Before making a motion, I would suggest that there be another paragraph to say that this year the amount is going to be increased, not just to say that it's going to be $5,000. I think there should be some mention, one sentence, to say that it's being changed and increased.

3:55 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Candice Bergen

Okay, that sounds good. We might as well make it known that it has been increased to $5,000.

Is there any other discussion around the press release? If not, can I have a motion that we send it out?

Madam Folco?

Good. Thank you.

All right, the next item of business is this.

I just wanted to give you some good news about our trip. We do need to do a little bit of business in relation to it, but Georges actually found out that if we take a chartered flight, we can have the plane all day. That means we don't have to leave the night before, spend all day on a bus, and then take a bus home. We can leave really early in the morning, take a plane, and the plane will get us where we need to go, and get us home. It will actually cost us $1,000 less.

So very good work, Georges. Thank you for that.

4 p.m.

Liberal

Michael Savage Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS

How many seats are on the plane?

4 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Candice Bergen

How many seats are there, Georges?

4 p.m.

The Clerk of the Committee Mr. Georges Etoka

There are 18 seats.

4 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Candice Bergen

There are 18 seats. We're still six to eight members.

I think we should have a better date now. We are going to finalize it and let you know, but we're thinking it should give us more flexibility on a date, because we don't have to worry about evenings. Again, we'll get a date and let you know.

Ultimately, though, committee, as I'm sure we all know, when we make these trips, we'll have to pick a date, but it will not be good for everybody. If we can at least make sure either a member of the committee or a member of our party is able to attend, that will be our goal. But we'll try to keep it within the dates that we had agreed on initially.

I just need a motion, then, because we have a new budget. It's actually less. It is option B. Could I have a motion to accept that?

Mr. Savage? Thank you very much.

4 p.m.

Liberal

Raymonde Folco Liberal Laval—Les Îles, QC

Could I ask a question, please?

4 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Candice Bergen

Yes.

4 p.m.

Liberal

Raymonde Folco Liberal Laval—Les Îles, QC

I don't understand why in one option there are 13 people going, and in the other one there are only 12. Why is there a difference?

4 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Candice Bergen

Do you want to explain, Georges?

4 p.m.

The Clerk

Ms. Folco, because we are no longer taking the bus back to Ottawa, we no longer need the logistics officer along. So there is one less person.

4 p.m.

Liberal

Raymonde Folco Liberal Laval—Les Îles, QC

Ah, I see.

March 29th, 2010 / 4 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Candice Bergen

You get one less person.

It was moved by Mr. Savage. All in favour of the budget?

(Motion agreed to) [See Minutes of Proceedings]

Thank you. The budget is agreed upon.

There are just a couple of items on which I want to give you some information. Mr. André will be bringing Bill C-395, his private member's bill, probably as soon as we get back in April, at some point. I just want to ask all of you, if you have any witnesses you would like to bring forward, if you could please get that to the clerk in the next 48 hours it would be appreciated. Then we can start planning the work surrounding Bill C-395. That was Mr. André's bill, the one where if there is a labour dispute your hours would be counted towards the waiting time. If you could, in the next 48 hours, please get those suggestions to our clerk, then we can start planning that.

I also want to let you know that you can expect that by April 12 we should start receiving some of the preliminary chapters on the poverty report. Some of the translation will be completed, so you'll have it in your hands and we can start at least having a look at it and deciding what we might want to do when we move forward. We still have a bit of work to do as far as witnesses are concerned, but at least we can start looking at that report.

And then the last item I want to discuss is the study we are going to be undertaking on adoption. We need to start planning that and the scope of it. I would like to suggest to the committee that we bring forward as a witness Mr. Watson. I would like to do it as soon as possible. He was the one who had initially brought forward this motion, and I think he could maybe help us with some terms of reference as far as what we should be looking at. I think it's an opportunity for us to maybe even produce a landmark report, because it's been a long time since adoption has been looked at in Canada and a lot has changed. I think we probably would want to bring him forward anyway, because he knows a lot about this. But I'd like to see us bring him forward as a witness, and he actually would provide information on what kinds of witnesses we want to bring forward and what kind of testimony we want to hear.

Could I hear some thoughts on that?

Madam Folco.

4 p.m.

Liberal

Raymonde Folco Liberal Laval—Les Îles, QC

I think it's great. It's very timely, certainly in terms of Quebec because of the Haitian situation and the children and so on and so forth.

But let me ask a question. I don't have any papers in front of me, so I may very well be wrong, but I had the impression that we had some other private members' bills before this. Am I wrong?

4 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Candice Bergen

We have Bill C-395 and we're finishing up Bill C-308. So we do have a few witnesses. We've had some logistical problems, but we're fitting them in.

What I'd like to do is at least start to plan the adoption study. It is some time away, but we do find sometimes it's a challenge getting witnesses lined up, so I'd rather be a little ahead of the game and have some planning on it. So when I say having Mr. Watson as early as possible, we're probably looking at late April or early May, but I just want to suggest that we bring him in early in the process. That way we can include his testimony in some of our suggestions.

Mr. Martin.

4:05 p.m.

NDP

Tony Martin NDP Sault Ste. Marie, ON

I have absolutely no difficulty supporting this study and getting the work done and organizing it ahead of time so we are as efficient as possible.

I do, though, raise an issue that I've raised before at this table, and that's the challenge that's in front of us to deal with issues, if for no other reason than that it's attached to our name—people living with disabilities. As I travel back and forth across the country, more and more people living with disabilities are facing growing challenges. It's not getting better.

I moved a motion here a couple of years ago, that a subcommittee of this committee be set up to study the issues all of us have, that we could bring to the table, around how people living with disabilities participate in Canadian society. We've never been able to get to that. We say we'll do it after this. How long are we going to put off dealing with this?

We have a couple of ways of doing it. One is that we could say right now, once we've finished the adoption piece, let's move aggressively to look at an agenda that speaks to challenges of people living with disabilities, or we deal with the motion that I tabled a couple of years ago to set up a subcommittee that could work in parallel and report back. We've done these subcommittees before.

As I said before, when Madame Folco was the chair of the committee, we had a subcommittee to deal with people with disabilities, and there was a report brought back. At that time it was to look at issues around the parliamentary precinct. It was tabled, and some actions were taken. Even that piece I think needs to be revisited.

This is a group of people who have tremendous capability and potential to participate in our communities and our society, to contribute to the economy, but for various reasons, some of them befuddling, we don't move on this. If this committee could make a report, if we could get down to looking at some of those, I think it would be very beneficial and helpful.

So I make a passionate plea today to all of us to somehow find a way to get to this agenda item, because it is part of our mandate. It's the name of our committee.

4:05 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Candice Bergen

What we probably need to do, Mr. Martin, is bring forward a motion and then we can discuss it and make it part of our work plan, because we talked about committee business and how we wanted to proceed, and I don't think that came up when we came back.

Mr. Savage, please.

4:05 p.m.

Liberal

Michael Savage Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS

Thank you.

I was going to go where Tony is going in this way. When Mr. Watson proposed this motion in the House of Commons, we didn't know what it meant. It was a wide-ranging motion. He came over to see me and explained to me what he wanted to do. I said we'd support him. All Liberals supported it. I think all members of the House supported it. But it was never our intent that we would support a huge long process on adoptions. For this committee to determine what our priorities are, I think we could do something significant on it. I certainly support bringing Jeff in and having him give us his view on this. But we've had other private members' bills that we've dealt with in a day or less, so a motion shouldn't necessarily dictate where this committee is going. That's for us to decide.

As Tony said, this is the committee on the status of persons with disabilities, and I have supported Tony's call. Initially, there were moments when I wondered if we needed a subcommittee or not. We were working on different things. We had the poverty study. We're coming to the end of our work on that.

If you look at the report the Senate did, if you look at any work that disabilities groups and poverty groups are doing now, you realize this is a huge issue of both social justice and economic development--social justice for the individuals and economic development for Canada. We're wasting a lot of the human potential of people with disabilities.

We do not do a good job as a country. We don't have a Canadians with disabilities act, as they have in the United States. We don't have a lot of the supports that other countries have. We should be doing this. I fully support having either a subcommittee...but I'd rather see our next big study be on the issue of disabilities. As part of that, for new members, other members know that the last two or three years, we've starting having a day on the Hill when members have spent the day in a wheelchair. I started that on the Hill two or three years ago, and then a couple more joined two years ago. Last year we had a number of people, including Tony, and Maria was on it.

Ed, I'm not sure if you were in a chair.

4:10 p.m.

Conservative

Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK

Yes, and this year too.

4:10 p.m.

Liberal

Michael Savage Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS

I think this year is the 60th anniversary of the CPA, the Canadian Paraplegic Association, who are the ones who organized this. I would encourage all members to be involved in this and to spend a day in a wheelchair on the Hill, and you'll find out what it's like. It's only a little snippet, but it gives you a good sense. I understand from discussion a few years ago that Mr. Lessard actually spent some time in a wheelchair at some point in his life.

So I think this issue of disabilities, which is in our committee's name, is a huge piece of what this committee should do. Perhaps Tony and I and others might spend time figuring out how we can manifest this, but at the very least we need to do something to recognize the huge opportunity this country is wasting and the injustice it's perpetuating for people with disabilities.

4:10 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Candice Bergen

Good, and that's why we want to have this discussion, because we do need to decide the scope of the adoption study, and then for whatever we want to do moving forward, we need to have a process.

Madam Minna is next.

4:10 p.m.

Liberal

Maria Minna Liberal Beaches—East York, ON

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I was actually going to say some things along the lines of Mr. Martin and Mr. Savage, because it is a study that we keep putting off. I understand there is a motion with respect to adoption, and I don't think it needs to be a very long process.

I have two points: one, that we make disabilities a major study of ours so we can come up with something really substantive, and the other that we first finish the poverty study. I would hate to leave for the summer and it's not been tabled in the House. I see people shaking their heads in agreement, and that's great. I just want to make sure we don't derail it in any way.