Procedure and House Affairs Committee on July 6th, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

What about the time frame?

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

I'd like to have a sense of not only additions but whether there might be some changes to what our existing text is as well. What do you think the scope of that would be?

[Andre Barnes]

At first glance, my approach, as of right now, would be to add as opposed to alter what's currently there. That would be done by end of day tomorrow, at the latest, and ready for translation.

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

That may change my thoughts, then. I was thinking that potentially it might be more beneficial for us, rather than to carry forward with the meeting tomorrow, to kind of go forward on Thursday and have a final clean report, but if it's a matter of adding rather than changing anything in the existing report, that may not be necessary.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Also, in terms of what I was saying before, I think we did get through quite a large chunk of the report last time. We last left off at the discussion portion. I don't think we went through the provincial sections, but we had at the previous meetings, so there wasn't much to change in the provincial sections. We could go through that quickly, and then we'd very much be on the discussion. That's the section that hosts all of the recommendations.

So I think we'll probably be diving into some of the discussion on that, at least. That's not to say that there won't be changes. Madam Normandin has also circulated some recommendations that she's wanting to put forward. She's prefaced that by saying that they may be altered a little bit, but those are her initial thoughts. That was very helpful. If anyone else wants to circulate that to the rest of the committee, or just bring it tomorrow or to the next meeting, I think that would be helpful.

I'm thinking that by Thursday, if we could have a good sense of all of our recommendations and have them in, that would give us enough time to really be able to discuss them and then appropriately decide on them. What does everyone think?

I know that Andre didn't really give us any kind of hard and fast deadline, but I think a chunk is already in. From what I'm hearing, some of the parties have been talking about what they want in the report. We'll probably be seeing some of that in tomorrow's meeting.

I want to give you enough time and not say “tomorrow”, because we have heard so much today. Perhaps Thursday's meeting would be the more appropriate meeting to have all of that finalized and in for. Does that sound good?

Justin, do you have any feedback on whether or not that's possible?

[The Clerk]

Madam Chair, if the suggestion was that draft recommendations from all parties would be available to the committee for this coming Thursday meeting, there might be timeline issues involved in terms of the translation and providing enough time for Andre to incorporate them into a draft report, all for Thursday. That might suggest a fairly tight deadline for draft recommendations to be submitted by everybody.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Perhaps I was being too flexible.

[The Clerk]

We make best efforts to have it ready, but there might be some time pressure in terms of getting all of that material translated for the coming Thursday meeting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

What would you say, then; perhaps Wednesday?

[The Clerk]

If you were to provide a deadline of end of day Wednesday, for example, the idea would be to have that material turned around and incorporated into the draft report for perhaps the meeting next Monday. That would provide the opportunity to have everything translated and incorporated into a new draft.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Okay.

Mr. Richards.

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

I thought it would be helpful to have that knowledge. Essentially, it sounds like we would need two full business days following the submission of recommendations by all parties in order for them to be ready for whatever meeting—Wednesday for Monday, for instance, or Thursday for Tuesday. Obviously, expecting them sooner than end of day Wednesday is probably a stretch, I assume. That leaves parties two and a half days, which is fairly reasonable. Even doing it a day sooner still wouldn't allow us to have them in time for Thursday's meeting, to my understanding.

I'd like to get a little more clarity from you, Madam Chair, on the expectations for the meetings tomorrow and Thursday. Obviously, the intention would be to try to go through the discussion portion of the report and try to conclude that, saving the part that maybe won't be completed yet, based on today's meeting. Then you mentioned something about the discussion portion of the report that would have recommendations in it. How would you see that looking? Logistically, I don't see how that would work.

I'm also struggling to understand what we'll do at Thursday's meeting if we don't have the materials prepared. It may be that we'll have to look at the following week and add a meeting there, if needed, or just try to conclude it all with the days we do have the following week.

I guess I'm trying to understand what we would actually—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

From what I'm hearing I think most of—

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

We're still working on the discussion section, but I hope that won't be the case.

I'm just trying to get some clarity as to what your plan is.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Yes. I think you're correct that we'd start on the discussion section. That's the part that has all of the recommendations.

The way the analyst has laid out the report, the recommendations fall into the discussion section. I believe most of the parties have their recommendations fairly well prepared and will want to discuss them tomorrow, but I want to give you leeway as well. I want to make sure that you're ready. I sensed that you would perhaps not be ready, given the testimony today and the new additions.

That's all, but I do think that most of the parties... and other members can speak up, if they are ready to bring their recommendations to tomorrow's meeting. Then we can start discussing some of them, but the report would still not get finalized until everyone's recommendations are in.

I'm at your mercy, however you want to do it.

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

Madam Chair, on that, I feel like I'm hearing two different things. I am a little confused.

I think that, in order to be discussing recommendations, we should have all parties' recommendations. That's not to say that...you know if the other parties are ready and perhaps my party.... We'll have to just have a quick powwow on that, but maybe we could be ready as well.

I'm hearing, I think, two different things here. I'm hearing that our clerk is indicating that we would need to have everything translated and all that done in order to be able to have those discussions. Then I'm hearing you say, well, we can have some of those discussions with partial...with having some of the recommendations, but we wouldn't have the translations and things like that.

I'm looking for some clarity on what we can and can't do. I don't think it's reasonable, frankly, to have a discussion about recommendations when we have some of them and not all of them. If we're being told that we can go ahead and have discussions without the translations and things like that, that does change.... Maybe we could try to push ourselves to have things ready, but if that's not the case, if we can't actually do that, then I'd rather take the time to get things—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

I'd love it if you could have them ready for tomorrow.

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

Yes, but I'm trying to get clarity, though. I feel like what I'm hearing from our clerk is different from I'm hearing from you.

I'm trying to getting a sense as to what the process is here, because I'm hearing from our clerk that we have to have—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

I guess what I'm saying is that it shouldn't preclude discussion. I'm not saying we have to vote on anything tomorrow at all.

Maybe we'll refrain from voting on anything and finalizing things, but because Madam Normandin had already circulated her recommendations and I'm sure other people will be mentioning what they're looking to recommend tomorrow, we could start discussing where they would be best inserted.

Tomorrow we will go through the draft report. I think it's going to come up because there are already some recommendations on the table, but we don't have to vote on them. That's what I'm trying to say. We could maybe have an official deadline of Wednesday, end of day, where they're completely translated and then incorporated into the report. At that point only would we move forward on voting on some of them.

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

I have two points on that, Madam Chair.

If I'm the only one feeling this way, even if some of my colleagues in my own party feel this way and all the other parties disagree, I guess we're going to do it the other way.

First of all, I don't think it's fair or reasonable to have discussions, whether there's voting or not, about recommendations when only some of them are there. And this is not to try to stall. Obviously based on today, we want to do a little work. Tomorrow we wouldn't able to be ready, but we might be able to be on Thursday, depending on whether we're allowed to do it officially without the translation and whatnot being done by the committee workers. And if that's the case, then great.

If that's not the case, my second point would be that I'm not one who believes in having a meeting for the sake of having a meeting, so if it's discussing some things but not making any decisions and we'll have to come back and do it all over again when we have.... I don't see the point. That seems to me like digging a hole and filling it in. I'm not a big fan of that.

Maybe I'm the only one feeling this way, but I would much rather have us...we've got everything in, in a proper format and we're prepared so we do it and work to complete it as quickly as we can, rather than just filling time.

I'm trying to get at the idea...if we're prepared but there aren't going to be changes to any of the existing parts of the report, the actual background stuff we've been working on, fine, we finish that. But I don't know that we would then want to start a discussion about recommendations until we're prepared to deal with them appropriately. I don't think we're there for tomorrow for sure, and there's some question in my mind whether that's the case for Thursday or if we can go ahead without all these official translations and all the rest. If I'm hearing that we can't do that, then perhaps we're better off to focus on when we're in the right spot to do it.

I hope I'm clear in what I'm suggesting. I don't know how others feel about it; maybe I'm the only one feeling that way.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

I'm not sure what you're suggesting, but I was trying to be flexible. We could discuss the discussion portion. I don't care if we don't discuss recommendations because everyone doesn't feel comfortable. We can do them on Thursday. That's totally fine. I was saying it seems it will come up naturally, but if it doesn't, that's fine with me. Justin, is Wednesday good then?

Ideally I would like the date to be tomorrow, but I was trying to be flexible and give everyone enough time. I feel I've walked into something I think we've cleared up now, that you definitely would not be ready for recommendations tomorrow. It seems the team needs recommendations at least by Wednesday so they can translate them and have all that work done for us. Does that sound good? Then we could just go through the discussion portion and whatever is left of the draft report tomorrow, have the recommendations officially in for Wednesday, and then carry on with Thursday's meeting.

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

Sure. From my perspective, Madam Chair, it sounds just fine, but I thought I heard from our clerk that he didn't feel we could have them in Wednesday and be ready for Thursday. If we can be ready for Thursday on Wednesday, that's great. I was hearing that wasn't the case and that was the only issue. I was wondering if Thursday was going to be possible. If it is, great.

[The Clerk]

Wednesday potentially could work depending on when all the recommendations could be provided to me. For example, if it's around noon, that would buy some additional time for translation. One of the issues for translation is it depends on the total volume of material that needs to be translated, and then some time is needed by the analyst to incorporate that into a new draft and have that turned around.

I defer in some respects to Andre about this as well in what may be feasible if we're talking about a timeline for draft recommendations to be sent in on Wednesday with the view of having some new version of the report that may include draft recommendations for the Thursday meeting. That is one of the issues.

In terms of time constraints, it might also be possible to have the draft recommendations in a separate document, and members can go through them along with a draft of the report, which would cut down on some of the time.

Obviously one of the factors here is the time required for translation. If the documents weren't to be translated, for example, it would obviously cut out a lot of time. However, one of the routine motions of the committee, as we all know, is that the material gets distributed in both official languages unless there is unanimous consent of the committee to do otherwise.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Is there any discussion in response to that? Would you like to have that if it is easier?

I guess Andre could tell us.

Are you going to insert it? If we do have recommendations to you at some point, for Wednesday, would you find it easier to have them just in a separate document or inserted right into the report?

[Andre Barnes]

It's difficult to comment on this because there are too many unknowns. It depends on how many recommendations there are and how lengthy they are. If there are a lot and they are very lengthy, it will take a while for translation to be able to turn that around. The more recommendations there are, the more work it will be for me to insert them.

Is there overlap among the recommendations? There are too many unknowns unfortunately for me to speak about it intelligently.