National Defence Committee on Dec. 4th, 2025

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Yes, get it before.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Absolutely. “Five days” is not realistic. Let's be honest. You need time to produce this. I would say, “before the next meeting on Bill C-11”, for sure. I don't think we're going to be able to get it in five days. I don't want to put something out there that we know is not going to happen.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—Acton, QC]

I think the next meeting is in five days.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

The next meeting on Bill C-11 is going to be, hopefully.... We don't know when Justice Fish is available. We don't know if he's available next week. We said that we're moving clause-by-clause into the new year. It will be the end of January before the House comes back. I don't know Mr. Fish's availability. He may not even be here next week. Let's see if we can get Justice Fish scheduled to come.

I think it's reasonable to say, “before we start clause-by-clause”, absolutely. I agree.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—Acton, QC]

It’s not that. In the beginning, when you were saying, “before the next meeting on Bill C‑11”, I thought that would be Tuesday, which is five days from now. If you are talking about clause-by-clause consideration, then that is a different story. I just wanted to clarify.

That said, what concerns me is that Mrs. Romanado’s proposal does not send clear instructions and ask for documents to be produced by a certain date. We do not even know ourselves when the meeting will be. We are asking them to produce the documents before our meeting, but we don’t know when that meeting will be held. That is all I am saying.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Could we say, “before we start clause-by-clause”? Would that be sufficient?

Before we begin clause-by-clause consideration—

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—Acton, QC]

However, we do not know when that will happen.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

We just adopted a motion saying that we are going to postpone clause-by-clause consideration until January.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—Acton, QC]

Yes, but, as you said, we may not be able to hold that meeting if Mr. Fish is not available or for other reasons. That meeting may be held the second week of February rather than the last week of January.

How are we indicating that in this motion? We are requesting documents and saying that they will have to be submitted eventually. That’s all I’m saying.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Let’s put that back in the other motion that we just adopted. We said that we would not start clause-by-clause consideration until Parliament comes back at the end of January. If Mr. Fish is not available next week, then that would mean that he might only be available at the end of January, so we would not be able to start clause-by-clause consideration until early February, given that we need that MOU before we begin clause-by-clause consideration.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—Acton, QC]

I understand that and that is what we want too, but my concern is this. If I was the one responsible for producing the documents and I got this order from the committee, the first thing I would want to know is how much time I have to produce those documents.

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

Let's recap. We already have a unanimous motion that we've passed with regard to your proposal regarding Mr. Fish and so forth. That's already in.

Now we have a motion put forth by Mr. Bezan, amended by Ms. Romanado and subamended. Can I have a recap on the subamended motion? Clerk, do you want to recap where we are, please?

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ariane Calvert]

My understanding is that the subamendment of Monsieur Savard-Tremblay is to remove the “as soon as possible” and keep the “no more than five days”.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—Acton, QC]

If Mrs. Romanado wants to choose a more realistic deadline, then I would support that, but we need to include it in the motion. In other words, we can’t say something vague like “before such and such meeting” when a date has not yet been set for the meeting in question.

I'm not sure if Mrs. Romanado heard me since she is in the midst of a discussion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

I think what I understood, if I may interpret, was to have it before clause-by-clause.

We have Mr. Bezan first, and then Ms. Romanado.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

On a point of order, you have a subamendment that removes “as soon as possible” from the amendment proposed by Ms. Romanado. We should deal with that. Then they have a chance to modify, to make a subamendment to the amendment, if that's so chosen, and then we can go there.

Let's vote on this as soon as possible.

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

Yes, that—

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—Acton, QC]

I want to consider Mrs. Romanado’s concern about the deadline being unreasonable. I don’t have a problem with choosing a more reasonable deadline, but I don’t think that tying the deadline for producing documents to a meeting that will take place on an as-of-yet unknown date is a good thing. Why not ask for them to be produced for when Parliament resumes in January, for example? Would that be better? At least we know when the House is scheduled to resume.

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

We are still in debate. We're in debate on the subamendment, so let's continue with that debate. I think we're debating the terminology of when that date should be.

Go ahead, Ms. Romanado.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

I'm fine with dealing with the subamendment. It makes it a lot cleaner, but I think it would be helpful if we could have two seconds to talk, because I think we can come up with a time, a solution.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Let's vote on the subamendment first.

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

I can suspend so we can discuss this very quickly.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Clear out the subamendment first.

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

We can.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Then we can deal with the amendment.