Public Accounts Committee on May 14th, 2024

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

No, because June 6.... We know how difficult it is to get confirmation of ministers, and it's very important to the members. I think we go into later in June.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I see. Your motion proposes that we bump the study on June 6 and have Minister Hajdu in.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

We have both ministers, Bill Blair and Patty Hajdu, on June 6.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Could my amendment to your motion be that, instead of the net zero study on May 23, it be the Transport Canada study?

Both, I'll just point out, were priorities of government members. I'm looking for your permission to swap one of your studies for another.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

We can have an alternate date for the Canadian net-zero emissions, as long as we can say that takes place before the June 20 meeting. To the best of the ability, I'm going to look for some appropriate wording, but we understand that that's normally how it happens. It's on a best-efforts basis.

Part of the friendly amendment, which I believe has to be proposed by someone when we can see the wording on that, would be to, on a best-efforts basis.... Let's say that it must be scheduled, because I believe—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

No, if you want to extend your motion and move another date, you have to make that amendment. I'm looking for your permission to schedule national trade corridors on May 23, because that is when the clerk has lined up the witnesses. Yes or no?

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Not without a guarantee that we have—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I'm not making guarantees, Ms. Shanahan—

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

I have a point of order, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Hold on, Ms. Khalid.

Ms. Shanahan, you're not negotiating with me for an expanded motion. You've tabled your motion. You can come with a subamendment—

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

I have a point of order, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Hold on, Ms. Khalid.

You can come back and propose another date, but I'm not in a position to expand your motion. I'm asking for a clerical change, per what the clerk's reporting to me, to do transportation on June 23.

Yes, Ms. Khalid. You have a point of order.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Thanks, Chair.

I have two points. One, I believe that Mrs. Shanahan cannot amend her own motion. Two, I do believe that you as chair need unanimous consent in order to move a motion to amend any motion on the floor. It's just a friendly reminder, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I'm looking for Ms. Shanahan's agreement, because if I don't have it from her, obviously it's not going to go anywhere.

Ms. Shanahan, do you want to accept the clerk's change through me to put transportation on May 23? If the answer is no, we'll just open up the debate on the motion, and we can deal with the consequences later.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

I can't do that in good faith without knowing that we will have report 6, so maybe other members can put forward what I would call friendly amendments. That can be from any member, including from the Liberal side.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I see hands going up.

Mr. Genuis, you signalled prior to my suspension that you would like the floor. Are you with us to take that? If not, I'll move to.... Mr. Genuis, are you ready?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Chair, I am here, but I think Mr. Nater is going to make the comments I was going to make, so I'm happy to hand it over to him.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Very briefly, Mr. Chairman, this is obviously eating into time that we could use to hear testimony—damning testimony, I would say—from the Canada Border Services Agency.

This is really just confirming what was done in our subcommittee, which you, as chair, have been directed to undertake. I really don't see why this is being brought forward at this point, especially since we have committee business scheduled immediately following our testimony. I move that we adjourn the debate and hear from the witnesses from CBSA on the damning ArriveCAN report.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I cannot adjourn debate on a motion unless you're signalling that you're supporting it, in which case you just want to....

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Well, if everyone's ready to deal with it right now, let's go. Otherwise, I move that we adjourn debate and hear from our witnesses.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Mr. Nater has called for us to adjourn debate on the motion. As the clerk's getting ready, this is to adjourn the debate now. We go back to the witnesses, and then we go into committee business and can pick things up again there.

(Motion negatived: nays 6; yeas 4)

Ms. Khalid, you have the floor.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Thanks very much, Chair. I appreciate the opportunity.

I have been quite clear over the past number of months that I have the honour of being part of this committee. We can do things in two ways. We can have a collaborative approach as to how we are going to run our committee, or we can have a not-so-collaborative approach in which we try to find “gotcha” moments and clips and try to bring in matters from other committees into ours. To be quite frank—and I really take points from Ms. Shanahan, who I learn from a lot because she's a veteran of this committee—that's not what the role of this committee is.

Chair, you've had the opportunity to table subcommittee reports. We have a rolling work plan. The fact that we are sitting here in our constituencies, the majority of us, trying to balance the support for our constituents while also trying to make sure that we're doing the important work in Ottawa.... It's very difficult. I have constituents I have had to cancel meetings with because I get to see your lovely face, Chair, and my constituents are annoyed by that.

I think that we have had so many opportunities to come together, to build work plans and to say, “Okay, committee, we are all on the same page here. We all want to work together. Here is what and how we are going to govern ourselves over the next couple of months.” You have had so many opportunities, Chair, to do that, and time and again we see that things change on the fly.

In fact, in our last meeting in Ottawa on Thursday, you indicated that we would be having a committee meeting on Thursday of this week—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

May I interrupt?

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

I am speaking to the motion, Chair, if that's okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

No, you're not, actually. The motion is about the schedule.