Human Resources Committee on May 10th, 2007

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Excellent. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Mr. Lessard.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

I don't quite understand, Mr. Chairman. It seems to me that aboriginal communities, for example, are being told that we are creating obligations for them, obligations for which they have no funding, that funding will come later, and that they will then in fact be penalized for not honouring the obligations established by the federal legislation. That is what I understood. That would make the amendment out of order.

Mr. Chairman, if I draw a comparison with other communities or other provinces in the same situation, I find it very difficult to understand. What is there about aboriginal communities that would preclude measures that apply to other communities, measures to enable them to apply the legislation? There is something here that escapes me, Mr. Chairman. Perhaps it is not something important, but I would nonetheless find it very helpful if you could draw a parallel between the two—between the rights aboriginal communities have and the rights other communities have.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, that doesn't seem to be what we're talking about here. I think we should be debating right now whether we're going to overrule you or not. The ruling, I think, is that this is outside the scope of the bill. It has nothing to do with—

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Mr. Lessard's just asking for clarification as to why we think that is outside the scope.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Right.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Very quickly, unless you would like some further explanation from the clerk, in clause 3 it says “in support of the early learning and child care program of a province or territory”. Now we're going from “province or territory” and including different nationalities, so it does change the scope of the bill, according to the clerk.

As I said, once again, I have been challenged, and so we want to have a vote as to whether we want to sustain the rule of the chair.

Do we have someone else?

Ms. Yelich.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

Mr. Chair, I think it speaks to how flawed this bill is when we've had this ruled out of order.

If I'm reading the amendment correctly, it increases the opportunity for funding for aboriginal services and programs, but it ends up narrowing the choices and the funding for aboriginal peoples in Canada. So I don't think we can support an amendment that really isn't very clear.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Ms. Yelich.

The vote here is not debatable. I'm just giving clarification: it is not debatable. So now that we've had the clarification, the motion will be that the ruling of the chair be sustained.

Did you want a recorded vote?

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Yes, please.

(Ruling of the chair overturned: nays 7; yeas 4)

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Now that I have been overruled on the first three amendments, we can now look at those amendments, each one individually.

Ms. Dhalla, if you would like, you may talk to your first motion, which is on page 1.

Mr. Merasty.

[Gary Merasty, Liberal, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

I have a point of order on the first. There was a comment made that it does not apply to a racial group. I can't remember what the exact term was, but it—

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

It said “nationality”.

[Gary Merasty, Liberal, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Nationality? It is under federal jurisdiction because the amendment speaks to on reserve. It's not based on a nationality; it is based on federal jurisdiction on reserve. I think that's the difference here, and further to the challenge.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

I think, once again, that you guys may want to raise that point when this is raised in the House in terms of being beyond the scope of the bill. I won't say I know all the technicalities, but certainly I defer to the legislative clerks when it comes to the technical aspects of amendments.

[Gary Merasty, Liberal, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

It would be nice if we could support it on that premise.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

For everyone's who's looking, we are on the first page, amendment L-1.

Ms. Dhalla, if you'd like to read the amendment, we can have some discussion.

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

The amendment is as follows:

That Bill C-303, in Clause 2, be amended by adding after line 15 on page 1 the following: “aboriginal peoples' organization” means an organization of First Nations, Inuit or Métis people.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Do we have any additional discussion on this?

Go ahead, Mr. Lake.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

I have a couple of questions, but first I just want to ask the witnesses here if aboriginals are covered by a regime similar to a federal-provincial relationship under current child care legislation.

[Shawn Tupper]

Funding flows to aboriginal organizations via my department, Health Canada, and the Public Health Agency of Canada through programming that is specific to supporting child care programming arrangements in aboriginal communities, so it would be a federal government program.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

So the federal government would have the equivalent of the role of a provincial government.

[Shawn Tupper]

In that context, yes.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

So we're actually restricting ourselves with this amendment, in a sense?

[Shawn Tupper]

It's a possible interpretation, yes.