Evidence of meeting #54 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 camera.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
Whoever is putting forward the amendment would be grandstanding—
Conservative
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
I would think that when we have the ombudsman here who wants to do what's right for our troops and for the Department of National Defence, I don't think grandstanding would be involved. This is about hearing about his proposition.
Liberal
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
I agree. The public should be hearing from him. We should be sitting here and hearing from him and asking him tough questions and getting answers.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would suggest that this is a public report and that the meeting should be in public. If it is in public, then what's the difference if it's televised or not, because everything will be on the record? People can listen in. This way, if it's televised, it saves the one obstacle of having the media make the request to have their cameras in here or to turn on the cameras in this room.
The thing is that Mr. Walbourne has a proposal that I think we should sincerely hear him out about, and make a determination on. That's why I said we should have one meeting. If we don't agree with it, if we don't think we need to do a report, we can make that determination after we hear from Mr. Walbourne. We can add meetings if we feel they are necessary.
I think if we are serious about having the ombudsman do the job without any impediments to how he goes about his daily business in support of our troops and those who work at the Department of National Defence, it would be irresponsible if we didn't hear from him in a public format.
Liberal
Sven Spengemann Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
I agree with James that we should hear from him.
My point on the in camera session wasn't so much about the possibility of grandstanding by any party. It would be unfortunate if that happened. It was more the sense that he may have some things to say that he would be more comfortable saying in camera, that he may not actually say in public, and that this committee could then either contemplate, as you say, in the form of a future report or just take under advisement for its own consideration. The value added may, paradoxically, actually be through an in camera session.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC
I guess I've always been an advocate of this being done in public and being as accessible as possible, and if it is televised, it's accessible to a lot more people. I think there are only very narrow grounds for our holding in camera meetings, and those are to do our own internal business or if national security is involved. I don't think there's any other reason we would be in camera, and if Mr. Walbourne had material he wanted to deliver in an in camera session, he would have requested that of us.
I met with him, and I don't believe that's the case, and if it comes to our deliberations about what has happened in the study and whether we want to submit recommendations, then normally we go in camera to discuss those. I think we should follow the normal procedures: make the meetings as accessible as possible, and then quite as normally, we would go in camera to discuss what we want to do with that information.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
Just for clarification, when we started this discussion, I specifically asked whether this was a study or a briefing, and I asked whether there should be recommendations.
The response Mr. Bezan gave was, “Yes, we might have some recommendations come out of it.” Therefore, it didn't make sense to me to have a meeting that is public in which we're forming these recommendations and we're doing the work of the committee that you're talking about. As far as I am concerned, if we're really interested in getting some good, solid information and asking these questions, then we should have him here, but I don't see the need to have all of this done in a forum that is televised. I don't see the point of it.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
I'm not hung up on it being televised, but it has to be public. If it is public, then there's an opportunity that media can televise it as well. I agree with Randall that we should be as transparent and open as possible. This is a public report and it's been out there since April, so there's no reason for us not to discuss it in a public manner.
Now, I'd like to remind committee members that when we do make decisions to draft reports or to make recommendations, we always do that in camera. That is the tradition of how this works, so I would not be interested in seeing us having that discussion in a public meeting. That should be for in camera purposes, but at the very least, let's have this one public meeting with Mr. Walbourne so we can hear from him and then we can determine whether or not it's a study after that fact.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Stephen Fuhr
Before that, we should remember that we're considering the wording “one public, televised meeting”.
Cheryl.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
If there is going to be a study, then, to address your concern and as Mr. Bezan mentioned, we would have a separate meeting that would be in camera to discuss the report, as we always do. So we're not discussing recommendations publicly; we're hearing the testimony publicly, preferably televised. That used to be the rule, not the exception, and we could go back to having an open and transparent committee.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Stephen Fuhr
It sounds as though debate is collapsing.
I'm going to call it. We're on the amended motion of Mr. Bezan for one public televised meeting.
Conservative
Liberal
