Public Accounts Committee on Nov. 17th, 2020

[The Clerk]

Good. We have to be clear on what you're voting on. I apologize that it was a little bit murky.

I will proceed to the taking of a recorded division.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 6; nays 4)

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk.

Is it the will of the committee to task the chair and the clerk with determining when we can fit this study into our schedule before Christmas?

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Madam Chair, I think we should look at that in subcommittee. We have other studies we're looking at, so the subcommittee needs to look at that and come back to the committee with a schedule.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

All right. Then we would need to schedule a subcommittee—

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

I have a point of order, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Mr. Berthold, go ahead on a point of order.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

The motion states that the meeting must be held before Christmas. I don't believe we have to hold a subcommittee meeting to decide on a time before Christmas when that meeting will be held.

It's up to you to determine the best time for that meeting at the end of this meeting, but it must be held before Christmas. We don't need to meet to determine in our schedule when it must take place.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Thank you very much, Mr. Berthold.

Mr. Blois.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Madam Chair, I would agree with Mr. Longfield on the fact that it does have merit in the subcommittee, but if we're going to go in the direction of giving you and the clerk the ability to do that, I'm fine with it, so that we can liaise with the department and see when their availability is.

Obviously, we have fall economic statements. There's a lot of work going on right now. We're just before the holiday season. As I know you always do, Madam Clerk, work to be reasonable in our request as a committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Thank you very much.

Are there any other interventions?

If not, I'm going to suspend for one moment to confer with the clerk as to how to proceed.

Again, I will query the committee as to whether it is the will of the committee for the clerk and me to proceed with finding time before Christmas to schedule this study.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

I'd like to know what study we're not going to be doing as a result of this, if any. If we're able to fit it in, that's fine, but there will be impacts on an already agreed-upon schedule that the subcommittee did work on, the committee had a discussion on and we voted on. We accepted a schedule between now and Christmas. I think we need to see what the impact is before we say yes or no, because we've already agreed on a schedule.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Would the committee be willing to have the clerk and me take a look at the schedule and come back to you on Thursday with a recommendation, and at that time, perhaps set aside 15 minutes to deal with the budgets of the studies that we have on the agenda at that meeting on Thursday?

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Madam Chair, I'm not sure if this helps, but perhaps finding a new day might provide some difficulty. Rather, maybe we should look at adding an hour to a session if we can, or where we might have a shorter study, we can just bookend it and do two hours instead of one.

We have not been operating in this committee all through COVID, and quite frankly, I'm okay to roll up my sleeves, knowing, as you do, that I sit on other committees. I think we should just bookend it. I don't like the idea of using any type of dilatory administrative things to further frustrate this motion that has been duly passed.

I'm also happy to support the budgets that have been presented. It's the work that we're here to do, and I think we can go ahead and do that work.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Thank you very much, Mr. Green, for that.

Taking that into consideration, I would propose to the committee that the clerk and I take a look at how we could satisfy the motion while also making sure that we aren't messing with our schedule too much prior to Christmas, to make sure that we get the work done that we've committed to doing, and that we bring forward a recommendation at our meeting on Thursday. Is that all right?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Then we can also take a bit of time on Thursday to look at the budgets for the studies. We will carve out a little bit of time to do that, given that it is already almost 10 minutes after one.

Thank you very much.

Is the committee in agreement to adjourn the meeting?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

the Chair: Great. Thank you very much.

The meeting is adjourned.