Evidence of meeting #111 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 identification.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
More prosaically, couldn't we just do a video conference?
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
We were talking to them about that.
Can we circle back to it once we get done with the calendar?
Liberal
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
Part of what we just discussed is important. I'm not sure I understood. So Facebook has replied and they're available for Thursday afternoon, but through video conference? Is that what's been said?
Liberal
The Clerk
Twitter gets to respond officially. The email we sent them said the deadline to respond was noon tomorrow.
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
So we'll know tomorrow. Where do we stand on scheduling all the witnesses, the 300 or so witnesses who were called? In regard to those who have made themselves available or want to be available, where are we at?
The Clerk
We're still taking emails and processing responses, but I can say that on Thursday we have a full slate of witnesses. The notice of meeting went out for tomorrow's meeting as well and it's also relatively full.
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
Right, it wasn't part of the original motion.
I was just wondering whether the committee would feel okay in case there is some interest shown in the next couple of days. There have been quite a lot of witnesses submitted by the other parties, and I was wondering whether we could extend hearing witnesses into Monday, just as a slot, just in case, and then have the minister come in as well in one of the time slots.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
This is chicken-and-egg. With the committee not confirming, it's difficult for the clerk to be open to things we haven't decided yet. We should decide if there's a slot or two slots on Monday or whatever we're doing on Tuesday so we won't have people writing back to the committee saying they're interested but then it's full on Thursday and so on. We have to make the call and say what we want to do. Do you know what I mean?
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
Yes, I'd like to see what both of your parties think about allowing that time. Or do you think we should move past the witnesses after Thursday?
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
My comment would simply be that we should hear from the people who wish to be heard. That is the barrier that was used the last time we looked at elections law, and it's the barrier that should be used in this case.
I think these arguments that are being made to just leave a little time on Monday in case a few more people want to come, I don't know.... Maybe the clerk can help us. Obviously, people were being offered spots for this week. In some cases, in the best-case scenario, they were being offered a spot in the next four business days and, in the worst case, maybe even for the next day or two days from the day they were contacted. Clearly, that would have disqualified a lot of people who would have wanted to come from coming this week.
I think we can all understand that people have busy schedules. In some cases, they have to travel across the country, and it wouldn't even have been possible. To be thinking that, just because they weren't necessarily able to come this week they weren't interested is to make a huge leap. I would assume that there are a lot of people on those lists who still have an interest and would like to come. They should be heard.
We are talking about making changes to the elections law of this country. It is a very significant piece of legislation. From the very few witnesses we've heard—and it is very few—we have already heard a number of things that I know I hadn't thought of. I notice that other members were picking up on things that they hadn't thought of or heard about in terms of concerns or potential amendments. This is why we do this.
I get that the government has for whatever reason suggested that they really feel they have to ram this through and do it quickly. I disagree with that, but that seems to be the case. I don't think that serves the best interests of the country or of any of us as parliamentarians in trying to do our jobs properly. We need to hear from the people who want to be heard, and we're nowhere near that at this point. To say that we should be done after Thursday is utterly ridiculous, frankly. To suggest that Monday would then be enough is no less ridiculous, really.
My suggestion would be that we actually determine how many witnesses want to be heard and schedule the number of meetings necessary to do that.
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
May I ask what your proposal is, Blake? How much longer should we...?
Liberal
Chris Bittle Liberal St. Catharines, ON
We haven't had one day yet, Blake, in three weeks, so I don't know if we....
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
Do you have any kind of proposal about what you see as a time schedule, so that we can have that discussion and try to figure out how to plot it?
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
I think that much like most studies we do, we probably would determine it based on the witnesses. I don't know if they've been canvassed, even, as to whether they're interested in appearing or not. They were asked if they would appear this week. Those are two different things.
Maybe the clerk could help us as to whether they've been canvassed on their interest, and then we can get some sense as to how many meetings are required based on that.
The Clerk
I can say that people in my office have been assisting me, and we've reached out to almost everyone on the witness lists that were submitted. They were all offered an opportunity to appear on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday of this week. There was never any mention of additional meetings, so on the responses that we got back, we did not ask people to specify whether they would be interested in appearing at a later date. It's not information that we have on hand at this point in time.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
I would suggest, then, because I'm being asked for a proposal, that we do that work: that we canvass the individuals and determine how many are interested in appearing, and then schedule the appropriate number of meetings.
