Evidence of meeting #1 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Bob Zimmer Conservative Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC
I'm absolutely supportive of MP Long. It's been standard practice to have ministers present to committee. It's just for us to get to know who they are and where they're going. I'm absolutely supportive.
Liberal
Conservative
Gérard Deltell Conservative Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC
I will, thanks to the good tips of my colleague.
The motion would read as follows: That the committee invite the honourable ministers MaryAnn Mihychuk and Jean-Yves Duclos.
Who is the third?
Conservative
Conservative
Gérard Deltell Conservative Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC
Very well. There's also Minister Qualtrough.
We'll ask them to appear before the committee so that they can explain their mandate letters, as well as the objectives they plan to achieve during their time in office.
Liberal
Wayne Long Liberal Saint John—Rothesay, NB
Mr. Chair, do we want to wait until next meeting for the motion? Does the committee need to step back and ponder what process we want them here for how long we want them to speak, and what topics we want them to speak on? I think it's a great idea. Absolutely, we want the three ministers here, but are we a little rushed voting on this right now, not knowing the parameters under which we're going to have the ministers here?
Conservative
Mark Warawa Conservative Langley—Aldergrove, BC
Again, that's a good point from MP Long.
The motion is that we invite them. We can't force a minister to come. I think the motion, if I'm understanding it correctly, is that under the signature of our chair, an invitation goes out. At the discretion of the chair, we would find out what minister would be available and how long they would be available for. The tradition is that it is for one hour followed by another hour for the officials of that department. We would have a two-hour meeting, one hour with the minister and then another hour with the officials. The ministers would indicate who was available, when, and for how long. We can't dictate that.
I think that having an invitation sent out under the chair's signature will enable us to get to work, depending on when the ministers are available. Some may be available sooner than others. Some may not be available for months, but some may be available right away.
I think we'll leave it at the discretion of the chair to send out the invitations, and we'll see how available some ministers are.
Conservative
Bob Zimmer Conservative Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC
My colleague Mr. Warawa already said it. I think we can get to work on this. It gives the ministers more time. The larger span of time we give them to operate within and to say when they can be here, the better for them. They might be available in the next two weeks. They may not be available in the next three months. I think it's a good question to ask now.
NDP
Niki Ashton NDP Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB
I want to underscore the importance of hearing directly from the ministers under whose purview our committee is, in order to get a sense of what their agenda is and what they are working on. I echo that traditional practice is one hour with the minister, followed by an hour with officials.
I certainly hope it won't take months to hear from the three ministers. I hope they see us hearing from them as a priority so that we can get ahead with discussing pertinent topics and, of course, filter that work back to the government.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bryan May
Thank you.
Are there any other questions or comments?
It seems to be generally accepted. Do we need to put this to a vote?
Liberal
Wayne Long Liberal Saint John—Rothesay, NB
Mr. Chair, we want to have a motion to invite the ministers to come to our committee as soon as possible. Then maybe we can have the subcommittee take a look at the parameters, what we want to ask, or the depth of that.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bryan May
All right.
(Motion agreed to)
This is the end of our list of absolute must-dos today, but in terms of the next committee meeting, it's going to be on February 22 and then Wednesday, February 24. We are in this room, I believe, consistently.
Apparently next week we will on the third floor, but this is going to be the most common room we'll be in.
February 17th, 2016 / 4:20 p.m.
Conservative