Citizenship and Immigration Committee on April 29th, 2019

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Can we just hear the amendments and then he can...?

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

The way you're doing it, I don't think is going to be helpful to the committee, because it concerns commas and paragraphs, and I can't follow it, frankly. So if you could give a narrative on the gist of what you're doing and then go through it in detail, I think that would help the committee members understand what you're doing. That's the normal procedure in committee work.

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

Fine, Mr. Chair. I'm happy to do it that way.

We Liberals are going to propose what would ultimately amount to a study on part 4, division 15, with at least three meetings involving the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship and the officials.

Then we would have a separate study on part 4, division 16, with at least three meetings with the Minister of Border Security and departmental officials. That would take place within the timeline proposed by the current letter. Although the current letter only asks us to look at division 15, my proposed changes will clarify that we're being asked to do 15.

We're also going to take it upon ourselves to do division 16, and then...I know you're asking that the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration treat what we've done as being deemed proposed during clause-by-clause analysis of Bill C-97. I think we're going to propose to address your concern in a slightly different way, by having the committee invite the Standing Committee on Finance to consider any proposed amendments pertaining to those parts to be deemed proposed during clause-by-clause analysis of Bill C-97 in a separate motion at the end.

I think that gets us to the same place, but rather than having at least eight meetings, we would having at least six, broken up as proposed. Rather than having the ministers at the same single meeting, we'd have the ministers come with respect to the divisions that involve them. So division 15 will be the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, and the second one will be the Minister of Border Security, and their related officials.

In this way I think we end up with at least four hours of meetings on each topic involving civil society or other witnesses and two hours of meetings involving ministers and government officials on each topic. That should allow us to do this in the proposed time frame. That allows us to report back to the finance committee by May 17, including translation time and recommendation review, which would obviously need to happen no later than May 15, I hope, if everyone is able to work quickly.

Frankly, very tight timelines will require meetings outside the normal schedule, but I think we have enough time in the schedule to do that.

That's the contextual background for it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

You've had about a 45-minute chance to talk, so I will let the other members have a chance, unless you have a point of order.

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

I just want to move my amendments now.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

On clarification of the amendments—

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

There's no “on clarification”; that's not parliamentary. I would like to have this side have a chance to speak, maybe for up to an hour if they would like to. You've had your chance.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

We'll be back next time.

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

I will now propose the changes to the text so they would work.

As I noted, the first change is that just after the words, “That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the Committee”, we would delete the word “immediately” and insert instead, “at the request of the Standing Committee on Finance”. All of the rest of the existing text is good through “Part 4, Division 15”. Then put a semicolon there and strike the words “and Part 4, Division 16” and the make the “T” in the following “That” lower case. The text would then be good until “both official languages”.

Or would you rather have me just strike everything and replace it?

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

I think striking and replacing it makes it a much easier process for the committee to follow, frankly.

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

Okay. I was just trying to—

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

It's up to you, but changing the case of a letter is less helpful to the committee than reading the motion as you would amend it. So read the amended motion, which I think is everything after the word “committee”.

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

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Even if there is some repetitive language from the original motion, you can delete it, cut it and replace it.

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

Okay. That's fair enough. Here we go.

Ms. Clerk, we'll just do it as one amendment.

It would read:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), at the request of the Standing Committee on Finance, the Committee undertake a study on the subject matter of the following provisions of Bill C-97, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget, tabled in Parliament on March 19, 2019, and other measures: Part 4, Division 15; that, recommendations, including amendments be submitted to the Standing Committee on Finance in a letter to the Chair of the Standing Committee on Finance, in both official languages, no later than 4:00 p.m., on Friday May 17, 2019; that this study be comprised of no fewer than 3 meetings and; that the Minister of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship be invited to appear;

That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the Committee undertake a study on the subject matter of the following provisions of Bill C-97, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget, tabled in Parliament on March 19, 2019, and other measures: Part 4, Division 16; that, recommendations, including amendments be submitted to the Standing Committee on Finance in a letter to the Chair of the Standing Committee on Finance, in both official languages, no later than 4:00 p.m., on Friday May 17, 2019; that this study be comprised of no fewer than 3 meetings and; that the Minister for Border Security, and Departmental Officials be invited to appear; and

That the Chair of the Committee write, as promptly as possible, to the Chair of the Standing Committee on Finance to inform it of the Committees’ decision to study the subject matter of Part 4, division 15 and Part 4, division 16 of Bill C-97, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 19, 2019; and that the Committee invite the Standing Committee on Finance to consider any proposed amendments pertaining to Part 4, division 16 of Bill C-97 provided by the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration to the Standing Committee on Finance to be deemed proposed during the clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-97

That last little bit only refers to division 16, because they've already invited us to do that with respect to division 15.

Those are the changes.

If it would be helpful to someone, I'm happy to share a copy of this, but it should be pretty obvious.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Do members need a suspension to take time to consider this?

Okay. Is it clear?

I have a speakers list: Ms. Kwan, Mr. Tilson, Ms. Rempel and Mr. Sarai.

Ms. Kwan.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, for allowing me to speak again to the amendment as proposed.

On the suggestion of three meetings instead of four, my proposal is to have four meetings. The reason I suggested eight meetings in total is that these are substantive bills, both of them. I haven't allowed any time to talk about the establishment of the college. The committee members will remember that when we studied this issue, the committee was unanimous on this from all sides. The only time we had unanimous support was for the issue of the corporate consultants to be taken so seriously that the recommendation to the government was to end self-regulation.

Now what we have in that bill being proposed in the omnibus bill is to establish a college with the same people who ran the same system this committee has studied and determined had failed to protect the public.

These are substantive bills. For all the reasons I cited earlier with respect to the proposed changes to the refugee determination process, three meetings is not going to cut it. I really don't think we could do it in three, because in those three meetings you're also including officials and the minister. It only leaves two meetings for witnesses, and there are many witnesses who want to speak to this, just from the outpouring of emails that have crashed my system since Friday. More than 2,600 emails have come into my system just on this one issue. Imagine the desire among the public to shed light on this.

Frankly, I don't think this should be part of.... The timeline in which we need to meet shouldn't be subject to a budget timeline. The timeline that we meet on this should be based on what needs to be done to ensure that we do this thoroughly, to study it with due consideration and thoughtfully so we can then make the necessary recommendations.

I don't know whether there is any appetite on the other side to increase the numbers—

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Michelle Rempel]

Sorry to interrupt you, Ms. Kwan, but in the confusion of coming into the chair, did I miss something? Are you proposing a subamendment, or are you just speaking to the amendment?

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I will propose a subamendment, Madam Chair.

I will propose a subamendment to amend the three meetings for the two parts to four meetings, as was originally proposed. I will also make the amendment to delete the timeline. I think we need to just do this work and do it thoroughly and thoughtfully.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Michelle Rempel]

Thank you.

Does anyone want to speak to Ms. Kwan's subamendment?

No? I get to call a vote.

(Subamendment negatived)

We're back on the amendment.

Mr. Tilson, you have the floor.

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

Well, Madam Chair, I just find this whole procedure simply amazing.

I don't think any of you were there at the time, but I remember sitting in the House when we were on your side, listening to the Liberals, when they were the third party, be very critical of omnibus bills. They really were. Now this is the second time they've put a budget forward that is an omnibus bill.

This topic—division 16 has eight pages—is quite complicated stuff. Considering the “sunny ways” that were suggested by the former third party, the Liberals, when they were opposed to omnibus bills, for them to slap this into an omnibus bill is rather remarkable.

It's very difficult. Through you, Madam Chair, to Mr. Whalen, you're suggesting three meetings for each of divisions 15 and 16. I'd like to know from the clerk how we can do that. Maybe you don't want to comment. Are we going to sit for every day of the...?

What I'm getting at is the whole preposterous idea of dealing with a complicated piece of legislation. Ms. Kwan, perhaps quite rightfully, says that three meetings for each division isn't enough. I voted against that, because I don't think it's possible in the time frame. Obviously, the government wants to ram through this by Friday, May 17. Is that right, May 17?

A question to anyone, whether it's the clerk or Mr. Whalen—and I'm not surrendering the floor, because I have a few other things to say—is how that can be done.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Evelyn Lukyniuk]

That will be up to the committee to decide.

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

That's a good answer.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

I just want to confirm that a subamendment to change the number of meetings was defeated while I was here, so we won't continue that discussion. I'd ask you to move on.

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

No, I'm on Mr. Whalen's amendment, which is for three meetings for division 15 and three meetings for division 16.