Procedure and House Affairs Committee on March 4th, 2008

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Mr. Preston, please continue.

[An hon. member]

Maybe he'll go back to the Wheat Board again. I was excited there for a minute.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

It's great that you have other topics I can discuss. If you find any others up there, please....

Marcel, I apologize for earlier stating that the constituents of Hull—Aylmer.... So we're even, because we've hurt each other now.

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

I think you've hurt his only feeling.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Well, you know, if you hold that feeling out there like that, it happens.

Sorry, Chair, I know the relevance of feelings.

I have to agree with the member from Hull—Aylmer that Mr. Lukiwski is very good at this. In the past he has covered a great deal of the items here. I'm trying not to speak of them because he already did.

I have nightmares. The one part, of course, is the conversation about his dog and how he got in trouble for not feeding it because he went away. That's a whole different issue.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Excuse me, Mr. Preston. We're having a little bit of levity, and I don't mind that, but I have to pull you back to the discussion on Madam Jennings' amendment. Let's focus on that, please.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Let's just go back to that then, Chair, because that's truly what the whole issue today is. We came here today to talk about, in a funny way--because I love the 106(4) motion--the 106(4) motion, signed by four members of this committee, to talk about putting this committee back on track and to talk about Bill C-6.

Did we come here to talk about Bill C-6? It's funny, because 106(4) actually doesn't allow you.... You get to come here to say what you will talk about, not about what you were going to talk about. We're going to have a discussion about talking about 106(4). I'm going to try to use this back home whenever I'm in trouble and say, “Okay, we can't talk about it now; we're only going to talk about talking about it”.

The other members of the committee, Chair, have used the same thing to try to move parts of their partisan issue forward and to talk about, again, in-and-out financing. Whenever they've brought it forward, we've risen to the occasion, Chair. The members on this side of the table have risen to the issue and talked about it on their behalf. Whatever they've wanted to talk about, whatever motion has been moved, we've grabbed on and actually talked about it.

Well, here we are today, Chair, with our own motion. We moved forward today with a 106(4) motion about Bill C-6. It is about us wanting to put together this committee and talk about Bill C-6--call witnesses, what the budget would need to be. Instead, what happened when we asked for a vote was that we had our motion amended. Was it amended to make it simpler? Was it amended to make it easier to talk about Bill C-6? Was it amended to actually say, great idea, let's talk about Bill C-6? Was it amended to bring the Chief Electoral Officer here and maybe get to the bottom of why he's having trouble with visual identification or voter ID in elections? No, it wasn't at all.

An amendment was moved to the original motion Mr. Lukiwski put forward to stop right there, not talk about legislation, and not do the work we were sent here to do. Please don't, because we're now going to talk about, guess what, the in-and-out scheme again. We're going to talk about it, and when we're done talking about it, we might talk about legislation. That's what the amendment says.

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

Is the in-and-out legislation?

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

It's not legislation. This was, again, through you, Chair, to move from the work we're supposed to be doing to, again, this other issue and to talk about it for a while.

Mr. Chair, you moved that amendment to our motion out of order. It truly was, because it's beyond the scope of what we're supposed to be here talking about today.

[An hon. member]

We agreed to talk about legislation.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

I think we agreed to talk about legislation. The rest of the members knew what the orders of business were today. I receive that page on the orders of the day every day before I come to committee. The rest of the members of the committee receive the same orders of the day. If they don't, I know that the great staff here delivers it to them the minute they arrive in the room. It comes and sits in front of them. It tells them what it is we're going to talk about today.

We all knew why we were coming today. After a short period of time we asked if we could vote on it and get down to business. We asked for it. “No, please don't work on legislation”, is what they yelled out. They said to stop and not work on legislation.

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

A point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

A point of order, Madam Redman.

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

I think the blues will clearly show that there's an awful lot of creative licence being used by Mr. Preston. There is nobody at this table who said we were not willing to get to legislation. I believe we're talking about an ordering of legislation. I also didn't hear anyone crying out, “No, we will not go to legislation”. I think there could be a little bit more veracity in Mr. Preston's interpretation of what has happened.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

I'd be happy to have that taken care of. It was a very good piece of debate, and when Ms. Redman would like the microphone, she can have that debate.

Mr. Chair, I would ask if we could please have the motion--

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Mr. Preston, order.

I was listening to Madam Redman and I haven't given the floor back to you.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

It's a shame. I'm just so used to having it, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

That's fine.

You do now have the floor. Please continue.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

I would ask that we read the motion we're currently debating, because it clearly states, although I may have taken a bit of theatrical licence in how I said it, exactly what I just said. We were here to talk about Bill C-6 , and in fact the opposition has put an amendment to the motion that says we're not going to get to talk about legislation; we are going to talk about what we want, and it's the in-and-out scheme.

So could I have the motion read? I believe some of them are missing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Before we go on too many of these points of order, I want to say that they are somehow bringing to the attention of the chair a deviation from the Standing Orders or the common procedures. They're not avenues for participating in the debate.

But I will recognize Mr. Proulx on a point of order.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Let me ask you a question. Is the truth being modified—

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

That's another debate, I'm sorry.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

—outside the rules and regulations?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

I can take your name down, and when it comes your turn you can rectify or clarify the situation.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Thank you.