Justice Committee on Feb. 28th, 2012

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Thank you.

I think those are all my questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

Are there no questions? Okay.

Seeing no further questions, we've made our rounds of the committee. We need some time and there is another committee coming in behind us. We have to vacate the room.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

We have the room till one o'clock, do we not? We were going to meet at 12:45. I'm just wondering, given that we have five witnesses here, if there would be time for another round. I'm interested. We talk a lot about the citizen's arrest, but there are some other points on the self-defence provisions I would like to ask the guests about.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

It's up to the committee. You've completed round one.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

You may not see any sense in another round, but we have a two-hour meeting, and according to the schedule, at 12:45 we're going to consider committee business. But it being 12:25, and the meeting being set for two hours and we have five witnesses in front of us with considerable experience in the criminal law, I certainly feel it's my entitlement to continue to ask questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

I would say to you, Mr. Harris, that I did give your side quite a bit more time than the other side to start with. But it's up to the committee.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

I wasn't measuring the time, but if the committee wants to shut down the committee and not allow further questions of the witnesses, that's the committee's decision.

[An hon. member]

Is that a motion to adjourn?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

If we adjourn, then the meeting is over. I think what you want to do is suspend and go to the next scheduled agenda.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Do you need a motion for that?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

That's right. It's motionable, not debatable.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Recorded vote.

Can I hear the motion, please?

[Robert Goguen, Conservative, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

The motion is that we suspend and go to the next part of the session.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Record the vote, please.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 6; nays 4)

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

The committee will stand down for two minutes.

[Giuseppe Battista]

Before we stand, on the last question, we should maybe be able to answer. She was asked a question about whether she was an analyst or gave a conference or something at the Liberal Party, and she did not understand what the question was.

Can she at least explain that?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

I'll give you a minute to correct that record.

[Nicole Dufour]

Thank you very much.

The Barreau du Québec was invited as part of the convention that the Liberal Party held to discuss Bill C-10. It was the organization that was invited, and it was completely non-partisan, as we had advised.

That was not exactly the gist of the question that Mr. Jean asked me. I simply wanted to provide details on my organization's presence at that convention. I would also be pleased to take part in a Conservative Party convention to address the same topics. It was completely non-partisan.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

Thank you very much.

I'd like to thank the panel for being here today. It's been most informative.

Thank you very much.

We'll reconvene in five minutes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

I call the meeting back to order to deal with future business. I hope the committee realizes that this is in public. We'll carry on in public unless there's a motion to do otherwise.

Everyone has been provided with a list of bills that have been referred to the committee, and I believe there's one more that we anticipate. It hasn't been referred yet, but there's a potential for one more to be referred to committee.

We still have on our plate a couple of things we need to finish off, along with the report on organized crime, so to assist the clerk of the committee in setting a schedule, we need to have some direction.

Please go ahead, Mr. Goguen.

[Robert Goguen, Conservative, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

I've discussed this with Mr. Harris.

We're proposing that on Thursday, March 1, we have more witnesses on Bill C-26. That brings us to the following Tuesday, March 6, and Mr. Harris would like to have the officials questioned. Depending on the length of the questions, and depending on any amendments and consideration of the amendments, it would be possible, potentially, to go to clause-by-clause after that. There are five clauses. We don't know at this point where that will lead, but that's sort of the option we're heading to there.

If for some reason we couldn't go to clause-by-clause because of the length of the questions, we would then put the clause-by-clause to March 8—again, there are only five clauses—and possibly look at the report on organized crime, which I don't think, potentially, would take that much time.

That brings us to March 13, and we would propose to have Minister Nicholson come to testify on the supplementaries. That leaves us March 15, before the break. Then we would propose to do Bill C-310, which is on trafficking in persons.

Obviously it's proposed; it's a plan. Does it come out that way? It remains to be seen, but that's what we're proposing as a schedule.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

May I have your comments on witnesses on Bill C-310?

Mr. Harris.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Let's talk about the schedule first, if I might comment on that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

Yes.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Okay.

Mr. Goguen and I have had some discussions. Generally speaking, I don't have an objection, although I want to put on the record our interest in having the officials back here. We haven't heard all the witnesses yet, but so far we've heard some significant suggestions from the witnesses, particularly the Canadian Bar Association and the Barreau du Québec, about the provisions that are here. We would like to, as we said at the beginning, bring the officials back to have further discussion with them, based on the evidence we have heard and will hear. We would like an opportunity, and we suspect it will be required—but I'll concede that it may not. I'd suggest it's more likely that we would want to have an opportunity to reflect on what the officials have to say in response to the evidence we've heard, and then the time that's required, if necessary, to propose amendments for consideration at clause-by-clause.

So I wouldn't be optimistic at all about us moving immediately to clause-by-clause on March 6. Mr. Goguen said that we might move to clause-by-clause on March 6. I'm suggesting that's unlikely.