Human Resources Committee on Oct. 19th, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

All right.

Mr. Comartin, did you get a copy?

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

No, I didn't, but Mr. Martin may have it and I didn't get it. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Good.

I also want to thank the witnesses for being here. It's such an important piece of legislation, and your testimony and your perspective add to this and give us some important insight. So thank you all for being here.

We will actually dismiss you at this time. We have a little bit of committee business to do in public, and then we will go in camera and work on the poverty report.

Thank you so much for being here, and I wish you a good day.

We'll suspend for two minutes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

I'd like to call the meeting back to order.

We are going to be public for just a few minutes. We have a couple of things we need to deal with. Then we'll suspend again and go in camera.

Ladies and gentlemen, there's a motion before you to approve the proposed budget. Can someone move that motion for me?

Mr. Savage has moved the motion.

(Motion agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Our steering committee met this morning. I was not able to be there, but I thank Raymonde for chairing that committee. She is going to give the committee as a whole a brief report on what happened so that we are aware of it.

Madame Folco.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I should mention that in the absence of Madame Hoeppner, I chaired, and therefore there was no Conservative member, but Mr. Komarnicki represented the Conservative side of this committee for the meeting.

Here is what we discussed. First of all, with regard to Bill C-343, as you may know, the bill has to come back to the House on November 5, so we are pretty well late with Bill C-343. So we are suggesting that Bill C-343 be discussed on November 4, but then there's a break week and then it would be discussed again on the 16th, which already makes us late. So if we as a full committee accept that we will continue and finish Bill C-343 on November 16, that would mean we would have to ask the House to accept an extension. According to the clerk--and many of us have gone through this--that means it would have to be presented to the House and there would be an individual vote on the extension.

When we discussed it at the small committee this morning, several members made it clear that extensions have been accorded many times with very few, if any, problems. So the members of the committee felt that asking for an extension would cause no problem at all.

So the clerk has now written a text, which I'm submitting now to the committee.

Before I go on about this extension, let me go on to the next part of our discussion, which is what will happen on the motions.

If all goes well, just to backtrack, we'll discuss Bill C-343 on November 4 and 16. We would then move on to Michael Savage's motion on the long-form census on November 16, and that would continue on the 18th.

For November 23, there are three motions in front of you. They had question marks because they were subject to discussion. The steering committee decided we would take them in a different order. First of all, we would do the adoption study because it's been on for quite some time. That would be number one. That would be followed by Mr. Lessard's motion on the employment insurance board of referees. He thinks it would take two or possibly three days. That would be followed by Mr. Tony Martin's motion on disability-related barriers. We decided we would do them in that order, but we did not give specific dates to these, although we are suggesting they be taken in that order because there will be a number of private members' bills and possibly even a government bill that might come in. Of course they get priority.

So we're suggesting to the full committee an order for the motions and we're suggesting that the dates for these motions be accepted as they come up, given the number of private members' bills.

I was checking just a few minutes ago, and I can tell you that coming from the Liberal Party there are possibly five or six private members' bills that will be coming up in the near future that will have to be discussed here in this particular committee. There may be more private members' bills that I'm not aware of coming from the other parties. So that is it.

So the first thing I am submitting to this committee as a report, on which I need agreement, is the request for an extension for Bill C-343. The clerk has written a draft, which I will read out. I will read it out in English, and obviously the translation will be available.

Report of the subcommittee. It was agreed (1) that a report be adopted and presented to the House asking for an extension of 30 sitting days to consider Bill C-343; (2) that Bill C-343 be taken up on November 4, and November 16, as I mentioned; (3) that the business of the committee be conducted in the following order: one, motion of Mr. Casson on the adoption study; followed by, two, the motion by Mr. Lessard, employment insurance board of referees; and after that, three, the motion by Mr. Martin, disability-related barriers. These studies will be conducted without any limitation in terms of number of meetings, provided that time will be made for any private member's bill referred to the committee, and the study under consideration at that time will be suspended for the study of the bill.

So that is what I would like to submit to this committee. If you agree to that, the next step will be for the clerk to write out a submission to the House, which will be tabled by the chair of this committee. Then it will go its regular way so that we can have a 30-day delay.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Thank you so much, Madame Folco. I appreciate that.

Madame Folco, should we deal with the motion first on the extension instead of...?

Ms. Minna.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Sorry, Madam Chair, I just want a clarification.

Madame Folco, when you were talking earlier you gave a specific date for Mr. Savage's motion, but in your final reading of the clerk's thing it wasn't there. I'm not sure what happened.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

We can add it, and Mr. Savage has just mentioned it. The dates decided upon are the ones that figure on the chart. We would discuss it on November 16 and 18.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Then we're voting on completely separate things.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

We could certainly add it to the report.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

That's all. I just need it clear.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Very good.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Mr. Lessard, do you have a question or comment?

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

I agree with everything Ms. Folco has said and I support her report. There is just one thing I would like to discuss. Unless this was indicated in the translation, I do not think that we pointed out the fact that this government bill was given priority treatment. As I already said, we all agreed that in a minority government situation, the committee sets its own priorities. This morning, in the interest of making things easier, I simply want us to remove this opinion from Ms. Folco's report. I intend to raise this issue with the committee at a later time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Just so I'm clear, you're saying that later on, as we're moving forward, if private members' bills or government bills come forward, we should discuss the priority and the timing at that point. Is that correct?

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

At a future meeting of this committee, I intend to raise this issue again to clarify the way we prioritize the bills we study. The committee has said that in a minority government situation, it has the right to decide what its priorities are. For example, a private member's bill could have priority over a government bill.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Mr. Savage, did you have a question?

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you.

Just for clarification, on Bill C-31 that we heard the witnesses on today, do we have four more meetings scheduled?

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Yes.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

How many witnesses will we be hearing from on that bill?

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Do you have any witnesses, because we didn't get any from you?

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

No. Some of our witnesses have already been submitted, but I don't think my office has a list of all the witnesses.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

There will probably be an understanding that if we finish with the witnesses.... Next week we have the minister, and we're bringing the officials back. But when we made up this draft schedule and talked about it at the executive meeting...if we are done with the government bill a day ahead of time, we will start the private member's bill a day ahead of time.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Understood.

Can you send the list of witnesses to our offices so we can have a look at it?

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Okay.