Evidence of meeting #59 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was amendment.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Marc Chénier  Counsel, Legislation and House Planning, Privy Council Office
Dan McDougall  Director of Operations, Legislation and House Planning, Privy Council Office
Randall Koops  Senior Policy Advisor, Legislation and House Planning, Privy Council Office
Michel Bédard  Committee Researcher

12:35 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Gary Goodyear

Are there any other comments?

Mr. Owen, please.

12:35 p.m.

Liberal

Stephen Owen Liberal Vancouver Quadra, BC

I was going to make the same comment that Mr. Proulx made.

12:35 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Gary Goodyear

Are we good to go? Are there no further comments?

(Amendment agreed to) [See Minutes of Proceedings]

12:35 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Gary Goodyear

We are on the last amendment for clause 5: amendment NDP-6, on page 16 of your package. I'll ask Mr. Dewar to kindly introduce this one.

12:35 p.m.

NDP

Paul Dewar NDP Ottawa Centre, ON

Thank you, Chair.

This essentially—and I would ask the panel if they want to comment on whether this has already been done—brings clarity as to where any moneys, for instance a surplus, would go:

(5.1) After polling day, (a) any surplus of a candidate shall be remitted to the candidate's registered association; and

on the other side of the equation

(b) any remaining debts of a candidate shall be transferred to the candidate's registered association.

This is, again, to bring some clarity to the bill and to be transparent as to where the money is to go, be that on the red side or the black side of the equation, i.e., surplus or debt.

12:35 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Gary Goodyear

Mr. Guimond.

12:35 p.m.

Bloc

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

I think we should vote against amendment NDP- 6 because it compounds the problem that we wanted to correct with the Bloc Québécois amendment. You would expect people who were in favour of the Bloc Québécois amendment just now to be opposed to this amendment. I find there is a contradiction anyway. We are going to vote against this amendment.

12:35 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Gary Goodyear

Mr. Lukiwski.

12:35 p.m.

Conservative

Tom Lukiwski Conservative Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK

There is some consistency in Monsieur Guimond's argument. That's why we're voting in favour of this amendment.

(Amendment negatived)

12:35 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Gary Goodyear

Colleagues, we have finished the amendments to clause 5. I am going to pose the question on clause 5.

Do you have a point of order, Mr. Dewar, or are you just ready to vote?

12:35 p.m.

NDP

Paul Dewar NDP Ottawa Centre, ON

Sorry, are we on NDP-7?

12:35 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Gary Goodyear

Not yet.

(Clause 5 as amended agreed to)

(Clauses 6 and 7 agreed to)

(On clause 8)

12:40 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Gary Goodyear

We now have amendment NDP-7, on page 17 of your booklet.

I will point out that there is a line conflict with CPC-3. If NDP-7 is adopted, then we will not proceed with CPC-3. Have a look at both of those, but we will begin with NDP-7.

Mr. Dewar.

12:40 p.m.

NDP

Paul Dewar NDP Ottawa Centre, ON

I would just ask to have unanimous consent to have this withdrawn, Chair.

12:40 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Gary Goodyear

It hasn't been tabled, so unanimous consent is doubly good.

12:40 p.m.

Some hon. members

Agreed.

12:40 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Gary Goodyear

That's withdrawn, which leads us now to CPC-3.

12:40 p.m.

Conservative

Joe Preston Conservative Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON

We've run into it before, and we'll run into it again. We voted for it the first time, and we probably should do it in each case.

12:40 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Gary Goodyear

Mr. Preston, would you just quickly, for the record, introduce CPC-3?

12:40 p.m.

Conservative

Joe Preston Conservative Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON

Well, I thought I just did, but I'll do it again.

We've run into it before, and as it repeats itself two or three times through the bill, we'll run into it again. We voted for it the last time, and it seemed perfect then, so we'll try it again.

12:40 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Gary Goodyear

This is amendment CPC-3, found on page 18 of your book.

Mr. Preston is correct: it will come up again.

Colleagues, we are going to deal with these separately. They're not grouped together in my notes, and I don't want to cause confusion.

Monsieur Guimond.

12:40 p.m.

Bloc

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

I would just like to ask a quick question.

If we pass amendment CPC-3, will that take care of amendments CPC-4, CPC-5 and CPC-6? Are we reading that correctly?

12:40 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Gary Goodyear

That's correct.

If all members are clear on that, then I'm happy to group all of those together. Do we want to group them?

All right. We're going to group them together, colleagues. I'll read it out for you: shall amendment CPC-3, with respect to clause 8; and CPC-4, with respect to clause 14; and CPC-5, with respect to...?

Colleagues, I'm not comfortable doing this, as chair, and I'm not going to do it. I apologize; I'm going to un-group them. There are line conflicts; in fact, in some cases the NDP comes first. We're going to deal with them separately. It's no big deal. We'll just deal with them separately.

All right, so back to the original one. I'm sorry; I've made a decision there, and I'm going to stick to that.

Colleagues, we're on CPC-3, the amendment to clause 8.

(Amendment agreed to) [See Minutes of Proceedings]

(Clause 8 as amended agreed to)

(Clause 9 agreed to)

(On clause 10)

12:45 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Gary Goodyear

Colleagues, as you'll remember, we agreed to NDP-8. That's the only amendment to clause 10.

(Clause 10 as amended agreed to)

(On clause 11)

12:45 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Gary Goodyear

As well, colleagues, we agreed to amendment NDP-9 with respect to clause 11. That's the only amendment that we did agree to there.

(Clause 11 as amended agreed to)

(On clause 12)