Evidence of meeting #1 for Indigenous and Northern Affairs in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Marcus Powlowski Liberal Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON
Why did you say there was unanimous consent? I didn't hear that there was unanimous consent.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bob Bratina
I'm going to have to stop this discussion now because we have gone way off track. We don't have unanimous consent—
Conservative
Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB
What are we doing with Mr. Melillo's motion now? We have been discussing it. We need to do something with it.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bob Bratina
We're not going to do anything with it, because we don't have unanimous consent.
Conservative
Conservative
Cathy McLeod Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
Thank you, Chair.
When you do committee business.... Can you clarify? We agreed to look at the studies and move the studies that were suggested as notices of motions to committee. Now we're actually looking at a committee motion, and I understand—number one—that, being as we're in committee business, we don't necessarily need unanimous consent. Second, I also express some confusion because I understood we had not proceeded with Arnold's, but you had asked the question in terms of unanimous consent. I'm not sure we need it. We had proceeded with the other motion, which is not about a study. It's just about an expression of the committee's thoughts on something.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bob Bratina
Okay. To be very honest, there's nothing that we disagree about. What we're discussing right now is how the business of the indigenous and northern affairs committee is going to move forward and whether other elements, such as reflections on incidents that are arising, call for comment from the committee.
Perhaps I could get an overview from the clerk on the direction we're headed. I am at the hands of the committee and at the mandate of the committee.
Mr. Clerk, do you have any suggestions for us?
The Clerk
My understanding of the general direction of the discussion is that motions regarding future business were going to be referred to the subcommittee for consideration and prioritization. The committee was discussing whether it should be all of these motions or whether they wanted to consider some today.
As of yet, there are some that have been given oral notice and others that we have received electronically. We're in the middle of that future business discussion right now.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bob Bratina
My preference would be that we move to the subcommittee with everything that's before us.
Once again, I haven't stated that I don't wish to do this sort of business. It just seems to me, as has been stated by others, that it's not something we've done before. It's not a horrid precedent. I just want to make sure that we're moving within the accepted procedures of the committee and of PROC, and that we simply move on to the agenda review subcommittee and deal with all—
Conservative
Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB
Mr. Chair, one of the things about a committee being in control of its own destiny, so to speak, is that we have the ability to move motions and that we are of the ability to pass those motions.
Conservative
Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB
If you're going to just run roughshod over that ability of my colleague, Mr. Melillo to....
You asked for unanimous consent. We moved the motion appropriately. We are in committee business. As far as I know—I don't have the book in front of me; it's back in Ottawa—when we're in committee business, we can move motions on the floor. We don't need 48 hours' notice. We don't need unanimous consent. We can just move them.
In my case, I did not have 48 hours' notice and you put that up as a roadblock. That's fine. I walked away from it.
Before the committee was even constituted—this is the constitution meeting—he put his motion on notice. Now he is moving it on the floor. You asked for unanimous consent; we got unanimous consent. We then moved into discussion. That then demands the motion be disposed of.
Now if you want someone to move to table this motion so that we can discuss it at a later date, I'm happy to do that.
I think that it should be disposed of right now, and I will be voting in that direction. I will be voting to support Mr. Melillo's motion.
Conservative
Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB
That is a matter of this committee being in control of its own destiny. When there is a motion on the floor, we can either table it for discussion at a later date or we can dispose of it with an up-down vote.
Conservative
Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB
I am in favour of disposing it with an up-down vote at this point. I would ask for that vote to happen forthwith.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bob Bratina
Okay, I'm pleased to do that.
I would say, Mr. Viersen, when you speak about people running roughshod, I have never run roughshod over a committee in my life, in all of the committees that I've chaired, as mayor and so on. This is a discussion about how the business of the committee is moving forward.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bob Bratina
I would appreciate leaving the emotional language out of it and just discussing what's before us.
In a moment I'm going to put the question from Mr. Melillo to the committee.
Mr. Powlowski, you have the floor.
Liberal
Marcus Powlowski Liberal Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON
If there is agreement that there has to be unanimous consent to entertain a motion, I did not give consent to entertain this motion.
If we're going to have that kind of vote, I think it has to be clear that everybody is nodding or agreeing. Certainly I didn't hear that. I did not give consent to hear this motion.
NDP
Rachel Blaney NDP North Island—Powell River, BC
I did, Chair.
Thank you for this robust discussion.
I'm not trying to be contrarian in anyway, but I agree with Mr. Viersen on this. I thought we were moving towards giving consent. When you asked whether anyone disagreed, nobody said anything, and then it moved to conversation. I was confused.