Procedure and House Affairs Committee on March 3rd, 2010

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

On that note, Mr. Chair, I have a suggestion to make.

Since the lists contain many names and must be verified, I would suggest...Our list is ready. We are prepared to share it with colleagues from the other parties. I expect that they will do the same. Can we agree to exchange these lists immediately, if we have them?

A meeting is scheduled for tomorrow morning. You know that this exercise is subject to the whips approval. The four whips need to sign the report that will be formally tabled in the House. That report won't be tabled this evening, because the House stands adjourned until 10 a.m. tomorrow. The whips are scheduled to meet at 9:30 a.m. If the clerk were to come by and see the whips at the office of the Chief Government Whip, we could then approve the report and review the lists of names submitted by the other parties—after all, we do want to take a look at these lists. Then we would not have to sit in camera, unless you really want to do so in order to discuss other business.

That is what I would like to suggest to my colleagues in attendance.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Mr. Lukiwski, on the same topic.

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

I just want to make sure I understood the interpretation correctly.

Do we need a motion to give the authority to the whips to approve all this, and then, automatically, as chair you would not have to report?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Mr. Guimond is asking for an alternative way of doing it. As it is, we already have a routine motion under which the whips can do membership reports. So if we'd like to go that route, we won't do it as the whole committee today. The whips will do it tomorrow morning at their whips' meeting. The clerk will attend at some point, get signatures from all four whips, give me a report to present in the House during routine proceedings tomorrow, and life will carry on that way. That would work fine if that's the way we'd like to do it. That saves us having--

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

My question is whether we need a motion here to authorize them to do that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

No, the whips are already authorized to do so.

At this moment, Monsieur Guimond has asked for copies for the four whips for tomorrow morning.

Is that what you were asking for? It's not a problem. We don't need to give it to all members. As long as all parties are giving copies to all whips for tomorrow morning's meeting, then life is fine.

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Okay, let's go that way then.

All right, that has been distributed.

Monsieur Proulx.

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

On a point of clarification, I want to come back one step. With regard to the Subcommittee on Private Members' Business and the Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure, can the clerk confirm that the composition of these two subcommittees is exactly that which we had prior to prorogation?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

The clerk suggests to me that they were taken from the minutes of the meeting at which they were adopted.

[A voice]

They should be exactly the same.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Yes.

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

I was under the impression--and correct me if I'm wrong, and we can check--that the private members' business subcommittee was composed of one member from each party, therefore four members, and that Harold was the representative of the Conservative Party.

We had another one--

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

We had a subcommittee on forms, under ethics, where that was the case, but the Subcommittee on Private Members' Business had the makeup that is stated here.

Mr. Reid.

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

Everybody on this committee knows that I have very decided opinions on the subject of four-person committees or subcommittees. It would be very sad to see the membership of this one change from what is listed here, but even if we wanted to do so, we would be unable to because this subcommittee's membership is actually spelled out in the standing orders, and it does include two different members, one of which is me.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

That's correct.

Is there further committee business?

I would suggest that we move forward by having a meeting of the Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure on Tuesday during the time slot in which our committee would normally meet.

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Okay, we will have that meeting then, and we will move forward from there.

This meeting is adjourned.