Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Feb. 16th, 2016

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

That was the first question and that was helpful. As it's worded now, it sounds to me as though it's three minutes for the mover and then there's the vote.

The second thing I wanted to say is that, traditionally the motion to go in camera or to come out of being in camera are simply reverse mirror images of each other. I'm assuming that is not what you intend here, and that going from being in camera to being in public would not necessarily involve having any three-minute discussion. It might be helpful to state that. Someone simply says, “I think we should go public” and then we have a vote up or down. Is that correct?

[Arnold Chan, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

That's correct.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Mr. Christopherson.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I have to say, I'm pleasantly surprised. We can work with this. I have a couple of issues too, but I just want to start by being very positive and responding in a positive vein. I think we can get there. If we continue doing it the way we're going here, I think we can get to it. I'm very pleased. These are really good improvements. I might make note that we got this far without Mr. Lamoureux. Not that his comments wouldn't have been entertaining and wonderful, but we did manage to get here without him.

Moving on, I agree with Mr. Reid that the three minutes is a problem. If you just allow the mover of the motion.... Oftentimes it's government. So that won't work, because it eats up all the time. However, you were being fair-minded, so I was going to respond in a fair-minded way. As a former House leader, I also understand that there is an opportunity there for the opposition to again grab the floor and filibuster and hold things up. Not that we can't get there relatively easily if we want to anyway, but I do get the idea that this just opens up one more avenue of potential mischief-making, as the government might see it, and therefore they want a time limit. I think, based on what I heard Mr. Chan say and on what I heard Mr. Reid say, somewhere in there we should be able to find a common....

I'm open. I understand you just don't want it to be another opportunity for the opposition to hijack the agenda, and I get that. Mr. Reid's point is exactly the one that I would make, that in order to give effect to something being debatable it has to be more than just the person who moved it. Let's give some thought to how we can do that. I understand it eats up a little bit of time, but that's just going to be the price we pay.

On “amendable”, I'm flexible. Sometimes there are reasons that you might want to be very specific and say you are going to go in to deal with one particular thing and get out, and by amending that motion you could do that as opposed to blanket going in camera and being able to move any of these other items while we're in there. By allowing it to be amendable, you could give some direction to it, but if that is a particular problem for the government, that's a hill I'm not looking to die on. I will leave you with that thought.

I'm fine personally with the ones you've added. I think they're improvements and I like them. I think they're good. The only one I have a problem with—and I didn't even get the wording exactly—is the one about the clerk giving some kind of ruling—

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

We'll just read it again.

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

It says, “for any other reason with the consent of the whole committee, or on consideration of the advice of the clerk”.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

See, that's it. It says, “or on the consideration”. Does that mean the decision of the committee still has to be unanimous, or are you saying that the clerk gets to make a unilateral declaration?

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

We added “consideration of the advice”, which means the committee could consider the advice and then say yes or no, so it's the committee and not necessarily the clerk who would decide.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

That still takes us back to the unanimity, doesn't it?

The language is a little bumpy, but as long as that's clear and as long as we understand it and it's there in the Hansard, I'm fine with that.

I had amended my own motion regarding “with the exception of report writing”. Did you agree with that? I wrestled with that a bit, but I thought that often there is a lot going there, and things move quickly when you're doing report writing. It just seemed to me that was different from one of us in the opposition trying to put a motion to hold a study on something or to have a particular person be invited and then the government overruling it. That was a different thing in terms of public perception.

To me, Chair, it looks as though we're pretty darn close. It would seem that maybe one of the things we still need to finalize is the time on debate.

You heard my thoughts on “amendable”. I'd appreciate hearing yours. If you decide you'd still rather not have that, I'm fine with it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

We have a speaking list: Mr. Chan, Mr. Graham, and Ms. Vandenbeld.

[Arnold Chan, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

To get back to Mr. Christopherson's point about “amendable”, my concern at the end of the day is that we're dealing again with a prescribed list of items. For me, it's a straight vote it up or vote it down. You can always move another motion to deal with it if it gets voted down; I just don't want to have a specific motion indefinitely amended. We either agree or we don't. Done.

On the issue with respect to the report writing, I'm fine with that change. I don't know how other committee members feel, but it makes sense. Again, we want things to work efficiently if we're in that situation. The key is that we have a limited list of items, as opposed to the practice of the previous government where they were using it for all instances to put everything into in camera.

We buy the point. We accept the premise that there should be a prescribed list of matters that would normally be in confidence for obvious reasons. If there's anything else we haven't thought about, that's why we created that reasonable catch-all, but we all have to agree.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Mr. Graham and then Ms. Vandenbeld.

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

We were talking about the three minutes being per person or for everybody, or so on and so forth. Can we find a way of limiting it so we don't have three minutes per member and then 120 opposition members coming in to do their three minutes each? I want there to be an overall limit on that debate so we can actually get on with our lives. That's my point.

If we can go for, say, three minutes to a maximum of three speakers or something for a minimum of two parties—

[An hon. member]

To a maximum of [Inaudible—Editor].

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

I'd be fine with that. If everyone else is fine with that, I'm fine with that.

[An hon. member]

It's still not [Inaudible—Editor].

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

It's better than it was.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

It's just that if you're violating it and I want to make a point, we're now limiting how much time I have to fight for justice.

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

You will no doubt find a way, David.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Ms. Vandenbeld.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

That was the point I wanted to make: maybe three per recognized party.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Before we read the amendment, is there any other debate on this amendment?

These are detailed amendments. Let's go over the amendments to the motion as you understand them. You're the ones who are going to have to type them.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Joann Garbig]

I will read the motion as if it were amended:

That the committee adopt the following procedures for in camera business:

That any motion to sit in camera should be debatable for not more than three (3) minutes each for the mover and one (1) speaker from each recognized party—

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

For not more than three minutes each, so we don't have three minutes for us and then a filibuster thereafter.

[The Clerk]

“That any motion to sit in camera should be debatable for not more than three minutes each for the mover and one speaker from each recognized party, and that the committee may only meet in camera for the following purposes: to review”—(a), (b), (c), (d), (e), as they appear in the notice of motion—“(f) matters of members' privileges; (g) discussion of witness lists; (h) any other reason with the consent of the whole committee or on consideration of the advice of the clerk; that minutes of in camera meetings should reflect the results of all votes taken by the committee while in camera, including how each member votes, when a recorded vote is requested, with the exception of report writing.”