Government Operations Committee on June 19th, 2025

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

This is not on the amended motion.

[Pauline Rochefort, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

If there is a leak of the amended motion, is there a penalty—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

This is not a question of debate on the amended motion.

I don't want to be difficult, but questions of what-ifs are not part of the motion or the amended motion.

Can we get to the vote on the amended motion? We can get to debate on the amended motion, but we can't get into procedural what-ifs.

[Iqwinder Gaheer, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

Chair, generally, in previous committees, we were usually allowed to ask for points of clarification. I'm looking to the clerk because she was my clerk in the industry committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

She's not our clerk. Our clerk is here.

Not to be pissy, but questions of the clerk should come through the chair. I'm not sure what your question is or what the issue is.

[Iqwinder Gaheer, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

My question is whether we are allowed to ask for points of clarification.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Is that on the motion?

[Iqwinder Gaheer, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

It's on the motion as amended, before the vote is called.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm not sure what your question is, but go ahead.

The motion is very clear that the items will be delivered by an email to your P9.

[Iqwinder Gaheer, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

The question that was asked by my colleague and by me is if there is a penalty that's involved—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

It has nothing to do with the motion, sir. I don't understand.

There are privilege issues. If, for the sake of argument, I take the information and distribute it, it could be a privilege issue that would be reported it to the House. That's irrelevant to the motion itself. We assume MPs will be honourable. There are privilege issues if it is leaked.

[Iqwinder Gaheer, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

That's it. That's all I wanted to ask.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Is there anything on the amended motion itself?

Just quickly, has everyone here received SharePoint links in emails?

The clerk was just saying that it can't be forwarded. For example, I can't forward it to Olivier for him to open it. It can only be accessed through the parliamentary link. It's pretty tough, unless you want to do screen captures, I guess.

We'll go to the vote on the amended motion, and then I think Ms. Block had something. Then I just wanted to say a quick thanks to someone else after I forgot to do that earlier.

To be clear, everyone will get the link on their P9—not you, Mr. Gill, I'm afraid—to the Coradix and Dalian papers, and then, separately, you'll get a shareable briefing from the analysts.

We'll have a recorded vote.

[The Clerk]

We have four yeas and four nays.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

We have a tie, so as it was the will of the committee in the original motion, I vote yes.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 5; nays 4 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Ms. Block, you had something. Then I just want to say a couple of things and thank someone else whom I forgot to thank.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

Given that we've been talking about past studies and how to deal with studies that we didn't write a report for, we did have a study entitled “Postal Service in Canada's Rural and Remote Communities” that we finished up in the last Parliament. It was reported to the House. We had asked for a response from government and we never received that response.

Quite frankly, it was a very informative study that we undertook. Everyone around the table was very engaged. It had been introduced by Taylor Bachrach, who is a former member of this committee who is no longer at the table. My motion is that we ask the government to respond to that study.

I'll read a motion into the record, if I could.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Let me clarify something. You're just looking for the response—

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

A response from the government.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

—from the House that was originally going to be delivered, until the prorogation.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Yes, that's right.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thanks. Go ahead.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

I move:

That, given that committee members, staff, the clerk, analysts and witnesses worked very hard to produce the report entitled 'Canada's Postal Service: A Lifeline for Rural and Remote Communities' during the 44th Parliament, and given that the government did not table a response due to the prorogation of Parliament, the committee deem that it has undertaken and completed a study on Canada's postal service using the title 'A Lifeline for Rural and Remote Communities', pursuant to Standing Order 108; and that it adopt that report as a report from this committee;

That, pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee request the government to table a comprehensive response to the report and supplementary or dissenting reports that accompanied the report in the previous session of Parliament tabled with the main report; and that the chair present the report to the House.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Colleagues, I think this was actually a Liberal-NDP study. It was on rural post offices. It was done, and there are no other witnesses and no other report. The motion is just to table it to get a response from the House.

The clerk is telling me that it was tabled in December. Normally, when we table a report, we get a response back in, I think, 180 days or 90 days. I can't recall. I think you're just asking for it to be—

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

It's for a response.