Evidence of meeting #3 for International Trade in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was amendment.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:20 p.m.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC
I've been very clear from the very beginning, Mr. Chair.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
Larry Miller Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
Thank you very much.
The one point that I'm going to make right off the bat is that Mr. Pallister's amendment in no way says that we bring a report to the House before the report is prepared. I never heard—
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
Larry Miller Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
It does not, and you know it, Peter. I have the mike. Anyway, it doesn't do that. It basically means report the subsequent report, once it's finished, to the House.
It has become very clear what is going on here now. Mr. Julian does have a hidden agenda, and he's bound to bring that forth.
Mr. Chairman, right off the bat, the first ones to speak up about the report were Mr. Maloney—and he knows that this is not standard practice in any other committee, and never has been—and Mr. Dhaliwal was the same way, and maybe Mr. Bains would have said the same thing, until Mr. Julian rushed down to tell him how to vote. So, Mr. Chairman, there's no doubt about how—
4:20 p.m.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC
You guys are getting really nasty. People are getting up and walking out. You have people in the back speaking.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
Larry Miller Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
So there's no doubt.
Navdeep, we're here as a committee, and you know as well as I do now—he all but admitted it—that the goal here is to shirk your duties as a committee in discussing this.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
Navdeep Bains Liberal Mississauga—Brampton South, ON
I made my intention very clear, Mr. Chair, in my remarks. If you want to, I can repeat them, but I don't want to repeat myself.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
Larry Miller Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
Can I have the floor and finish, Mr. Chair? I'll try to wrap up quickly.
There's no doubt about it that the goal here is to really not study this at all at committee; it's to get it before the House. As Mr. Pallister said, why would we want 300 other people to do our jobs for us?
John, you know that isn't right. You know this isn't right. It's never been done in any other committee, except when Mr. Julian has tried to do it in this committee, possibly in the past. It's not standard procedure. You prepare a report. You design what you want to talk about in it, which we do here as 12. No doubt that the opposition is going to get the topic study that they want, because they outnumber the government. So in no way does it curtail what the opposition parties want to do.
This is about one thing only, and it's not about studying it here in this committee. That's why I support this motion. It spells it out very clearly. And I can get a copy for Mr. Julian, who said he's never seen anything like it. There have been probably at least two motions from the agriculture committee in the last couple of years that we've dealt with. So it is not a precedent. In fact, I would argue very strenuously and be able to show that it's standard procedure to do it like this.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
Lui Temelkovski Liberal Oak Ridges—Markham, ON
Mr. Chair, in viewing the amendment that Mr. Pallister has put on the table, in my view inserting the word “study” doesn't change the intent or the final outcome of this, because I think it can be interpreted that the clerk would still have to report this study, this motion, to the House and then we will still have to vote on a motion to move the report later on after the study.
Whether we have “study” in there or not, I believe it's the same thing.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
Lui Temelkovski Liberal Oak Ridges—Markham, ON
If the intent is to have it struck out or not reported to the House, then maybe having a final report of the study, as opposed to just the study....
Personally, I need some more clarification from the procedural part of this, because I'm not sure whether this would have to be reported as is or not.
4:25 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Pallister Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
I think that's a legitimate concern. I could maybe help by just suggesting--
4:25 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Lee Richardson
If you had the floor, you might.
The clerk has anticipated the question and has written a note to me suggesting that to accomplish what I think it is that Mr. Pallister wants to achieve, it's to report this study, once completed, to the House.
Would that clarify what your agenda is, Mr. Temelkovski?
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
Lui Temelkovski Liberal Oak Ridges—Markham, ON
That would clarify his intent, because by inserting “study” in there, to me it doesn't clarify that it's that way.
4:25 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Lee Richardson
Would you still have to report this and allow...? So it's “the study, once completed,” reported to the House?
4:25 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Lee Richardson
Just for clarification, it has been proposed and accepted by the mover that it would now say at the end that “the committee report the study, once completed, to the House”.
It's making it clear that it's not this that's going to be reported to the House, but it is the study that's going to be reported to the House. That would be the nuance, that we would report to the House at the completion of the study. That is the intent of the current amendment that is now being debated.
We have Mr. Maloney on the speakers list.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
John Maloney Liberal Welland, ON
I would like to look for some direction from the clerk. Concerns have been expressed that perhaps an agreement could be struck while we are continuing this study, and that's why the desire is, apparently, to inform the House that we're conducting the study. I don't think anybody.... Maybe I shouldn't presume that.
I certainly would not want three hours of debate on what we intend to do. I agree with Mr. Pallister there.
Is there any way we can satisfy both--just inform the House what we're doing, but not needing their direction on how to do it?
Just as a final clarification, I take exception to any member suggesting there's any intention on my part with any amendments I have proposed this afternoon as working to try to get a compromise. I think there has been some strong language all around, and I think we should just cool our jets. Let's try to compromise and work this thing out.
4:25 p.m.
An hon. member
Hear, hear.
4:25 p.m.
An hon. member
Take a deep breath, hold hands, and sing Kumbaya.