International Trade Committee on Feb. 20th, 2007

[Piers Cumberlege]

I think there is absolutely no doubt that you can do business ethically in Russia—obviously we strongly recommend it to all our members—and that you can do good business ethically in Russia. You need to choose your partners and ensure that you are doing that.

I wouldn't say that corruption is the greatest barrier. I would say that the legacy perception of the 1990s is actually probably still the greatest barrier to Canadian business in Russia. We talked about it earlier today. There is a perception that is taking a long time to go away; you referred to it yourself.

We are trying to get out the message that actually that perception is outdated and that you can do business efficiently and ethically in Russia. And the trade statistics show, with a doubling during the last two years, that Canadian companies are beginning to recognize that.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Lui Temelkovski]

Thank you very much, Mr. Julian.

I'd like to thank you, Mr. Dupont and Mr. Cumberlege, for your excellent presentations. You are welcome to stay and watch the proceedings. They will be very exciting, I anticipate.

Mr. Menzies, please present your motion.

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to present this motion. With all due respect to those who have to leave by 1 o'clock or have other meetings that they need to be at, let me read the motion: That any Member of the Committee have the right to issue a dissenting opinion on any report presented to Parliament by the Committee within the conditions imposed by the Committee and in accordance with the Standing Orders of the House of Commons, and call for debate to be limited to 10 minutes, respecting the fact that we have other places to go.

Mr. Chair, I look at this as a friendly motion, and I've talked to all parties involved. I go back to the dark days when I was an opposition member of this House, and I was often looking for an opportunity, as an opposition member, to voice my opinion, which may not have been the opinion of the entire committee. In my discussions with the clerk, I find out that probably this is simply a housekeeping motion that we should have done at the beginning of this term, and we didn't do that.

So to me, Mr. Chair, this is simply cleaning up an oversight that this committee failed to cover. It provides an opportunity to all members of this committee—every member of the opposition and every member of the government side—if they don't agree with a report coming out of this committee, to make that public statement that they don't necessarily agree with the report coming out of that committee.

It's an expression of democracy, and that's the way I would like to put this forward.

I'm looking forward to the support of everyone. I'm certainly looking for unanimous support for this.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Lui Temelkovski]

Thank you very much, Mr. Menzies.

Perhaps I could add some procedural precisions into the motion.

Where you say, “That any Member of the Committee have the right to issue a dissenting opinion on any report presented to Parliament,” it should read “the House of Commons” as opposed to “Parliament”.

As well, in front of the word “presented”, we should add “to be”.

That's on the advice of our good clerk.

Number two, I understand you continued after the motion that we have. Again, that is stretching a little bit. It's a little bit too far. Therefore it's unacceptable.

So we will continue with the motion we have with some of the procedural changes that have been recommended by our good clerk, and I believe you will find support on that.

Mr. Julian.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have some questions, and then I'll ask for my name to be put back on the speakers list later on for comments.

First, what would that mean, on a practical basis, in accordance with the Standing Orders of the House of Commons? I'll take, for example, the concurrence report that this committee brought forward to the House of Commons. It was debated on yesterday in the House and will be voted on this evening. What would that mean on a practical basis? Would it mean, indeed, that this committee would be presenting two reports because the government was not in favour of that motion and not in favour of the concurrence report?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Lui Temelkovski]

Perhaps our good clerk could explain that to us.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Normand Radford]

A dissenting opinion is not an official part of the report. It's an annex to the report. The report stands by itself.

So it's it's an annex to the report, if you wish. It doesn't influence the report, per se, so it would not have an impact in the House at all.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

As a supplementary to that, the concurrence report that was presented yesterday would have been presented by the chair, after adoption here, without the dissenting opinion.

[The Clerk]

What would be presented would be the report, and as an annex, the dissenting opinion. If you were to vote in favour of the report in the House, the dissenting opinion would have no bearing on that. You're voting on the report, which is exactly what you have at this moment. It's simply additional background, supplementary information indicating that a member has or some members have a different view from the official report.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

So they would be attached to the report. They would add some confusion to the report itself, in a sense. You would have the report that comes from the committee and then you would have other comments coming from members.

With this particular motion, that would mean we could conceivably have five different filed reports, along with the committee report.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Lui Temelkovski]

Yes, we could, but in the House, according to what I understand, the members would be voting only on the report, not on any of the dissenting opinions or attachments to the report. So when the report goes to the House, it will have two or three extra pages, or whatever additional comments there are, and they will not form part of the report. They will be additions to the report and not voted on.

[The Clerk]

After the signature of the chair.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Lui Temelkovski]

So the report ends with the signature of the chair, and the additional dissenting opinions would be added on afterwards.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

That's certainly helpful, but I would hope we have the chance to consult with our respective caucuses on this issue.

Mr. Menzies has served notice of his motion, but I hope he won't push this forward today. I hope he would allow us to consult, if he'd like to see a consensus on this issue.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Lui Temelkovski]

Okay.

Mr. Epp.

[Ken Epp, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

First of all, I used to know the Standing Orders off by heart, but I'm getting old and I've forgotten them now. Maybe the clerk can help me.

Is there not a place in the Standing Orders that says that any member of Parliament, let alone parties, can append a dissenting report, and that this report can be printed as an appendix in the report of a committee? Is that not in the Standing Orders?

[The Clerk]

Mr. Chair, it is in the Standing Orders, but I believe the word would be “may” and not “shall”. So the convention, if you wish, or the practice has been for the committee to grant permission for those dissenting opinions.

[Ken Epp, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

Chair, I know there are some members here who are relatively new to the House, and I've been here for all too long. I would like to just share with them that during the years I've been here, there were times when we had five parties. What the committee did, quite often, was simply say, you may have a dissenting report; however, you must restrict it to two pages or whatever.

The committee made that decision, and it was attached as an appendix. We would have the main report from the then ruling Liberal Party, followed by four dissenting opinions about this report. It was clear and succinct so that the position was clearly laid on the line. So it also bears the weight of previous practice.

Thank you very much.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Lui Temelkovski]

Monsieur Cardin.

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

Clarification questions were asked. They somewhat confirm what I saw and what I thought I knew: under the Standing Orders, we can in fact issue a dissenting report.

In my opinion, the term “may” doesn't necessarily mean either that we legally have the committee's permission. When I had occasion to do so, I of course did it on behalf of the party. I didn't even have to request consent because it was automatic. The Chair signed a report to which the dissenting report was simply appended. I don't see why we would establish those kinds of rules, when they already exist under the Standing Orders.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Lui Temelkovski]

My understanding from previous committees I have sat on is that you would always ask for permission to put in a dissenting report or a dissenting opinion for an amendment. It's not an amendment, it's just a dissent. It's not a report.

Monsieur André.

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

In the same perspective, if I correctly understand the rules of the House of Commons, when you request it, it's entered in the committee's report. We want to make it automatic in that perspective. In any case, we can do so if we wish. As a result, a committee member can give a dissenting opinion within a report.

So I don't really see the point of this motion, since we can do it. Why would that necessarily become automatic? I think that's binding ourselves to a formality. Is that necessary? Does the fact that what this motion is proposing doesn't currently exist prevent us from operating properly under the current rules of the House of Commons, the rules of the committees?

I wonder what the strategy behind all that is. We're wondering a little about the relevance of this motion.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Lui Temelkovski]

Monsieur André, to submit a dissenting opinion, you need the authority of the committee. You must have that: not may, but must.

Monsieur Bruinooge.

[An hon. member]

Can we call the question on this motion?

[An hon. member]

Yes, good idea.