Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on Oct. 3rd, 2006

[The Clerk of the Committee]

Honorable members, I see a quorum. We will begin.

I'm ready to receive motions for the nomination of the chair of the subcommittee. The chair has to be a member of the government.

Ms. Minna.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Okay, that's been decided. In that case, I don't know who they decided on.

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

I would like to, if I may, nominate Kevin Sorenson as the chair.

[The Clerk]

There is a motion to nominate Kevin Sorenson as the chair.

Are there any other nominations?

The committee has heard the motion. Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the motion?

(Motion agreed to)

[The Clerk]

Would the committee like to proceed to the election of the vice-chair at this time?

I'm ready to receive nominations for the vice-chair.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

I nominate Mr. Silva be the vice-chair of the committee.

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

Do you need one or two vice-chairs?

[The Clerk]

That's up to the committee. The subcommittee has seven members, and we can have two, as we do in the main committee.

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

I'll nominate Caroline St-Hilaire.

[The Clerk]

Okay. We have two nominations.

[An hon. member]

Can we not just have two vice-chairs and that would be it?

[The Clerk]

Yes, we can.

Let's deal with the motion for Mr. Silva's nomination. Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the motion?

(Motion agreed to)

[The Clerk]

Mr. Silva will be the vice-chair for the opposition.

The nomination is for Madame St-Hilaire to be the other vice-chair for the opposition.

(Motion agreed to)

[The Clerk]

So we'll ask Mr. Sorenson to take the chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, colleagues.

We do have some routine motions. Do you want to deal with them tonight, or do you want to wait until our next meeting?

Mr. Menzies.

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Mr. Chair, do we need to deal with some of the structure of the committee as far as putting motions forward with 48 hours' notice?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

I think that's in the routine motions.

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Okay, sorry, I didn't mean to get ahead of you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

First of all, I'll just go through them.

There is a motion that the subcommittee retain the services of one or more analysts from the Parliamentary Information and Research Service of the Library of Parliament, as needed, to assist the committee in its work, at the discretion of the chair.

All in favour?

(Motion agreed to)

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

The chair doesn't have to read them all. I think we know them.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

We haven't had a chance to preview this before, so it's just so we all have a chance....

[The Clerk]

These are the same motions they had in the last Parliament.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

All right.

Are we all in favour of the second motion, that the chair be authorized to hold meetings to receive...?

(Motion agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

The next motion is to hear witnesses for ten minutes and then the allocation of party questions after, that they be allocated for seven minutes for the first round.

Is there any discussion on that? I know in other committees you do this a little differently. In some it's five minutes and more people get a chance, but seven minutes should be....

(Motion agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

This is that 48 hours' notice be given....

(Motion agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])