Evidence of meeting #19 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Okay. You have the floor. If you want to talk over top of me, go for it.
4:45 p.m.
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
No, no, I'm not trying to talk over top of you, sir. I'm just trying to understand, I suppose, your reasoning, because we have a stack of—
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
4:45 p.m.
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
No, you first. I insist. It's very Canadian that we're trying to out-polite each other.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
I had already ruled that after a number of these e-mails were read, we reached the point of relevance, that they were going to say similar things about the reason Mr. Christopherson had brought them forward. That was about travel of the committee. That's part of his motion, so I understand where he came from on it. It's very relevant, until you get to 10 or 12 of them, and then it starts to be repetitious and not relevant. I'll go from there.
Mr. Christopherson, back to your motion.
4:50 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
I was trying to do a quick count to see if I had read 10 or 12.
4:50 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Oh, how it seemed. It's close.
I respectfully disagree, but I also respectfully accept your ruling and will move on.
In my motion I specifically spell out a number of regions that we think are priorities for us to consider, and not just because of the impact of the bill on them, although that's clearly a big part of it, but part of it is also just the element of fairness.
The first element of fairness is whether Canadians are going to get their say in the places where they live, yes or no. If the answer is yes, then we want to make sure that we're fair-minded, that we don't do everything in one....
Say we did five meetings and held them all in one province; that wouldn't be acceptable. The motion clearly spells out the different regions, and not only spells out Ontario, but northern Ontario separately. Being an Ontarian yourself, Chair, you would know that northern Ontario often feels—
4:50 p.m.
An hon. member
—terribly poor.
4:50 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Yes.
They should almost think about being a separate province themselves, because they feel that there's such unfairness. So we've included them separately.
Since we also talked about first nations and aboriginal peoples and the impact there and about having their representatives come as witnesses, when I make reference in my second point to travelling.... Even though I'm from Ontario, the north is not just northern Ontario, but quite frankly, it more or less begins at the northern point of northern Ontario. Then we start getting into northern Canada, really, and you're still not yet at the Arctic, which then takes you to the top of Canada.
I'm going out on a limb here—I haven't checked this with my folks—but it would seem to me that a logical place for us to go, especially since the only direct flight there is from Ottawa, would be to the territory of Nunavut, and to Iqaluit.
We did a little research, because we proposed the travel here, and we find that there are daily flights that leave at 9:15 a.m., and arrive at 12:25. Then they have a return flight at 12:45, which arrives back in Ottawa at 3:55 p.m. I mention this for two reasons. One is to show that it is not only possible to get there, but two, that it's easy, and the easiest place in all of Canada to get to Iqaluit from is Ottawa. It's a perfect launch point.
Now for those who haven't been there—
4:50 p.m.
Peter Braid
I've been there.
4:50 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Have you been there, Mr. Braid? It's beautiful, isn't it? Everybody should get a chance, because it really—no, I'm sincere—speaks to another part of Canada that we normally don't think of when we're in the south.
The reason I picked up on the comment from Mr. Braid was that it could very well be that some people who haven't been there would wonder where we would stay, since it's way up in the north. This is more the sort of thing you would think of when you start getting up to Pond Inlet and Resolute Bay, where I've been, as I know others here have.
The nice thing about Iqaluit, among the beautiful things that are there, is that the accommodations are excellent, and—I know this will really matter to the government—it is secure, so that when those evil Canadians whom they're worried about come out, if they should do so, with those signs that say “Down with Conservatives”, we can assure the government—
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
Tom Lukiwski Conservative Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK
On a point of order, Mr. Chair, I know that this is quite repetitious.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Yes, I was going to say it; I thought it myself.
Mr. Christopherson—
4:55 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
No, that's fine. I have to say I much prefer it coming from a government member rather than the chair. Anyway, that's just that.
The fact remains that there is excellent accommodation there, as Mr. Braid will testify. I was very comfortable. I've been there two or three times. The Frobisher Inn is one of the places we go to when we travel there. They have five meeting rooms. They have a theatre capacity of 272, a banquet capacity of 120, and a reception capacity of 272. They have everything we would need in terms of infrastructure to support a House of Commons standing committee.
It's easy to get there. It represents an important part of Canadian life. It's secure. It speaks to one of the groups we're concerned about who may be losing rights here, and that is northern Canadians. That's before we even get into aboriginal peoples, first nations people, the Inuit, who would have an opportunity to....
This is the thing, Chair. I haven't gone this far before in specificity, but were we there right now, for instance, in the Frobisher Inn, we would have people who may or may not be national figures, but they are people in Iqaluit who understand the city, who understand the election process and want to describe to us how different voting is there and be able to say, “You passed the community centre when you came by; most people vote there, but we have this kind of problem; if there's this kind of weather, there's that problem; when poll clerks don't show up, this is the problem we have; and the problems are different from the problems that you in the south face.”
Being there is not necessarily about identifying people per se in Iqaluit whom we want to hear from and that's why we have to go there, which is what the government was suggesting I was trying to imply in my motion. That's not the case. There could very well be experts who are renowned—world-renowned, nationally, internationally—who would come. More specifically, if we travelled to communities like that, the specific purpose would be, yes, to ask what they think about the rules overall, which affect us all the same way no matter where we live, but for them to talk to us about how specifically these changes either make things worse or don't address an existing problem that still remains, one that needs to be explained and is best explained by seeing it and feeling it.
If you've never been to Iqaluit or further north than that, then I say with the greatest of respect that you really don't have a feel for how some of our fellow Canadians live and what their day-to-day life is like. I'm not at all suggesting that it is in any way more or less than our life in cities, but it's different. That's why we included things such as saying that we should go to different parts of Canada and why we mentioned not just northern Ontario but the north. That's what we meant by the north.
This makes some of my fellow Ontarians crazy, but it depends where you live. It's interesting, if I may speak just a little on geography—and you'll know this—that those of us who live in southern Ontario say in the summertime, “We're going north”, when we're going no further than Parry Sound or at the furthest North Bay. I'll never forget my colleagues at Queen's Park, when the Conservatives rejigged things a little bit and included North Bay in the north. There were an awful lot of Ontarians who were very upset. Then they brought it down—I could be wrong on this—all the way to Parry Sound and said, “This is northern Ontario”. Well, let me tell you, the people in Wawa, Timiskaming, and along the James Bay coast were not impressed.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
Tom Lukiwski Conservative Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK
On a point of order, Mr. Chair, I'm wondering what the relevance of this is.
5 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Thank you, but I'll go back to Mr. Christopherson.
Maybe you can help answer the question by what you say next.
5 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
I can't seem to win. If I'm boring, they get upset. If I'm interesting, they get upset. If I tell jokes, they get upset. I just plain upset people. That's the problem over there. They're just angry.
5 p.m.
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
Mr. Chairman, I'm still a little unclear. I'm not challenging you on the relevance point that Tom just raised, but I'm a little unclear regarding a previous relevance motion. It's very important for me, because we're tracking these things as well. You thought it was repetitious that Mr. Christopherson mentioned there may be gatherings of protestors with signs such as “Stop Harper”, “Down with the Conservatives”, etc. Was it the content of the protest signs specifically that you objected to?
5 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Mr. Martin, had you been here at all of our meetings, you would have known by the phrases that Mr. Christopherson had shared much of that with us before.
5 p.m.
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
Was it “Stop Harper” specifically? Was that the term he used over and over again?
5 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
It was the phrases that Mr. Christopherson used over and over. Whether he repeats what's on the sign or what would happen with the sign, it's still repetition.
Thank you, Mr. Martin.
Mr. Christopherson, we're back to you.
5 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Thanks, Chair.
We were looking for the conclusion of something, and I confess I lost my train of thought, and a lot hinged on it. Can you help me?