Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Oct. 5th, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Colleagues, very quickly, I have written a letter and ask your permission to ask the Chief Electoral Officer to confirm for this committee that he has enough time to take care of the moving date issue in Quebec, since everybody moves July 1—does everybody recall that issue? So I have taken it upon myself to write to the Chief Electoral Officer and get some confirmation that in fact that is a non-issue, that there is sufficient time or there isn't.

Is the committee okay with my sending off a letter requesting clarification?

Madam Jennings.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Chair, I appreciate your initiative. I would simply ask that in the letter, if the Chief Electoral Officer affirms that he would have time to deal with the 500,000-and-something Quebeckers who move on July 1, we ask that he provide us with very detailed information as to how he would deal with it. The resources, the amount of people, the whole procedure--how is he going to do that?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Okay, that's easily done, and we will certainly do it. We will add that to the letter.

Members, if you wish to hear any other witnesses with respect to Bill C-16, we absolutely need to know that right now. I'm not trying to pinpoint anybody, but there were some concerns that more witnesses might be necessary. Is that still the feeling or can the chair conclude that we're done with our witnesses on this matter?

Mr. Owen.

[Stephen Owen, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Perhaps through you, Chair, I can ask all of us, are we satisfied that we have had enough advice on constitutional law issues and interpretation of statute issues in order to fully understand the meaning of those words? And I refer both to the impact of the first subsection dealing with the powers of the Governor General, as well as the second subsection, which appears to be contradictory. It would be my suggestion that we consider having somebody in on either statutory interpretation and/or someone on constitutional interpretation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

A brief comment, Madam Jennings.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

I'd simply agree with Mr. Owen. Given the comments by Professor Massicotte, I'm particularly concerned. He doesn't claim to be a constitutional law expert, but he did give a fairly detailed biography of his knowledge and why he would have that knowledge. His concern on the fixing of election dates was that it should be taking place in our constitutional law, not in the Canada Elections Act.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Okay. I'm hearing some significant concerns, clearly, from members that we may need to have further witnesses.

Are there any other comments on that? Mr. Reid.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

I thought we weren't through with our witnesses yet. Aren't there some more coming?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

No, we're done. We're asking now if you want more witnesses.

One witness who's been suggested for constitutional interpretations is Professor Peter Hogg, and for statutory interpretations, Professor Ruth Sullivan. Those are the names I have.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

I thought she was already on our witness list. Am I wrong?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

I don't think she could have appeared....

[James Robertson, Committee Researcher]

Both of these individuals had been on the list. Professor Hogg was unavailable for today's meeting, and Professor Sullivan is on sabbatical. She is out of town until October 14. We were unable to get that information until very recently.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Shall we schedule a meeting at our earliest convenience, then, with these two witnesses?

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

We can try.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

We can certainly try; that's the very least we can do. Is anybody opposed to that?

One more comment, Madam Jennings.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Just to facilitate things, I would suggest that if Professor Hogg, for example, is not available for two or three months, we define specific questions in the invitation. We could ask him to respond to the committee through the chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Good suggestion.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

We could do the same thing with the other witness.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

That's a very good suggestion. We can do that.

Mr. Reid.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

I have tremendous respect for Professor Hogg--I regularly consult his enormous compendium on the Canadian Constitution--but he is not the only constitutional expert available to us. Just recently a number of constitutional experts were brought forward on a very similar request relating to the upper house, for consideration, through a Senate committee, of Bill S-4.

As an example, Patrick Monahan from Osgoode Hall comes to mind. If Professor Hogg is unavailable, I suggest that rather than trying to send a series of written questions to him, we instead approach Professor Monahan, who is also a very distinguished scholar. I think that would be a reasonable approach.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Seeing acceptance around the table, that's exactly what we will try to do.

Finally, I want to remind committee members that we will start clause-by-clause very soon. I want to remind members that there's a 24-hour notification for any amendment. If you have any of that coming up, please remember the 24-hour limit. I respect and care deeply for my clerk, so the sooner you can get that to her, the better.

It sounds as if we have one additional meeting to schedule, to mandate these witnesses in, and then we'll move to clause-by-clause, following which we will move on to new business. I just want to plant the seed that it might be the code of ethics for members.

And that's it. Is there any other business for today?

Seeing none, I declare this meeting adjourned.