Evidence of meeting #77 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 amendment.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
I'm sorry. Could it be read one more time? That should be....
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
I will propose some amendments, as well.
The Clerk
I'm just going to read it slowly, so that the interpreters, who don't have the text, can keep up with me:
Given the international embarrassment created by the Speaker of the House of Commons by allowing a former soldier of a Nazi military unit in World War II to attend and be recognized during the President of Ukraine's special address to Parliament on Friday, September 22, and that proper vetting was either not done or this individual's military record was ignored, that the chair of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates write to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to suggest that they hold hearings to look into this matter to ensure that there are safeguards in place so that this never happens again.
Is that correct, sir?
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
On a broad level, I do want to underline that I think it is somewhat absurd for our committee to decide not to study something and then to say that we're going to write to another committee to tell them what a great priority it is and what a great priority it should be for them, but we're not going to study it ourselves.
I don't want to speculate on the motives of specific people, but I think the effect of sending this to PROC is that PROC will have to contend with the foreign interference issue and the privilege issue involving threats to Mr. Chong's family, which is also an urgent priority. They will have to contend with how to balance multiple different matters, one of which they have been directed by the House to look at.
I also think it's clear from this motion that there is continuously an effort to position this as a procedure and House and Speaker issue as opposed to a government operations issue, and that is about taking accountability away from the Prime Minister and the government that oversee security in the House.
Again to underline, the Standing Orders don't apply when we have foreign visitors addressing the House. Members can go back and look at the record of how foreign visits come about. The House decides not to sit on that particular day, and the fact that the House is not sitting then allows an address by, in this case, President Zelenskyy, or, in other cases, other foreign leaders. Every time this has happened, there has not been a formal session of the House of Commons governed by the Standing Orders. If a member had tried to raise a point of order during those proceedings, they would not have been able to because the House was not sitting.
There are senators but also many members of the public who are on the floor during that time, so to suggest that this is a procedural issue and not a government operations issue, to suggest that all the fault belongs on the chosen scapegoat, I think, is missing the point and suggests that we're solving this by sending a letter to another committee.
That said, I do want this study to happen. I think the study is really important, so I guess we have to make a determination about whether to say this is better than nothing. However, I would say it's not that far from nothing.
I'm going to propose a couple of amendments to try to beef up the motion a little bit. The first amendment I will propose concerns where, in the middle of the motion, it suggests that PROC study this. I'd like to amend it to suggest that they create a subcommittee to hold hearings, and then it would continue as it is otherwise.
The creation of a subcommittee to do this work would allow the study to begin right away and would spare PROC, if they decided to go down this road, from needing to determine whether to study this or foreign interference.
Members may say that's for them to decide, but since we're sending them a letter, I think we should provide that recommendation. Of course, it's as non-binding as any other recommendation that would come from this committee, which underlines my overall frustration with this method, but I will propose that amendment initially, which I think substantially improves the motion because it solves one problem with it.
Thanks.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
I have one or two other amendments that I have to flesh out, but I'll put this one on the table first.
NDP
Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC
The mandate for PROC cites that the Procedure and House Affairs Committee studies and reports on the rules and practices of the House and its committees, electoral matters, questions of privilege, MP conflicts of interest, internal administration of the House, and services and facilities for MPs.
This is their mandate. This is why I'm recommending it, to make sure it goes to the right place. I'm not trying to say that we shouldn't do this. I want this study, actually. I think we're very supportive of getting to the bottom of this. We want accountability.
In terms of the amendment and the subcommittee, I like the idea, and I think that if Mr. Genuis would consider “if necessary” before “that the subcommittee expedite a study” or something to that effect it would be welcome, because we want to demonstrate to PROC, obviously, that this is urgent and that, if they don't have the capacity at committee, they can create the subcommittee. I support fully what he's doing with the subamendment.
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
I think Mr. Genuis has some other changes. Perhaps if he's fine with that he can adopt that at the same time.
Before we go to Mr. Genuis, Mr. Kusmierczyk, did you have your hand up? Were you talking about Mr. Johns' motion?
Liberal
Irek Kusmierczyk Liberal Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
Yes. Thank you, Chair.
There seems to be agreement on the floor here, but I would just urge caution that we not direct PROC in terms of its internal deliberations. It understands this issue very well. It understands the processes very well.
I like Mr. Johns' original motion. It's very simple. It's very clear. It communicates very clearly the urgency and the importance of this matter to the OGGO committee, but it allows the PROC committee to determine on its own how best to proceed. I would say that the original motion that Mr. Johns put on the floor is crisp and it's clear. It allows PROC to determine the how.
Thank you.
September 28th, 2023 / 4:30 p.m.
Conservative
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Chair, formally there's no such thing as a friendly amendment, but I'm comfortable with Mr. Johns' proposed subamendment, which I understood him to have moved.
Of course, this motion empowers you to write the letter as you see fit. I think the goal of the amendment and subamendment is to capture the idea that, respecting the importance of the work they're doing on foreign interference, the consideration of the subcommittee would be a recommendation. You can turn those two pieces into an appropriate letter.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
Thank you, colleagues. You seem fine with that.
Your original comment was perhaps other.... Are you...?
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Can we pass the subamendment and the amendment now by unanimous consent?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
It's to see if we're fine with the subamendment to the amendment, which was to add “if necessary”.
I have Mr. Kusmierczyk.
Liberal
Irek Kusmierczyk Liberal Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm sorry. I thought we had an agreement on that.
My question for Mr. Johns is—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
I'm sorry to interrupt. Are you commenting on the subamendment? We're hoping to see if we have agreement to the subamendment.
