Well, the point was to work back to Mr. Essensa, who I don't think was actually at a charity golf tournament. I think he had election-related business that he was dealing with. He will be here, showing that we were right to raise the issue.
This does actually bring us back very, very tightly....
I was going to get here anyway, by the way, Mr. Chair. I appreciate your desire to do things by the straightest path. I feel that sometimes it's important to provide full context. My goal is always to win over my colleagues to my point of view. I'm aware that the method of doing this that is most effective, when I am the person on the receiving end of a similar kind of attempt at persuasion, is to draw upon all the relevant and supporting facts, which is what I'm trying to do.
Mr. Essensa is the subject of Mr. Nater's amendment. Mr. Nater is suggesting that we change the wording of Ms. Sahota's main motion. Her motion reads as follows:
That the Committee commence clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-76 on Tuesday, October 2, 2018 at 11:00 a.m.;
That the Chair be empowered to hold meetings outside of normal hours to accommodate clause-by-clause consideration;
That the Chair may limit debate on each clause to a maximum of five minutes per party, per clause; and,
When we return to the main motion, I'll want to dwell upon that point a little bit. It's not that I necessarily think there needs to be a change to the wording, but there just needs to be clarity as to what we mean by the permissive use of language in “may” as opposed to “must”.
She goes on to say the following in her motion:
That if the Committee has not completed the clause-by-clause consideration of the Bill by 1:00 p.m. on Tuesday, October 16, 2018, all remaining amendments submitted to the Committee shall be deemed moved, the Chair shall put the question, forthwith and successively, without further debate on all remaining clauses and proposed amendments, as well as each and every question necessary to dispose of clause-by-clause consideration of the Bill, as well as questions necessary to report the Bill to the House and to order the Chair to report the Bill to the House as soon as possible.
When I look at this....
Well, you know what? I'll wait until we get to the main motion. I'll return to the amendment that Mr. Nater proposed. His proposal is that we amend it as follows. After the words “That the Committee”, the first three words of the first paragraph of the motion, we would add in the words “do not”. The motion would now read: “That the Committee do not commence clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-76”....
Hang on. I had my caret in the wrong spot here. The caret is the little thing that indicates where you've added some text in.
After “Bill C-76”, he adds in the words, “before the Committee has heard from the Chief Electoral Officer of Ontario”.
To be clear, the chief electoral officer of Ontario is available when?