Industry Committee on June 15th, 2011

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

What does that do, though, if there is a technical problem or there's too much translation and they end up missing that window by a couple of hours or by the next day? Does that then make the submitted motions invalid? That's what I'm worried about. If we have a technical breakdown or some problem, does that invalidate those motions? If you have too many motions that come in for translation and you have electronic failure, I guess you could do it through fax. You could walk them over--

[The Clerk]

No, I--

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

What happens to those motions? If they don't get through to you, for whatever reason, what happens to those motions under this scenario?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

If they are received by 5 p.m., then it's two sleeps after that. Should any technicality arise...and if we have a power outage for five days or something like that, I think we'll probably have more important things to deal with rather than coming here, because we won't have microphones or translation either.

Do you know what I mean? I don't know if we can craft a motion based on some eventuality that we can't foresee right now.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I'm not asking that we craft it. I just want to know what's going to happen if we miss the deadline for whatever reason, because we didn't have this before. We did have the motions that didn't get to us that same day, and that's why you're proposing it.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

The timelines, yes, the timeline is all thrown off.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Yes. That's why it's being proposed to begin with.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

The point is, when we submit a motion before five o'clock on a Wednesday, then Friday we're good to go. That's the point, and we all know that. It's predictable, and it's not dependent on anything else. If we get our motion in by five o'clock, we're good to go the second day following.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

And all I'm asking is what is going to be the repercussion if we don't make it? You're proposing it because it wasn't met before, because there was a problem about getting that. Otherwise, you wouldn't even be proposing this to begin with. And now we're getting guarantees that we're not going to miss that window.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Mr. Masse, just to clarify, which window are you talking about--the distribution from the clerk on the same day?

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

The distribution, yes. It's the distribution on the same day. It's not the 48 hours; it's the distribution on the same day. We have had technical problems that have stopped e-mail, and other types of service have gone down for a few hours. Does that mean the clerk has somebody stay there until midnight to try to get it through the system, or does it come a different way? I just want to know whether it invalidates those motions, so we don't have a problem--

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

He could personally slide it under our doors.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

But do you see and understand here? You're proposing something to fix what you perceived as a problem, but we're getting guarantees now that we don't have those problems. I'm looking to find out what happens if we do have that situation, so we don't have a big public argument or spend meetings on whether our motion is valid or not because for technical reasons it couldn't get back to us.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

I think the clerk is pretty confident about the fact that if it's in by five o'clock, in his experience midnight is quite doable.

Do you want to comment, Jean Michel?

[The Clerk]

Well, so far, every time we have received motions in the afternoon, they have been translated and sent by e-mail to all members of the committee the same day, and very quickly. If the motion is three lines, it's going to take five minutes to have it translated, and by e-mail it's going to be sent in five minutes.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

So with this motion we're fixing something that isn't broken.

[The Clerk]

Well, you have the 48 hours' notice also in your motion.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Of course, we've always had that. Either there was a problem or there isn't a problem.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

This assures us that we have proper notice and certainty that when a motion is presented by five o'clock, you know when you're going to be able to debate it, and nothing is going to throw that off.

(Motion agreed to) [See Minutes of Proceedings]

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Is there anything else we need on routine motions?

[The Clerk]

I think we've been through.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

All right, we've been through our list of routine motions. Are there any other motions or management issues?

Mr. Lake.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

I'll just make a suggestion that we schedule our Monday meeting for committee business. Is that reasonable?

Just to put on the table one of the things we've talked about--and it won't be a surprise--the previous minister commented about having a study on gas prices. It would be nice to take that up as a committee. So to give a heads-up, if we do committee business on Monday, we'll want to discuss that possibility.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

This coming Monday?

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Yes. I think Monday at 3:30 is our next scheduled meeting. Is that correct? We could talk about what that looks like on Monday.