Evidence of meeting #42 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was amendment.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Michael Savage Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Chair, one more point of order.
On my motion, I just want to be clear that we will be inviting the minister during the first two weeks in March to appear for two hours to discuss this motion--
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Candice Bergen
What we will do is we'll invite her right away, but what I'm saying is that right now we have a work plan up until the first two weeks of March. So we would not be available, and then she can let us know. Usually she lets us know when she's available, but--
Liberal
Liberal
Conservative
Conservative
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
Except, subconsciously, you may be more correct than anything else.
February 8th, 2011 / 12:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Candice Bergen
I did think that's what he'd said.
We have another notice of motion.
Mr. Lessard, you gave us a notice of motion. Do you wish to move that motion?
Bloc
Yves Lessard Bloc Chambly—Borduas, QC
Madam Chair, this notice of motion factors in the decision made by the House of Commons on September 29, 2010. The motion read as follows:
That the House calls on the Government of Canada to reinstate immediately the long-form census; and given that no person has ever been imprisoned for not completing the census, the House further calls on the government to introduce legislative amendments to the Statistics Act to remove completely the provision of imprisonment from Section 31 of the Act in relation to the Long-form Census, the Census of Population and the Census of Agriculture.
So my motion is as follows:
Whereas all witnesses heard by the HUMA Committee demonstrated that the long form should be retained;
Whereas the reintroduction of the long form should be done before the next census is held;
In light of the social impacts anticipated from abolition of the mandatory long-form census
I move: That, the committee recommend that the government, if necessary, delay the next census to a later date so that it can be carried out in full compliance with the House of Commons decision of September 29, 2010, and that the committee so report to the House at the earliest opportunity.
Conservative
Liberal
Raymonde Folco Liberal Laval—Les Îles, QC
The motion says: “Whereas all witnesses heard by the HUMA Committee...”. I just want to point out that the committee is not called HUMA in French. I think we should correct that.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Candice Bergen
Okay, we'll take your point of order into consideration.
Mr. Lessard, did you want to speak to your motion, please?
Bloc
Yves Lessard Bloc Chambly—Borduas, QC
Yes, please, Madam Chair.
This motion follows on the House of Commons decision of September 29, 2010. In addition, it also properly reflects the opinions you've heard at this committee, meaning that the cancellation of the long-form census would affect many organizations that use those data to implement policies and make representations.
We were also able to see the potential impact on Canadian policies. In fact, all the forces that usually provide their opinions to the Canadian government would be at a disadvantage because they would no longer have access to data that can only be obtained through the long-form census. In terms of having access to Canada-wide data, we need to be clear that only the Canadian government can conduct the census.
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
I want to raise a point of order and get a ruling on whether this motion is in fact in order.
The reason I say this is that the main motion this member is referring to was a motion that flowed from the industry committee. I would suggest that it has to do with the Statistics Act, which is under its specific jurisdiction. When it moved that motion, the House found it in order, and when another committee moved a similar motion, they moved it out of order because it already had been dealt with.
Now, the central point of my objection is the fact that, if one were to look at the way this motion is drafted, even though it's cleverly drafted—and I've come to appreciate the cleverness of the drafting over he last little while—it talks about “recommend” and “if necessary”. But the germane portion of the motion is to delay the next census to a later date, and of course the date of the census is established, as I would understand it, by the Statistics Act. In order for the House to do that, that amendment would have to be made to that piece of legislation.
For this committee, when we first embarked upon the study, the purpose of the study, and any recommendations flowing from it, should be specifically in line with the motion that was passed and presented to this committee by Mr. Savage. It said that it “study the impact of cancelling the long form census, particularly as it relates to planning and tracking of vital social trends related to economic security”.
Now, this motion is outside of that mandate. I would like the clerk to specifically look at the mandate of the motion under which we're studying this and also keep in mind the effect of the motion with respect to amending it.
Then I would raise the standing orders themselves. We've been looking at Standing Order 108(2), and it talks about what the standing committee can do, and of course it can deal with the statute law relating to the department assigned to it. The Statistics Act is not assigned to the HUMA committee; it's assigned to the industry committee.
Given all of those arguments, it would seem that implicit in this motion is a direction that would be outside the scope and mandate of this committee, and therefore should not be entertained.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Candice Bergen
Okay. We're not going to debate that point of order at this point. I'm going to take a moment and take it into consideration.
I'm just suspending for one minute while I look at this.
Thank you.
