Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on May 27th, 2010

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Could you remind me again?

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

I'll offer it again, just for you.

It is that where you have the word “deplore”, it would say “express our very serious concerns with the decision”. It's not assigning guilt; it's saying that we as a committee have concerns.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

If Mr. Marston were to make a proposed amendment to that effect, would you be comfortable with the amendment and hence with the motion? If not, the floor goes back to you and to the motion you were trying to move.

We have to establish whether it was to table or to defer. He's trying to provide a helpful way out, but we won't abandon the order in which we were doing things, unless this is agreeable to you.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Well, no, it's not, and it's because, as I said, Mr. Chair, I have some real concerns with “and the government ensure that immigrant complaints will not be penalized”. There's an inference here that there's some action to penalize a group of people.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

I'm actually not looking for debate right now. What I'm looking for is a yes or no.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

No.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

So I got a no from you.

Let me ask the next question, Mr. Sweet. Are you making a motion to table, as Mr. Marston asked, which we can simply vote on without debate, or are you making a motion that involves actually making reference to bringing in a witness? One is debatable and one is not.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Well, a motion to table just means that we'll be dealing with it again, and we could vaporize another meeting. My concern here, Mr. Chair, is that we have important work to do. I don't want to delay things procedurally. My concerns are for the motion and my concern is getting back to the schedule.

I'll defer to Mr. Silva. Maybe he has a bridge here that we can work on.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Sure.

Mr. Silva.

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

I have two points.

One is that we haven't heard from Mr. Dorion whether he's in agreement with Mr. Marston's motion, which I could support, with his amendment. If Mr. Dorion is in agreement, maybe there will be much more of a consensus on this side.

The second thing is that Mr. Sweet could also decide that what he wants to do is just a deferral motion, which would be voted upon, and at the same time also give the 48-hour notice for the next meeting about what he wants to do with his motion. It could be a motion to call for witnesses. That's a separate motion, and it could be a motion that could be debated at that time and find more approval at that time as well.

The fact of his having moved for deferral doesn't prevent his moving another, additional motion to call for witnesses—not today, but he could decide to table it tonight, if he wants to.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Well, in fact, Mr. Chair, if we do it in the fashion Mr. Silva described, because we're debating this motion, I think it's germane to the business at hand and can be moved without notice.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Chair, can we hear Mr. Dorion's response as to whether he agrees with my proposal?

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

All right. Let's go back to that.

Mr. Dorion.

[Jean Dorion, Bloc, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

In a spirit of cooperation aimed at reaching a consensus, and considering that the really important objective of this motion is to make sure that immigrant complainants are not penalized, I would be willing to accept Mr. Marton's proposal, that is to say to amend my proposal as he suggested.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

All right. So, in the English version, we will change the motion as follows:

“that the Subcommittee on International Human Rights expresses”—

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

—“very serious concerns with”—

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

—“the decision”; then we carry on, and everything else is the same as before.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Everything else remains the same. I'm not trying to change the intent.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Okay.

There will be similar changes in the French version.

First of all, we once again need unanimous consent to do this. We have the mover's consent. What is the sense of the rest of the room? Is everybody agreeable to making that change? We'd then have to go back to debating the motion, but do we have consent to make that change?

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

No.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

All right; it stays with the word “deplore”.

I think that would be one way of doing it. That's without debate.

We're actually now, If you've made the motion, debating the motion, in which case, you would have the floor as the mover.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

First of all, I don't have any more to say on it. If we can't reach consensus, I'd like it to go to a vote.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

All right. Are there any further speakers?

If not, we'll go to a vote.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

I think we had talked about a way to deal with this, with a motion to defer. We had a vote; we thought it needed unanimous consent. I understand that our understanding now is that it needs a simple majority, so I'd like to go back to that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

All right.

I'm not sure. I'm going to find out which takes priority here, and then we'll.... One of those two is of a higher order.