Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Oct. 17th, 2006

[Jean-Guy Fleury]

I don't want to be stuck to that number, but we've had a dialogue, yes.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

That seems fairly frequent to me. Is that more often than you would normally have met with the minister in that period of time?

[Jean-Guy Fleury]

It depends on the appointment situation. I've had the pleasure of working with three ministers now. I think there's nothing unusual in this one.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Do you meet with the minister only on issues of appointments?

[Jean-Guy Fleury]

Yes. I meet with the minister when the minister is appointed, and we provide a briefing, as we do here.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you.

Do you have any wrap-up comments you want to make, Mr. Fleury?

[Jean-Guy Fleury]

None, other than to say I appreciate the presence of the committee members and I feel I was given a fair chance.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you.

On behalf of our committee, I want to extend our thanks to you and Mr. Morin for your presence here today. We realize it's a trying time for the board and we want to thank you for your openness and for the non-partisan manner in which you approached your answers. Thank you very much.

We will now suspend for one or two minutes. We will give our witnesses a chance to clear out, and then we will go to our routine motions.

Can we get our committee members seated again so that we can try to wrap up some of our motions? It is pretty routine stuff.

First of all, we're going to go to number 3 here, the subcommittee on agenda and procedure. You have the motions distributed. The first one is a motion for the composition of the subcommittee on agenda and procedure. I think the new member of the committee on the Conservative side is going to be Mr. Jaffer. He is recommended. The composition of the subcommittee will be yours truly, Rahim Jaffer, Madame Folco, Andrew, Madame Faille, and Mr. Siksay.

Could we have a motion for the composition of the subcommittee on agenda and procedure?

It is moved by Mr. Siksay and seconded by Mr. Devolin.

(Motion agreed to)

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

The next one is on travel to Kingston. It is recommended that we go on October 30, after the House adjourns, so that we can be there for the meeting the next morning and back by roughly four or five o'clock, just in case we have votes in the House. There's no motion yet on this.

It reads as follows:

That the Chair be authorized to plan and finalize the budget and itinerary for the Committee's travel to Kingston, Ontario from October 30 to 31, 2006 and present the budget to the Subcommittee on Committee Budgets of the Liaison Committee.

You can change the composition of the membership. Right now it's to be two Conservatives, one Liberal, one Bloc Québécois, one NDP, and the staff necessary to accompany the committee. You can change that if you so choose.

Barry is next.

[Barry Devolin, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

I have a question.

I sit on the agriculture committee, and we went through a process similar to this just before summer. At the last minute, two or three of the whips actually told the members they could not go. Actually, it was two of the opposition parties who were told they couldn't go, at which point then the government whip also said, you guys can't go either. Approvals from the whip are always tentative--they change their minds at the last minute. Do we have some comfort level that this will actually take place so that at the last minute someone--

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

We do have to have our budget in by Thursday if we're going to do it, because the next Liaison Committee meeting will probably be well beyond that. First of all, we have to get our budget approved, and then we will have to follow the process of going to the whip. If he decides he's pulling any of us back, or the respective whips of the parties, then fine and dandy, we can deal with it at that point. But we do need to get this through.

[Barry Devolin, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

I support this. I agree. I'm just putting that caution out there.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. William Farrell]

It happens all the time. You never know. You can't anticipate what's going to come up in the House that day. Sometimes they will say okay, as long as you're paired off, three opposition, three government members, so that it doesn't affect any vote in the House.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Or the whips might decide we're not going, period.

[The Clerk]

The process is we have to get the funding from the budget Liaison Committee, and they're meeting this Thursday. Then it goes up, if we get the funding, to the House leaders, who meet next Tuesday, and then they decide if we get the order of reference to travel or not.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

So it could be yes, it could be no, but we need to get this initial process out of the way.

Bill.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Chair, you said you needed a motion. We have the draft motion before us. I wonder if we can just delete the second paragraph--

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

That the membership be composed....

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Yes, take that one out, since it's the full committee, in my understanding, the draft budget is based on, and we understand we are asking for a budget for the full committee to travel to Kingston. If we could delete that second paragraph, I will move that motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

That is reasonable, and we have agreement over there. Do we have agreement on this side as well?

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

That would be agreed to as amended.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

We are just simply eliminating the second paragraph, that the membership be composed--

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

How does it read now then? I don't have a copy right here.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Sorry. It reads:

That the Chair be authorized to seek an Order of Reference from the House of Commons for the Committee's travel to Kingston, Ontario from October 31, 2006 to October 31, 2006 so the Committee can continue their study on Refugee Issues and visit the Kingston Immigration Holding Centre.

And “That the Chair be authorized to plan and finalize the budget....”