Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Jan. 30th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you.

I hope all the members are clear about the motion.

Mr. Redekopp, please read the amendment.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

It's for all of that plus “so appropriate measures can be taken”.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Mr. Redekopp has moved an amendment “so appropriate measures can be taken”.

Are members ready to vote, or do you want the meeting to be suspended?

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

Madam Chair, can you suspend the meeting for two minutes so the members can talk amongst themselves?

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

We don't have unanimous consent to suspend the meeting.

[Fayçal El-Khoury, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Wait just one second.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Please speak through the chair.

Can I have everyone's attention? Do members want to proceed on the vote on the amendment, or does the meeting need to be suspended?

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I am ready for a vote.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

We will vote on the amendment first.

[Shafqat Ali, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

This vote is for the amendment, and not for the actual....

Can you clarify, Madam Chair, please? I understood there would be two votes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Yes. Right now, the first vote is on the amendment.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Shafqat Ali, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

All right. Can I have everyone's attention, please?

As you read it from the vote, the committee has no jurisdiction to take any measures, so I'm voting based on what you have read. As a committee—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

We can report to the House.

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

On a point of order, we are trying to vote.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

We are voting on the amendment, so we will take the vote without clarification. We need to proceed with the vote.

(Amendment agreed to: yeas 10; nays 1)

Now we will vote on the motion as amended.

(Motion as amended agreed to: yeas 11; nays 0)

Could I have everyone's attention, please? Please speak through the chair. Don't have side conversations.

Before we adjourn this meeting, I have one thing with regard to the proposal for visits for spring 2023. Does the committee wish to propose site visits for spring 2023? That will be for the period between April and June.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Site visits?

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

It's the travel of the committee outside Canada.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

I was going to say that all actions have consequences. Everybody should talk to the Liberal House leader or the Liberal whip.

I'm saying no. The committee should not travel. This committee has tried twice or three times before to travel. As far as I know, it's been refused every single time. Why are we asking again?

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Mr. Kmiec.

To make it clear to the members, we were approved by the liaison committee twice, but when it came to the agreement between the whips in regard to the motion in the House...the last time, the Conservative whip did not agree with the travel. Only the travel of three committees was approved, and our committee was not one of them.

Now we have again been asked if the committee would like to travel. If we have to travel, we have to submit our proposal to the liaison committee by February 8.

We'll go to Ms. Kwan and then Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

The reality is that we put a whole lot of work into this. The clerk and the analysts did a whole lot of work on this and it went through twice.

Even though it went through liaison, it ultimately got rejected because parties have a veto power to reject this. Clearly one party here does not want this to happen. I'm not willing to go through more work to make a proposal where it's ultimately going to be rejected.

It's a lesson learned, you know. Those are the kinds of things I live by. I'm not willing to go through this again.

The other thing I should point out is that, aside from the work that the clerk and the analysts have put into this, we also wasted time at our committee, because a schedule was premised on this trip. We wasted a bunch of meetings, which I'm super grumpy about. When you lose time, you can't get it back.

I'm not willing to do it again, because one party has that veto power and exercises that veto power accordingly, so I'm not willing to submit any more requests.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

We don't have a consensus to submit our travel request for February 8.

Thank you to all the members. I will work with the clerk on the calendar for this committee.

In regard to that, go ahead, Ms. Lalonde.

[Marie-France Lalonde, Liberal, Orléans, ON]

On our behalf, I would like to thank the clerk and the analysts, who once again produced documents for us. There are also two reports and all sorts of things coming up. There were a lot of delays in the last session for all kinds of reasons that we know about. I got some extra work in my mail box in case we need it. This is a lot of work, and I know they are overworked.

So I would like to thank them from the bottom of my heart for all the great work they have done.

Thank you so much.