Official Languages Committee on March 11th, 2008

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

You handed out the proposed schedule. However, committee members had asked for Mr. Lord to appear, and that invitation was not included in the schedule. Committee members on this side of the table are willing to support Mr. Nadeau's motion, that is to invite Mr. Lord again and continue committee work. It is as simple as that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Mr. Bélanger, I agree with you, except that today, committee business is not on the orders of the day. If I handed out the document, it was so that all committee members could read it and begin thinking about the next 21 meetings and, if everyone agrees, discuss that at our next meeting, which will be on committee business. Regarding your information on Mr. Lord... I would prefer discussing that in camera. That is all, Mr. Bélanger.

Are there any other points of order?

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Yes, I have a point of order on that issue.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

I will ask the clerk where we are at with our points of order. There are points of order from Messrs. Rodriguez, Petit and Lemieux.

Mr. Rodriguez.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

With all due respect, Mr. Chairman, it is not you who decided to give us that list, it is the steering committee who mandated you to do so. You will recall, we met last week, agreed to do that and said that we would hand the document out to the committee. You are simply doing your work. You are following the directives of the Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure of the Standing Committee on Official Languages. You have done what we asked you to do: you handed out the list.

It is our habit, Mr. Chairman, that we ratify the decisions of the subcommittee at the next full committee meeting. We therefore had to discuss that today.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Mr. Rodriguez, it is interesting that you raise that point because I have just asked members of the steering committee to set aside half an hour to discuss that issue. You yourself told me that that was not necessary, because you thought that it would all be a formality. This morning, we are finding out that it is important to discuss this with committee members, although it was not scheduled on the orders of the day. We will be discussing this during the first hour of our meeting on Thursday.

Are there any other points of order?

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Yes.

[The Chairman]

What is your point of order?

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

It is about the way the committee works, about what should be on the orders of the day.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

For the moment, we have a witness on our orders of the day. The orders of the day were sent out 48 hours ago.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

I said that we would not be discussing it for half an hour, because we do not need to discuss it so long. We met for an hour before to discuss this, otherwise, we can dissolve the committee. What I did say, however, is that we will be tabling that and informing committee members. So you did your job today. You did nothing special. You did what we asked you to do at the last meeting—namely to give members a copy of the decisions made by the steering committee. That has been done. That's it. We have been informed. If the gentleman is supposed to be here, he is supposed to be here, and that is all, but we did our job.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Mr. Rodriguez.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chairman]

Mr. Lemieux.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you. I would like to put forward a motion that the committee hear from the witness.

I'm putting forward this motion because this is what is on the orders of the day. The 48 hours' notice is not required for this motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

That is not a point of order.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

I didn't say it was a rappel au Règlement.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Are there any other points of order?

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

There are none right now, so I'm next on the list.

What I'm saying is that I'm putting forward a motion that this committee proceed with its study of the statistics that were brought forth by Statistics Canada in the 2006 census. This is important, especially because in the past there have been reports in the media on what census 2006 had to say, particularly about official-language minority communities. We have a witness here who can share with us the results, the interpretation of the results, and the impact on official-language communities.

I find that this morning we are wasting our time arguing about future committee business. As I mentioned, first of all, we should be discussing future committee business in camera. Secondly, it's not on the orders of the day. Any motions related to committee business are out of order. Third is the fact that you have already mentioned that the order of the day for Thursday is going to be committee business. That's when these kinds of motions about future business can actually be put forward.

Today we have a witness in front of us. It's on the orders of the day, and I'm putting forward this motion so that we can listen to the witness. We have a witness here, and we have a number of different results from the 2006 census. For example, I'm looking at a sheet that has highlights on language of work in Canada. There are statistics that are related to which official languages are used in work. There are francophone workers outside of Quebec, immigrant workers in Quebec, allophone immigrant workers, anglophone workers, workers on the Island of Montreal, allophone workers in Canada as a whole. There is a whole range of different topics that we can discuss with our witness today.

We should be moving forward with our witness today. This is why we convened the meeting. The reason I have to bring forward this motion is that if the committee doesn't want to listen to the witness, then we should send the witness off, and adjourn the meeting. The meeting will be over.

The meeting was called for one purpose. The meeting was called to listen to Statistics Canada. That's why we have the ordre du jour, so that everybody knows what the committee business is today. We all know what the committee business is because we all have this sheet in front of us. We should proceed with the committee business, first, because that's the proper thing to do, and secondly, because it shows respect towards our witness, who has taken time out of his busy schedule to prepare--and I draw your attention to what he has submitted to us--information for us, as the committee of official languages, to look at, and we should look at it. We should ask our questions if we have questions regarding it.

Secondly, he has taken time out of his schedule today to be here with us, yet we're wasting his time and we're wasting our own time. That's why this particular motion is important. It does not require 48 hours because it's in accordance with the orders of the day. I think that's the only way we're going to bring this meeting back into order.

If we don't move ahead with the motion, if this motion is voted against by the opposition, then I think they're showing disdain for the orders of the day, and there's no need to proceed with the meeting because the meeting will be over. What is there left to discuss, particularly when you've identified that next Thursday will be when we discuss committee business? We will be discussing it in camera.

That's my motion. I move that this committee listen to the witness we brought before us, in accordance with the orders of the day.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Mr. Lemieux.

In my opinion, your motion is in order and does not require 48 hours' notice, because the orders of the day state that we'll be studying the census. Our witness, Mr. Corbeil is with us this morning. We have only one hour left, but I do think we still have time to review the issue with our witness.

I'm ready to hear any comments or suggestions regarding Mr. Lemieux's motion. Otherwise, we will move to the vote.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Before we vote on this motion, Mr. Chairman, I would like to move that the committee meet in camera for a few minutes and that we come back to Mr. Lemieux's motion immediately afterwards.

I move that the committee go in camera.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

This is not a debatable motion. The clerk tells me that there must be unanimous consent regarding your suggestion to go in camera. We will listen carefully to the clerk's explanations regarding the procedure. Then we will all be on the same wavelength.

Please go ahead.

[The Clerk]

Mr. Lemieux moved that we proceed to the next order of business. That's a non-debatable motion. It gets put--

[An hon. member]

[Inaudible--Editor]

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Please, I would ask that you listen to the clerk.