Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Sept. 27th, 2018

[David Christopherson]

May I ask one more question to Mr. Reid?

If we proceed the way we are right now, I could be wrong but my hunch is that the official opposition is not quite finished doing their talking. I understand what the government is doing. I think Mr. Reid is probably accurate, that you're using this as a bit of pressure to leverage the government to make a vote, but I don't think it's going to work.

I think what we're going to end up with is an hour-long discussion that eats up the time with the minister. We may or may not get the minister back. I suspect that's going to be difficult, thinking of the politics of this. I appreciate Ms. Sahota's response. That helps. I understand why you reacted the way you did.

My question to Mr. Reid would be, can we reasonably expect that we could come to a vote on the motion and amendment that we have been spending a great deal of time on? Can we have some assurance—if we heard from the minister, given a certain period of time, whether that's a half-hour, an hour, or whatever—of how much more you have to say?

I'm done talking on the motion and the amendment, and I suspect that the government is done. What we're looking at now is the official opposition. The question for us is, do you have legitimate concerns that you need a certain period of time to finish, or should we have good reason to suspect that all the official opposition is going to do is continue to delay thereby making it that much more difficult to get the bill passed?

It's a matter of trust here. I hear what the government is saying.

Mr. Reid, I think it's fair to say that we'd like to hear some assurance that we're not just setting this up so that you can filibuster, we don't hear from the minister, we don't get the vote and we just lose, lose, lose.

Again, if we are all trying to find a way through this together procedurally, it would be very helpful, sir, if you could give us a sense of what your intent would be vis-à-vis the time you would want, and when we could expect that we would actually have a vote.

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

As you're aware, I'm no longer the shadow minister, as we call them now. I am just a foot soldier. That's actually a question that is best directed towards my colleague, who is just having some discussions right now.

While she gets prepared to answer to you, I will let the committee know that I propose the following regarding Ms. Sahota's motion. I won't read the whole thing, but it reads “That the Committee do not commence clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-76”....

I'm sorry. I'm reading it as amended by Mr. Nater, if you follow. As amended by Mr. Nater, it would read, “That the Committee do not commence clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-76 before the Committee has heard from the Chief Electoral Officer of Ontario”.

I propose a subamendment, which states the following, “nor until the committee has heard from the Minister of Democratic Institutions for not less than 60 minutes”.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Why not flip that and say we will begin clause-by-clause after we've heard from so-and-so? That would be assurance. What you're doing is not assuring at all.

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

If I may, the minister is more than willing to be here for 60 minutes and we're hearing from the Chief Electoral Officer from the Province of Ontario on Tuesday, so why are we still talking about this?

If we stopped talking, we could proceed. The minister is eager to answer questions, and if it's a matter of timing with the minister, I know we'd be willing to give up our slots so that the opposition is assured of the equivalent of what they had to get this over and done with.

It's just a matter of stopping talking. We've been discussing this. All of the parties positions have been on the record. You guys have eaten up the bulk of the debate talking about mostly nothing.

[David Christopherson]

Be specific when you say, “You guys”.

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

Sorry, Mr. Christopherson, it's the Conservative Party. Thank you for the clarification.

It's time to move on.

Thank you.

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

I'm being told, “Be silent”. That's what we just heard from the parliamentary secretary: “Be silent or you don't get to get the minister.” That is genuinely offensive. Give up the only tools the opposition has at its disposal or they will withhold the minister.

This member, for all his self-righteousness, has now taken us 20 minutes into the hour we were supposed to get with the minister.

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

I've spoken for two minutes.

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

No, you're right.

Chris, we'll do whatever the hell you want. We'll just cave. We'll just collapse like a house of cards under your cheap trick—

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

Just say it's a filibuster.

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

—which was announced without any warning. You're right. We'd be [Inaudible—Editor] asking the minister.

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

A filibuster isn't a cheap trick...?

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

We have no sense of self-respect and, frankly, I'm just appalled at the fact that you would do this.

Now, I realize you didn't do it. You were told to do it—

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

You're not told to continue to filibuster.

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

—but that doesn't change the fact that it's a cheap, cheesy trick.

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

When's the filibuster going to end, Scott?

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

He doesn't care. He's just a foot soldier.

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

Just a good soldier?

We can throw insults back and forth if you like.

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

Man, you are the master of the insults in this committee.

Nobody holds a candle to you, Chris. My hat is off to you for your impressive [Inaudible—Editor].

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Okay, guys. Let's bring some decorum back to this meeting.

Mr. Reid, you have the floor. We're on the amendment.

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

Yes, thank you.

Apparently—thanks to this tactic from the Liberals—we won't be hearing from the minister. I apologize to the minister that she is forced to sit here while this is all going on.

I've been at meetings before where we've had the Chief Electoral Officer just sitting through this kind of thing. I can't even remember who was in government at that time.

Look, 20 minutes into what was supposed to be an hour from the minister, we are instead debating whether we are allowed to debate, whether we are allowed to seek amendments and whether we are simply to do as we are told, to be silent.

That's why I worded it as I did. Obviously, I wrote this on the spot: that we do not commence clause-by-clause consideration before the committee has heard from the Ontario CEO—which was the amendment to the initial motion—nor until the committee has heard from the Minister for Democratic Institutions for not less than one hour, which is to say getting the 40 minutes back, or the 30 minutes or whatever it is. That's not going to be acceptable. This is just a reasonable request, a problem that would not have arisen if the Liberals had not decided to pull this stunt right now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

This is a seven-minute intervention.

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

All right. Thank you very much.

I will stop there. I understand there's a list, and perhaps there'll be some Liberals who will be in a position to comment on that. As things stand now, the fastest resolution is for the Liberals to just drop their insistence that we debate this. We will be happy to suspend the debate, and we would hopefully be in a position to allow the minister to stay on a few minutes beyond her originally intended exit time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Okay.

Now we've just proposed a subamendment that adds to the amendment, “nor until the Committee has heard from the Minister of Democratic Institutions for no less than one hour”.

I'll start a new list on the subamendment.

We'll have Mr. Nater, and then Ruby.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Unless Ms. Sahota has something that would allow us to come to a conclusion on this, I'm willing to exercise the Simms protocol to allow her to speak first, provided that I am next on the list.