Procedure and House Affairs Committee on June 22nd, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

I see your point of view.

Go ahead, Ms. Vecchio.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Thank you very much.

I would like to put forward an amendment to delete the last two lines of this motion. Specifically, I'm looking at the timeline in which we're going to be pre-empting this study rather than doing the NDP study that was put forward.

I believe this is an extremely important study that we're talking about. Last week, when Ms. Qaqqaq put forward those motions, we know that, throughout the entire study, we had not heard too much specifically on what we need to do for indigenous languages. That being said, we do know that the minister could have put things like this in the bill, knowing the importance of it. Minister LeBlanc could have put something in there to make sure that this wasn't happening so that, when these amendments were put forward last week, it was not outside the scope of the bill.

Ruby, I know that was a very difficult decision for you to be in, because it's a no win, to be honest, when you look at that.

I would just say that we should not put the timeline in front. This is something that the minister could do with the support of members of Parliament, but we should be doing the work that this committee just suggested we should be doing as well. We do know that we have privilege motions still sitting on the table waiting for us. Kevin Lamoureux is sitting there waiting for us. Will Amos is sitting there waiting for us. I'm sure, by the way things are going, that we may have more by the end of the day, such as the information that came out from yesterday's health committee. We know, at the end of the day, that it, too, may be coming to us, so I'm very concerned.

I'm saying, “Minister, please do your job so that PROC can do our jobs”. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Okay.

Go ahead, Mr. Blaikie.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you very much.

I'm quite supportive of the intent of the motion. It's consistent with the amendment that we presented to Bill C-19. Of course, I do want to echo comments that have been made already. I mean, it would be nice to see this coming directly from government. I would rather study it in the context of a bill. I think there is enough knowledge out there. Indigenous peoples have been here and speaking their languages long before Canada was an entity. It's not a mystery that they're here. It's not a mystery that they have their own languages. I think we're finally coming to a place as a country where we're willing to acknowledge that instead of trying to erase that reality.

It's really just a question of a concrete proposal for legislative change. We tried to make that change when it came to Bill C-19, because it appeared to be a way to do it. We know that there will already be a lot of barriers to voting as a result of the pandemic.

With the caveat that I really would like to see the government come forward with something.... If we're not going to be studying this until the fall anyway, that's a lot of time for the government to draft a bill and bring it forward in the fall. That would be [Technical difficulty—Editor] to a simple committee study that doesn't have the ability to then go ahead and enact, in legislation, whatever the conclusions of our study might be.

I'm certainly prepared to support this study, but I would really like to see some leadership from the government in getting it going so that at the end of the study we're changing the law instead of recommending to government that they go away, take more time to figure out how they might draft an amendment, and then have to study it all over again.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Absolutely. That's fair too, but we can only do what we can do here. Hopefully, this pushes that ball forward a little bit.

As I mentioned, this committee previously had undertaken to have interpretation of indigenous languages in the House of Commons, and we were able to have that implemented in the House. I see that as a big success, or a success—a step forward, at least. Hopefully, we can achieve something else that we can be proud of.

Monsieur Therrien.

[Alain Therrien, Bloc, La Prairie, QC]

It's late. I supported what Ms. Qaqqaq proposed to us last week. Despite the fact that the chair did her job and told us that it was out of order, I nevertheless stressed how important it was to agree with this request.

Quebec is a nation of francophones, and we have been in a precarious position since 1763. You know Quebec's history. We are truly attentive to all peoples when they want to assert themselves and impose and preserve their language. As a gesture of solidarity, given what we are experiencing in Quebec, I will support any measure to promote and protect indigenous languages.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Mr. Nater, we'll quickly hear from you [Technical difficulty—Editor] our speakers list.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Very briefly, through you and through Ms. Petitpas Taylor, I would like to thank Kevin Collins, legislative assistant to the president of the Privy Council, for drafting this motion. If we look at the metadata of the document that was sent out, it was drafted by the minister's office, which shows the.... I don't even know what word I want to use. Again, the minister's office is drafting a motion to send to a committee to undertake a study on this. The president of the Privy Council, the individual responsible for the Elections Act, responsible for the Privy Council Office, responsible for this, is putting it through to a committee to do a study on this.

That was the only comment I wanted to make. It was just to express my concern about that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you.

We have about a minute. I think we could do the two votes.

We have Ms. Vecchio's amendment. She would like to remove the last two bullets, essentially, or the last two sentences—reporting back to the House, a comprehensive report, and then also a timeline, I guess.

Let's have a vote on that amendment and then on the main motion.

(Amendment negatived: nays 7; yeas 4)

Okay, we'll have a vote on the main motion.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 11; nays 0)

That brings today's meeting to an end. I hope you all have a fabulous next couple of months with your constituents doing things in your community.

Hopefully we will see each other back, who knows, maybe sooner rather than later. I don't know exactly when that will be, but hopefully in September, at least.

I wish you all very well.

The meeting is adjourned.