Human Resources Committee on April 23rd, 2026

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Mr. Genuis challenged that the point he was raising was touching on privilege and that I should rule on it. My ruling was that, as chair, I did not view that the matter raised was touching on privilege. He then challenged that decision of mine, which is dilatory and goes immediately to a vote. The committee can uphold my ruling that the matter he raised was not touching on privilege or overturn it. We're in a recorded vote now. I am going immediately to a recorded vote.

Do you uphold my ruling?

(Ruling of the chair sustained: yeas 6; nays 5)

The ruling of the chair has been upheld. At this moment, I'm going to suspend for a couple of minutes.

We are suspended.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Welcome back, committee members. The committee is back in session. We are on Bill C-20 and Mr. Genuis had the floor.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

I did have the floor, but there might also be a point of order on the floor.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

If there's a point of order, you can raise it.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

I'll cede the floor then. Put me on the bottom of the list, but I'll cede the floor.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Good. You'll stay on the bottom then.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Love you, too.

[An hon. member]

He'll eventually come back to the top.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

The bottom comes to the top.

Here are the hands I see: I have Ms. Goodridge from a good while ago, Ms. Falk, Ms. Desrochers and Madame Larouche.

Ms. Goodridge, go ahead on Bill C-20.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

I appreciate that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's worth pointing out, after all the kerfuffle this morning, that we're here to talk about Bill C-20 and go to clause-by-clause. I understand the Liberals, effectively, played the cards they had. They knew they would have their majority and they were going to have full control of committees, so rather than letting us go to a vote on a production order that was very reasonable, brought forward by our Bloc colleague, they ran the clock, filibustered and did everything they could so that those documents would never see the light of day. That's fair. It was a card that they had to play, and they decided to play it.

The minute they had their full majority and the committees were reshuffled, they decided to break that filibuster and immediately move to this. Clearly a whole bunch of people knew, so they were prepared to go to clause-by-clause. It's within the rules as they were put out. I've been on committees before in which the chair or the clerk understands that perhaps things are going to change or the meeting subject is going to be different from what we thought the meeting subject was going to be, which was the case today. We didn't have a notice of meeting because it was a resumption, as the Liberals had been filibustering for multiple meetings.

It would have been nice to receive an email from the clerk stating that we would not be getting a meeting notice for this meeting and that it was suspected that, if the filibuster were to end on this, we would be moving to clause-by-clause. It's happened in other committees, and I think it would be a reasonable thing to do. I would ask, Mr. Chair, that it's something we consider going forward.

In one of our previous meetings in the last few weeks, we had a conversation about how if the meetings were going to change and the subject was going to change, you were going to consult with the vice-chairs. I don't believe that happened for this meeting. There is a lot of preparation that goes into doing clause-by-clause. It's not something for which, as members, we can just show up. It requires a whole bunch of work, and yesterday, when we started to think that this might be happening, some of the staff ended up working really hard.

I want to commend some of our staff from our team who prepared and stayed up quite late getting amazing work done so that we would be as well prepared as we possibly could be, but it didn't have to happen this way. It happened this way because the Liberals decided filibustering until they had their majority was what they were going to do, so the documents in question would never see the light of day and they would go on to skip whatever witnesses we were supposed to see and go straight to clause-by-clause. They have their majority, so they can do these things, but it's not the right thing to do. I would ask that we consider not doing things just because we can, but keep in mind doing the right thing for the right reasons.

With that, I will cede the floor. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Goodridge. I have Ms. Falk, Madame Desrochers and then Madame Larouche.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster—Meadow Lake, SK]

Thank you very much, Chair. I don't think I have much to add at this point in time. I believe Ms. Desrochers is next on the list, so I'm happy to cede the floor.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Falk.

Ms. Desrochers, you have the floor.

[Caroline Desrochers, Liberal, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I believe that, if you seek it, you'll find unanimous consent from the parties for the following motion:That the committee organize its work in the following order of priority:1. That the committee prioritize the appearance of the ministers and secretaries of state;2. That the committee adopt the second draft report on Youth Employment in Canada; and3. That the committee undertake its study of housing starts in relation to federal programs for four meetings and that this undertaking be done concurrently with a study of no less than four meetings on homelessness in Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

We have a motion put forward by Madame Desrochers. I'm going to give the clerk a moment to circulate it.

We need unanimous consent from the committee to—

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Chair, may I ask a question?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Go ahead.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

I had the floor. I'd like to ask a question about something from the other day.

Before I put my question to Ms. Desrochers, I want to say that, once again, we're seeing the same thing we saw on April 16. I didn't have a chance to speak to it at the time, so I want to reiterate what some have already said.

Mr. Chair, we're in this situation this morning because, once again, you didn't consult the vice-chairs. That said, I gave you the benefit of the doubt. I raised this on April 16 because, without consulting the vice-chairs, you decided to change the agenda and postpone the study of Bill C‑222. I asked whether you would commit going forward to consulting the vice-chairs before making changes to the agenda. It's in the blues. You made a formal commitment to consult the vice-chairs before changing the agenda of a meeting. That's where a lot of the frustration comes from. It's in the blues from the April 16 committee meeting. I think what we're experiencing this morning is a repetition of the lack of consultation with the vice-chairs. As Conservative colleagues who would have liked to prepare have said, a clause-by-clause study isn't done like this, without notice and without consultation with the vice-chairs. People need to be ready. That's why we're in this situation.

Now that I've finished my remarks on that point, I have a question about what you circulated, Ms. Desrochers: Which minister and which secretary of state are we talking about? I just want to be clear. That's my question.

Also, why do you want to complete the study on the youth unemployment report before the study on housing starts?

I'm asking these questions to get an explanation.

[Caroline Desrochers, Liberal, Trois-Rivières, QC]

We're talking about ministers and secretaries of state related to the file, so Minister Robertson and Minister Hajdu.

Mr. Chair, do we have unanimous consent to continue and move forward on what we want to study?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

We need unanimous consent to continue with the motion by Madame Desrochers.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Can you read it again, in English?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

I'll ask Madame Desrochers to read it in English.

[Caroline Desrochers, Liberal, Trois-Rivières, QC]

It is:

That the committee organize its work in the following order of priority:

1. That the committee prioritize the appearance of Ministers and Secretaries of State;

2. That the committee adopt the second draft report on Youth Employment in Canada; and

3. That the committee undertake its study of housing starts in relation to federal programs for four meetings and that this undertaking be done concurrently with a study of no less than four meetings on homelessness in Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Do we have unanimous consent?

(Motion agreed to)

The motion as adopted clearly outlines where we're going, by unanimous consent. We'll return to the order of the day, which is consideration of clause-by-clause.

I exhausted the speaking list. Before we got to this, I still had two. I had Madame Larouche on clause-by-clause and Mr. Genuis.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster—Meadow Lake, SK]

Can the clerk send us an updated working calendar as soon as possible that reflects the changes unanimously agreed to by the committee members?