Government Operations Committee on Feb. 6th, 2014

[Jay Aspin, Conservative, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Chair, I'd like to agree with the notion of not having a subcommittee. Mr. Byrne is right. The public accounts committee didn't have a subcommittee. There were many reasons that committee didn't function properly, and the lack of a subcommittee certainly wasn't among the primary reasons.

We have gone along before on this committee without a subcommittee, and I think it has worked very well. I don't see the need. As Mr. Trottier has pointed out, the numbers simply bear out that the subcommittee is almost the same committee anyway, so it's just redundant.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Thank you.

Mr. Martin, go ahead.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Not to drag out the point, but I'm going to add that the other committee I sit on, the ethics committee, which I chair, doesn't use a subcommittee, and even with the larger numbers we haven't had any difficulty at all. The subcommittee meetings usually have taken 15 or 20 minutes, and we've never had anything proposed by the subcommittee that wasn't ratified by the committee as a whole.

This therefore just skips a step. It doesn't preclude the possibility, if we find that we are ground to a halt by debate at the main committee, of using the subcommittee at a future date.

I like the idea at this time. I don't think we need a motion to that effect. I think there is general agreement, with all due respect to Gerry, that we should meet as a whole.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Mr. Trottier, you have the floor.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

I'll make a comment too. In the government operations committee there has been a fairly collaborative process. There are certain things we have to do involving estimates and oversight of various government departments and agencies, much of it just dealing with calendar dates. There are appointments also within Treasury Board and Privy Council Office often just dealing with specific calendar dates. Experience in the past is that planning was very collaborative and collegial.

If it doesn't work out, I suppose we can always revert to having a planning subcommittee

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

Thank you for your comments.

From what I understand, we are indeed going to meet next Thursday to plan our future business. This gives everyone a week to suggest topics of study for the winter session. If we see that it is difficult for all of us to agree on that in the full committee, we can revisit the way in which we plan our future business. We can always look at that in the subcommittee.

No one else has asked for the floor and there is nothing left on the agenda.

We will meet next Thursday, at the same time, to plan our future business.

So this concludes our meeting for today. The meeting is adjourned.