Evidence of meeting #26 for National Defence in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was information.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
You guys essentially want to set it up so you have seven against four.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
Don't tell me you didn't do that a year and a half ago.
Liberal
Sherry Romanado Liberal Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC
Thank you.
I want to double-check. When we met on February 18, we passed some routine motions. One of them that we made sure we adopted was:
That, unless otherwise ordered, each Committee member be allowed to be accompanied by one (1) staff person at in camera meetings and one (1) Whip staff from each party.
I remember a debate about whether or not interns could be there, and that's why we said no, it has to be a staff person. I think that clarifies—
Liberal
Sherry Romanado Liberal Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC
No, but we're saying that you're only allowed to be accompanied by one staff. That's it, so there's no—
Liberal
Liberal
Liberal
Liberal
Sherry Romanado Liberal Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC
I want to make sure that I'm understanding this correctly. We've already passed this motion. To me, it's very clear that we cannot have extra people in the room without consent, if I understand this motion correctly.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
I was just confused. Are we talking about motion number two now?
Liberal
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
Okay. Well, that's what motion number two seems to address, so that's why I was....
For the record, for the blues, because this is public, I do not want to sit on the other side of the table.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Stephen Fuhr
Is there any more discussion on this? There's obviously a will to make it a little more formal and restrictive.
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Stephen Fuhr
We'll have the clerk call the recorded vote.
(Motion negatived: nays 5; yeas 4)
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Stephen Fuhr
Okay. That motion's defeated.
Mr. Bezan, you have the floor for your second motion.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
Okay, I'll move ahead with the second motion although I'm very disappointed. I move:
That, pursuant to Standing Order 119, unanimous consent be required to allow Parliamentary Secretaries to participate in the proceedings of the Committee, either during debate or during the questioning of witnesses.
Just so everyone knows, Standing Order 119 reads:
Any Member of the House who is not a member of a standing, special or legislative committee, may, unless the House or the committee concerned otherwise orders, take part in the public proceedings of the committee, but may not vote or move any motion, nor be part of any quorum.
Again, this is to add clarity to the Liberals' own mandate letter from the Prime Minister to the government House leader that says they're going to change the rules that ministers and parliamentary secretaries no longer have a vote on committees. If you look at the Liberal book of campaign promises, you see they said that they are going to remove the ministers and parliamentary secretaries from interfering with committees.
Just to take that one step further and to help the Liberals honour that campaign promise, we should actually ensure that a parliamentary secretary only is allowed to participate in the proceedings of our meetings, including asking questions of witnesses, if there is unanimous consent to do so.
Again, it wasn't our decision to take parliamentary secretaries off committee. It was a decision by the Liberals. When I was parliamentary secretary of defence, I got to participate in committee meetings because I was a member of the committee. Unfortunately, that was a decision by the Prime Minister to remove parliamentary secretaries from committee.