Thank you, Chair.
In an effort to hopefully work very productively today and on other days, and in consideration of some of the other motions that have been put forward, in particular the one from Mr. Masse, which I think we all supported last time, I would like to move the following motion, which is to suggest a program or schedule for some of our time over the coming weeks.
I'll read it into the record, and then we will send it to the clerk. We will also send this all by email shortly after that, with translation in both official languages.
I move:
As relates to the committee's future business, it be agreed that:
i. The committee dedicate its regular meetings on September 23 and 26, 2024, to consideration of Bill C-27;
ii. The Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, and officials, appear at committee no later than Thursday, October 10, 2024, for two hours, on the subject of the minister's mandate;
iii. Notwithstanding the minister's appearance, that the committee dedicate its regular meetings during the weeks of September 30 and October 7, 2024, to the study proposed by MP Masse, on the issue of credit card practices and regulations; and that witness lists be submitted by each party by Friday, September 27, 2024, by 4 p.m. EST; and,
iv. That the committee resume consideration of Bill C-27 as of Monday, October 21, 2024, and that consideration of the bill be uninterrupted by any other study until the completion of clause-by-clause by the committee.
That's what I would like to propose. I think it accommodates two of the requests that were made by other committee members, which I thought were quite reasonable and around which I think we, as a committee, achieved a relative degree of consensus. One was the appearance of the minister for two hours, which, committee members will be happy to hear, we've identified we would be able to do before October 10. The other is to have no less than, I think, four meetings on Mr. Masse's motion on credit card practices and regulations, which we also agreed with and thought would be good, but we don't want it to take away from moving forward on Bill C-27, given that we've been at a bit of an impasse.
We are working and looking to hopefully use the time away from Bill C-27 for a couple of weeks to work with other parties constructively and negotiate a path forward on Bill C-27. All of us, over many months, have remarked how important that bill is, so we are looking to use that time constructively and, in the interim, to have the minister appear and also prioritize Mr. Masse's suggested study.
That's the effort here: to work constructively with all of our colleagues and account for some of the other priorities that were brought up in the last meeting. I hope the motion will be well received by the committee. We'll send it around by email.
Originally, we had in the motion that we would, hopefully, move past amendment CPC-9 temporarily, but given the way we worded it in our draft, we realized that wasn't going to be consistent with procedural practice because we would have to move past the whole clause, which we didn't feel was important. I have made the deletion myself. We'll send around the final wording to you in a few moments.
Thank you very much.