Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Oct. 4th, 2018

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Yes, it's working now.

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

Is it working?

Okay.

You were asking for this to be officially.... I'm just confused as to why your suggestion was to make this....

As Ruby just...or, sorry, as Ms. Dhalla just read it—

[An hon. member]

That's the wrong Ruby.

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

Oh, my gosh. Did I do that? I did that, didn't I?

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[An hon. member]

You owe five dollars for that.

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

Is it five bucks? Wait. Does that go on inflation, similar to the amendment?

My apologies. Her memory is burned into me.

[An hon. member]

For so many, for so many.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

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

For so many; more you than me, probably.

Did you get that adjustment made?

I just want to understand how we're proceeding on Ruby's amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Just keep talking because it's still not—

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

Be careful what you wish for. I'm a professional.

I just want to understand how we're proceeding, because you asked for the written one to be the official one. Typically, on committee, what's spoken goes into Hansard, and that's what we work off of. Were you doing that because interpretation services were not functioning? Now that they are, and if they are, then we should just proceed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

They're not yet.

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

They're still not. Trust me, I don't want to delay anything. We need to have functioning interpretation services for the committee to work.

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

The problem is not just that. I don't know if that means we're not being recorded, which is what they're going to base our Hansard on.

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

This is not just our normal committee meeting. This is a sensitive meeting with amendments that we're trying to get through. If we move to amendments and clause-by-clause stage, interpretation services have to work, because my French is not good enough to understand.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Let's just suspend for a couple of minutes while the technicians work on this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Let's just summarize. We have agreement to withdraw the amendment, the subamendment, and the previous motion.

We'll have the clerk reread the motion so it's official in both languages.

[The Clerk]

The text of the motion is, again:

That the Hon. Karina Gould, Minister of Democratic Institutions, be invited to appear from 3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Monday, October 15, 2018, in relation to the study of Bill C-76;

That the committee commence clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-76 on Monday, October 15, 2018 at 4:30 p.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;

That if the committee has not completed the clause-by-clause consideration of the Bill by 1:00 p.m. on Friday, October 19, 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; and

That Bill C-76, in Clause 262, be amended by replacing line 32 on page 153 with the following: "election period is $1,400,000."

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

We have a speakers list.

Mr. Cullen, you're the one person on the speakers list.

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

I was just looking to appreciate efforts, because saying this has been a long and winding road would be a compliment to this process. It's been a couple of years of going back and forth. I wanted to get my citation correct, because it's important.

I think it was Otto von Bismarck, the iron prince, who said that laws are like sausages; it's better not to see them being made. To retain respect for sausages and laws, one must not watch them in the making. There is apparently some debate on the Internet as to whether he was the one, in fact, who said it, but the citation works for this particular process that we're in.

Here we are. The New Democrats have expressed for more than a year and a half the urgency to want to reform our election laws, and in particular get rid of the so-called unfair elections act changes that were made unilaterally in the previous Parliament, which I think sought to disenfranchise certain Canadians, particularly low-income, indigenous and young Canadians, making it harder for them to vote. Interest and enthusiasm from me and Mr. Christopherson has been strong from the start, and I hope that the government acknowledges that we've been trying in good faith to see these amendments and other things that we think the election laws needed to be updated on acted on.

The delays have caused us to come to this point. The delay is initially, I would argue, on the government's side. A bill was introduced and then nothing was done with it for a year and a half. Then this new, larger bill—it's a little over 340 pages—is in front of us. It does more than the original bill. We now have the bill in front of us with 300-plus amendments to it, and there's the suggestion I've heard from Ruby as to the process that we use.

If I understand it right, Ruby, it's to have the minister come in on a Monday when we're back from the riding week, to begin clause-by-clause, and to wrap all that up five days later.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Yes.

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

There's some allocation of time that's not designated in your motion, that the chair has the discretion to set committee times.

Within the motion are two things that are troubling for me. One is that there is a time allocation on amendments, that there's a time restriction on a party's ability to speak to amendments.

We've talked about it in the past, and this is a question I have for committee members. I would like for that to not be enforced strictly, because there are some amendments that I will suggest will either pass or be defeated without much commentary, and there are other amendments of much greater substance and import that may require a little more than five minutes to explain the rationale. I think that discretion should go to the chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Mr. Cullen, it does say “may”.

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

Is “may” a sufficient discretion for you, Chair, to be able to say you're going to let people talk it through?