As members will remember, during our meeting on Monday the bells rang at 6:18 p.m. for a vote. I needed unanimous consent to continue the meeting. That unanimous consent was denied. Unanimous consent was also sought at that time to adjourn the meeting, and it was denied. Therefore, pursuant to Standing Order 115(5), the meeting was suspended at that point.
As has been the case at every meeting since I've been the chair, and even prior to that, when we have suspended the meeting for votes, we have resumed the meeting immediately after the votes, unless there has been some notice otherwise. For clarity, I did say, as soon as I had suspended the meeting, that we would be returning after the votes. There was no specified time, except that we did have the convention in this committee of returning after votes. When we returned after the votes, I waited a significant amount of time and did not reach a quorum. We had no quorum to continue the meeting. So, due to the lack of quorum, the meeting was adjourned.
Page 1097 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, is clear on this. It states, “Meetings under way may be adjourned if quorum is lost during the sitting.”
In fact, we did find a precedent for this committee, which happened on June 13, 2013, during the time when Mr. Tilson was chair of the standing committee. That meeting was adjourned for the lack of quorum following a suspension, even though it had not been recommenced. Those minutes are available for that meeting of June 13, 2013.