Citizenship and Immigration Committee on June 21st, 2006

[A voice]

Is she on BQ-4?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Are you on BQ-3 still?

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

No, I just want to explain the process. When I was talking with the person helping me to draft this amendment.... What I meant is that in the proposed subsection 5.1(1), where it says “the Minister shall on application grant citizenship”, we should include the necessity of giving the document within 30 days.

The person helping me with this suggested that we do this instead, because it would be easier to understand.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Well, it's correctly drafted, but it's procedurally not admissible.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Can we take this and include it in-between?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I don't believe we can do that at this stage. It's probably in the correct place in the act now. But your amendment is inadmissible, so we have to rule it inadmissible.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

May I table another amendment?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

You can table another amendment, but it has to be drafted and has to be submitted, so you can't table that amendment now. You can do it at report stage in the House.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

In this case, I counted on the clerk's office to have this intent indicated in the legislation. I am not a lawyer. I therefore relied on the recommendation made by the specialists. The intent was to include it here, but that would have made the text heavier, which would have adversely affected the report...

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I don't think we can do it at this stage, but you can do it at report stage yourself. When the bill comes before the House at report stage, you can do it then.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

I placed my trust in the clerk's office staff for the preparation of this amendment. That was the intent. Otherwise, I would not have changed this paragraph, I would have taken it and placed it...

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

It's not the clerk's office; it's legal counsel that drafted it.

I don't think we can do it right here and now.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

We can do it at the report?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Yes.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

But you know, if we do it at the report, it may delay the passing of the bill. I'm not sure the government wants that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I don't know; it may not get to the House of Commons.

Let's go to the next clause.

Is this a debate of the ruling?

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

No, just—

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Because the ruling has been made on this.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

I'm not debating the ruling. What I'm trying to say is that maybe we should have a little caucus among our ourselves, because the way we are heading, there is no way this bill is going to go to the House tomorrow, and I think there's a will to get it through the House tomorrow.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

You want to adjourn for five minutes?

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Yes, then we can caucus among ourselves.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

We're suspended for five minutes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

We're back in session again.

Mr. Komarnicki.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

We had some brief discussion. The clock has run out, so we're taking the position that this clause-by-clause should be suspended until the matter comes before the committee again in the fall. We will then review the various issues that have been raised to this point.

We're not necessarily going to gain anything by proceeding any further today. So if we can stop the clause-by-clause hearing, when the next meeting takes place in the fall we can bring forward this bill at the stage it's at. We may have an opportunity to look at some of the issues that are before us. Maybe in the end we can have a constructed bill that will work to everybody's satisfaction.

At this point I think we should suspend the hearing. It was to end at 5:30, and 5:30 has come and gone.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay.

The bill is not going forward to the House this session, so there seems to be little point in proceeding beyond where we are right now. Is that what you're saying? Okay.

The meeting is adjourned.