Citizenship and Immigration Committee on March 31st, 2008

[Alex Stojicevic]

You're 100% correct again.

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

And both Bill C-17 and any other bills that deal with instruction have to be charter-compliant, do they not?

[Alex Stojicevic]

That's absolutely without question.

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

So it's open for the government to proceed in that manner if they choose to.

[Alex Stojicevic]

It is. However--

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

Now, let me finish.

You spoke about another issue you have, which is that we have a system presently that's not working because, as you mentioned, there's a backlog of 800,000 people. Do you agree?

[Alex Stojicevic]

According to the minister, it's 900,000.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Mr. Stojicevic, I'm obliged to hear a point of order.

Mr. Karygiannis has a point of order.

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

Mr. Chair, I think Mr. Komarnicki should use the example he chose in the way he spoke on Bill C-50. Although he's not mentioning the words “Bill C-50”, he's dancing very much on Bill C-50.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

There is no point of order here. There was no point of order for Mr. Komarnicki on the same point.

However, I did say to members that we wanted them to confine their remarks to the three topics at hand. Having said that, I allowed Mr. St-Cyr some leeway on that, I allowed Mr. Telegdi some leeway on that, and I will allow Mr. Komarnicki some leeway on that. We will enforce the rules rigorously come tomorrow.

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

I accept the ruling of the chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Go ahead, Mr. Telegdi, on a point of order.

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

Perhaps the parliamentary secretary will realize that it's frustrating to have somebody yelling “point of order” at him.

The point I want to make, Mr. Chair, is we're on travel. Bill C-50 does very much come into play, and I have absolutely no problem with the parliamentary secretary's getting answers on Bill C-50 because we're not necessarily going to have these witnesses available to us at the point in time when we are talking about Bill C-50. So, Mr. Chair, there's absolutely nothing wrong with talking about Bill C-50. I think the parliamentary secretary brought it up; let him continue.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

To that point of order, there's no point of order.

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

It's not a point of order, and I respect that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

You have a minute and some-odd seconds left.

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

I accept that. There will be a time and a place for that to be discussed.

Going back to Bill C-17--which we are discussing, and which we should limit our discussion to--it's absolutely appropriate.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Yes, absolutely.

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

It's inappropriate to go otherwise, and this committee has been allowed to do that. I don't agree with that, but I think in fairness it needs to be balanced out.

You said there needed to be strong guidelines, as opposed to using Bill C-17 and the instructions that are there. What did you mean by saying strong guidelines would achieve the same results? First of all, we're dealing with vulnerability of workers; you're saying we could deal with that issue of protecting them because it's not restricted to a particular category of person. What do you mean by strong guidelines, and what might they look like?

[Alex Stojicevic]

My position--and I agreed with all of your points--is that the issue from the bar's perspective is the question of why the minister needs these powers. It's not that we take any issue with any of these individual points you've made. At the end of the day, if ministerial instructions pass, they will have to be charter-compliant and everything else.

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

My time is limited, and my question to you is to deal with what you meant by saying strong guidelines would achieve the same goal with respect to Bill C-17. That's what you made reference to.

[Alex Stojicevic]

If I may finish in answer to his point--

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

You may, because we took a lot of time from Mr. Komarnicki.

[Alex Stojicevic]

The minister has the power to issue to her staff any instructions she wants that outline the government's operational mandate. Do they have the same force as these potential ministerial instructions that have no judicial oversight will have, other than being charter-complaint? No, but that's how the system has run for the last quarter of a century; this is how she could accomplish almost all of her goals.

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

Please answer the question I posed to you with respect to Bill C-17. What are these strong guidelines that you suggest would achieve the same goals? What are they? That's the question.