Citizenship and Immigration Committee on April 29th, 2019

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

I think what we've managed to do over the course of the break, in trying to address Ms. Kwan's oral motion from prior to the break, is to get some type of soft commitment that they're going to consider this the right way.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

I want to tell the committee that I have a commitment that this will happen. We could have simply passed a motion requesting them to do it, but then we wouldn't have heard back from them for some time. Who knows what's going to happen? The world could end tonight. But all things being equal, I have been told that this will be an acceptable and responsible action from our committee, that it will be accepted by the finance committee, and that they're going to let us do it even though they didn't ask us to do it at first.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Just to be clear—and maybe my lack of clarity comes from just having seen this—what's being proposed by Mr. Whalen is that the subamendment is essentially adding.... It's as if you're parsing out Ms. Kwan's motion. So rather than having it sandwiched into divisions 15 and 16, you're saying...the Standing Committee on Finance has in fact passed a motion to refer it to us, and you're acknowledging that.

So the second part of what you've parsed out of Ms. Kwan's motion is that it would not include “at the request of the Standing Committee on Finance”. So we're saying, just to be clear, that division 15, related to immigration consultants, they've already referred to us. Division 16—

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

And we're accepting it.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

On division 16, we are not including the “At the request of the Standing Committee on Finance” in that parse-out. We're just doing it anyway.

I just want to be clear: My intent is that we would do this regardless of what the finance committee says.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Yes.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

That's exactly our intent as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Okay.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

If I can just make sure everyone understands this, the issue with Ms. Kwan's motion is that it didn't recognize the difference between one division having been referred to us and the other division not being referred to us. That's why it has been broken into two sections, because in a parliamentary system, they are different. We are trying to respond to both of them, not with an omnibus motion but with separate motions. We need that third part so we give the finance committee notice that we're going to be sending it motions and ask it to deem them reported so we can have it vote on them.

As there's lots of suspicion, all I can tell you is that I am trying to accomplish what I thought the committee would want. We heard that you want to discuss this and I'm trying to accomplish it.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Now that we're clear that the intent is to do this, that we're not divesting it to the finance committee but are going to study it here, that's great. I do share the sentiment of my colleague in wanting to have longer meetings, because we're just going to have a raft of people who want to testify and it's worthy of study.

I'm disappointed that the government has not taken more meetings under consideration. However, I'm willing to accept the amendment with the spirit of it being done regardless of what the finance committee may or may not tell us, because I think we should be looking at this anyway.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Mr. Sarai.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

I will just echo that I support Mr. Whalen's amendments. I think we can adjust both Ms. Kwan's requests and motion along with Mr. Whelan's and can accomplish both. Therefore, we can put it to a vote. We've been here for a while, so that would be good, unless Mr. Tilson wants to stay longer, in which case I'll be glad to do that.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

It's past his bedtime.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Ms. Kwan.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

That's right. It's my bedtime soon.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I'll just say this: From what I heard from the chair, he was basically saying, yes, we're passing a motion, or the government is tabling an amendment to my motion, to say there will be three meetings for each section, even though there's every likelihood that it will be more than three meetings. From that perspective, I don't know why we just don't solidify it and say four meetings. I know I already moved the subamendment and it was defeated, which actually addresses Mr. Tilson's concern so that we can actually plan as opposed to willy-nilly trying to figure out, well, this might be longer or not.

Anyway, the government obviously has its votes. You have the majority. You get to do whatever you want. You can ram this thing through. We know that it's being rammed through, but it just doesn't make any sense from that perspective. On the one hand you say, yes, it makes sense and we hear what you're saying, and very likely we are going to go longer than three meetings, but it almost feels as though, just because we asked, you're not going to give it to us.

That's what it feels like and I think it's unfortunate. It shouldn't be that way.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Mr. Tilson.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

I have a question, perhaps to you or to the clerk, that was sparked by some comments you made. That is, we have the studies we're working on and we have the estimates that are going to come eventually. This is a government bill that I believe has priority over the study, but does it have priority over the estimates as well?

The estimates are some time off, though. Are they not well into June?

Okay, so we could start this forthwith.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Yes, it's just a matter of getting notice to people to come. If we can get this passed, then I'm going to tell you about your deadlines for suggesting witnesses for the meeting. One of the problems of doing it the way we're doing it is that we have a hard time understanding how many hours we need to meet until we know what the witness body looks like: who's requesting witnesses, who isn't requesting, who can come. We also have to schedule two ministers for two different meetings.

Mr. Tilson, you've been chair of a committee. You know that scheduling ministers is tough.

I want to get the two ministers in and to save time for the minister to come for the main estimates at some point. We're trying to get this done. I think we can schedule it, but I wanted to give you warning. I'm hearing two messages. One is that you have other things to do. The committee has told me that. That's one of the reasons we can't have an infinite number of meetings: you do have other responsibilities. Yet you're telling me it's an important bill. So we're trying to find a way to balance those realities.

I see no more hands up or no one on the list, so I think we're now going to address the question of the amendment to Ms. Kwan's motion, Mr. Whalen's amendment.

(Amendment agreed to)

(Motion as amended agreed to)

The amended motion is almost exactly the same.

With respect to witnesses—you're not going to like this—if we're going to get this work done I need proposed witnesses for both divisions by Wednesday at noon. The consultants one may need fewer than the other. I don't have a number. Put in your best numbers.

Once I get your numbers, if I don't have enough witnesses I'll go back to you. If we have too many, I may need to come back to you to say we need more meetings. It's a little bit of an art, not a science. I suspect, as we know, there are the usual suspects on both these bills. People have written letters to the minister, public letters. Those people are going to want to speak. There will be other people whom you know about who you think should speak. I think the most important thing is for you to do your deliberation on the bill and make sure we have enough information. Some of that can be written as well as verbal.

I have Nick and then Michelle.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

It seems to me that, with four panels, over the meetings that aren't taken up with government officials, we could reasonably have 10 to 12 witnesses in the normal ratios. That would be the minimum.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

I think we're going to hear from about 12 folks. You know the ratios.

Ms. Rempel.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

For expediency's sake, may I suggest an in camera subcommittee meeting maybe on Wednesday just to discuss this, because we haven't had a meeting on scheduling. We could discuss witness lists. I think there probably will be some consensus on who is coming anyway, so I anticipate a lot of overlap. We could talk about witnesses and scheduling at that point in time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

There is a very good chance we will do that. The clerk and I have been trying to find the time for that kind of meeting.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

What do we have on the docket for Wednesday, Chair?