Evidence of meeting #57 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was documents.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
How does that affect the...?
Liberal
Anthony Housefather Liberal Mount Royal, QC
Otherwise, it makes no sense.
Why do we need to say it's a report to the House right now, when it's a report to the committee? I've never seen it written like this in any other committee I've been on.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
I defer to the clerk.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
She has said that it's been done.
Liberal
Anthony Housefather Liberal Mount Royal, QC
She said it could go either way. She said either one was fine.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
Okay. Then let's vote on it.
Conservative
Kelly Block Conservative Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK
Right. She said it was consistent with other motions.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
Colleagues, I'm going to interrupt here.
I understand what everyone's saying. It's semantics. Again, I'm deferring to our more learned clerk. Whether it says “House” or “committee”, it's the same thing. The analysts will do the report, it will come to us and then we'll approve or not approve the report.
I'm just checking on the wording. Could you bear with me, folks?
While the clerk is going through her notes, we'll go to Mrs. Vignola.
Bloc
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
What I understand is that before a committee report comes to the House floor, it has to go through our hands and we have to pass it, even if the motion is written the way it is. That has always been the case with committee reports.
In this case, we can just cross out “in public” so it's in closed session. Either way, before the report goes to the House, we have to vote on it. We can't present a report to the House without the committee having adopted it. That's the way it's done. It has always been that way.
I understand this is tricky, but it is not a different situation than what we have seen before, even with the subcommittee report. So we need to pass it anyway, regardless of how the motion is written.
In either case, if the committee votes against the report, we will not send it to the House. If we pass it, it will go there. We don't have to send it to the House, but we do have to vote on it.
Liberal
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
Why move the amendment?
Liberal
Anthony Housefather Liberal Mount Royal, QC
I offered this because I don't agree. In my opinion, this is not the kind of motion wording that I have seen for reports that the committee was not prepared to send to the House.
Conservative
NDP
Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC
I want to clarify that we're going to vote on the first amendment, and then we can vote on the second amendment, which is deleting—
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
It would have to be two separate amendments if we wish to vote on it separately as an in camera versus the....
I'm sorry. Are you going to move two amendments?
Liberal
Anthony Housefather Liberal Mount Royal, QC
I find it funny. We received a proposed motion literally one hour before the meeting. It's not giving us time to review the wording, consult with others about the wording and determine what the wording actually means.
I have never seen, if the committee has not decided to eventually send a report to the House—nor have my colleagues—words agreeing to send something to the House, or saying a report will be sent to the House, when we haven't necessarily agreed in the end that the report should go to the House.
I don't have all the material facts.
I rely on what my colleague said about redaction, but indeed, I have not seen all the details and do not know all the letters that were sent to departments to make this or that request.
If it's the same thing, but half of the committee members disagree on the wording, why can't we pass an amendment with language we are all happy with?
If you prefer to say it is a report that the committee can send to the House if it wants to, I have no problem with that either.
Anyway, that's my thought.
We can vote against it.
Conservative
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
We'll call the vote on the amendment.
It's one amendment. Mr. Housefather is not splitting it into two amendments.
Why don't you go ahead and read the motion?
The Clerk
The proposed amendment by Mr. Housefather would read:
That the analysts and the clerk be directed to prepare a brief report to the committee outlining the material facts regarding the status of the documents ordered by the committee, in particular the degree of redactions, in relation to its study on Federal Government Consulting Contracts Awarded to McKinsey & Company.
(Amendment agreed to: yeas 6; nays 4)
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
Colleagues, I want to interject on this.
If we do this and we end up with a decision by the majority—and I think I sense where everyone wants to go with this—we want the motion followed. If we go down a path of perpetual blockage or filibustering, this is going to set a horrible precedent for every department whereby they can thumb their noses at Parliament whenever they wish. Again, to have departments out-and-out say, “No, we're not providing this; we don't care” is horrific. Again, I hope we will move forward in getting the documents or, at least, the motion followed.
The motion as set is passed. I understand our analysts will have something.... It's the amendment. I'm sorry.
Does someone wish to speak now? Are you speaking on the main motion as amended?
