Evidence of meeting #9 for Justice and Human Rights in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Bloc
Bloc
Luc Thériault Bloc Montcalm, QC
I said that I would not vote on a bill moved only in English. I will abstain, because I would likely vote against.
Although the substance does not strike me as necessarily incompatible with what I could accept, I find it disappointing that we are still where we are today. For the record, I would like this to be noted, and that at the very least, the French translation be acceptable.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
On a point of order, Madam Chair, given the issue of translation and given that we're now at one o'clock and given that we have a number of amendments left to consider, I would move that the committee now adjourn.
Liberal
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Iqra Khalid
Thank you.
We'll call the vote now for a motion to adjourn the meeting.
(Motion negatived: nays 6; yeas 5 [See Minutes of Proceedings])
We will continue the meeting.
Monsieur Thériault, just to address your concerns, and for clarity for all members—
Conservative
Rob Moore Conservative Fundy Royal, NB
On a point of order, Chair, in light of everything that we dealt with before, and in light of our wanting to work on this expeditiously but within the rules that we've set out, and given that MP Findlay raised a question of privilege earlier, we've been working on this for three hours now, and we're having an issue with translation, so what is the chair's intention? What should we as MPs do when we have a meeting that's scheduled to end now, presumably, unless...?
I want an answer on this issue, Chair. Conservatives have not been made aware of the intention to extend this committee, to start it early or to extend it. Have the other members of the committee been consulted? When do you plan to adjourn this committee meeting?
I refuse to believe that there's no one else on this committee who has anything else in their schedule for the rest of the day. When are we wrapping up this meeting that was scheduled to wrap up at one o'clock?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Iqra Khalid
Thank you, Mr. Moore.
I wish to thank all members for your hard work. Obviously, we want to get through Bill C-7 as much as possible.
The chair cannot adjourn a meeting without the majority consent of its members. We just had a vote, and the majority of the members voted to continue the meeting.
On the prerogative of the chair, and according to the rules, the meeting will continue on what is on the agenda.
Go ahead, Mr. Moore.
Conservative
Rob Moore Conservative Fundy Royal, NB
I have another point of order, Madam Chair.
What you just said, unfortunately, is factually incorrect. The chair can adjourn the meeting when the chair wants to adjourn the meeting. If you were to bang the gavel now and say, “Meeting adjourned“, then the meeting would be adjourned.
There's no reason not to adjourn the meeting now, and to pick up at our next scheduled meeting which, by my calendar, would be Tuesday at 11 o'clock eastern time.
I want to correct that, because the meeting, as scheduled, was scheduled to end at one o'clock. After everything we went through this morning with changes made to our schedule at short notice, we're doing it all over again.
I guess that during the whole conversation this morning, people weren't hearing when we said we wanted to try to respect each other's schedules so that we could work collaboratively on clause-by-clause consideration of this bill.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Iqra Khalid
Mr. Moore, I refer you to page 1099 in the book of procedure, which clearly lays out the circumstances under which an adjournment happens.
This morning you had questioned why members were not consulted. Here, during this meeting, members had the opportunity to vote on a motion to adjourn the meeting, and members chose not to adjourn the meeting. As chair, and as you had recommended in good faith earlier this morning, it is my prerogative to continue the meeting if members want to continue the meeting.
Under this majority vote, members have expressed that they would like to continue the meeting. I suggest that we go ahead and do so.
Mr. Thériault, I see your hand is raised on the same point of order.
Bloc
Luc Thériault Bloc Montcalm, QC
Madam Chair, according to what the clerk said, if we adopt this clause in English and French, we could not amend it afterwards and we would be stuck with a dubious translation. He added that the only way to proceed would be to move the clause in English only. A colleague mentioned that as we had reached the end of our allotted time, it might be worthwhile to correct that version so that it could be moved in English and French.
We are about to vote, and I see that there are some Liberal members who, while pretending that both of Canada's official languages are important, have denied my privilege to vote on a bill, a clause, in my language. I would therefore like my serious objection, to what I consider profound contempt towards those who voted against adjournment so that the clause could be presented in English and French, recorded. If this had happened at the beginning of the meeting, I would have understood people saying that it made no sense. But we are at the end of the meeting, have exceeded the allotted time and have been sitting for over three hours. I would ask my colleagues to think about their vote. I find this a fundamental infringement of my rights as a parliamentarian.
I would like someone to move to adjourn once again so that we can return to a state of parliamentary good faith and respect for the official language of my nation. People like to show recognition for all nations, and Quebec is a leader in that regard. But when the Quebec nation, in a parliamentary precinct, in a parliamentary debate of a clause-by-clause study, is told that it is not a serious matter to vote on the clause only in English, that is something I cannot accept. I hope that my Liberal and NDP colleagues, in response to a motion to adjourn, will reconsider their vote so that we can meet at a later date in a more dispassionate atmosphere.
It's foolish to take shortcuts simply because we want to pass a bill in a hurry, and to vote against all the amendments put forward so far, even though they would improve the bill. Moreover, we are not even sure that this review of the bill will go forward because there will be debate over the receivability of my amendment. I believe that a line was crossed today and that there was no respect for my language, the official language of Quebeckers who have the right to be heard and to vote in their own language in this Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Iqra Khalid
Thank you, Monsieur Thériault, for raising that very important point. I will clarify, though, before I turn to our legislative clerk—
Liberal
Arif Virani Liberal Parkdale—High Park, ON
Madam Chair, could I just intervene
in French with respect to Mr. Thériault's question of privilege.
Liberal
Arif Virani Liberal Parkdale—High Park, ON
The matter you raised, Mr. Thériault, is very important. I would like to begin by apologizing, as a Liberal member of Parliament, for having put forward an amendment only in English. I am dealing right now with the situation. I received a French translation of my proposed amendment a few minutes ago and have already sent it to the clerk.
I personally apologize for what happened. It is unacceptable and you are right once again to have pointed it out. I believe that it is also important to continue with the clause-by-clause review. That is why I voted against Mr. Cooper's motion.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Iqra Khalid
Thank you.
We'll turn to the legislative clerk now to provide some clarity.
Legislative Clerk
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I was going to say that an amendment could be proposed at report stage to correct the French version if need be, but again, I can't presume that the Speaker of the House will select it, since it could have been done here.
It's always possible to further amend what was adopted in committee, so there is a chance there to correct the French version if need be, or the English version, depending on the case.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Iqra Khalid
We do also, as a committee, have the ability to let this amendment stand while we get the proper translation of French and then move on, do we not?
The Clerk
Sorry, Madam Chair. What the committee could do is suspend, basically, the study of clause 1 altogether, not just the amendment. Skip that and go to studying clauses 2, 3, 4 and so on, and then come back to clause 1 at the end. However, once a clause is started, you can't suggest postponing a study of an amendment to go to the next amendment within the same clause.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Iqra Khalid
I leave it to the committee members to decide how they'd like to proceed on this. I was clarifying for Mr. Thériault that the original amendment NDP-2 was indeed submitted in both official languages, and the two NDP-2 amendments were also provided in both official languages. We've realized with our witnesses from the Department of Justice that there was some confusion in the translation. That is what we are trying to correct here. And one of the procedural ways to be able to—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Iqra Khalid
Sorry, Mr. Thériault, let me just finish what I'm saying here for a second.
One of the procedural ways in which it can be corrected is if the committee adopts only one language so that the interpreters can then translate effectively into French as well. But I leave it to committee members to decide.
Mr. Thériault, go ahead, sir.