Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 29th, 2018

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Blake.

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

I would just add to that. I'm completely comfortable with the idea of our discussing the travel. The way Mr. Cullen's explained it, we've already had discussions about that. It's an easy thing for us to resolve and finalize, whereas the other portions of what the government presented are maybe not so easy to finalize. To me it would seem unfortunate. It sounds to me that if they're not willing to carve out the travel, maybe they just don't want to travel. I can understand why they wouldn't want to do that. That's unfortunate, because it would be easy for us to all come to a....

It seems to be a kind of pattern that's developing here. It's the same thing as with this motion. It seemed like it would have been an easy situation to deal with something that's doing our jobs and making sure we're doing them properly. It would seem like it would be easy for us at this point to just deal with the travel quickly, answer any questions the clerk has, and allow that to move forward. If the government doesn't want to travel and hear from Canadians, I guess we're stuck with the motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Mr. Bittle.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Well, it's unfortunate. I was watching Facebook Live last night. Mr. Richards was talking about private conversations that we had. During those private conversations we agreed last night to discuss the travel portion so we could discuss the remainder today. Is he a person of his word? I'm finding more and more of these instances, as we're going forward in this committee, and it's truly unfortunate. We pushed forward on that presumption last night. I hope he follows through on that.

We legitimately debated and focused on the travel issue last night in order to debate the remainder of it the next day. He told me it probably wasn't going to.... I suggested it might be a fight, and he said, “Well, it may not be a fight”, which were his words. Unfortunately, I was right.

This is something that has to be discussed. We're up against the tail end. We want to get this through. I know we want to bring this forward to Canadians. The Conservatives suggest they want to bring this forward to Canadians. I know Mr. Cullen has been straight from the start saying that he wants to bring this across the country. Let's get this done, but let's talk about this in the context of an entire study. It doesn't make sense to talk about a week's worth of study in the context of two to three weeks of study. Let's be realistic about this and let's follow through on the promises that we make to each other.

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

If I can respond to that, I think what we heard just now was quite disingenuous. What we're talking about in the motion the government put forward, after looking at it and considering what is in there, essentially it simply allows the week of travel, and there would be no other study based on the motion the government's put forward. If they're going to try to claim that somehow it needs to be considered in the context of everything else, what that's saying is they just don't want to travel. All they're talking about in terms of a study would be the week of travel.

I came here today with the intention that my motion would be dealt with quickly. The government doesn't want to allow that to happen because they want to deny it, and that's unfortunate. Now we're stuck in a position where we have to fight for that. I will not give up that fight because it's an important one. I understand the position the government's in. They want to get their bill rammed through. I want to make sure we have proper and full debate. If this government is going to come forward to say, “Look, we're going to try to do our job, allow this motion to pass”, we can move to that stuff, but that doesn't appear to be the case. We'll be debating that motion until that does appear to be the case.

In the meantime, I thought it was very reasonable of Mr. Cullen to suggest to deal with this easy situation, which we'd already agreed to, the travel. If the government doesn't want to travel, then they should just say so instead of trying to blame others. If they want to go forward with the rest of the stuff, that means putting aside my motion, and I'm sorry, but I can't agree to that. I'm insulted and offended by what they've done today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Mr. Bittle.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Richards still hasn't addressed the questions I brought forward based on our discussion last night. He can pretend to feign all the outrage that exists in this room, and I appreciate his attempting to do so.

We're happy to travel. We've been asking members of the opposition for a plan over the—

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

Get on with it.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Richards, I have the floor. I didn't interrupt you, Mr. Richards.

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

Get on with it.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Get on with it. We've been listening to you speak for an hour and a half, and that was your right, and I have the floor—

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

We're all willing to work on it, and you're not.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Mr. Bittle has the floor.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We're happy to travel. We've been asking members of the opposition for a detailed plan for the last two weeks. The Conservatives have provided nothing. The NDP are the only ones that have come forward with any helpful suggestions. I appreciate the attempt—this is politics—to blame the government. However, in between a filibuster, this continued debate, saying something last night, doing something completely different, and then saying something even different from that on Facebook Live last night—which was bizarre in and of itself, but it's your right as a member of Parliament to do so—we're here.

We want to get this bill through. I know that the Conservatives do not want to see this bill passed. We want to see this bill passed. There's where it sits at the end of the day. We'd like to have a schedule that includes travel that takes us from coast to coast. We put forward a plan for that last night. I think the committee was in agreement that we do that. The discussion last night when you and I spoke, Mr. Richards, was that we would discuss the remainder of the motion today. It doesn't seem that you want to do that today. I don't know which Mr. Richards to trust: the one when the cameras are on or the one when the cameras are off.

We'd like to discuss this based on our conversations yesterday.

I saw that Mr. Cullen had his hand up, so I'd like to hear what he has to say on this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Mr. Cullen, did you want to add something?

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I think what I described before still sounds accurate, maybe with more ad hominem attacks there, but the basic principles are the same. My ultimate goal is to allow us to be able to petition.... It's the liaison, right? No?

[The Clerk]

It's the subcommittee on budgets, the liaison subcommittee.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Right. My ultimate goal is to allow us to petition them with what we seemed to have agreed to last night. It sounds like, from the Liberal side, agreeing to that being put forward is conditional on having the conversation of the rest of the committee's study. It sounds like, from the Conservative side of things, that's not acceptable. My original motion was just to talk about the travel component. That is what I said.

I'm open to either, but if it's intractable, we need unanimous consent—which is what I suspect, Mr. Chair—to be able to accomplish that. I suggest that we maybe go back to the conversation around Mr. Richards' motion, and see if we can't figure out something prior to two o'clock with some off-line conversations.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Mr. Reid.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

I'm not returning to Mr. Richards' motion just at the moment. I want to deal with the point of order because there's some information that I don't have. Perhaps I should just know these things. The deadline is 2 p.m. The committee meets—

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

[Inaudible—Editor] for question period, and I think the subcommittee meets at 3:30 this afternoon typically—

[The Clerk]

It's 5:30.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I don't know what your deadline is. I'd have to refer to our clerk or our chair as to when we need this committee to pass the motion on travel. I assume it's well before five o'clock.

[The Clerk]

The earlier the better, but up until 5:30.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

There is a potential even post-QP if this is the conversation that we're still having to resolve something. In terms of the travel component, which you have to bring to the subcommittee, you have the basic tenets of it. You just have to have the committee members nod around the table to say yes, but it's now become hooked to this other thing, Mr. Chair. It seems like we have to risk sacrificing something that we've all agreed to.