Procedure and House Affairs Committee on April 29th, 2014

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Yes. We obviously had voted on this.

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

For the benefit of Craig, because seriously, if you want to have recorded votes then he can—

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Chair, at the time it's called, we'll request that it be recorded.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Fair enough. That's fair. We already know what the outcome of this is going be, I think, by hands. I saw who voted.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Well, hope springs eternal on this side, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

I know.

Mr. Reid.

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

On the same point, I don't think anybody is doing this for reasons that are unreasonable.

I'm actually glad Mr. Lukiwski got a clarification because we were also discussing it over here. To be clear, in the event you call it quickly and then someone says afterwards, it's not going to bug us that they then request a recorded vote. Effectively you'll get unanimous consent for it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

You're right. It's not the intent of the Chair to move so fast that you can't get it in if you want to get it in, but let's try to ask for it before we do a show of hands.

Is it okay if we don't do it on this one now?

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

No.

This was the correction, not the—

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Oh, I get it. From now on.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Correct.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Indulge us on a recorded vote on PV-6.

(Amendment negatived: nays 5; yeas 4 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

It's still defeated, which then affects PV-7 also.

NDP-5 is very similar, but I'll move to Mr. Scott.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

To be perfectly consistent with what we've just done, although it is different, it is intended to be the same thing. We're just using different language for external auditors, so I'm not going to drag that one out because it's the same issue.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Okay. I think we should vote on it though.

(Amendment negatived: nays 5; yeas 4 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

That was defeated by the way, just so we know.

Ms. May, would you like to start us off on PV-8?

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Chair, again, we're still in the clause on page 6. This time we're into 16.2:

The Chief Electoral Officer may decline to issue an opinion when the matter is being considered by the Commissioner or by the courts or when, in the opinion of the Chief Electoral Officer, the matter is frivolous.

This is to increase the latitude the Chief Electoral Officer has to issue an opinion when faced with requests and timelines. There are certain circumstances in which the Chief Electoral Officer has suggested he would like and in the future he or she would want as an officer the ability to say it's inappropriate at the moment for him to issue such an opinion either because it's essentially before the courts or under investigation, or in another circumstance when the Chief Electoral Officer considers the matter to be frivolous.

We think this is an improvement to the bill. We appreciate the consideration of the members of the committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Thank you very much.

On PV-8, is there any other comment?

Mr. Scott.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Basically I would say that we would support it. We have an amendment, NDP-6, that is similar where we use the language “the matter is inappropriate”. I think it's the same one. We'd be happy to vote for this one, and if it passes, not to then be pressing the other language.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

It's my understanding that PV-8 really should have the word “inappropriate” not “frivolous” in it too. We just didn't get it updated in time. It's still fine.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

That's perfect. The committee had our updated amendment. That's great. These guys are incredible. “Inappropriate” was the word....

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

It's the guidance of the chair that does that.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

“Inappropriate” was what I would want for PV-8, as opposed to “frivolous“.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

All right. So, we're back to Mr. Scott speaking to PV-8.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

It's the same as NDP-6 and the reasons given by Ms. May I think are correct. It goes back to my earlier point that the system the government has set up here with guidelines and interpretations and opinions is designed to assist and not block or load down the Chief Electoral Officer's work. There is a worry that with the number of parties out there, the ability to ask for interpretations—Tom, an example you might like—almost as often as opposition members ask for written responses to order paper questions. It's the kind of tool you can expect smaller parties to use a lot. I honestly think that having a decision-making mechanism for the Chief Electoral Officer to say that this is inappropriate and if he's forced to spend all kinds of time giving an opinion on something that's inappropriate, even if he makes it short, is going to be a waste of time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Okay, we're voting on amendment PV-8.

(Amendment negatived)

This leads us to NDP-6, which is another version of the amendment.