Evidence of meeting #87 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was privacy.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joël Lightbound
I'm sorry. There's a subamendment, so this needs to be discussed right now.
Mr. Gaheer, did you want to talk to the subamendment that Mr. Perkins has proposed to the motion?
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joël Lightbound
I think we have to deal with the subamendment first, but I have you on the list for when we come back.
Mr. Perkins, can you repeat the subamendment?
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
The motion as proposed by Mr. Vis ends with the words “within five business days”. I would add an additional sentence after that: “That the committee pause its study of Bill C-27 until the minister produces the amendments discussed and referred to in his opening remarks to this committee.”
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joël Lightbound
On the subamendment, I have Mr. Turnbull, then Mr. Drouin and then Mr. Lemire.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON
Thanks, Chair.
Let me make some clarifications here. The minister came before committee and made some remarks suggesting—
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON
Yes. It is on the subamendment.
The minister came before the committee and made remarks that indicated that he had openness and ideas about amendments in general. Some of them have been argued in the House of Commons by Mr. Williams and others. Instead of seeing that as a negative, you could see it as a positive that you have a responsive minister who's listening to the input of people around him.
I think that's part of why we do a study like this. At the outset, the minister is setting the tone, saying that they're open to amending this bill. Obviously, the bill stands as is. We do not have those amendments already made. They're not cooked up in the backroom. They're not already done, ready and waiting. There are things that the government is open to listening to and working on, using this study and the witnesses who present testimony here as ways to refine thinking about a bill that is so important for Canadians.
We don't have the amendments right now. It's not like we're trying to hide something here. The minister operated in good faith and gave you a really clear indication of how open the governing party and the minister are about amending the bill. I think that's a good thing. I don't know how this is being contorted into something that somehow is negative. The minister operated in good faith.
I suggest that we can certainly bring information. The minister, when he attended the committee and appeared before the committee, made it very clear that as soon as possible, he will provide information that identifies the areas and the things that the government heard through consultations and through speeches in the House and will be able to provide that clarification.
To me, that again shows a responsiveness that is ideal, in my view, for a governing party that's considering a piece of legislation with lots of input from stakeholders and members of Parliament from across the aisle who will make good suggestions about how to strengthen this bill. It also is going to take a bit of time to get that information to colleagues, although not a long time. I think we could probably have something to you by the middle of next week in terms of a letter and some information detailing what the government has heard.
I think what we've heard repeatedly is that this is a key piece of legislation that many people have an interest in seeing move forward. I don't think pausing this study benefits anybody. It doesn't benefit Canadians and it doesn't benefit this process. In fact, right now I feel really bad for Mr. Dufresne for wasting his time. He's sitting here listening to this when we could be asking him vital questions that inform the study.
Mr. Perkins, I respect you greatly, but it seems like a colossal waste of the committee's time when we have witnesses here who could be informing this process. Why don't we move on with the process—
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON
I disagree. I think the minister communicated an openness and willingness to amend the bill, which is what you guys have been saying in the House. How can you fault a minister for that? Plus, a study normally has at least 10 meetings of witnesses. That will help inform the refinement of those general themes and ideas about how to amend the bill. I think that's very reasonable.
That's my perception of it. If members are willing, we could make sure that the minister and team provide more detail by the end of next week at the latest. That's what I would propose.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joël Lightbound
Just to make sure we're all on the same page, we're now debating the subamendment that Mr. Perkins has submitted. I would, however, volunteer a small comment. Based on the text of the motion, it asks for the production of certain documents “within five business days”. We have the PBO on Tuesday, so for the next five business days we're not studying Bill C-27. To me, then, it seems moot to add this subamendment.
If you want to maintain it, we can, but—
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
There's no obligation to provide that in five days. It's just a request from the committee.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joël Lightbound
Thanks for the clarification, Mr. Perkins. That adds some value to the subamendment.
We are discussing the subamendment right now, members. Please keep that in mind.
I'll go to Mr. Masse and then Mr. Drouin, Mr. Lemire and Mr. Williams.
4:15 p.m.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I appreciate Mr. Turnbull's intervention. I would encourage him to go back and listen to what took place. It still doesn't explain why the minister would be in front of the committee that day talking about the issue and then go to the public and do another announcement that he didn't want to share with the committee. That's more information about it.
However, let's go back specifically to what took place here and why I support this subamendment. I want to clean this up and get moving on this bill, but if we don't clean it up properly and start properly, we'll have to circle around again.
What took place was the minister sat there and said he had amendments. He then went through several things really quickly and presented them to us as amendments. Government members then referred to them as amendments. I raised a point of order to explicitly find out if they were amendments, and there was still the indication from the minister that he felt they were amendments.
We even spent our time questioning the minister about that. We not only wasted time today, if you view it that way, but we also wasted the time with the minister in front of us, because we couldn't responsibly ask him questions about what he was proposing as ideas.
The history of Parliament has been—for the most part, but not always—that the minister provides us with a copy of his or her remarks in advance. That's really the history and the best practices that often taken place. I think I've spent 17 of my 21 years in Parliament on this committee, and we often receive those. It helps everyone.
I don't understand how we can go forward again and use the time in a constructive way if we are speculating about what is or is not on the table. We're going to have to circle back anyway.
To be quite frank, I don't think it's the Conservatives with the motion here who are wasting the time with what's taking place. What's wasting the time is the government coming up with the claim that they were interested in moving this bill. They weren't prepared and they threw some stuff out at the last minute.
I don't know whether they were trying to be too cute with something or not, because they say that they don't have them. By saying they have amendments to ease off, I guess, the criticism they've heard about the bill that's coming forward and some of the criticisms that we've presented, they put themselves in this situation. I don't know how we can fix this by going through a speculative process.
I would suggest that if we do this process, another thing we can look at is that the NDP has split the bill into two different votes in the House of Commons. We have the privacy and the competition issues separated from the other, the third part. We could find a constructive way, then, to even separate the legislation if we wanted to and if there was consent. There are lots of things we can try to do, but I don't know how we go forward....
This actually goes to some of the roots of the workings of our parliamentary process right now. At one point in time, you didn't have a parliamentary secretary sitting at the table. That was actually brought in by Paul Martin because of the infighting going on with the Chrétien group that they'd had before, so they brought in parliamentary secretaries, and the committees now have a person at the table who has a set of information that's different from what the rest of the committee has. This is with no disrespect to Mr. Turnbull. It's everything else; everyone's been there. It was done under Harper as well. That's just the way it works, because of the connection to the ministers through the parliamentary secretaries.
We already have that, and then on top of that, we now have a situation in which we have specific information that might change the way the presentations are made in front of us, to which we can't provide any really intelligent response.
I support this, because I'd rather clean this up and do this right. I'd rather clean this up and do it properly. If it means extra work and whatever it is, I'd rather have that in front of me.
How am I supposed to do my work as a legislator, even with my own team, if I have no idea what the minister is serious about and not serious about? I'm going to spend time with the amendments I have, when they could be redundant, and then we all end up submitting the same thing anyway.
This is just.... I haven't seen anything like this in all my years—
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
I have a point of clarification, Mr. Chair.
I'm sorry. I'm new to this committee.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
Yes. There is such a thing as a point of clarification.
Has a date been set for clause-by-clause study at this committee yet?
4:20 p.m.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Again, we just had this happen in front of us after having the summer off.
I'll finish with this point again. I don't think I have another example of when this has been the case. In this committee right here, we had to take several time outs. Even the government, for their own amendments, had to take time outs to figure out whether they made sense or whether they worked or not as we were going through it, because it was confusing.
That's fine. I give the chair credit, because we got through it, and in the past, we've done this stuff really well, but we had to have time outs. I don't know of a committee that is taking time outs all the time because it's not prepared to vote on its own stuff at the moment.
How do we prepare ourselves properly? That's what I want to do, because I want the best legislation for people at the end of the day.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I'm listening closely to what's happening at committee, and I fully understand the subamendment that Mr. Perkins has submitted. I would remind my colleague Mr. Généreux that there seems to be a strong emphasis on the fact that the minister wished to propose an amendment. However, as we all know, ministers do not submit amendments to committees, committee members do. A minister never presents an amendment to a committee.
Of course, as the Minister of Official Languages did for Bill C‑13, which Mr. Généreux will remember quite well…
4:20 p.m.
Bloc
Sébastien Lemire Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
Point of order, Mr. Chair.
I invite the member to reread the transcript. The minister said it himself.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
No matter what he said, a minister cannot present an amendment to a committee. Those are the Standing Orders, and we must follow them.
