how the committee wants to operate. We have a number of issues that have to be dealt with here, a lot of issues where I think people expect us to come out having actually done something.

So my suggestion is three meetings. I think we would need to look at a witness list and talk about it to see what we feel is necessary, if three meetings would handle it. I think it would.

I'm offering a ballpark figure, not something carved in stone with my own list of witnesses I want to bring forward. I think this is a discussion we all need to have so that we can actually all produce something.

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

There are important, substantive elements in Justice Gomery's report and things that the previous Liberal government, frankly, had already implemented at the time of Gomery's report, and stuff that our government has implemented. There are some issues on which there is significant debate in the public service in terms of whether or not they should be put forward and on how this might best be done.

So who do you envision being a witness? There's the idea of having three meetings floating around, but who do you envision being a witness, other than Justice Gomery?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Certainly Justice Gomery. I've left it deliberately vague for this reason, because I think there are some substantive issues that still have to be resolved. Is it an issue of lack of political will? Is it a problem within the civil service saying it's simply not realistic?

I haven't come forward with that list of names. We have a number of witness lists we've been developing back at the office, but this morning I was just throwing this out for general discussion.

With all of us working together, I would prefer to have something come out of this where we're making recommendations not just based on testimony--yes, you did, and no, you didn't--but rather, on the steps to be taken to realize Gomery's commitments.

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

To Charlie, the chair, and the committee, I don't then have any problem with the motion per se.

What precipitated me to push for my motion—which I was hoping would be debated today, but it looks like we're out of time—was that circumscribing it down to three committee meetings and having a tight witness list was important. A good part of the dynamic of the existence of this Parliament was based on Justice Gomery's commission and his report, and so on, which is why I have my motion to lock in, and to respect, the democratic will of this committee in the past, the things that we have already voted for.

The clerk was very good just now to pass out the list of all the things we've voted on and the direction the committee wants to go in.

So I don't have a real problem with this motion, as long as this committee respects our democratic prehistory and the things we've already voted on.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

I really think we will have to have a debate on Tuesday as to where we're going with the passage of these motions, and how we fit all of these things in. We're going to do that on Tuesday.

We're going to have legal counsel here on Tuesday, and I think we will also have some motions to pass. I suggest we vote on this motion now, and on Tuesday we'll have a debate on the next motions and on how we fit all of this in, so we can actually get something completed.

(Motion agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

I'm going to adjourn the meeting now, because we have another committee waiting.

The meeting is adjourned.