Human Resources Committee on Feb. 3rd, 2011

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Okay. We just need to understand the motion, then, so that we can discuss your amendment in context. It will read, “That the reports of the other committees which are tabled with regard to the impact of the changes of the long-form census be mentioned as a reference in the final report of the HUMA committee.

Basically, you want to change “be appended” to "be mentioned as a reference".

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

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

It took quite a long time to get that one together.

Now, I understand you're proposing this not as a friendly amendment, but as an amendment to be discussed, so at this point we will discuss the amendment. Instead of “be appended”, it would say, “be mentioned as a reference”.

Here's the trouble: our analyst is mentioning that “to be mentioned” is not clear. Is it “to be mentioned in the report”, or is it “to be mentioned and appended to the report”? We need clarification. I'm sorry, but that amendment is not clear enough.

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

All right. The idea is to mention that people interested in finding out more about the work carried out by other committees have an opportunity to do that. To that end, there would be links provided. This would be in the appendix. It's clearer that way, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Chantal is going to tell you en français.

[Chantal Collin, Committee Researcher]

Mr. Lessard, it would have to read as follows: « be mentioned as a reference in the appendix to the final report of the HUMA Committee ».

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

I agree with you. It's even clearer that way.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

So you're changing your amendment?

Mr. Lessard, if you're changing your amendment, you either need unanimous consent or you need to withdraw your amendment and then reintroduce it. You have now changed your amendment. We could get unanimous consent.

Do we have unanimous consent to change his amendment?

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

Could you read it again?

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

The amendment that he introduced would have the motion read as follows: “That the reports of the other committees which are tabled with regard to the impact of the changes to the long-form census be mentioned as a reference in the final report of the HUMA committee”.

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

Can I say something about it?

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Sorry, but I need to deal with this first. Mr. Lessard, you are changing your amendment. You need unanimous consent to do so, or you need to withdraw your amendment and reintroduce it with those changes.

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

Madam Chair, I think it would be simpler for you if I just changed the wording. Therefore, I will withdraw my amendment and redraft it based on the suggestion made by Ms. Collin, so that it is clearer. The working would therefore be: « be mentioned as a reference in the appendix to the report of the HUMA Committee ».

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Thank you very much for that, Mr. Lessard.

All right. Now we can discuss--

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

I would just like to clarify one thing, Madam Chair.

The rest of Mr. Savage's motion stays the same. We would just be replacing the word « appended » with what I just read out to you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

What I'll do, Mr. Lessard, is read the motion with your amendment, and then you can let me know if it is as you want it to read.

It now reads as follows: “That the reports of the other committee which aren't tabled with regard to the impact of the changes to the long form census be mentioned as a reference in an annex to the final report of the HUMA committee”.

So the change would be that instead of saying, “be appended”, it would say, “be mentioned as a reference in an annex”.

[Chantal Collin]

That would be “in an appendix”. We're just going to create an appendix--

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

You'll have to ask Mr. Lessard.

[Chantal Collin]

--and mention that there were two other studies--

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Okay, so that's our amendment.

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

When you were reading it, I think you neglected to follow the exact wording in Mr. Savage's motion, which was: « That the reports of other committees which are tabled with regard to the impact of changes to the long-form census be appended to the final report of the HUMA Committee ».

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Mr. Lessard, I did read the motion as Mr. Savage presented it. I did. Now we're discussing your amendment.

Go ahead, Mr. Savage.

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

Here we are.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Here we are, and pleased with ourselves, I hope.

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

I'm inclined not to support Mr. Lessard's...whatever it is. Is it an amendment or a motion or a subamendment?

I think what we did was absolutely correct this morning when we supported Mr. Lessard's motion as we did. Then, in an effort to try to bring many voices around this table together, I suggested we should append the other studies, which I think makes sense. Very importantly to me, I think it reflects what Mr. Martin intended when he voted back in December or November to consider the other reports.

I'm sorry we are where we are. I'm sorry we can't just move beyond this and get this done, but my inclination at this point would be not to support Mr. Lessard's amendment. I'm hoping most of us around the table can support the idea of just appending the report, which I think makes sense. Hopefully we can get this done and move on to Bill C-304 and Madam Folco's bill and some other important work that's ahead of us.