Evidence of meeting #1 for Health in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A recording is available from Parliament.
3:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
I'm not there, so I guess I'm going to rely on you to be my eyes to determine whether there is consensus in the room.
(Motion agreed to)
We're now ready for the second one.
Mr. van Koeverden.
3:40 p.m.
Liberal
Adam van Koeverden Liberal Milton, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Concerning the Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure, I move:
It reads:
That the Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure be established and be composed of five members; the Chair, one member from each recognized party; and that the subcommittee work in a spirit of collaboration.
3:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Is it agreed?
(Motion agreed to)
We're ready for the next one, Mr. van Koeverden.
3:40 p.m.
Liberal
Adam van Koeverden Liberal Milton, ON
Concerning the meeting without a quorum, I move:
That the Chair be authorized to hold meetings to receive evidence and to have that evidence published when a quorum is not present, provided that at least four members are present, including two members of the opposition parties and two members of the government party, but when travelling outside the Parliamentary Precinct, that the meeting begin after 15 minutes, regardless of members present.
3:45 p.m.
Liberal
Adam van Koeverden Liberal Milton, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The fourth motion deals with time for opening remarks and questioning of witnesses:
That witnesses be given five minutes for their opening statement; that whenever possible, witnesses provide the committee with their opening statement 72 hours in advance; that at the discretion of the Chair, during the questioning of witnesses, there be allocated six minutes for the first questioner of each party as follows for the first round: Conservative Party, Liberal Party, Bloc Québécois and New Democratic Party. For the second and subsequent rounds, the order and time for questioning be as follows: Conservative Party, five minutes; Liberal Party, five minutes; Bloc Québécois, two and a half minutes; New Democratic Party, two and a half minutes; Conservative Party, five minutes; Liberal Party, five minutes.
3:45 p.m.
The Clerk
We have Mr. Davies, and then Monsieur Thériault.
December 13th, 2021 / 3:45 p.m.
Bloc
Luc Thériault Bloc Montcalm, QC
Thank you.
I have a small proposal to make on this. I noticed that the routine motions that have been circulated are not precisely the same as the routine motions that were adopted by the health committee in the first and last session of the last Parliament. There's a subtle difference here that I wanted to point out to my colleagues and I'd like to make a suggestion.
In the routine motions adopted by the health committee in the last Parliament, it said that witnesses be given up to 10 minutes—it said 10 minutes, but five minutes is okay—for their opening statement at the discretion of the chair. Then it went [Technical difficulty—Editor] during the questioning of witnesses that six minutes be allocated for the first questioner, etc., and it went forward. You can see that the qualifier of “the discretion of the chair” was over the witnesses' amount of time.
If you look at the proposal before the committee today, that's been moved. The discretion of the chair now is modifying the six minutes for each party. I don't know if that was done on purpose, but I certainly don't think the chair should have the discretion to give six minutes or less in a first order of questioning, or, in fact, over the time.
I would propose that we either move the words “at the discretion of the chair” back to where it should be—which is over the witnesses' amount of time—or just strike it completely, so that we know that witnesses are given up to five minutes. The questioners get up to six minutes in the first round and then they get their five and two and a half, etc.
I would point out that where the discretion has been exercised is generally in the second round. If witnesses go over or if we have had a point of order or something, sometimes in the second round we don't have the full time, so the chair would sometimes ask if it was okay if each party got three minutes or something and we would give that approval or not by unanimous consent. That always worked very well. I believe that's the proper way to handle that issue. It's not to give the chair the discretion as to whether or not we get six minutes or five minutes, etc.
I hope I'm not terribly unclear. That would be my suggestion.
3:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
All right. Thank you, Mr. Davies.
To determine exactly how to handle this, you've actually put forward a couple of suggestions. One is to completely delete the reference to the discretion of the chair. The second is to move it.
We probably need to settle on one of those or entertain further discussion as to which way we should go. Unless we are going to proceed with this as a friendly amendment or by consensus, we're going to be left to vote on the amendment, which hopefully won't be necessary.
Are there any further interventions on this particular point? Mr. Davies, would you like to indicate whether you're suggesting that the words be deleted or relocated?
3:50 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair, for that clarification.
I think I will proceed with proposing that the words be deleted, so that we have certainty about how much time the witnesses have and how much time we have for questioning. Then we can operate by unanimous consent if we feel that we need to make changes. Of course, we can always revisit the routine motions and put it back in if we need to.
For clarification, I'll propose we delete those words.
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Okay, I guess the way to proceed with this is first to go back to the mover.
Mr. van Koeverden, do you consider the amendment to be friendly? If so, we can just proceed and take it as is. If not, then we'll need to vote on the amendment.
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
Adam van Koeverden Liberal Milton, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr. Davies for your intervention.
You're correct. The routine motions are not identical to how they were last time. I think we both experienced in various committees in the previous Parliament the time constraints involved with doing things semi-virtually or in a hybrid format occasionally, with the delays with witnesses or with other members of this committee; hence, somebody was tasked with identifying how to move forward, use the time allotted and not go terribly over.
I think we can all agree that we have a friendly chair and somebody has to be given the discretion as to how to divide time when we have limited time, so I would ask that we, in good faith, keep the routine motions as such.
As you said, if we find that a grave miscarriage of justice by the chair has occurred, we can come back and revisit them at another time. I think appealing to the chair's good judgment in cases where he does have to make a call would be prudent.
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
The discussion now then is on the amendment. Are there any further interventions with respect to the amendment suggested by Mr. Davies to delete the words “at the discretion of the Chair”?
Monsieur Thériault.
3:50 p.m.
Bloc
Luc Thériault Bloc Montcalm, QC
Unless the interpretation is incorrect, I gather from Mr. Davies that he was referring to the witnesses having seven minutes to speak. In addition, to ensure that the parties have the time to ask their questions, he wants us to remove “at the discretion of the Chair” so that we have six minutes.
I understood that the witnesses' presentation time would be increased from five to seven minutes. I think that, when we conduct a study, we must give the witnesses the necessary time to share what they have to say. I think that, when people are asked to come, it's important to give them a minimum amount of time to speak.
I think that it would be more appropriate to spend seven minutes rather than five minutes hearing from the witnesses, and to keep the six minutes of speaking time in the first round.
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Thank you, Mr. Thériault.
You just moved a subamendment. We must first decide whether to adopt the amendment moved by Mr. Davies. We can then discuss your proposal to extend the presentation time for witnesses.
We're now discussing the amendment moved by Mr. Davies to remove the words “at the discretion of the Chair.”
Are there any further interventions on Mr. Davies' amendment?
We are then ready for the question.
Do we have consensus—obviously, we don't because it wasn't friendly. I believe this requires a standing vote as to whether the words “at the discretion of the Chair” be removed from the routine motions.
Mr. Clerk, could you conduct a standing vote.
3:55 p.m.
The Clerk
Yes, Mr. Chair.
I think Mr. Powlowski wanted to make a comment first.
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
Marcus Powlowski Liberal Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON
I just want to say my understanding was that the whips from all parties agreed on the present wording and so that's why we're going with it.
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Yes, that's my understanding as well.
Are there any further interventions with respect to the amendment?
If not, Mr. Clerk, can you conduct a vote, please.
3:55 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
My colleague referred to a different point.
The whips may have agreed, but our committees are masters of their own procedure, and it is extremely common for committees to shape the routine motions in ways that deviate from that, as we have done on many occasions.
If you want to conform to what the whips want, that's certainly an argument, but I don't want anybody at this table to think that just because the whips agreed, it means we can't modify our motions if we see it fit to do so.
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Thank you, Mr. Davies.
Is there any further discussion?
Are we ready for the question?
You're on, Mr. Clerk.