Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 29th, 2018

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

“Moved”.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Is there discussion on that motion?

Mr. Nater.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

It's changed slightly from what we had last night, in terms of the travel portion. That's not actually mentioned in the motion. Should travel be separately dealt with?

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Yes, it can be. That was just a portion. I mean, the travel itself is all together. The travel is contingent on our having reassurance that we're moving forward.

But you're talking about—

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

But this is the motion—

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Mr. Nater, I will do a motion on the travel.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

No, it's just that the original motion that we circulated had that first clause, so that's been—

[An hon. member]

It ought to be in one motion.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

It's not, though.

[Andy Fillmore, Liberal, Halifax, NS]

Will this be number seven of what she just said?

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

There already was a paragraph seven that was added.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

No, it was paragraph six.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Let's give them some time to figure out what their motion is.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Here we go. I'll rearrange paragraphs six and seven. Number six would be travel. Travel arrangements and logistics discussed in committee are contingent upon the acceptance of the prior clauses.

Paragraph seven would be that no substantive motions be moved while on travel.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Mr. Chair, this is a point of clarification again.

It isn't that the government wants to deal with these things together. It wants to deal with them separately, but it wants to deal with everything else first and then the travel second.

Is that what I'm hearing? You're not including it in the motion.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

I just did. I added it as paragraphs six and seven.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

You said it was “contingent upon”, but you haven't indicated in the motion what the travel would be. That would mean we would be dealing with it separately following the motion.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

I mean the travel plans as discussed and agreed upon by the committee today. We were, so far, moving through consensus on the cities we wanted to hit, the locations, and how the logistics would work.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

My understanding was that we hadn't agreed upon them, because you were indicating that you felt we had to agree to everything else at the same time.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Yes, that's why I'm saying.... This is all laid out. Now we have discussed in committee, with what I believe was consensus about the locations and the logistics of the travel. I'm saying in paragraph six that we accept—I accept—those travel plans—

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Well, they have to be agreed to in order to be accepted, though, and they're not, either before the motion or in it, are they?

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Paragraph six of the motion would be that the travel plans we have discussed today would be contingent upon the reassurance of all these prior five paragraphs.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Can I ask the advice of our clerk on this one? Is this an acceptable form for a motion or is it better for the plans to be reiterated...?

My understanding was that we were asking to agree to the travel, and government members were saying that they wouldn't do that at this time, which therefore means that we haven't agreed to the travel. Now we're saying some vague thing about something we discussed or whatever—

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

We haven't agreed on whether we'll go on the road—

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Is that an acceptable form of a motion, or is it better for the motion to actually outline what the travel would in fact look like?