Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 7th, 2019

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

Part of the reason I said that was that the only way to get a vote in the House is to have a concurrence debate. As a practical matter, it's very hard to arrange a concurrence debate that late in the Parliament. My natural inclination on something such as this, to look towards unanimous consent, is doubled when you face that type of practical consideration.

As someone who has been on the committee a long time, I would just say, there's no formal mechanism, but the next PROC is likely to take very seriously that which was said by the current PROC on something such as this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

It is or isn't likely to do so?

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

It is, pretty much so.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

What's stopping us from sending a recommendation letter to the next version of ourselves? Have you thought of that?

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

That's true.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

PROC could write a letter to say to our future self that it should look at these issues that we raised.

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

It's like the movie Groundhog Day, where he breaks the pencil so that his future self, when he wakes up, will know.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

That's right.

As a practical matter, that's what we can do with this, and say, “Dear PROC of the 43rd Parliament, follow this.”

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

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

I think I had Mr. Nater on the list.

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

Maybe just following up on that, there's also the option for the next PROC, as part of the routine motions at the beginning of the 43rd Parliament, to do a routine motion that PROC undertake an ongoing study every six months or every calendar year on this. That's an option, too.

Just very briefly, in terms of our limited time going forward, personally I think it would be nice to hear from Mr. Wright from the public works department on this matter. He seems to be the designated departmental official on this. It would be nice to hear from him one last time before we adjourn for dissolution.

Perhaps a potential second witness would be the architects we had previously before the committee: Centrus, or something such as that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Do you mean the ones we had at the December meeting?

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

Yes. It would be just to hear whether there have been any updates in terms of what they've found since we vacated the premises, whether there's anything new that they can share on that matter.

The third and final point would be an actual briefing from someone, whether that's Mr. Wright or someone else, on the long-term vision and plan, what is actually currently on record as having been approved going forward. There were different suggestions at the last meeting of what was approved, when it was approved.

Mr. Reid has talked before about the second phase of the visitor welcome centre. I think we're all in the dark as to exactly what is currently approved in terms of this blasting on the front lawn to dig a new visitor welcome centre. It would be nice to know what has been approved and what's currently the plan.

Those are the three points we could do, whether that's in one single meeting or two half meetings. They would generally be the witnesses I'd want to hear. That's somewhat independent of the actual motion itself, because the motion is recommending a change, but it ties in, hand in hand.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Would you want them before we finalize the motion?

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

I don't think we necessarily need that. They're somewhat independent, because the motion is a structure to report.

I'd personally like to hear from those witnesses before we adjourn this Parliament. I'm flexible on that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

It makes sense to me.

Mr. Bittle, I think you asked the question of Mr. Reid.

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

That's fine. If it's a meeting or two, that works for us.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Mr. Reid, you have Mr. Nater's suggestion.

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

I think we should deal with that as a committee, rather than amending the motion to contain it. I would suggest scheduling it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Yes.

Did you want to have a meeting on the motion, or do you want to have a meeting with those witnesses and then have the motion at the end of that meeting? What are your thoughts?

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

Why don't we try to see if we can adopt the motion now and then move towards that?

We aren't actually tying ourselves to a specific number of meetings. That allows maximum flexibility for the committee to have as few as one and as many as the committee decides.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

The proposal is to finish discussion on the motion right now, and then I'll go to discussion on the other people. Is there any further discussion on the motion?

(Motion agreed to)

It's unanimous.

Now let's discuss a meeting for the witnesses Mr. Nater just suggested. Is anyone opposed to our trying to get those witnesses in as soon as possible for a meeting?

[The Clerk]

Committee members will recall that we've had witnesses already on an ongoing study having to do with the Centre Block rehabilitation project. I just asked the chair whether the witnesses suggested by Mr. Nater would be a continuation of that study, or whether the witnesses would be specifically tied to the study on the potential recommended standing order change.

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

I think Mr. Reid's motion is almost a stand-alone. I suspect the witnesses won't be speaking directly to the change in the committee's mandate. Certainly, they're connected, but I think it would be a stand-alone motion.

My only question is whether we would need to hear witnesses from the clerk, perhaps on this motion itself, but I don't know if that would be necessary.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Mr. Reid's motion, as the clerk says, does refer to undertaking a study. Do we need the study now that we've approved the motion? We've approved a motion that says we're going to undertake a study.