Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Feb. 11th, 2008

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

Mr. Chair, the other one I was going raise is the Canadian Council for Refugees. They couldn't come, because they couldn't get enough notice. So when I talked to them today, I asked them if they could show up here if we had them on Wednesday, and they said they could.

It seems to me they definitely are a--

[Dave Batters, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

First, let's vote on the motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Well, the motion, first of all, has to be dealt with, and then we can deal with that.

All in favour of--

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

What does the motion say about witnesses? Does it say there will be no more witnesses?

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

This motion requests that we proceed to clause-by-clause consideration of this bill on Wednesday at 3:30 and we continue until consideration of the clause-by-clause is complete. That's the essence of the motion, and you can read it more specifically, but it means we get to where we need to go, no further witnesses. We've had many witnesses.

We could vote on this thing. I call the question. Vote on it and let's deal with it--end of story. Call the question.

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

On a point of order and clarification, can the--

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I'll hear the point of clarification if you want something clarified.

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

--clerk tell us how many witnesses are still on the list that we had submitted to come in front of us? Can we have that number, please, how many witnesses we still have on this issue?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Just one.

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

And who would that be?

[The Clerk]

That would be your daughter.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

So we didn't.... I have to call the question.

Okay, debate, Mr. Telegdi.

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

Mr. Chair, the parliamentary secretary wants to shut down any further witnesses appearing before this committee. I certainly have no problem going clause-by-clause on Wednesday, but we will do so after the witnesses are heard. The Canadian Council for Refugees wanted to be here, but they could--

[Dave Batters, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

It's going to be put to a vote. It's not going to be a proclamation by Andrew Telegdi. You're not going to declare what's going to happen.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Order, please.

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

Mr. Chair, those people wanted to be here, and they're an important group to hear from. I understand the government side wants to limit witnesses, but what I'm saying is that I'm going to vote against this motion, and then I propose that what we do is hear the witnesses and then go on with the clause-by-clause, because we have to do a level of due diligence.

If the parliamentary secretary wanted to be cooperative, he would have said that we're going to hear the witnesses and then go clause-by-clause.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

As for whether the witnesses come forward, that's something that I think we will have to decide as a committee. But I have the motion before me right now and I'm going to deal with that.

(Motion agreed to)

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

We have approximately five minutes left to talk about new business--

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

Is my time up?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Your time is now up.

We did have a second item on the agenda, which was the committee budget, and I'm hoping we'll get....

Thank you, first of all, to the witnesses for being here today.

There are two budgets, actually, that we have to deal with. I would ask the clerk to tell me what we are looking for here in terms of budgetary allocations.

[The Clerk]

We should be going in camera.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay, we will go in camera to do that.

[Proceedings continue in camera]