Evidence of meeting #28 for Health in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was pandemic.
A recording is available from Parliament.
1:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon
I said that at least one of the ministers and Dr. Quach-Thanh could not appear. I made no assertion regarding the other witnesses for last week's proposed meeting.
Mr. Davies, please go ahead.
1:20 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Thank you.
I find myself unclear as to what's being said as well. I have some remarks, but first I want to ask the clerk. Did any of the witnesses get back to you to say that they could attend the meeting on Wednesday of last week?
1:20 p.m.
The Clerk
No. Dr. Quach was not available, and all the three names I gave for the sixteenth and the ministers were not available. I got an email saying that they could not make it for the seventh.
1:20 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Did all five people get back to you to say that none of them could make the seventh?
1:20 p.m.
The Clerk
Dr. Quach could not attend, nor could the ministers. For Dr. Tam and Mr. Stewart, I didn't get an email saying they could not come; I just got an email saying they were available on the sixteenth.
1:20 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
This is confusing to me. We passed a motion one week earlier that said we wanted to call these five witnesses to a meeting on or before the 7th, and you're saying that witnesses got back to you and said, “I can come on the 16th.” It's funny. We've had Ms. Tam come before this committee 10 times in the past three years, I would say, and she has never been unavailable.
I have to also say that we gave these witnesses one week's notice, a full week's notice for all five of these people. I understand about the ministers, by the way. For ministers, I understand that their schedules are much tighter, although I am a bit troubled by the fact that only one minister got back to us and said she couldn't make it. Did Ms. Hajdu get back and say that she could or couldn't make it? When we have bureaucrats like Mr. Stewart and Dr. Tam, my experience has been that if we ask them to appear before this committee on one week's notice, they can generally do that.
Anyway, this is water under the bridge, but I do think that this committee does need to understand what the proper protocol is going forward. I for one would have appreciated having the meeting anyway and having a report back from the chair and the clerk about what happened, because you have to remember that the motion did say that we would have this meeting or on before the seventh.
To respond to Ms. O'Connell, if we're going to get extremely denotative and literal about motions, there is nothing in that motion that says the meeting can happen after the seventh, so how the chair is taking it upon himself to unilaterally schedule the meeting for this Friday coming up when the motion clearly said that couldn't happen is also beyond me.
We need to figure out how we're going to do this. I for one would rather that we say we'd have the meeting. Then we could have determined what the best way forward would have been. It may have been to proceed with one of the witnesses or two, or to maybe pick another time to schedule.
That's my only point about this, but I think it's better if we move as a committee with these situations. I understand that these things do happen and I understand that the clerk and the chair were doing their best to carry out the point of the motion, but my suggestion is that moving forward, we have a better approach to involve the committee in this decision.
1:20 p.m.
Liberal
1:20 p.m.
Liberal
Tony Van Bynen Liberal Newmarket—Aurora, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm hearing a lot of language around how we should respect the committee, and perhaps respecting the committee also involves making sure that we have all our witnesses available when we call a meeting. I don't think there's any positive outcome in speculating on or even imagining a scenario that has a surreptitious outcome or a surreptitious motive.
I think this committee is committed to finding solutions. This committee is committed to going forward and making sure there's a productive use of our time—all of the committees—and I think that's the respect we should have. Some of this partisan posturing is counterproductive. I would suggest that maybe all of us take the time to read the book entitled Teardown: Rebuilding Democracy from the Ground Up by Dave Meslin.
This partisanship is so counterproductive to all of us. Why don't we focus on finding good solutions? I think there are procedures in place, but procedural gymnastics are unproductive. Let's settle on the intent of having a positive outcome in going forward. It's really disappointing to see that we're even having this discussion.
1:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon
Thank you, Mr. Van Bynen.
Is there any further discussion?
Seeing none, I therefore declare this meeting adjourned.