Government Operations Committee on Oct. 8th, 2020

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Paul Cardegna]

Good morning, honourable members of the committee. I see a quorum.

I must inform committee members that the clerk can only entertain motions for the election of the chair. He shall not receive any other motions or points of order and shall not participate in debate.

We can now proceed to the election of the chair. Pursuant to Standing Order 106(2), the chair must be a member of the official opposition. I am now ready to receive motions for the position of chair. If members could indicate their intention by using the “raise hand” function, I would appreciate it.

Mr. Paul-Hus, you have the floor.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Good morning, Mr. Clerk.

I nominate Mr. Robert Kitchen for the position of chair of the committee.

[The Clerk]

Mr. Paul-Hus nominates Mr. Robert Kitchen for the position of chair.

Mr. McCauley, you have your hand raised. Do you want to nominate somebody?

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Paul-Hus beat me to it. Thank you.

[The Clerk]

Thank you, Mr. McCauley.

Are there any other nominations for the position of chair?

Pursuant to the order adopted by the House on Wednesday, September 23, if there's only one motion, we'll proceed immediately to the decision-making process.

Does the committee wish to adopt the motion?

(Motion agreed to)

I announce that Mr. Robert Kitchen has been duly elected as chair of the committee.

Congratulations, Mr. Kitchen. I will ask you to take over presiding the meeting at this time.

[The Chair (Mr. Robert Kitchen (Souris—Moose Mountain, CPC)), Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you very much, Paul. Thank you, everybody, for that confidence.

Paul, I didn't get a chance to say whether I actually would accept the nomination. Is that part of procedure?

[The Clerk]

Curiously enough, Mr. Kitchen, it isn't really a nomination of the House of Commons. It's actually a motion, and there is no such provision. Once the motion is made, it's in the hands of the committee. You would have needed unanimous consent to withdraw. Your only option now, if you don't want to be chair, would be to resign. However, there is unfortunately no provision for us if a candidate accepts a nomination.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you for that clarification. I look forward to your wise and astute guidance as we go forward.

I've had the opportunity to talk with the previous chair, Tom Lukiwski, who has told me wonderful things about the committee and the tremendous work it has done, working together in the past. I look forward to doing the same as we look forward and work together on this.

As a heads-up, for those who don't know me or have not met me personally, I am a chiropractor by trade. I have been a member of Parliament for the past five years. Before that I was the registrar for the chiropractic profession in Saskatchewan and the national president of the regulatory board throughout Canada, so I have some experience in dealing with committees.

I also spent many years as a hockey coach and and I qualified coaches at many level. I spent a lot of time watching parents with stopwatches as their children played on the ice and monitored how much ice time they got. I'm very familiar with trying to make certain that timing is appropriate and that we stay on that track. I look forward to making sure that this committee stays on time.

I do ask of everyone to make certain that when you put forward your questions, you recognize that the time allotted is not only for your question but also for the answer. We want to make certain that we try to adhere to that rule as much as possible, recognizing that once in a while we may go a little bit longer, but we will try to make certain that if that does happen, it's evenly dispersed.

With that said, Mr. Clerk, I think the next steps are for routine motions. Is that correct?

[The Clerk]

If I may, Mr. Chair, there are two points to raise.

The first is that you could ask, when you have an opportunity, one of your staffers to email the OGGO inbox with your cellphone number. In the event I need to communicate with you privately, that would give an opportunity for us to do so.

Committees are not obliged to proceed to the election of vice-chairs after the election of the chair; however, committees often do. It's entirely at the committee's discretion whether it proceeds to the election of vice-chairs now or to routine motions. My recommendation would be that we deal with the vice-chair issue and then the routine motions, but, again, it's in the hands of the committee.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I would suggest we go ahead and choose our vice-chairs.

[The Clerk]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Under the Standing Orders, the clerk does preside over the election of the vice-chairs, so if you will allow me, I will proceed to that right now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Please do so.

[The Clerk]

Pursuant to Standing Order 106(2), the first vice-chair must be a member of the government.

I’m now ready to entertain motions for the position of first vice-chair.

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Clerk, I nominate Mr. Drouin for the position of first vice-chair.

[The Clerk]

The nomination of Mr. Drouin is hereby proposed.

Are there any other motions?

(Motion agreed to)

Seeing no dissension, I declare the motion carried and Mr. Drouin duly elected first vice-chair.

I will now proceed to the election of the second vice-chair.

I'm sorry, Mr. Gerretsen, I see your hand raised. Do you wish to intervene?

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

No, sorry. That was when Mr. Kitchen was suggesting that we go to routine motions. My hand was raised for that section of it, and I apologize.

[The Clerk]

Thank you, Mr. Gerretsen.

Pursuant to Standing Order 106(2), the second vice-chair must be a member of an opposition party other than the official opposition. I’m now ready to entertain motions for the position of second vice-chair.

Mrs. Vignola, you have the floor.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

From what I understood, someone was supposed to nominate me.

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

I’m sorry, I got confused between the positions of second vice-chair and third vice-chair.

I nominate Mrs. Vignola for the position of second vice-chair of the committee.

[The Clerk]

Mr. MacKinnon nominates Mrs. Vignola for the position of second vice-chair of the committee.

Are there any other motions?

(Motion agreed to)

Seeing no dissension, I declare the motion carried and Madam Vignola duly elected second vice-chair of the committee.

I will now hand the meeting back to the chair, Mr. Kitchen, with thanks.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you very much for that, Paul.

Now I gather we would step into the issue of routine motions. Is that correct?

[The Clerk]

We can, Mr. Chair.

Copies of the routine motions were sent to all members yesterday. I see that Mr. Gerretsen would like to intervene and Mr. McCauley would like to intervene as well.

It may be worthwhile for members to continue using the raised hand function so that we can track who wishes to intervene next.

Mr. Chair, I have a list of the routine motions here. My recommendation would be that the committee proceed one at a time through them to ensure that there is clarity as to what's being adopted, but you may want to take that issue up with the committee itself.

As I said, Mr. Gerretsen and Mr. McCauley both have their hand raised.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you.

I think we will go one by one, but before that, I will listen....

Mr. Gerretsen, I think your hand was up first.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

I was just going to move those, if that's okay, Mr. Chair. I will go one by one if that's your preference.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

I would prefer we go one by one.