Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Nov. 20th, 2007

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

So we would defer the motion to after the hearings, but you don't want the motion deferred later than December 12?

[An hon. member]

Yes.

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

But if and when the hearings are held would be up to the subcommittee, which may or may not necessarily happen by the end of the year, depending on what the subcommittee decides.

[Maurizio Bevilacqua, Liberal, Vaughan, ON]

No, no, the hearings have to occur before the end of the year. We could also place a condition on the subcommittee right now.

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

Okay, perhaps we should understand that and debate that, because while we may agree with the concept of it, we may not want to usurp the subcommittee's agenda by putting a limitation on that saying those hearings must take place before December 31.

[An hon. member]

Why don't you let the subcommittee do its work?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Mr. Telegdi.

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

[Inaudible--Editor]...because the subcommittee is going to meet and recommendations of the subcommittee have to be approved by the committee anyway. So let's not—

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Let's not get bogged down.

Mr. Karygiannis, your motion, which was next, was pretty much like Ms. Chow's. You're okay with that?

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

I would like to address the letter, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

The letter to the clerk, dealing with.... I don't have it.

What did I do with the letter? Does anyone have a copy they can give me?

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

Mr. Chair, before you move on to the next item, I assume you've called the vote and that the motion I have put in front of you, to defer the motion until December 13 subject to hearings, etc., is approved.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Yes.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

So the letter that came from Mr. Karygiannis had to do with routine motions and the future business of the committee, both of which have been dealt with, I suppose.

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

I would say, Chair, if I may speak to the letter--and it's very unfortunate that you don't have copies to distribute to members--if you want to call it my complaint or my point of order or my point of privilege, whichever it falls under, there's the fact that there was stuff on the agenda that we had before that is there right now. There are people out there who want to know if we're going to be proceeding on this or not.

Yesterday morning the minister made an announcement about the Iraqi refugees. She made the announcement well in advance and counted on a knee-jerk reaction because Anna Maria Tremonti of the CBC certainly put the question to her. Since then, Chair, I have canvassed some of our witnesses who wanted to come here and speak to the Iraqi issue. I can certainly give you some of the stuff I have received to table it for the committee and certainly I will go through it with you.

An individual, who is also the president of the Iraqi society in Toronto, when the question is asked if she feels the announcement made by the minister goes far enough on this issue--

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

Just on a point of order, Mr. Chair, the member is referring to something that has not been distributed in either language. Should we not know what he's talking about? I haven't seen the letter.

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

Maybe you want me to read the letter. I could read the letter.

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

I suppose you could.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Maybe I can clarify here without going into the letter. The motion of Mr. Karygiannis, after division, was that the committee readopt all the routine motions--there's no need to get into that, because all that's been done already--that the committee resume all studies under way at the time of prorogation, and that the steering committee engage to produce a program to complete them.

That was the motion. So the steering committee is going to deal with the latter part of that motion, the studies of the standing committee and what have you, to be adopted again.

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

Mr. Chair, am I taking it that you're recommending that the agenda as we had it is brought forth and does not get dropped from the radar screen?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I don't think I can do that, but I got a consensus from just talking to individual members that some of these, if not all of the things we had on the agenda, were very important, and that we should go to these again and complete them, like lost citizenship and what have you. We did have motions on undocumented and temporary foreign workers, Iraqi refugees, immigration consultations, and a draft report on Canadian citizenship.

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

Mr. Chair, may I seek unanimous consent, through you, that we recommend, that we ask the steering committee, or that we suggest to the steering committee, or that we order the steering committee not to drop these items from the agenda? I'm sure everybody in this room will be in agreement with that.

[An hon. member]

Absolutely.

[An hon. member]

I'd take out the word...[Inaudible--Editor]