Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Feb. 3rd, 2009

[An hon. member]

Is there a debate?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Oh, I'm sorry. I thought the debate....

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

I'll ask for a recorded vote on this one.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

There's now a question as to whether we've had sufficient debate. I thought I'd asked for that.

Monsieur St-Cyr, did you have some comments to make? We're going to have a vote if you don't.

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

I'll have a vote, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

We're going to vote on this. It will be a recorded vote, Mr. Clerk.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 6; nays 5)

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Are there any further motions before we get to Mr. Karygiannis's question? I don't see any.

Mr. Karygiannis, you raised an issue. It is now 10:30, and we now get into what the committee is going to do next, which is where I think you were going, on reports and unfinished reports.

I'm looking for guidance as to whether the committee wishes to deal with future business or whether we want to adjourn and have a subcommittee meeting to discuss future business in the next half hour. I'm open to suggestions from the committee as to what you want to do next.

Mr. Karygiannis.

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

Mr. Chair, there were a lot of people who came when the committee travelled. We did Iraqi refugees. We did undocumented workers. The committee travelled throughout Canada and--

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I'll stop you for a minute. I'd like to know whether you want future business now, which includes what you were getting into, or whether we want to adjourn the committee until Thursday morning and have a subcommittee meeting for the next half-hour.

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

I'll leave that. If you want to go to the subcommittee, by all means, but I think when the subcommittee gets together, we should consider the following.

A lot of people travelled to come and make depositions to us. A lot of people are looking for those reports. Not finalizing those reports that are relevant, I think, will be an injustice to the people who came in front of us and spoke. I think we should look over what was unfinished and the motions that were there, and certainly we should adopt them. I don't know if we even need to go to a subcommittee. With the indulgence of everybody, I think we just take the work of the committee as it was and continue from there.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Go ahead, Mr. Dykstra.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

I certainly understand Mr. Karygiannis's point. I think there is agreement around the table that we want to try to finish the reports that were not completed by the previous committee in the 39th Parliament.

I would suggest a potential agenda for the next number of weeks, and I've given a copy to both Mr. St-Cyr and Mr. Bevilacqua. I was hoping that the subcommittee could, after we meet, have a look at that. I also have one for you. We could actually have a look at it and make some decisions as to next steps and what we'll do in the upcoming weeks.

Now that we've completed routine motions, I move that we adjourn and let the subcommittee meet for a few minutes to talk about the upcoming schedule.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Go ahead, Mr. Karygiannis.

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

I understand there was something passed.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Do you want to circulate his motion to adjourn?

Excuse me, Mr. Karygiannis. It doesn't appear that everybody has the list.

Mr. Bevilacqua.

[Maurizio Bevilacqua, Liberal, Vaughan, ON]

I think we could deal with it in committee right now, because right now, the only thing we could really get is agreement on the topics we will be looking at. That's all you can get right now. As far as scheduling goes, the staff and steering committee will take care of that.

As for the subject matter, we would be looking at, first of all, we'll have the departmental officials outlining the plans and priorities for the department, as well as studies, or whatever needs to be done, in these areas: undocumented workers, temporary foreign workers, and/or Iraqi refugees. The government intends to do a study on immigration fraud and marriages of convenience. Mr. Karygiannis brought to my attention as well that he'd like a study, or to complete a study, on Sri Lanka.

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

I thank the parliamentary secretary for bringing the list, but I would ask for a comprehensive list from the clerk, just in case the parliamentary secretary missed something or in case something was not put in there.

[Maurizio Bevilacqua, Liberal, Vaughan, ON]

Those are the topics. If there is general agreement on that from all parties, we can do the administrative scheduling.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Ms. Chow.

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

Mr. Chair, in terms of procedure, how we function really is part of the subcommittee agenda. Given that there is a proposal, I would support the adjournment of this committee and having a subcommittee meeting as soon as possible to fine-tune what was given out so that we would have some discussion.

I have several items I want to discuss. I sent a motion to the clerk yesterday. That's for notification only. We will have all of that carefully discussed at subcommittee, because there are some items on this agenda that I may not agree with having a study on.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Motions to adjourn aren't debatable, but somehow we're into a debate.

Mr. Karygiannis, we'll let you be the last one on this motion.

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

I do want to go with what I said in the beginning. You can look at it either as a motion or as guidance.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

The motion on the floor, Mr. Karygiannis, is to adjourn this meeting.

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

Mr. Chair, I respect that. However, what I said in the beginning is that we ask the clerk to bring back unfinished items and distribute that to us before we start considering anything else.

[Some hon. members]

It's in the briefing book.