Evidence of meeting #1 for Public Safety and National Security in the 39th Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was clerk.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Roy Cullen Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
Mr. Chairman, maybe Dave could take us through the major changes. Does everyone have the documents—
November 13th, 2007 / 3:45 p.m.
Liberal
Liberal
Sue Barnes Liberal London West, ON
If the motion is being abandoned, that's against the rules. If you table a motion--
Liberal
Ujjal Dosanjh Liberal Vancouver South, BC
May I make a suggestion? I understand that similar proposals were introduced at other meetings, and the committees adjourned because obviously these are.... They may be minor, but you have to compare and analyze what the significance might be. I think it would be pretty difficult for me to do it. There are brighter minds here than mine that might be able to do it much sooner. I can't. I don't think it's--
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
The suggestion before the committee is that we do this at a subsequent time. Is Thursday long enough, or do you want to leave it until Tuesday?
Liberal
Roy Cullen Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
Mr. Chair, that's fine, but in the meantime why couldn't Dave walk us through the main changes he's proposing ?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
Let's decide on one thing at a time.
The suggestion is that we have until next Tuesday to look at these. Would you all like to agree with that?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
Okay, we're going to deal with this next Tuesday.
The second suggestion we can now entertain is from Mr. MacKenzie. Are you prepared to do this, Mr. MacKenzie?
Conservative
Dave MacKenzie Conservative Oxford, ON
Sure. I certainly agree with Mr. Dosanjh. My initial comment was that you should have a chance to go through it.
I'm not sure I can give a huge background to it, but I can certainly point out where the changes are. I think for the most part it was an attempt to bring consistency, and if you like, Mr. Chair, I can point out where--
Conservative
Dave MacKenzie Conservative Oxford, ON
The first one would be with respect to the subcommittee on agenda and procedure. The existing one is the chair, the two vice-chairs, who would be Mr. Cullen and Ms. Priddy, and then a member from the Bloc. We're suggesting increasing that, which would also include the parliamentary secretary. But a quorum would go back to being three people.
Conservative
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
Yes. But what has been happening at this committee is that in reality the subcommittee on agenda and procedure has very rarely met. We generally took a few minutes at the end of our meetings....
You would have to decide if you would like to continue with the usual practice of having the whole committee decide.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
We found it was a waste of time to hash it out at one committee and then have it come to the main committee, where we did it again. Those members who had just sat for two hours and hashed it out felt frustrated.
My parliamentary secretary may be a little bit peeved with me.
Conservative
Dave MacKenzie Conservative Oxford, ON
No. You have the majority on that side. Maybe some committees have not worked as well in the past as this one has. I think they may have been trying to quantify the whole thing a bit better. At the end of the day you have the votes and you will make that decision.
