Evidence of meeting #102 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was petitions.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell
So if someone had a paper postcard and they had a thousand postcards, the member would have to present that pile when they presented the petition in the House, right?
Blake.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
The point about the images that was raised by the Clerk, I think, is an important one. How many postcards don't have some kind of logo or image on them? It's not like they go out as just a plain piece of paper. That's not too likely to happen. So I think it is actually an important point. I'm also a little bit torn on the idea, but I think you're going to run into the problem anyway with the images and the logos and stuff like that. It may be better just to avoid that problem by just not having it.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
Exactly. I'm torn, but that, to me, is probably where you'd end up having a problem anyway.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell
So the committee seems a little ambivalent on postcards?
You're voting for it?
Conservative
John Nater Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
It's just a question of clarity. Typically postcards are made of a bit thicker paper. When we're determining usual size, would that preclude the card stock format type of thing from being used, rather than the regular petition paper that we are using now?
Deputy Principal Clerk, Journals Branch
The requirement usually has to do with the size rather than the format of paper. I think if someone had an 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of cardstock, that would still be acceptable.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Is there a limit to the thickness you'll accept? What if somebody shows up with an 8 1/2 by 11 brick of wood attached to a tub? What would happen?
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell
There's no consensus, so we won't allow them? At least we could. Okay.
On part c), we just have to qualify the varying sizes of paper a bit. And you suggested they be scannable?
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
They should be reasonably scannable. If you can put them in a machine that can scan them all, and that's fine. If you have to get a special piece of equipment because it's 74 by 16, then it's probably not so useful.
Deputy Clerk, Procedure
I'm just worried that maybe there is somewhere somehow a major giant scanner that we could refer to.
Clerk of the House of Commons
We could come back to you and actually give you a more specific proposal about what the maximum size would be, if that would be helpful.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
If you could give us minimum and maximum sizes and we could be done with that, I wouldn't mind. But if somebody shows up with something that is A4, don't reject it. It's not that different, right?
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
I agree with what the Clerk just said. I think there needs to be a minimum and a maximum size, because if the issue is to say that something is reasonably scannable, then the person who is now creating the petition won't know until they've submitted it whether it's acceptable or not. They need some indication as to minimum and maximum sizes, and if they know those, then they can ensure they comply with them.
Is that something you can come back to us on to say “Here are a minimum and a maximum we feel comfortable with” and then we can decide whether that's...?
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
I assume that, as a practical matter, scannable is going to mean it can be fed into a document scanner automatically once the staples are taken out. So I'm going to assume that means in practice 8 1/2 by 11 or 8 1/2 by 14 and nothing else. Maybe we can take metric sizes like A4. I don't know how likely it is that we're going to get those. You'd have to buy your paper overseas. It seems to me that having just those two sizes would be the simplest thing, and that's going to include most....