Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Feb. 15th, 2007

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

Chair, it's not clear to me whether or not we've already met with these people. We met with Susan Kramer, and we met with Mr. Poirier and a number of other folks who I think were in those positions.

Mr. Chair, my concern is again that I don't want to do anything that delays our report. I believe we've heard from the people we need to hear from in order to proceed with the report.

I have no objection to this in general, and I could support it. But I am very anxious that we not put off the work we're doing on this report and that we proceed to complete the work. That's my concern about this.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Andrew Telegdi]

Garry.

[Garry Breitkreuz, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

My point of order is in line with that.

If you're writing a report, approving the report, and then bringing in witnesses afterwards, how does it work? How can you hear witnesses after you write the report?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Andrew Telegdi]

Well, you do another report. You do this report and you do another report.

[Garry Breitkreuz, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Okay. I rest my case.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Andrew Telegdi]

Good point.

Madam Faille.

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

In my opinion, this motion has insufficient details concerning what further questions we intend to ask to these people, since we already met them. I thought the agreement was related specifically to the hunger strike, and it looks like the hunger strike has not stopped for a combination of circumstances. If there were any complications, we could restart the same process, which is to vote an adjournment motion in order to have an emergency debate and meet again with the officials. For the time being, we are writing a report, so I feel that calling these people again would not add anything more, unless we make our call more specific.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Andrew Telegdi]

Blair.

[Blair Wilson, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

I'm hoping that the intent of this motion was to deal with answers to the questions that we posed to these individuals when we were there.

We were there trying to negotiate a solution to the hunger strike. We talked to the individuals who were on the hunger strike, we talked to the individuals who were supervisors, and we listened to the grievance.

At our last meeting, before we left the supervisors, they said they were going to deal with some of the issues that were brought forward in a variety of ways.

So I'm hoping that the intent of bringing these people before the committee is so that they can bring forward solutions to the hunger strike, which they may have already implemented, or so that this could be used as a crowbar to get them to start implementing some of the solutions to the detainees' grievances so that the hunger strike can end.

Definitely, I would not want this to hold up our report in any way, shape, or form.

I'm thinking that this is not specifically to deal with our report; this was more to deal with the issue of the hunger strike and trying to bring it to a resolution without harm to those individuals.

[Garry Breitkreuz, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Chair, can I just perhaps give a one-sentence reply to that?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Andrew Telegdi]

Absolutely.

[Garry Breitkreuz, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

In other words, you're saying you will issue one report, you'll hear more evidence that will contradict the previous report, so then you'll put out another report.

[Blair Wilson, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

No, that's not what I'm saying at all.

[Garry Breitkreuz, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

That's the implication of what you're saying.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

This particular motion goes to the motion that we passed last week in dealing with the lives and the situation there. There is absolutely no protocol in place on how to deal with the Kingston... Mr. Siksay brought this motion in the House last week.

What we are trying to clarify here, by calling the three directors, is to ask them whether the workings among the departments are such...as well as to ask them what protocols they have in place to deal with the 20 issues that are in front of them, by the men.

Certainly this is part and parcel of the work the committee is doing and that we heard last week when we were there.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Andrew Telegdi]

Omar.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Mr. Chair, if anybody had any doubts about the value of debate of a motion before it gets voted on, they should have no doubts any more. I started off in support of this motion, but after examining the various points of perspective.... By working on the report right now, we probably have a good basis to start the report. If we bring these witnesses, are we going to delay the report?

I'm not in support of this motion. I think we should move on with finalizing the report, and do it.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Exactly.

Mr. Chair, the report was written on February 1. We heard new evidence since then, when we were in Kingston.

[An hon. member]

We are writing the report now.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Andrew Telegdi]

Ed.

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

Yes, I think the point has already been made, so I won't elaborate. I would just like to clarify that there was never any mandate to this committee to negotiate any terms to the end of the hunger strike. I would like that to be clear.

In any event, I take the comments of the critic and agree with him in that regard.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Andrew Telegdi]

Madame Faille.

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

I would like to add that, just as we have done in the past, the committee could write a letter to the officials asking them to make a follow-up and then, we could call them in, as required.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Andrew Telegdi]

Okay, we're voting on the motion.

(Motion negatived)

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Andrew Telegdi]

This meeting is adjourned.