Evidence of meeting #29 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 video is available from Parliament.
Legislative Clerk
The consequence to it, if your decision is overturned, is that the amendment becomes admissible for debate on the motion and a vote on the motion.
Liberal
Gary Anandasangaree Liberal Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON
Mr. Legislative Clerk, with respect, I would submit that the position I have taken is in line with the amendments that have been already passed. Therefore, the underlying premise that the chair indicated with respect to the admissibility of this particular amendment is, in my submission, incorrect. I'm therefore asking the chair to reconsider the position and not necessarily have it go to a vote.
Perhaps you and the chair could discuss the appropriateness of moving forward with the vote and the chair reconsidering the decision.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bob Bratina
To the legislative group, I'm perfectly willing to proceed as Mr. Anandasangaree suggested, or does policy render a challenge in this case?
Legislative Clerk
Mr. Chair, if you wish to withdraw your decision, that's fine. We would go to the debate on the amendment and a vote on the amendment.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bob Bratina
We will skip past the remarks that I made in the context of what was said and go to the amendment on LIB-4.
The Clerk
This will be a recorded vote for LIB-4.
(Amendment agreed to: yeas 9; nays 2 [See Minutes of Proceedings] )
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bob Bratina
Thank you. The amendment is carried.
Clerks, I need some clarification on BQ-3.
Legislative Clerk
Since BQ-1 and BQ-2 were not adopted, it means that there is a problem with BQ-3. The rule is that if you want to change something in the preamble, you have to change something in the text.
The decision is in your hands, Mr. Chair.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bob Bratina
My impression, as I said earlier, was exactly as you said. In the case of the bill, a substantive amendment to the preamble is admissible only if rendered necessary by amendments.
Reading through it, as we did in our preparation, I came to the opinion that the proposed amendment is substantive. No amendment was made to the bill to that effect, therefore rendering this amendment inadmissible.
I'm going to stay with that opinion that it is inadmissible. However, Ms. Gill, I know you wish to speak to it.
Marilène Gill Bloc Manicouagan, QC
I'm just trying to understand it clearly, Mr. Chair.
We just proceeded differently for amendment LIB-4. You initially deemed it inadmissible, and then reversed your decision, and yet you are maintaining it for this amendment. I am wondering whether this is to prevent a challenge to your decision and that we will have to resolve the issue with a vote.
Bloc
Marilène Gill Bloc Manicouagan, QC
Could you just clarify why we were able to rule on amendment LIB-4, but not this one?
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bob Bratina
What would be substantial would be an amendment to the bill itself that related to the preamble. That's the issue before us.
Bloc
Marilène Gill Bloc Manicouagan, QC
Mr. Chair, my question was the other way around. I wanted to know what, substantively, amendment LIB-4 added to the bill. It didn't seem to me that it added anything. I was simply pointing out that the decision was different. When all is said and done, amendment LIB-4 did not add anything more than this one to the bill.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bob Bratina
Thank you. In my opinion, based on the discussion, the notion of racism that was introduced was relevant to the wording in the preamble.
Would that be your opinion, Mr. Clerk? I see you have your hand up.
The Clerk
Well, I can't give my opinion on that. A ruling of the chair is not debatable. Either it can be challenged by a motion or we would move to the next item on the agenda.
Liberal
Jaime Battiste Liberal Sydney—Victoria, NS
Just to clarify the doctrines that we were discussing, the terra nullius doctrine says that anyone who was not of Christian descent was not a person. When we introduced racism, we introduced the ability to question some of the international doctrines, such as the doctrine of discovery, that make it so that indigenous people aren't people in the realm of the law.
This is absolutely racism and this is absolutely discrimination, so when we introduced the new substantive clauses on racism, we allowed the ability to refer to these racist doctrines. That's where the discussion was, and that's why we were able to change the previous one and introduce LIB-4, whereas we're not able to do so with—
Bloc
Marilène Gill Bloc Manicouagan, QC
Are we still within the permissible limits of the debate or have we overstepped them?
Bloc
Marilène Gill Bloc Manicouagan, QC
I'm asking because I believe that the clerk said we could not debate the chair's decision. I was therefore wondering whether we had begun another debate.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bob Bratina
No, I'm just asking for clarification from your perspective so that I can review the ruling that I made based on the discussions and work that were done previously.
Was there a substantial change earlier that relates to what you are wishing to amend, something else that we changed within the body of the bill, as did occur in the case of the previous decision?
Bloc
Marilène Gill Bloc Manicouagan, QC
In my humble opinion, Mr. Chair, that was not the case for amendment LIB-4. That's why I asked the question. That's not what I understood when you withdrew your decision so that we could finally rule on amendment LIB-4.
I will simply comply with your decision, because we have not adopted any amendments to the bill that would have made this amendment admissible. I thought that a similar decision had been made earlier, but in any event, we can now close the debate. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bob Bratina
I appreciate very much the discussion, because we're trying to make sure that the bill is properly brought forward in terms of all of the protocols, precedents and practices of the parliamentary procedure. I was convinced that there had been substantive change within the bill that led to the preamble, but in the case of this BQ-3, I didn't see it.
My view is that the amendment is inadmissible, and I will stand by that opinion. Thanks, Madame Gill, for the discussion.
Now, that brings us to the preamble and—