Excuse me.
Evidence of meeting #2 for Indigenous and Northern Affairs in the 41st Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was amendment.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #2 for Indigenous and Northern Affairs in the 41st Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was amendment.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Chris Warkentin
I'd like to keep to the speaking list, if we can.
Were you finished?
NDP
Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
My second question was about why the parliamentary secretary would be given a vote.
Conservative
Greg Rickford Conservative Kenora, ON
For voting purposes the subcommittee is tasked with crystallizing, if you will, the agenda for the committee as a whole, so we—
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON
Sixty percent of the steering committee is Conservative. Does that seem right?
Conservative
Greg Rickford Conservative Kenora, ON
Well, I'm sorry, Dr. Bennett, but the position of the chair, res ipsa loquitur, is a Conservative member, but he doesn't necessarily act in that partisan piece. We've seen—
Liberal
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON
Parliamentary secretaries have traditionally not had a vote, and there has been a composition of the committee that actually had a preponderance, actually, of opposition.
This is a subcommittee that's only supposed to be looking, and not a decision-making body at all. It's a steering committee, and actually then anything decided by the steering committee gets ratified by the whole committee.
I have to say that in any sort of examination of the arithmetic of this Parliament, having 60% of the members of a steering committee to be from the government side is really unacceptable to anybody looking at that.
Parliamentary secretaries never used to even sit on committees. They are technically members of the government. In holding the government to account, which is the job of every single member of this committee, it really was always that the parliamentary secretary was allowed to come to a steering committee meeting, not allowed to vote, because it didn't seem appropriate that this voice of government could have a sway on steering committees in terms of what is brought forward to the committee.
So I have to say, Mr. Chair, that in the spirit of collegiality, it will become very uncollegial if this goes forward with 60% Conservatives on a steering committee, and it will not stay within this room. This is extraordinarily damaging to the parliamentary procedure of all committee work for this to be strong-armed through. I would suggest to the parliamentary secretary that he rethink this, take away his own vote, and that we can work very well in a three-person steering committee to sort out what needs to be brought back to this committee.
If necessary, if you need to put another person on the steering committee, then I still am not very happy with it, in that it's not the purpose of parliamentary committees to actually do the work of government. The purpose of parliamentary committees is to call government to account. When I chaired many committees when I was a government backbench MP, we did our job of holding our Liberal government to account.
So this is really explosive, actually, in terms of this attempt to hijack parliamentary committees.
Conservative
Greg Rickford Conservative Kenora, ON
Dr. Bennett's intervention has been somewhat persuasive. I think there's always a refreshing new opportunity to do things somewhat differently.
I would seek consensus, then, that while we would maintain a five-member subcommittee, there was a submission I made about a quorum subcommittee, and that, Mr. Chair, at subcommittee, to the extent that something would have to come to a vote, you would not vote.
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON
You don't vote. He never votes unless it's a tie. You don't have a vote.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Chris Warkentin
I think it's important, Mr. Rickford, that you clarify just for the committee's sake what your amendment to your amendment is, so that there will be full clarity.
Committee members, it may be useful at some point to bring this to a vote, but let's see if there is a way to come to a consensus. I'm sensing that there may be a necessity to go to a vote.
Maybe clarify your amendment to your amendment.
Conservative
Greg Rickford Conservative Kenora, ON
I'm saying that to a certain extent I agree that the subcommittee's function is to do planning, but we have seen scenarios, certainly in the previous session, where a subcommittee has perhaps unfortunately had to come to a vote due to an inability to agree on things.
I think the five-member composition gives us an opportunity to continue to have robust discussions around what we would ultimately study, but if there are scenarios where a vote may arise out of the subcommittee, I think we have to have a mechanism for that. That's why, under the three-member subcommittee, with just those, with the chair holding the vote, we can't accomplish anything if we ultimately get to a point where we don't agree. These are those scenarios that we hope won't arise.
I certainly take Mr. Masse's point, that we can lay out that language very clearly, that we have a five-member panel, two Conservative members, and vice-chairs of the opposition parties, and then in the event that the subcommittee actually required a vote for something, your vote would obviously be determinate.
I would submit that I'm very hopeful that this kind of scenario won't arise, but I don't think we should put ourselves in a position where we're not able to address that.
To answer Linda's question....
Liberal
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON
Okay. Why reverse the tradition of this committee and give the parliamentary secretary a vote?