Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Feb. 12th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

The meeting is called to order. This is the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, meeting number three, Thursday, February 12, 2009. The orders of the day are committee business.

I promised you, Ms. Chow, at the last meeting that you would be the first on the agenda today with respect to the estimates. In respect of my discussions with you earlier, I am going to take the position that any vote on the estimates is.... If you wish to make a motion, that's fine, but I'm telling you in advance that a motion involving the reduction, the negativing, or even adopting vote 1b of the estimates is out of order, because pursuant to the order made in the House, which was agreed to by the parties yesterday, the supplementary estimates were deemed to be reported back to the House yesterday at 5 o'clock.

Therefore, I would take the position that any motion with respect to the estimates to adopt, negative, or to reduce is out of order. But you can make a motion and we'll see what happens.

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

Before I do that, would you like me to move the adoption of the first report of the subcommittee on agenda?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

No, because I made a promise to you, and I always honour my promises.

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

Oh, okay--amazing.

My interpretation of yesterday afternoon's motion was that they would see the clock so that whatever came out of the standing committees today would still be reported out for tonight's vote. That was my interpretation.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Let's see what happens. I've told you in advance what my ruling would be, but you can make a motion.

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

I'll place the motion, which I did on Tuesday.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Has it already been moved?

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

Yes, it was moved on Tuesday, just before 11. The motion was to strike out vote 1b, I believe, because I'm fundamentally opposed to--

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I understand.

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

--a $2 million advertisement budget. I don't need to repeat my speech.

If you want to rule it out of order, I'll challenge the chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

For the reasons given, Ms. Chow, I'm ruling your motion out of order.

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

It's the same motion that I made on Tuesday. You have that, right?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Yes.

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

Perhaps the clerk could read it out, and then I'll challenge the chair. And just to save time, I'll ask for a recorded vote when I challenge the chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Yes, of course.

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

Thank you.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Andrew Chaplin]

I understand Ms. Chow's motion to be that vote 1b be reduced to zero.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

How do we do this? All in favour of supporting the chair.... She's challenged the chair.

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

Yes, but we're not voting on the motion itself.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

No, we're not; we're voting on her challenge to the chair. The chair has ruled the motion out of order, so all those--

[The Clerk]

Shall the chair's ruling be sustained?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Shall the chair's ruling be sustained?

Mr. Clerk, there's a recorded vote.

[Maurizio Bevilacqua, Liberal, Vaughan, ON]

Is there a recorded vote on this?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Yes.

(Chair's ruling sustained: 9 yeas, 1 nay)

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

So the chair's ruling is upheld and the motion is out of order. We will continue on with the committee business.

The subcommittee report has become a little redundant. Maybe I could say a few words and then you can correct me or whatever.

We return on February 24. The only accurate portion is the third item. On Tuesday, February 24, there will be a briefing from departmental officials on the operations of the department in an informal meeting. An item that's not here on the report, which I thought we dealt with, Ms. Chow and Mr. Bevilacqua, is that on March 12 we were going to talk about the outstanding reports. I'm open to the floor. We have the first Tuesday back. We don't know what we're doing the first Thursday back or from there on. So I'm open.

Mr. Dykstra.