Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 8th, 2007

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Is it agreed that the chair, clerk, and researchers be authorized to make such grammatical and editorial changes as may be necessary without changing the substance of the report?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

It's unanimous.

Colleagues, is it agreed that the chair present the report to the House?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Szabo, did you have a comment?

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Yes, Mr. Chairman.

As you may know, there is an item in the private members' subcommittee report on motion M-322, standing in the name of the leader of the official opposition. The argument raised, I believe, is prima facie. There is not going to be an appeal of that item with regard to their decision to make it non-votable.

I'm prepared to concede that, simply because if we go through the full process, this item may in fact have to wait until the fall before it ever gets dealt with, because it's frozen in the list. So I would ask the committee's approval to adopt the decision of the subcommittee on M-322 and simply report to the House in your report that the item has been agreed to be non-votable.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you.

I'm being advised, Mr. Szabo, that I can take your opinion on this. It is not what would be my preferred case, which is to hear from the original member, but I will accept your view. You are therefore putting a motion forward to adopt the third report that deals with M-322.

There is a point of order.

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

Mr. Chairman, I'm having trouble finding this. Is this being reported separately from the one on Bill C-415? Is that correct?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Correct. We are taking them both separately.

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

Okay. I'll ask to have that. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Can we have a motion before the floor? Do I need a seconder?

[James Robertson]

No, you don't.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

We accepted the report, but we have a motion now to accept the report that this is deemed non-votable. There will be no appeal on Bill C-322.

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

What is the normal process, Mr. Chairman?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

That I report it to the House now.

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

No, but how does what Mr. Szabo is proposing differ from the normal process?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

We're simply going to concur with the report. What I had said at the beginning of the meeting, Mr. Reid, was that we would take these reports and set them aside until we hear whether or not an appeal would be made.

Further on in the meeting, Mr. Szabo has made it clear to us that having spoken to the member involved with motion 322, there will be no appeal. So I believe we can now bring it back and deal with it and table it in the House.

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

May I comment on this?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

I'm open to comments. We have a motion on the floor.

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

I genuinely mean no disrespect to the member, but I think we have to have some kind of written request or something from the member in question, rather than taking other.... And I'm sure that nothing has been done inappropriately here, but I think that is a reasonable thing to do, to expect that the relevant member make the presentation, either in person or by some kind of written submission or something, rather than simply making a decision based on what essentially is one member speaking on behalf of another.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

The chair's position is this. It would be my preference to have that done, Mr. Reid, although I am accepting the integrity of the member, and there is precedent for that. So I am comfortable with accepting the motion from a member, in good faith that he has spoken to the member in this case, and that the motion is fair. And I accept the motion.

James.

[James Robertson]

Just for information, under the Standing Orders, the sponsor has five sitting days after the deposit of this report to appear before this committee to appeal the decision. Once the report is tabled in the House, assuming that is a decision of this committee to table it more quickly than that, then there is the appeal mechanism in the Standing Orders for the secret ballot appeal, but the member can short-circuit that by giving written notice to the table that he or she does not intend to take advantage of that opportunity. So that would speed things up.

I think the intent of what Mr. Szabo is proposing is to get it into the House so this opportunity can arise sooner than might otherwise be the case.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

I can confirm this, Mr. Chair. The idea is it would appear that trying to get the leader of the official opposition to appear and to go through the various motions...it will end up that he probably will bump his head at the top of the list and have to go down to the bottom without having spoken on his motion.

We have had this matter before the House and voted on before, as reported by the subcommittee. I think there can be some interesting arguments, but I much suspect that the decision of the committee will be sustained, in any event.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Mr. Reid, please.