Citizenship and Immigration Committee on March 31st, 2008

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

Mr. Chairman, this is not something procedural. It is a public meeting. The public is here. They have the right to record and the right to listen.

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

This is a procedural motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Order, please. I wanted to get this meeting under way, but I'm having difficulty doing that.

Mr. St-Cyr, and then Ms. Chow.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

In my view, this is a procedural motion, but, as we are already running quite late, I simply move that we request the unanimous consent of the people around this table to allow the media to film our proceedings. If we have unanimous consent, nothing should stop us.

Do you want me to repeat what I said?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I want the committee to know that I have no objection to any of this. The clerk says we should reserve our decision on that until we get some advice. Can we proceed until then, or do you want to suspend?

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

It is not a substantive motion; it's a procedural motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Order, please. I'm going to suspend for five minutes until I can get somebody to sit up here so we can get moving in a reasonable fashion.

I apologize to the witnesses that we can't get started on time, but we will try to give you some extra time as we move along.

Okay, let's get back into session again.

Mr. St-Cyr.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I was saying that I also thought this was a procedural matter. In any case, since no one is opposed to it, I think we can simply request unanimous consent. I find it hard to see how a member could object to the media being allowed to view our proceedings.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Ms. Chow.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

I actually have one other point of order, which I will get to later on. Let's just deal with this one first.

Mr. Chair, let's not start off in such--

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

An acrimonious fashion?

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Either a meeting is public or it is private. There's nothing in between. If it's public, then anyone under the law has the right to do whatever they like--film, take photos--because it's public. If it's private, because of a personnel matter or a financial matter, then it is totally understandable that we would not have filming. But this meeting at this point is not private, so I can't see how we could say that the meeting could not be filmed.

I do have another separate issue, which we will come to later on. But in terms of the filming, I'm just letting you know how I feel.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I would like to make perfectly clear that I have no objection to it personally. It's just that we had our meeting before, back in Ottawa, setting the ground rules as to what we would do. These things weren't talked about, and I have a duty and obligation as chair to ensure that everyone is heard on this matter.

Mr. Komarnicki.

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

I would just like to make a couple of remarks. I think we should get a clarification from the clerk who is making some calls. I think we should hold the meeting in abeyance until we get some appropriate instructions.

There's no doubt that there was a motion saying there would be no substantive motions. The question is whether this is procedural or substantive--

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

Oh, come on.

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

You had your opportunity.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Order, please.

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

You had your opportunity to speak. Let me speak, and then you'll have your chance. There's sufficient time for that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Order, please.

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

I think there should be a decision first on whether it's a procedural or a substantive motion.

On the position on the press, it's certainly obvious from some of the comments that there may be a measure of grandstanding for political and biased purposes when we're here to hear from witnesses on what they have to say on specific issues, which we'll eventually write a report on. Certainly the press is there before and after to ask questions, but during the meeting it is as open for us to have the press in as not--

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Well, let me bring it to a close here. The clerk points out to me that Standing Order 119.1(1) of the House of Commons says:

Any committee wishing to have its proceedings televised, other than by means of those facilities provided for that purpose by the House of Commons, shall first obtain the consent of the House thereto.

Have we obtained that consent?

Okay. Let me go to Mr. Komarnicki to finish his remarks.

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

My remark is that there needs to be reason and order, and if that's indeed in the Standing Orders, then it needs to be abided by and that's how we should proceed. I know some members would like to take these hearings and these proceedings and turn them into something that might be of some advantage to them, but the fact of the matter is that there are some rules, and there are some procedures. As the Speaker of the House said before we adjourned, there needs to be respect for process and procedure, and they can still accomplish what needs to be accomplished.

So I think we need to wait for all of the information the clerk has and whatever other information he gets.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

As chair of this committee, I'm certainly governed by the rules of the House of Commons.

Are the cameras proceeding now?

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

Mr. Chair, before you finish the debate, I want to speak to what the parliamentary secretary said, because—

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I'm not shutting down debate on this; I'm going to continue. But I just want to draw the committee's attention to the fact that if anyone is interested--and you have a copy--it's on page 90 of the Standing Orders. It's Standing Order 119.1(1), that “Any committee wishing to have its proceedings televised...shall first obtain the consent of the House thereto”.

I'm governed by that.

Mr. Telegdi.