Citizenship and Immigration Committee on June 19th, 2007

[Dave Batters, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

We're talking about excluding two provinces completely.

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

But Toronto will have enough witnesses on its own to fill up the whole thing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay, I think we've heard enough on this, haven't we? I think Mr. Siksay's amendment to....

What do we have here, Mr. Clerk, to try to clarify?

[The Clerk]

From my understanding, the committee is deciding on whether, in relation to its study on undocumented and temporary foreign workers, the points system, Iraqi refugees, and immigration consultants, all members of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration will travel to Vancouver, British Columbia; Whistler, British Columbia; Calgary, Alberta; Fort McMurray, Alberta; Toronto, Ontario; and Vaudreuil-Dorion, Quebec; and one city in the Atlantic—which is yet to be determined—from October 15, 2007, to October 26, 2007.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

So what do you feel?

Mr. Komarnicki.

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

I think certainly the area that is to be looked at has been expanded quite significantly, and that's fair. I'm not sure if it can be arranged in the time that the committee is talking about, but notably in Saskatchewan and Manitoba—I think Mr. Karygiannis mentioned this—they have no representation at all. Quite frankly, Manitoba has probably used the provincial nominee program quite extensively and the temporary foreign worker program, as has Saskatchewan.

In the north and southeast part of the province, in my constituency in particular, in the booming industry, it is an issue as well. If we're going wider and if we're including extra subjects, which is not a bad idea, we should probably take the time to at least get representation from both western provinces that are missed by making a touchdown in Winnipeg and Regina or Saskatoon. I think leaving them out totally is probably not a great idea.

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

Are you taking us out to dinner when we're there?

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

I'll take you out to dinner. In fact, I think it's a good idea to go to Meili's riding. You might want to come to my riding, and I can take you out to a couple of interesting places in Estevan, Saskatchewan.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

We'll try to satisfy everyone here. I think that's a good point you're making there, Ed. I think we should.

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

Regina, Saskatoon, or Estevan. Those are three cities. We may want to pick one of those three.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I'm just lost here now.

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

Can I make a suggestion?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Yes, please do.

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

Is there a chance that we could break the committee into two halves, and then we could go to various locations?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I don't think I'd want to see that. I'd like to get around to all these places.

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

Sure, we will on behalf of the committee, but not every member of the committee will go, so we would have half the committee going to various cities and the other half going to other cities.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I'm sorry, I wouldn't want Mr. Batters alone, unsupervised.

[Dave Batters, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

We don't necessarily have to have every member of the committee travel to every city. The parties could decide how they would split that up as they chose.

You could have two members of the Conservatives, two members of the Liberals, however you want to split it up.

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

Mr. Chair, I think it is important that the committee travel as a whole, because when we hear witnesses, some committee members, when we come to do our report, might have a disagreement on what was said and what wasn't said. I think we all need to be together since you're looking at about three reports that are affecting people's lives.

Certainly if you read the Toronto Star over the weekend—

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I'd like to see the committee all together, too.

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

But if you read the report over the weekend in the Toronto Star, it said that we're playing with people's lives. That is what we are affecting here. So by splitting up members of the committee, to have some go here and some go there, certainly we are not doing justice to the people we're serving.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I agree.

Mr. Telegdi.

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

Actually, we travelled in 2005, and we touched on every capital, and on top of that, we touched on Montreal, KW in Ontario next to Toronto, and we touched on Vancouver as places outside of provincial capitals. We went as a whole committee, and it was quite a pleasant trip, and we actually found out that we could probably get along quite well outside of the committee room.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

It gives us an opportunity to bond.

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

One of the things I found was that if you go to a smaller place, boy oh boy, you get good treatment. Do you remember when we went to Kitchener-Waterloo? We had the best media of any of the places, because you don't have a parliamentary committee show up every day.

When we went to Toronto, everybody ignored us. So if we're going to go to Toronto, are we going to spend two days in Toronto? We might be better off just to do Scarborough on the east side and do Mississauga on the west side, because it makes it easier for the surrounding areas to come in.

I think it should be one.