Official Languages Committee on Oct. 18th, 2011

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Members have the right to raise points of order if they have questions about the decision of the chair, and I respect that. I'm trying to be fair here. Mr. Godin was perfectly within his rights to raise that point of order.

Monsieur Bélanger.

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

Mr. Chairman, I will challenge the chair on that, because I think the interpretation you give to the rules is not an accurate one.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

That's going to present a circular argument.

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

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

All right, the chair has been challenged.

I'm going to pass the floor to the clerk to conduct the vote to see whether or not the chair's decision will be sustained.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Simon Larouche]

It is proposed that the chair's decision be sustained.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Okay, we have a tie. The chair will break the decision in favour of sustaining my own decision, to be consistent.

(Ruling of the chair sustained)

We'll move on now. We have the motion as amended on the floor.

The motion reads as follows:

That the Committee accepts the request of Mr. Jean Malavoy, General Secretary of the Table de concertation du livre franco-ontarien, to appear before the Committee and that this meeting be held on December 13, 2011.

Is there any discussion?

Seeing none, I'm going to call the question on the motion as amended.

(Motion as amended agreed to)

Thank you very much.

We'll now move on to the second motion I received, which was from Monsieur Gourde.

Mr. Gourde, you have the floor.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like my motion to be put to a vote. It reads as follows:

That the committee invite the Commissioner for Official Languages to appear regarding the Annual Report on Official Languages 2010-2011 and that this meeting be held on October 20, 2011.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Okay. Would anyone like to discuss Mr. Gourde's motion?

Mr. Bélanger.

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

Mr. Chair, since there is so much confidence here, I would like to move an amendment.

I find it a bit inappropriate for us to specify a date. It doesn't give the clerk much flexibility. We don't even know if the commissioner will be available that day.

I would prefer to propose that it be held that on October 20 or October 25, and that the commissioner be invited to appear before the committee for the entire meeting, not just for one hour, and that the meeting be televised.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

We have an amendment moved by Mr. Bélanger, proposing that the meeting be held on October 20 or 21, 2011…

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

It's the 20 or the 25.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Pardon me. So the meeting would take place on October 20 or October 25, 2011. It would be televised and would be a two-hour meeting.

Is that okay? Is there...?

Monsieur Godin.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

I am in favour of that. I think that it's very important that we do not limit the commissioner to one hour when we invite him to appear.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Okay. Would any other committee members like to discuss this amendment?

Mr. Gourde.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Mr. Bélanger's amendments seem reasonable. We are giving the commissioner more flexibility by offering him the choice of appearing on either October 20 or October 25, depending on his availability. I have no problem with that. I think that two hours is fine. I have no problem with that either. And we have no objection to a televised meeting.

So we do support Mr. Bélanger's amendment, with pleasure.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

I'll call the vote.

All those in favour of the amendment moved by Mr. Bélanger?

(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

We're back to the main motion as amended.

Is there any discussion?

Seeing none, all those in favour of the amended motion?

(Motion as amended agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Now, I'm assuming that

Mr. Gourde and Mr. Bélanger do not want to move the two other motions.

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

What? There are more?

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Yes, Mr. Gourde gave me a notice on a second motion.

If you're not going to move them, then we'll just drop them.

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

Drop them?

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

We'll just not proceed with them.

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

Today.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

That's right.

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

Okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

They're roughly duplicates of the motions just adopted.