Evidence of meeting #80 for Natural Resources in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was point.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal George Chahal
Thank you, Mr. Simard, for your point of order.
Mr. Patzer, I believe that Mr. Simard has an important point of order, to be clear on the moving of your subamendment for the record.
Thank you for your intervention, Mr. Simard, on a point of order.
I'll go to Mr. Aldag on a point of order.
Liberal
John Aldag Liberal Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
This is a question of procedural admissibility.
The subamendment seems to be speaking to other parts of the motion than just what was moved as an amendment by Ms. Stubbs. We seem to be getting into different parts of the motion beyond the amendment. Is it allowable as a subamendment, or do we need to go with the amendment and then go to a different amendment? I'm procedurally unclear here.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal George Chahal
Thank you for your point of order. It's a very relevant point of order.
I'm going to chat with the clerk here momentarily and then I'll get back to you.
Thank you, Mr. Aldag, on your point of order.
Mr. Patzer, I would advise you that the amendment you were proposing was looking to amend the original motion. It's not on the amendment on the floor that Ms. Stubbs has brought forward.
Your subamendment would not be in order unless you were amending Ms. Stubbs' amendment. If you have an amendment on the main motion, you'll have to wait until we deal with Ms. Stubbs' amendment that's currently on the floor.
We'll go back to you.
Conservative
Jeremy Patzer Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
Part of my subamendment is going to get to part of Ms. Stubbs' amendment. Based on what you said, I'm making sure that I'm absolutely clear on this, because I will be amending her amendment as well.
Can I do both at the same time? Is that correct?
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
I have a point of order.
There's an amendment, and to add a subamendment is to amend the amendment. You can't say that you'll do the amendment while you then do the main motion. That would be inadmissible. Either he has a subamendment to the amendment or it's out of order, and we return to the speaking order that you have in place.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal George Chahal
Thank you, Mr. Angus.
Mr. Patzer, you cannot, at all, amend the original motion. You can only amend, in your subamendment, what is currently on the floor that Ms. Stubbs has presented. Any amendment that touches the original motion is inadmissible. Your subamendment should only deal with the component that was presented by Ms. Stubbs in her amendment. Later on, if you want to bring forward an additional amendment to the main motion, you have every right to do so at that time.
I hope that clarifies the process and procedure.
Did I hear another point of order? I just want to be clear. I may just be hearing things in my old age.
Okay, the floor is yours, Mr. Patzer.
Conservative
Jeremy Patzer Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
I'm making the case that the five meetings that we have in the amendment are going to impact the dates as part of the original motion. The amendment is substantive to the rest of the motion and needs to be ferreted out. I was under the impression that with the amendment, we had a text of a new motion to work with.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal George Chahal
Because we have not adopted anything, we're still in debate. The amendment, only if adopted, will impact the original motion. Because we have not adopted the amendment, there's no impact to the original motion unless you choose to go to a vote so that we can decide to adopt it or not.
You're potentially proposing a subamendment. What I've articulated is that your subamendment can only amend Ms. Stubbs' amendment. We're debating Ms. Stubbs' amendment right now, and we should focus the debate on Ms. Stubbs' amendment. If you have a subamendment to amend Ms. Stubbs' amendment, I look forward to hearing it. Other committee members, as well, are quite excited to hear your new subamendment to Ms. Stubbs' amendment.
Conservative
Jeremy Patzer Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
Okay. Thank you. I was getting to a part that would actually do that as well.
If you would accept my—
Conservative
Jeremy Patzer Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
Yes, indulge.
Now we're having a back-and-forth here. It's funny how that doesn't get a point of order from other folks, but it's all good. I don't mind. It's a collaborative approach. I don't mind a little friendly banter around the table. It's respectful, so I don't mind it.
I'll indulge the committee—to use my friend across the way's term.
I guess I have to withdraw the point I was making about the dates because I guess it's out of order as far as it would go as being a subamendment. I'm trying to make the case, though, for what will need to be fixed when we adopt my colleague's amendment.
I'll speak to that point of it right there. As we go through this motion.... I'm hoping that my colleagues will vote to accept the amendment, but once we accept the amendment, we're going to have to deal with the issue of the dates. That's what I was trying to establish, Mr. Chair, and I've been corrected by my colleagues as to how to properly do that.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal George Chahal
Mr. Patzer, we have a point of order from Mr. Angus.
Go ahead, Mr. Angus.
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Since the subamendment is out of order, we need to get to it, but if Mr. Patzer is very focused on the subamendment, he could bring the amendment to a vote. We could vote on the amendment, and then we could either dispense or deal with his subamendment. If he keeps going back on his subamendment and how he needs to have.... We need to deal with the amendment, so I would encourage him to just vote for the amendment, and then we could deal with that.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal George Chahal
Thank you, Mr. Angus, for your point of order.
Mr. Patzer, continue on if you'd like to make a subamendment, and let's make it clear that it's a subamendment. If you want to move to a vote, I'm sure colleagues would look forward to having that as well. I'll cede the floor to you.
Conservative
Jeremy Patzer Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
Just to help out my colleagues here, I guess, I will put my subamendment forward. I'm going to move a subamendment to the amendment, which won't deal with the rest of the motion.
I would like to amend the amendment. It would be after point b). This would be a new point c) of the original amendment, for the sake of ordering. “That the committee invite witnesses from Sudbury”. That would be my subamendment, that we specifically invite witnesses from Sudbury.
That would mean point c) would become “d) report its findings and recommendations to the House”, and d) would become “e) pursuant to Standing Order 109, request that the government table a comprehensive response to the report.”
I think it's important to make sure we get witnesses from all across the country. That's why I wanted to move that particular subamendment. It is easy for us to focus solely on people from Coronach, Rockglen, Willow Bunch and Assiniboia. I talk about those folks all the time.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal George Chahal
Mr. Patzer, we have a point of order from Mr. Angus.
Go ahead, Mr. Angus.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
I'm really trying to figure out what this subamendment is, but amongst all the talking from Mr. Patzer, I haven't been able to. Could he get it to us in writing? I don't know, but perhaps my colleagues would want it in both official languages. I can't really talk about a subamendment. I need to see what it is. It seems like he's moving a lot of pieces around. Could we just stop and have the subamendment brought forward in both official languages, and then we could carry on?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal George Chahal
Thank you, Mr. Angus.
Mr. Patzer, I think you are done with the subamendment, or almost done. Once you are finished, and it's on the floor, we will endeavour to get it translated as quickly as possible, unless you have it already translated.
I'll turn the floor back over to you to finish presenting more closing on your subamendment.
Conservative
Jeremy Patzer Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Of course, the problem here—
Liberal
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
I'm not trying to be obstructive, but if I can't tell what the subamendment is, I don't think it's fair, for Mr. Patzer's time, that he has to talk about something that we're all not clear on.
I'd rather see what he has, and then give him the floor so we could hear whether or not what he's saying makes sense. I'm not sure what's being talked about because I don't see the subamendment, so I don't think we can proceed until we have the subamendment, in both official languages, that we could look at. Then, we could give the floor to Mr. Patzer to explain it to us, and he may win the argument.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal George Chahal
Mr. Patzer, there is a bit of confusion. If you are finished with your amendment, because you said you're presenting a subamendment, could you clearly and concisely read in your subamendment for the interpreters as well? If you have it in writing, you could send it through so members and the clerk have a copy of your subamendment.
If you could be very clear on that, it would help not only members in the room but also those who are attending virtually, so we would know what we would potentially be voting on.
Conservative
Jeremy Patzer Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
Thank you.
My common-sense subamendment to the common-sense amendment was simply, after b), including this. It would be a new (c) in the ordering of things. It's coming after “for one hour each” and then “c) including witnesses from Sudbury”. That is the subamendment right there. Then the original c) would become d) and the original d) would become e) in the common-sense amendment that my colleague put forward.
The subamendment is simply “including witnesses from Sudbury”, but in the ordering of where it goes in the original common-sense amendment, it is between b) and c). It would be the new c), I guess. It kind of bumps things down in order.
I apologize that I do not have it translated, of course, because we were not given notice of the motion in advance of the meeting. I know we don't have to because it's committee business and it's not required, and that's fine. Those are the Standing Orders. Those are the rules, and we play by those rules, but when we are not given the courtesy of a notice of motion in advance of the meeting, it makes it impossible for us to have pre-prepared amendments and translation done for them.
In the spirit of collaboration, I guess I would make my case to all colleagues that if, in advance of the meeting, you could submit a notice in advance, that would certainly be handy for everybody—for interpretation, translation, everybody—to know what exactly it is that we are going to be debating here today.
Mr. Chair, there's one thing before I continue. I should just get clarity from you.
Are we pausing for question period and then resuming? What's happening here?
