Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Nov. 20th, 2007

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

Yes, one more. I want to speak just a bit to this one. It has to do with minority reports.

My sense is that it would be good to set rules relating to dissenting reports that are reasonable today, because at some points the committee imposes unreasonable time limits.

I recall that at one point I had to do a dissenting report before nine o'clock in the morning and had to have it translated in two languages through the night and had somebody working through the night to get it done. It certainly wasn't reasonable.

There must be some kind of reasonable standard, whatever it is, that we can all comply with, if we want a minority report.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

So the amendment is...?

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

The amendment is as follows:

that every party shall have the right to attach as an annex a dissenting opinion on any report to be presented to the House of Commons by the Committee, and that this dissenting opinion shall be submitted to the Clerk of the Committee within 72 hours of passing of the report by the committee.

That's three days. Now, you could argue whether three days is too long.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

What is the current practice? Is it 48 hours?

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

The current practice varies across the board. I had to do one through the night by nine o'clock in the morning, and that was unreasonable.

At least two to three days would be reasonable, but one night is not, because of the fact that you have to translate it. I think three days is not unreasonable; two days is not unreasonable.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Mr. Komarnicki.

Madame Faille.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

We totally disagree with the proposed amendment. If more time is needed to draft the reports, maybe the parliamentary secretary could suggest that dissenting reports be shorter in length.That would free up the time needed to draft minority reports.

All kidding aside, when we draft a dissenting report, we already know what the subject matter will be. We have given the matter considerable thought. The committee needs to remain flexible and to examine situations on a case by case basis. This approach has served us very well.

Mr. Chairman, you have shown due diligence in negotiating the length of documents and the time required. Therefore, things are fine as they are.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you.

You may have one more point, Mr. Komarnicki, before I go to a vote.

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

It wouldn't be quite fair to say that you've thought long and hard about some of the reports. Some of them have been moved by way of a motion, and there really hasn't been a lot of time to reflect on it.

Secondly, in a democracy where you have a choice to debate and to go back and forth, one should not be afraid to give the other side the opportunity to put forward a reasoned opinion. Whether you agree with it or not, whether I write the dissenting report or whether you write it, I think you should have a reasonable opportunity to express yourself in a democracy.

And I can tell you, one day is not reasonable. It puts extreme pressure on, unnecessarily. If there were an emergency, I would be prepared to say “except in an emergency”, but if there is no emergency, two days or three days is not unreasonable. I would give you that opportunity.

I think anybody writing a dissenting report should have the privilege to express himself or herself in a reasonable period of time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

You have heard the amendment on 72 hours for minority reports.

All in favour?

(Amendment negatived)

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Does that cover all the—

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

I'd like to make an amendment to the routine motions.

I would like to see, Chair, every time the minister and/or any officials are coming to speak to us, that if they are speaking from notes, a copy of that speech and/or the notes be given to us as soon as the minister starts speaking, so that we can follow it. It's the practice of ministers—be it on the Liberal, or the Conservative, or any side—that they come in and go through it, and you don't have a copy of the text in order to follow it.

I think this should be part of our routine proceedings: that when the minister or officials who come in have speaking notes they have prepared in advance, we should get copies of them in both official languages.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

The amendment is in order, but I think we'd like to see it condensed a little bit so we can put it in to the clerk to have it published.

Is there discussion?

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

The motion as such appears quite restrictive in that it pertains solely to documents from the minister and officials.

May I remind the committee that at the last meeting, the department had called a meeting to discuss persons without status and was supposed to give us some statistics. The binders in question have not yet been made public.

Having copies of the speeches in advance obviously helps the committee to operate more smoothly. We often work with the translation. In the past, we have put questions that have not been interpreted as such, which had lead to some misunderstandings. Having the text in advance makes it easier for us and allows us to make a more positive contribution to the committee.

Therefore, we support this motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Is there any further discussion? Seeing none, I will call the question on speaking notes being distributed.

How would we word it? The amendment is that speaking notes of the minister, or officials, who appear before the committee be distributed to members on a timely basis, or...?

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

It's on a timely basis, Mr. Chair, and that we be given copies as soon as the speaker starts speaking.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

We'll have the clerk write that up and put it in our routine motions--if it should pass.

All in favour?

(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

That looks after routine motions.

Next on the agenda would be....

No, we went a little bit ahead of ourselves. There should be a motion to adopt these routine motions--I think Ms. Chow already moved that, seconded by Mr. Karygiannis--as amended.

(Motion as amended agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Before I go to Ms. Chow, did you have a point, Mr. Karygiannis?

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

I have a point of privilege on a letter that I have sent to you, sir, that I would like to discuss.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Yes, I think we have that, but I think that's down below the notice of motion, so we'll go to Ms. Chow first and then we'll go to that.

Go ahead, Ms. Chow.

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

Mr. Chair, on this motion, just to expedite the matter, I think we would....

What you have is two motions in front of you. I've spoken to some committee members, and we are just now in receipt of the parliamentary information research, so there's a very good document in front of us.

I'm comfortable discussing it today; however, I've heard that some members would like to defer consideration of this motion for one or two meetings, so that they could hear directly from the people whose lives we're going to impact--i.e., war resisters. I thought that would be an appropriate motion, so I thought I would actually move a deferral of my motion for two meetings. In these two meetings we would have hearings from the people we are debating on this issue. If folks want to have three meetings or one meeting, I'm completely flexible on that. I'm willing to accommodate whatever time we need to discuss this issue in a way that is appropriate, and in a way that people feel comfortable with, so I'm moving that and putting it in front of the committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay.

Go ahead, Mr. Bevilacqua.

[Maurizio Bevilacqua, Liberal, Vaughan, ON]

I think that's a reasonable approach. Discussions that have taken place between some members of the committee suggest that the individuals affected by the motion be given a fair opportunity to be listened to so that we can arrive at a resolution of the motions presented at our last meeting by Mr. Karygiannis as well as Ms. Chow.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you.

Madame Faille.