Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 7th, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you, Mr. Richards.

[Ginette Petitpas Taylor, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

On a point of order, Madam Chair, could I simply ask Mr. Richards not to have the mike so close to his mouth? I'm not trying to be difficult, but it's just making a lot of noise in my ears now and it's becoming really quite disturbing. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

I guess there's a happy medium there—

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

I don't know where I'm supposed to have it. It's not to be down. It's not to be up. Where would you like it to be?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

In between.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

I'm not trying to be difficult either; I just need to know where is appropriate. I can't hear myself.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Even I was hearing a lot of static, and I think Ms. Normandin was having a hard time. I'm sure the interpreters are having an even harder time right now.

Even when we are at the mikes we have physically in Parliament, if you get too close to the mike it does give that static and that really loud sound for the interpreters, and it's a bit difficult to hear, but you need to be close enough. I guess it can't be down on your chest; it should just be around your neck somewhere.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Sure. Could I maybe just get a thumbs up? Is it okay now?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

It's perfect. There's no static.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

All right. I have a better idea of where it needs to be. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Okay. We can go to a vote on that motion.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Can we have a recorded vote on that?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Yes, all votes will be recorded.

The vote is on the motion by Mr. Richards.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 11; nays 0)

Thank you.

Because I felt this was important toward the adoption of the report, I did in this instance interpret it broadly. I want to make that clear: We don't have a lot of leeway on that.

Even to the second point made in the original point of order, which is the concern about having this meeting in public, unfortunately we don't have a lot of latitude there either. Although your points are taken and I consider a lot of your concerns to be legitimate, we have to do what we have been mandated to do as a committee. Therefore, in a public meeting, we will have to go through adopting this draft report. Hopefully, we can move on from this issue right now.

You can definitely feel free to discuss it with your party leadership. I'm sure that this was discussed. It may not have been an unintended consequence, because it was clear in the motion that we would be presenting a report to the House of Commons on May 15. It was particularly stated in that motion that all meetings will be made public and that the committee will present a report by May 15 to the House of Commons.

If we can begin where we left off before the points of order, which was.... No, we have one more issue, I believe, about Ms. May. Some people made comments about wanting her presence, and other comments were made around the rules of her participation in the meeting.

I was looking for a general consensus on that issue. I obviously don't want to belabour that point either. By a nodding of heads, I can see if there's a general consensus. If there's not, then we won't have Ms. May participate.

Yes, Mr. Richards.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

I guess I would be looking to understand the parameters of that participation before I could be comfortable giving a response.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Mr. Richards, I believe Ms. May wants to participate and, whenever recognized, to be able to provide her feedback and make comments. She does not want to just sit in without making any suggestions or comments, because, of course, she could probably do that with ParlVU.

That is my understanding of her request.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

My feeling is that obviously we're singling out one member of Parliament. You're either a member of the committee or you're not. If you're not a member, you generally don't participate in report writing, and if we open it up to one, why wouldn't we open it up to all 338? I would be uncomfortable with singling out one individual to be included.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

I completely respect that decision, and we're going to move on from this.

Ms. May, if she is watching, or I will inform her, is free to talk to other committee members and share her ideas. I don't think there is anything wrong with that. Any member of Parliament can do that individually with different committee members, but we will not have her participate in this meeting or the next meeting.

Now we will move on to the report. I know there are a couple of members who don't have the line numbers on the side of the report. It was sent in that format. Unfortunately, another member has indicated to me that they, too, don't have line numbers. For me, it depends on what device I open the report on. My printed version does not, but the version on my Surface Pro does. That's the one I'm using in this Zoom meeting, so I'm going to have to go back and forth a little. I might not be able to see some of you.

Do you want to go line by line or paragraph by paragraph?

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

I have a point of order, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Yes, Mr. Richards.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

I had my hand raised. I have some issues I would like to address, which I think would be helpful in the discussions we're going to have.

There are a few items, the first one being that there are a number of outstanding requests that were made by the committee of witnesses for the production of some documents. I can go through them. I know some stuff was sent around this morning. I was going through what I could of the report and I didn't have a chance to look at that, so some of these may have been addressed in that email this morning, but I'll go through them one by one to see if we have any indication as to whether any of these have been received or are expected to be received.

Obviously, there are things that we felt—or at least one member felt, with no objection from anyone else in all instances—were important for the committee's benefit and information. It would be good to have them when we're writing our report, obviously.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

We can confirm with the clerk.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

I can go through them so the clerk has the list. I'll do that first, and then I have two others things, and maybe the clerk can respond to all of it following that.

The first was on April 21—

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Could I make a point of order, Madam Chair?

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

I'm in the middle of a point of order right now, I believe.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

I guess that's my—