Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Dec. 11th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Mr. Trost.

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

I have a question. This is such a short report, if we're going to call it that. I'm fairly new to this committee, but on my other committee, dissenting reports from minority parties are always allowed. Is that the practice on this committee?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Yes.

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

If one member wanted to issue a dissenting report on this, would it be possible?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Yes, it would, except that you would not be able to get it in within the acceptable time limit that you're looking for here, given the fact that there's a set of rules that pertain to a dissenting or minority report going in.

What is the timeframe on that? Would it be 24 or 48 hours? What was in the routine motions that we adopted?

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

You can allow a minority report to be tabled.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Minority reports would be given, I thought, 48 hours.

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

That was put in because the concern was that people didn't have enough time to read the motion to respond. Given that we debated it last week, you would have enough time to submit the minority report anyway. There's all night tonight.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

That wasn't adopted, that 48 hours. So what is the standard time?

[The Clerk]

There isn't one. It's up to the committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay, it's up to the committee.

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

Mr. Chair, we have an amendment on the floor for December 12. I'd like to put the question on that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Yes, that's in order.

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

Put the question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Is there any more debate on the amendment that it be presented to the House by December 12?

(Amendment agreed to)

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

On the main motion:

That the committee adopt as a report the motion adopted with regard to the War Resisters as a report to the House and that the chair present the report to the House....

(Motion as amended agreed to)

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

That's to “report to the House by December 12”. So the main motion—

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

It's already done.

Concerning a dissenting report, the committee generally makes the rules on a dissenting report. It wasn't adopted in routine motions, so it would have to be done by the committee here today.

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

So today, if I'm not mistaken, would be the 11th.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Yes.

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

And the 12th, if I'm not mistaken, would be tomorrow.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Yes.

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

So if those facts are correct, it would be almost impossible for you to have a report filed before tomorrow. Secondly, to do a dissent of any kind would require translation. Certainly it shouldn't be the 12th. A dissenting report should probably be filed by Friday, at the latest, or Thursday.

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

We had the motion on the floor. The motion was duly voted. Why are we even entertaining this?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Order, please.

The motion is done, but we're talking about the dissenting report right now. That's generally done by the committee.

Mr. Telegdi.