I have a little statement I want to read to you. I'm taking the unusual measure of reading this statement because I want to deal with a procedural matter that arose before our subcommittee at our most recent meeting on May 6. At that time one of our members requested that the meeting not adjourn until a matter then before the committee be brought to a vote. This represented the first occasion since I've been chair of this subcommittee when we deviated from the practice of seeking a consensus on all matters.
From a procedural point of view, there's nothing wrong with moving, either on a periodic basis or as a matter of normal practice, from the more informal consensus model that has characterized this committee to the model that is used by most committees in which votes are held on most motions. However, this change requires me to become more formal as I conduct myself as your chair. I want to make it clear how I will act when again dealing with the issue of how to deal with the expiration of the clock when there is an unresolved motion on the floor of the subcommittee.
In order to do this, I have to make reference to some of what took place at that meeting, but because the meeting of May 6 was in camera, and I've moved the present meeting of this committee out of camera, I have to take care to respect the in camera convention by making no specific reference to the members of the subcommittee or to the subject matter of the business that was dealt with at that time.
My purpose in speaking to you now, out of camera, is to publicly establish how I'll deal with the kind of procedural problem that arose at that meeting, and I want to do this in public for two reasons. First, it's because the Hansard of our public meetings will be available for all of you to peruse in relatively short order, thereby allowing you to have a written text of what I'm about to say. If the meeting were held in camera, there'd be no way for you to have access to this information other than by visiting the clerk in his office. Secondly, it's because I want any outside observer of this subcommittee to be aware of the strenuous efforts I am making to maintain order by remaining strictly obedient to the Standing Orders. Therefore it's important that the understanding of the Standing Orders on which I will base my future actions is visible to everybody.
I turn now to the meeting of May 6. At 1:59 p.m.--that is to say, one minute prior to the time at which the meeting was scheduled to end--one of our members moved a motion that had earlier been received by the clerk and that was in order. Another member began to speak to the motion and within a minute or two of that, I adjourned the meeting, at about 2:03 p.m.
This seemed to the first member to be an inappropriate action on my part, and he contacted me after the fact to indicate his concern. I believe he was sincerely of the belief that in adjourning the meeting I was in breach of the Standing Orders.
I appreciate the sincerity of my colleague's belief in this regard. However, I believe the Standing Orders require all meetings of all committees to adjourn precisely at the time noted on the agenda of the relevant meeting for their adjournment, unless some action has been taken to deviate from the normal course of affairs in order to permit the meeting to continue.
There are three ways in which such a deviation may take place. First, the committee could agree to incorporate a change to its rules, causing meetings to continue indefinitely until a motion to adjourn is introduced by a member of the committee and voted upon by the committee. This is how things are done at many meetings conducted under Robert's Rules of Order. Once such a rule is adopted, it would be binding upon us at all future meetings, and I would behave as I do when I chair meetings off Parliament Hill, under Robert's Rules of Order. When business seems to be winding up, I would ask members whether anyone would like to propose a motion to adjourn, and if such a motion is made, a vote would be held and that would decide the matter.
We are of course free to adjust certain aspects of our own rules of order, and just last week we did so, reducing the length of time of first-round questions to witnesses during the remaining Omar Khadr hearings.
Second, a committee member could propose and the committee would then debate and vote upon a motion to in some way extend that particular meeting of the committee then in progress. Our subcommittee has never engaged in this particular way of doing things, but this course of action is always available to us.
And third, the committee can easily agree to extend any given meeting as long as unanimous consent is sought and found, and this of course is the method I've used on the occasions when we have had to run over time in order to give our witnesses more time to make their presentations.
However, in the absence of one of the three methods cited above, all meetings ended exactly at the scheduled time, and not a moment later. Nor for that matter will they end a moment earlier unless there has been a majority vote on a motion to adjourn or unanimous consent.
Procedurally this is the case because the rules that bind the House of Commons require it to adjourn its proceedings at precisely scheduled hours, which are laid out in Standing Order 24, with provisions for their periodic modification laid out in Standing Orders 25, 26, and 27.
Standing Orders 26 and 27 relate to special circumstances with no parallel in the realm of committee business, but Standing Order 25 makes it clear that business adjourns at the scheduled time unless specific provisions have been in advance.
I quote Standing Order 25:
When it is provided in any Standing or Special Order of this House that any business specified by such Order shall be continued, forthwith disposed of, or concluded in any sitting, the House shall not be adjourned before such proceedings have been completed except pursuant to a motion to adjourn proposed by a Minister of the Crown.
This rule is made binding upon us by the application of Standing Order 116, which states,
In a standing, special or legislative committee, the Standing Orders shall apply so far as may be applicable, except the Standing Orders as to the election of a Speaker, seconding of motions, limiting the number of times of speaking and the length of speeches.
In consequence, I'll continue to dismiss all meetings at the time noted in the agenda unless instructed to do otherwise by one of the three means I outlined above.
Thank you.
Is there any other business?
Then we are adjourned.
