Justice Committee on Nov. 19th, 2020

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

I was about to say, Madam Chair, that the amendment, as amended, was put forward by the Liberal Party, which it is perfectly entitled to do. But the French version is very shaky. That's why we are having this discussion and also why I cannot vote. The version in my language is inaccurate. We were also about to vote on the English version only, with corrections to be made to the French version afterwards. As a Quebec parliamentarian and representative of a—

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqra Khalid]

Mr. Thériault—

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Excuse me, Madam Chair, but I have the floor and have not finished.

As a Bloc Québécois member who received a million votes, I am here to speak out on behalf of Quebeckers. I would never agree to vote on a clause in a bill that is not in my language or that is imprecise. I made it a question of privilege. I did not ask for apologies; I asked that we adjourn debate so that we could have a properly worded clause to work with. That's really all there is to it.

I asked for a colleague to move that we adjourn so we could take the required action and hold another meeting at which everything was in order. It's easy to apologize afterwards, but had I not intervened, we would have voted on the English version and I would have abstained. When I said that I would have to abstain nobody seemed to take umbrage about it. I felt deeply hurt, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqra Khalid]

Thank you, Mr. Thériault, for raising this very, very important issue.

It is my understanding that the corrected French version has now been emailed to all members.

Mr. Thériault and all members, can you please check your email and confirm for me that you have the properly translated version in your inboxes of what is proposed as amendment NDP-2 with the friendly amendments?

I'll give all of you a minute to just look at your emails and see if you have any comments.

Go ahead.

Thank you.

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

On a point of clarification, Madam Chair, I don't understand what procedure we're operating under here. There has been a point of privilege raised by our colleague. We should be able to discuss this point of privilege. This may have just arisen now, three hours and 18 minutes into this meeting, but it may arise again. There may be other amendments to amendments that come up from the floor. It's about whether there is a legal translation in the French language if it's presented in English or a legal translation in English if it's presented in French. He has raised a point of privilege. We should be able to discuss that point of privilege. I appreciate that you are trying to facilitate something here, but procedurally we haven't dealt with the point of privilege.

I take my colleague's point that what was presented to him was not sufficient and that he is indeed even hurt by this, which I totally understand. I would probably feel the same way if the languages were in reverse. He has the right as a parliamentarian to look at this. If it were at the beginning of a meeting or even midway through where we had time to digest it, that's one thing. But, as I said, we're going into over three and a quarter hours here today. There is no reason.... As I said when I supported the motion to adjourn, this would allow for a proper legal translation to be presented, and we would come back fresh at our next meeting with those translations in place. He may very well be supportive of the amendment, but he should have the right to see it in a legal translation with enough time to digest it and look at it. It's a practical matter if nothing else, but surely it is a point of privilege that should be maintained.

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqra Khalid]

Thank you for that, Madam Findlay.

Mr. Lewis, is it on the same point of privilege or is it different?

[Chris Lewis, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Yes, it is. It's along the same lines as the point of privilege.

Earlier in today's meeting, towards the beginning, all but one of us voted to allow the other briefings to be received by the committee. I've understood that in the past, it takes 48 hours to get either the French or English translation done. I'm wondering, Madam Chair, a) when will we see those briefing notes, and b) are we going to ensure that Mr. Thériault—

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqra Khalid]

You already have, sir. Just to answer your question, Mr. Lewis—

[Chris Lewis, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqra Khalid]

—and to Mr. Thériault, the corrected French language has already been emailed to all members of the committee, and I was allowing everybody a minute to check your inboxes and review the language so that we can vote on this as properly translated, presented in both official languages, NDP-2.

Mr. Garrison, I see your hand up.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I am still dealing with a headset that is shorting out here.

I want to apologize to Mr. Thériault if I left the impression that we would proceed over his objections. It was not my intention. I think my remarks ended with my saying that it was not acceptable, Mr. Thériault. My intention was that if it was not acceptable to Mr. Thériault, then we could not proceed with that amendment.

I do apologize. I am still dealing with this shorting headset—

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqra Khalid]

Thank you, Mr. Garrison.

I see Mr. Maloney's hand is next.

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Thanks, Madam Chair. I'm going to leave aside the irony of the Conservatives pointing out that we're late in the meeting in dealing with this and that it's unfortunate we don't have more time.

To Mr. Thériault's point, I have respect for his point of privilege and I agree with him. One of my many deficiencies is that I am not bilingual and if it were presented in a language that I did not understand, I would want to have it translated as well. But I understand it has been circulated now, that a legal translation is now available to us, and I'm hoping that we can take a moment and allow him to review it in French and then we can proceed very quickly.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqra Khalid]

Thank you for that, Mr. Maloney.

I'll just turn to Mr. Thériault. Are you satisfied with the comments of our colleagues, as well as with the corrected French language that has been emailed to you? At this time, would you like to remove your point of privilege, or how would you like to proceed, sir?

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Madam Chair, I made myself clear.

I do appreciate the apologies from my colleagues. There is a question of privilege and some hands are still raised. Perhaps there ought not to be. I was waiting for people to finish what they had to say on my question of privilege.

As we have now been sitting for three hours and 23 minutes, I have asked for us to adjourn and return to the question at another meeting, once we have the translations in proper French checked over and approved. I'm done.

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqra Khalid]

Thank you, Mr. Thériault. I will clarify that as a member of this committee, you are welcome to move a motion at any time.

I'll go to Mr. Moore, who is next on the list.

Go ahead, sir.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Like Mr. Maloney, I'll resist the opportunity to point out the irony that the Liberals are trying to slam this very important legislation through, having some type of timeline that they'd like to be on when they, in fact, prorogued Parliament, delaying all legislation, ending all legislation, requiring that all legislation, all committee work, everything would have to start over from zero.

Now we have committees where, without notice, members of Parliament are being informed on very short notice that the times have changed. The chair is now unable to end the committee meeting when the committee has agreed.... Now we're all into this overtime session, and we're seeing rushed amendments that aren't properly translated.

To Mr. Thériault's question of privilege, I don't blame him in the least for this, because it's unacceptable and the result of a rushed process. It's not a process that we put in place.

Today, for the last two hours and 25 minutes things have moved along very well, considering that it's our job, as parliamentarians, to consider each amendment. It's our right, as parliamentarians, to consider them in our official language, whether that be English or French.

This is the product of trying to slam through legislation with only four days of witness testimony. That is not Mr. Thériault's fault. It's not the fault of the opposition members of Parliament. We're here. We're doing our jobs.

Presumably anyone who didn't know about this in advance is now cancelling things that they have scheduled between now and question period. I can't believe I am the only one on this committee who had things scheduled. I know some of my Conservative colleagues did. I presume that other members did.

Now, on Mr. Thériault's question of privilege, I want to say that I fully support him on this because it's his right, as a parliamentarian, to be able to deal with each clause in his official language.

This is a product of how things have been going. We had a good deal of discussion from about 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. on how we could work respectfully with each other. Then from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. eastern time, I thought we did just that. We had clauses; we dealt with them. We had amendments; we dealt with them.

This is what is going to happen now. We have a member of Parliament who has raised a question of privilege because of the rushed way this is going.

We have the opportunity now. When we had the motion to adjourn, I voted in favour, because we've been here for three and a half hours when we originally were supposed to be here for two hours.

We all have things to do, and we have a scheduled meeting for next week. I support Mr. Thériault's question of privilege, and I'm still in favour, of course, that we adjourn the meeting for today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqra Khalid]

Thank you.

I just want to seek a point of clarity from Monsieur Thériault. I apologize if I missed it. Mr. Thériault, did you move a motion to adjourn in your previous comments?

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

If I haven't done so yet, I'm doing it now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqra Khalid]

Well, because this is a non-debatable motion, we'll call the vote.

Mr. Clerk, please go ahead.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Madam Chair, could I have just a brief moment to consult with my colleagues on this matter?

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqra Khalid]

I'm sorry; the voting has already started, Mr. Virani. I can't at this time.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 10; nays 1)

Thank you.

The meeting is now adjourned.