Procedure and House Affairs Committee on June 12th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Colleagues, thank you very much for coming this morning. As members know, just for the record, we have quorum at the meeting this morning. However, the division bells are ringing, so we are going to suspend our meeting to deal with the matters in the chamber. I am now going to suspend the meeting, and we will all meet back here after business in the chamber has been dealt with. Agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Okay, we're suspended.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Colleagues, thank you for coming back after the division bells and the business in the House this morning. As a result, we're starting a bit late.

The purpose of today's meeting was to start clause-by-clause. I have been informed by Mr. Owen that he has a motion.

Do you wish to put that motion forward now, Mr. Owen?

[Stephen Owen, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Certainly. Thank you, Chair.

I move that the committee postpone the clause-by-clause study of Bill C-54 until it has heard from the representatives of Equal Voice and financial institutions, in order to properly assess the bill's impact on women and other prospective candidates who have financial constraints, particularly for nomination contests.

I believe that's ready and can be circulated in French and English.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

The motion is on the floor. It's acceptable. We're going to open for debate.

Before we go to debate, I should inform members that Equal Voice was in fact contacted. We do know, through fancy technology, that they got the message. They have not responded. I have no guess as to why. I just want to inform members that they've been contacted. They know we are hoping they would appear before the committee. At this point in time, they are seemingly not eager to do that.

On my list for debate I have Madame Picard, or are we going to Monsieur Guimond? Madame Picard's hand was up first.

[Pauline Picard, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

My apologies, Mr. Chair. I did not have the motion at hand. So I will withdraw.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Okay. Thank you very much.

Monsieur Guimond.

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We intend to look favourably on this motion. But I would like to amend it. Let me explain.

I have two concerns: Equal Voice and the representatives from financial institutions. We are in complete agreement about the impact of the bill on women. But there is another group of stakeholders with a direct interest in this bill. These are the representatives of the political parties. The way this bill is worded, political parties can inherit debts. I have been told that party representatives have not been consulted.

I suggest an amendment that would add “representatives from political parties through a round table meeting”, as we have already done in the past. I do not think we should have to invite the 23 or 26 or so political parties that are registered with the Chief Electoral Officer, but we should at least invite representatives of the parties represented in the Commons.

“Representatives of the parties represented”, that's a repetition, but you understand what I mean since you are perfectly bilingual, Mr. Chair. So you are able to pick up my mistakes. But I definitely think that we should meet with representatives of political parties.

There is one last thing, and I do not know if we need an amendment for this as well. I do not want anyone to feel that we in the Bloc Québécois are trying to derail or kill the bill. The bill contains some very useful provisions. But although I congratulate my colleagues from the Liberal Party for their initiative, I am having difficulty understanding their real motives, which are probably reasonable, logical and sensible. Our colleagues likely have no ulterior motives. In fact, our colleagues from the Liberal Party never have ulterior motives, as we know. Still, I hope that no one thinks that we want to kill the bill.

So I am available, assuming that the amendment passes. If the House rises this week, I would like us to be available, at a time convenient for us all, to do the clause-by-clause study, starting next week. So I would like us to bring the motion to the clause-by-clause study stage. In that way, Mr. Chair, you would be able to report to the House of Commons as soon as it resumes sitting on September 17.

I want to be absolutely clear, I am not going to get involved in being difficult or playing games. Nor am I accusing anyone of doing so. I am in favour of Mr. Owen's motion, as long as the two concerns that I mentioned earlier are addressed.

I am open to your suggestion as to how the amendment should look.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you.

So we're dealing with an amendment to the motion that's before the committee. The amendment is to invite political parties as well.

We're going to try to contain our debate to that particular amendment. However, I did also hear in Mr. Guimond's comments that he was willing to sit longer to deal with clause-by-clause so that this bill can be tabled in the fall--not sit long enough to table it now, because the House may not be sitting. I understand that; it's just a point of clarity for me.

I'm staying with the debate.

You have a point, Mr. Reid?

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

It's a point of order, Mr. Chair.

I had the impression that Monsieur Guimond's amendment also included the part about staying longer. I think that's correct, but I could be wrong.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Is that part of the amendment?

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

No. Things are evolving in the House. The pieces of the puzzle are beginning to fall into place. Everything is going to tumble like dominoes. We know that unanimous consent is needed to adjourn the House. The calendar has us sitting until June 22, and if that is the case, we will have plenty of time. Let us invite witnesses for Thursday and start the clause-by-clause study of the bill next Tuesday.

Even if there is unanimous consent, if the Holy Spirit appears unto us, and if the House rises on Thursday evening at 9:55 p.m., I do not want the bill to stall. It is possible for us to meet even if the House is not sitting, as you know.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Just for clarification, I don't need unanimous consent for this committee to sit longer; the majority votes.

Are you making that part of your amendment, that we see political parties as witnesses, and that we sit long enough to get this bill to the report stage? We'll have our folks do the wording, but I'm understanding from you that you have two parts to your amendment.

Am I correct? Thank you.

Monsieur Godin, please, and then Madam Redman and Mr. Lukiwski.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

The first part of the motion is a problem for me. I have a hard time seeing how a bill can be studied here, at a Commons committee, without witnesses appearing. That is not the way I like things to be done. I would like witnesses. We thought that representatives from federal financial institutions would be appearing. This is a federal act, after all. The person who provided evidence did so with reference to Ontario law, and that does not reflect the bill before us.

The motion says this:

That the committee postpone the clause-by-clause study of Bill C-54 until it has heard from the representatives of Equal Voice [...]

This implies that, if those people decide not to appear, we are stuck. That part of the motion should be changed. Otherwise, they could decide to show up next year. I do not know how long we should wait before studying this bill.

With regard to Mr. Guimond's motion, and the Holy Spirit descending from on high, let us make sure that we do not wait too long. I think that we could hear from witnesses next Thursday. We could set aside an hour for the regular witnesses, the financial institutions, etc. Next Tuesday, whether the House is sitting or not, we could continue the meeting after 11 a.m. to study the bill clause by clause. The report could be written right afterwards. We would not have to wait until the fall to table it. We can table it in the House, even if it is not sitting.

I think that covers everything.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Apparently there is a way to do that. However, what I now am hearing is a subamendment that there be some limitations to the invitation to the witnesses, that we just don't extend this thing on and leave the committee sort of held hostage by witnesses who aren't responding to our requests.

Mr. Godin's subamendment is now fairly clear. Let's just continue the debate for a little bit. Then we'll read back these subamendments.

Madam Redman, and then Mr. Lukiwski.

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I'd like to make a point and respond to the subamendment and amendment given forward by our motion.

We see more than a little bit of filibustering in this committee on other issues. I raise that only to say that I don't think anybody doubts that this piece of legislation, whether we think it's perfect in the state it is in or if it could benefit by some amendments, will pass. I would tell you that the greatest failing of legislation, in my view, is unintended consequences. Because of that, I think that asking Equal Voice—and I understand that they may or may not come, and I wouldn't want this committee to be held hostage by a specified group of people that may or may not come—deserves further examination.

I believe financial institutions should be invited to come, and I believe the nomination contest is an issue that we need to deal with in this legislation, and that is what's put forward in our motion. But I do not think it is the intent of anybody around this table to delay this unduly, nor is it anybody's view that this is any kind of tactical manoeuvre that would scupper this legislation. We are clearly of the view that this will indeed pass, and because of that, we feel that these aspects need to be examined.

My only comment on the subamendment by Monsieur Godin would be that I would hate to think that somebody may be able to come Friday or next Tuesday, and I'm wondering if we were able to give the clerk a little bit of leeway in approaching those people. I'm not about to tell very effective people how to do their work, but I hope we're doing more than sending e-mails. I know, for instance, I have contacts for Equal Voice, and I would be very happy to undertake to try to get some kind of in-person response to that request.

For financial institutions, we might want to consider whether we want somebody from the Canadian Bankers Association rather than trying to get five representatives here. So I think there are ways that, if we put our mind to it, we could be effective.

The House is scheduled to sit until June 22, so I'm wondering if it would be amenable to everyone—and I think maybe it's the spirit of what Mr. Godin is suggesting—that we try to wrap this up by June 22 whether the House is sitting or not. That may require some of us to get out our calendars and compare schedules, but just give the people who are trying to bring this all together a little bit of leeway so that the deadlines aren't so restrained and constrained that we're basically thwarting the spirit of this motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you, Madam Redman.

Mr. Lukiwski, and then Monsieur Godin.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

I'm not vehemently opposed to anything that has been said here already. I have just a couple of brief comments.

One comment is on witnesses. I do recall, and I think members of the committee recall, that we had suggested that all suggested witnesses, suggestions from all parties, be advanced last week and that those witnesses be invited. All of us complied with that request, so I have a bit of a problem with now going back to the well again and saying that we want more witnesses, because I think we had ample opportunity to do it, particularly with Equal Voice.

If you say that you know they have received the message but chose not to respond, and yet we're saying now we're not going to proceed until we hear from them, that's perhaps something that is a little untoward, inasmuch as they had ample opportunity to respond to our request to appear. They wouldn't, and now we're saying we don't want to proceed with clause-by-clause until they come.

So I would like to see a minor change to the wording of the motion, just to be quite clear that we're not going to hold up the committee's clause-by-clause examination if Equal Voice again chooses not to respond. That's the first point.

The second point is that I want to agree with Monsieur Guimond's suggestion that regardless of what we do with respect to witnesses, it is my understanding that the three parties opposite will be supporting this motion, so it looks like we're going to go forward with additional witnesses. As long as we can get to clause-by-clause and complete clause-by-clause before we leave for the summer, if we can all come to agreement on that, then so be it, and let's go forward as quickly as possible.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you.

Mr. Godin, please.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

I really think that if the people out there care about this, they will be here on Thursday. They will find somebody to appoint to be here on Thursday. To me, I think we have to give that one chance. As I said, that's how I see it. We invite the witnesses, and if Madam Redman knows Equal Voice better than we do, she could contact Equal Voice. If they're not here on Thursday, that will be their problem. Next Tuesday, we continue on.

The House will sit until June 22 if the parties agree to have 25 people in the House and make sure that it doesn't adjourn, but I raised the question to the three parties yesterday and I didn't get a straight answer on it, so I think it's possible that it could close down before. That's why we have to put the mechanics together now to make sure that we do finish this bill, because this is a very important bill.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Colleagues, I have no more names on my list for discussion on the subamendments or the amendments or the motion itself. I'm going to suggest to the committee that we suspend for one minute while the clerk and I rewrite this motion to what we feel reflects....

Yes, Mr. Hill, please.

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

Just as a point of clarification, the original motion was Mr. Owen's. Is the amendment by Monsieur Guimond acceptable to the mover? It's a good place to start.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

To be quite frank, I don't think it matters. Once the motion is tabled, it belongs to the committee. It's no longer Mr. Owen's.

[Stephen Owen, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

However, Mr. Chair, I do very much appreciate the request, and even if it's perfunctory, I certainly agree with the amendments.

Thank you.