Evidence of meeting #21 for Official Languages in the 39th Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was lemieux.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Conservative
NDP
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
No, I only presented a motion, but my name was on the list of speakers. The reason I asked that this meeting be held in public was not so I wouldn't be heard.
Liberal
Pablo Rodriguez Liberal Honoré-Mercier, QC
It would be my pleasure to let Mr. Godin speak before me.
Conservative
NDP
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
Mr. Chairman, first, I support the motion calling on Mr. Lord to appear before the committee.
I have a question for the clerk who represents the entire committee. I would like to know what Mr. Lord's response was to the clerk. What reasons did he give for not appearing before the committee?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Steven Blaney
In the meantime, can we move to the other points?
Mr. Rodriguez, you have the floor.
Liberal
Pablo Rodriguez Liberal Honoré-Mercier, QC
Mr. Chairman, I would like to briefly raise three points. Regarding Mr. Lord, he will come when he can. We will clear our schedule and Mr. Lord will then decide which issues he feels he can address. We will see when that happens. It is not up to the committee to determine in advance which questions we will put to him. He will decide which issues he will address.
Further, I don't really like the fact that Ms. Verner wants to wait for the report to be tabled before appearing before the committee. In that case, the committee would be held hostage by the timing of the report's release by the government. If Ms. Verner decides to table her report in one, three or six months, it would mean that the committee could not invite her before then. That doesn't make any sense.
Third, and perhaps most importantly, we must never forget that the raison d'être of this committee is to look after the interests of minority language communities. That's why we are here. But too often we seem to forget this. There is too much petty politics on this committee, which means that we just can't do our work. Ultimately, it's the communities who pay.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Steven Blaney
Thank you, Mr. Rodriguez.
Let me remind you that we are debating the motion to invite Mr. Lord. I have three names on my list: Mr. Gravel, Mr. Petit and Mr. Lemieux. Afterwards, if it is the wish of the committee, we can put the motion to a vote.
Mr. Godin, would you like to speak? Fine.
Bloc
Raymond Gravel Bloc Repentigny, QC
I won't be long. I simply want to say that if Mr. Lord does come here, we will surely ask him questions about official languages. Surely he has read the report which he himself wrote and tabled. It's not rocket science: we are not inviting him to talk about the weather.
Conservative
Conservative
Pierre Lemieux Conservative Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
Now that we're in public, I'd like to make very clear, first of all, what I said earlier in this meeting and what I said in the last meeting; that is, we support—I support, certainly—Mr. Lord appearing in front of this committee. What I don't support is the manner in which this committee operates, which is outside of its own processes. This is what happened with respect to the invitation of Mr. Lord.
The steering committee met and decided to invite the witnesses. But it doesn't work that way. The steering committee must present its recommendations to the committee, and each member here has the right to go over the list of recommendations and to engage in a discussion. That did not happen last time. I find it passing strange, because every time we would like to discuss any subject, the opposition—
Their arms go up in the air, they overreact, and they make outlandish statements because they don't happen to like it when Conservative MPs want to discuss an issue. They just want to have their way. This is my concern.
So it's not that we shouldn't have particular witnesses; it's that there is a process in place and we should follow that process.
Unfortunately, last time, we lost a meeting because the opposition would not move ahead with a witness who we had called or who had been called in front of the committee. We lost two hours on that.
No one on this committee wants to repeat that. So I, for one, am very glad that we are following a process here now, that 48 hours' notice was given on this motion, that we're free to discuss this motion, and that we will vote on this motion.
That's the way it should happen. We should have a lot less strong-arming going on here. It's not in the best interests of official language communities when the committee breaks down.
We are all here to work in the interest of our official language communities. I would like the work on these important matters to go ahead.
It is essential that we follow the existing process and that we respect the rules we ourselves adopted at our first meeting here at the Standing Committee on Official Languages.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Steven Blaney
Thank you, Mr. Lemieux.
I have two names still on my list: Mr. Godin and Mr. Rodriguez.
NDP
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As you know, I am the one who presented the motion asking that Ms. Verner appear before the committee. But until now, I have not yet shared my opinion on the fact that the minister refuses to appear before the committee. Whether we are talking about Ms. Verner or Mr. Lord—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Steven Blaney
Mr. Godin, I would simply like to remind you that the motion we are discussing deals with Mr. Lord. Perhaps we can settle that issue first. We can then move on to committee business. We have to do things in order, Mr. Godin. So I would suggest you speak to the motion. Then, you can—
NDP
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
Mr. Chairman, I do not object to that, but when Mr. Lemieux talked about Ms. Verner's refusal to appear, which has nothing to do with the report, you did not interrupt him. So I would like to come back to the parliamentary secretary.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Steven Blaney
Let's concentrate on the motion. I still have two names on my list.
NDP
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
It applies to all committee members, but you nevertheless allowed Mr. Lemieux to go on. I would like to respond. In fact, it is not up to the government representatives on this committee to decide what our issue will be. We invited Ms. Verner not to talk about the contents of her action plan, but because we are preparing a report on the action plan. We wanted to ask her questions on the machinery of government which would be required for the coming action plan.
The opposition parties are not obliged to give their questions to the Conservative government. I know that the Conservative members are stuck with their prime minister, but that is not our case.
In her letter, Ms. Verner said that she had to respectfully decline the committee's invitation. However, she said yesterday that she had never done so. I want to make sure that this committee actually wants to work and study, and that it can hear from the witnesses it wants to invite. Mr. Lemieux mentioned that we wasted two hours this week, and that's true. However, committee members argued for two hours why she should not come, and they ultimately voted against the motion.
I believe that the minister is an adult and that she is able to answer questions. If there are questions she does not wish to answer, she is free to do so. But I don't think it is right for committee members to block the minister's appearance before the committee.
The same applies to Mr. Lord. We want to ask questions of Mr. Lord. I'll come back to the motion. When we will ask Mr. Lord questions, if he says he cannot answer because the matter is not addressed in his report, he will have to decide which questions he wants to respond to. However, people cannot block his appearance before the committee. He should therefore appear before the committee.
