Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 12th, 2020

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Madam Chair, for section iii, page 9, line 11, where it says, “This approach has been compared to a living tree”, I would like to see if we can add the sentence relating to the content, just to put it in context, of Mr. Dufresne's statement in his testimony, which was, “Of course, it's possible that a court could disagree with this interpretation. In that scenario, the most serious implication of a court not finding a House proceeding to have the mandated quorum via virtual presence would be that what was adopted in the impugned proceeding could be invalidated.” It would just put into context that statement.

Now, there are other areas.... I don't know how Andre could do it, whether he could do it as a quote under that line or whether he could make that a footnote, but I'll leave that to him. I just think it's important that there's context to the statement that Mr. Dufresne made with respect to the “living tree” argument.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you.

Andre, do you recall the context?

[Andre Barnes]

Yes, I do. I believe what Mr. Brassard said kind of captures things accurately, yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

All right. So, we're good with “Quorum in the House of Commons”.

With regard to “Language rights in Parliament”, there were no changes to this section. Well, there was a footnote change, footnote number 26.

Okay. Are we all good with this section, then?

Yes, Mr. Duncan.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

I'm sorry. On that language rights [Technical difficulty—Editor]

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

You muted and unmuted yourself many times.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

On page 10, just at the end of that section on the language requirements or language rights, could we add something like, “On the other hand, increasing the complexity of the proceedings may make it more difficult and increase the number of people required”? I think that may be alluding to that, too, that it's not a set number right now; it's more complex. As we go along, it's going to require more officials. I think it's important to note that that's a bit of a stress on the interpreters.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Yes, Ms. Blaney.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

The other addition that I think is important and which isn't in here—and I'm sorry I didn't see it sooner—is that there's nothing referring to the right of indigenous languages to be.... I'm wondering about that because that is now added, and we haven't mentioned that at all.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Yes. PROC did a really long study on indigenous languages and their use in the House. You're right. While we were hearing testimony, I was thinking quite a lot about that.

Andre.

[Andre Barnes]

The comment does appear later on in the report about language rights. [Inaudible—Editor] made the point, so it does show up later. Would you like it in both places?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Yes. I think it's appropriate to probably have it under the heading.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

I agree. Thank you for that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

All right.

“Canada's seat of Parliament” is good.

No, there's an issue.

Yes, Christine.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

For our part, we've recommended that an assessment be made of another place where we could sit. The recommendation is set out much later in the report. I'm wondering if it would be more relevant to put it in this paragraph here, following Dr. Raymond's recommendation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

The recommendation is added in. It's a Bloc recommendation—not that I guess it matters as chair—but I did like it. It's a good recommendation, and it is—

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

It's on page 47 in my version; it's much further on.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Yes, but it is under an appropriate heading, and that's for location or something. Hold on.

In the first half of the report, we don't really have any recommendations added in. We're then addressing, in the discussion portion of the report, all of these issues, and that's where the recommendations come in.

Andre, you could explain better than I probably can how you intended the layout to be. Let me just find that.

[Andre Barnes]

No, Madam Chair, I think you explained it the way I had thought about it or the way it's been laid out. The first half of the report deals with information, context and background. The second half is discussion and recommendations.

It's the committee's report. The recommendations can go anywhere. The way it's structured currently is that the recommendations come in the second half, with the discussion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Yes.

The Bloc recommendation is put into the section “Alternate locations”.

[Andre Barnes]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

I don't know; I think it's quite appropriate to have a recommendation. Otherwise, we'll have no recommendations for that section.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Madam Chair, unless I'm mistaken, our recommendation is under “Order and decorum”. It may not be the best place, in my opinion. I won't make it an issue, but I think it would be more appropriate to put it under “Canada's seat of Parliament”.

[Andre Barnes]

If it helps, Madam Chair, I may have made a mistake and put it in the wrong spot.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

I think it's been put in twice. Let me take a look and see if it's the same or slightly different.

No, it's slightly different. In the English version, it's Bloc recommendation 7 and it's under “Alternate locations”.

Is it different in the French version?