Evidence of meeting #45 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 video is available from Parliament.
11 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
I will call meeting number 45 to order. We're in public, televised, and all looking good.
We're here under Standing Order 106(4), with an order from members of the committee—
11 a.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Thank you, Chair.
You're at the point where you're advising us as to why we've come together, and that's why I've asked for a point of order at this stage.
I'd like a little clarification if I could, Chair, starting with, what happened to Thursday's meeting?
11:05 a.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Yes. We were scheduled to meet. We had a plan. Then all of a sudden it was cancelled.
11:05 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
I assumed we had a plan when we left here the Tuesday before. I had commitment from all sides that we would move forward and move an extension on Mr. Trost's motion. I had a commitment on concurrence on that. When that turned out to be a mistruth, I decided then that I was not sure where we were headed on the plan, and so let's just wait and see what we have going on.
11:05 a.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Well, let's just set that aside for the moment. That would then have us.... I may return to that. I reserve the right to return.
However, that would have had us meeting today and Thursday as our regular meetings. There was nothing special about this. This is our usual time. The House is sitting. It's in order.
There are some people who had it in their minds that they were going to be out of here early, and that's up to them and their minds, but the fact is that as long as the House is sitting, we meet. So I'm a little unclear as to why we wouldn't be proceeding with the agenda today that we had set last week, such as dealing with witnesses for the private member's bill. We were going to have two witnesses, and we were going to do the Bezan report, as we wanted to clean that up before we rose for the summer.
Yet all of a sudden, a letter signed by five members of the committee has you suggesting that “we're here because of this”, yet it seems to me that this is a regular meeting, in its regular place, and we already had an agenda that we set up at a previous regular meeting. I don't understand how we went from what we had planned to be done at a regularly scheduled meeting, how it's all set aside, and suddenly the business of five members is now the order of the day.
I raise that for this reason, Chair. If this stands as it is right now, then what it says is that any time five members or more don't like the agenda of a meeting that's coming up, all they have to do is sign this and make what is a regular meeting a special meeting. Then the agenda of the special meeting supersedes the agenda of the regularly scheduled meeting, which I don't think is your intention, because that just creates all kinds of chaos and havoc.
Maybe at this point, Chair, you could just help me understand how it is that we're where we are today and why we're not doing the regularly scheduled business of the committee.
11:05 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
When a chair of a committee receives a letter signed by three or more members of the committee asking for a meeting on an individual topic under Standing Order 106(4), that meeting takes place within a certain period of time. It must be called within 48 hours and take place within five.... Today fit that mould, and I said let's use that time. We had done some planning at our last meeting, I'll give you that. However....
11:05 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Well, it fell apart. I mean, some of the things you asked your chair to do, like move concurrence in the House.... I heard your obviously honest House leader say “yes” in here and “no” in the House. I assumed that you just meant that the plans we had made then had gone out the window. We had done some research on the witnesses; however, they weren't both available for our meeting—
11:05 a.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Were there any witnesses cancelled? Were there notices sent out—
11:05 a.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
—to any witnesses where they were told, “Sorry, you were invited, but now you're uninvited”? Did that happen?
11:05 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
We had one witness who was available, but holding a meeting with one witness out of two on a topic that needs to be done in one meeting just didn't...let's make it so we can do it together.
Mr. Christopherson, I'm not going to sit here—
11:05 a.m.
Conservative
11:05 a.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Yes, you are, Chair, because you don't have the unilateral right to decide what this committee does. There is some semblance of democracy here.
11:05 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
Agreed, but our Standing Orders make it very clear what a chair must do when he receives a notice of motion under Standing Order 106(4).
11:05 a.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
I understand, Chair, but if there was already a regularly scheduled meeting at the time you said there'll be a special meeting.... How do you have two meetings at the same time? The regularly scheduled meeting and the special meeting...? A “special meeting” is a special meeting, and there's nothing special about today.
In fact, it's a regular meeting, and we had an agenda set. In addition to what you commented on, we were also going to do the Bezan report, and be dealing with the report on leaks. There was important business in being here.... It just looks, Chair, like there are more shenanigans going on. Unfortunately, it seems to have involved your office. I'm really at a loss as to how we're here for a special meeting during a regularly scheduled meeting and why we're not doing the regularly scheduled business that we have set out.
11:05 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
I've given you the reason for it, and you continue to repeat why you don't like me, but that's fine with me, Mr. Christopherson—
11:05 a.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Oh, I quite like you. It's your ruling I don't like at all.
11:05 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
The ruling, as the chair, is that when a Standing Order 106(4) motion comes—