Public Safety Committee on May 9th, 2024

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

Chair, my view is that the way in which this committee should proceed is that we deal with matters of the agenda first. My view is also that it's highly inappropriate to have government officials invited before the sponsor of a bill.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Heath MacDonald]

Go ahead, Mr. Noormohamed.

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

I'm just responding to the point of order. My view would be that—

[The Chair, Liberal, Heath MacDonald]

Mr. Genuis, when someone says point of order, could you just stop?

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

Sorry. Go ahead. No problem.

[The Chair, Liberal, Heath MacDonald]

Thank you.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Mr. Chair, I think it's important. The point of order is that this is a misrepresentation and therefore unparliamentary. The sponsors of the bill were invited.

The sponsor of the bill, the senator, was present last meeting. We were unable to get to that witness due to the shenanigans of the member opposite. It would be important for the record to be clear on this and for you, as the chair, to ensure that the record is clear such that aspersions cannot be cast in respect of the way in which our wonderful clerk and others run this committee and ensure that folks are invited.

[The Chair, Liberal, Heath MacDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Noormohamed.

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

All right, that was not a point of order, but I'll respond to it substantively.

What happened at the last meeting was that the witnesses were here. Senator Miville-Dechêne was here, whom I'm very interested in hearing from. We proposed an amendment to the report by the subcommittee on agenda and procedure based on our proposal for how we should go forward. That was being translated, and then we were interrupted with a vote and we adjourned the meeting.

I'm not sure if Mr. Noormohamed was here or if he followed some of the procedural things that were happening, but regardless, I do believe it is proper for committees to attend to matters of the agenda before beginning to book witnesses on a study that is on the agenda. You'll notice, in reference to the proposed amendment to the agenda, that we have not proposed any changes to the first or second item as they relate to the study of Bill S-210. The amendments we're proposing to the agenda, in terms of programming the committee's agenda going forward, deal with other matters that are very important to us and on which we think it's important to take a stand at a certain point.

I can speak to some of the other items, but I do want to particularly highlight what our priority is. Government members may want to reflect on concessions they're willing to make in terms of the agenda of the committee. That is important for us to establish what our priority is.

One of the proposed additions to the report of the subcommittee on agenda and procedure is as follows:

That the draft report on the transfer of Paul Bernardo be immediately distributed to committee members and that, [notwithstanding any other items mentioned] with the exception of testimony by ministers, the committee not hold any other hearings or present any reports to the House until the committee has completed and presented its report to the House on the Bernardo prison transfer.

Here's the context of this. It has always been the case, in any committee I've been a part of, that the committee understands its role as being to gather information and to report that information to the House. The committees become experts in particular policy areas. They study those policy areas, and then they provide advice to the House, which likely leads to a government response.

[The Chair, Liberal, Heath MacDonald]

I just want to ensure that you realize that the subcommittee did adopt the amendment. You said something a couple of minutes ago about there being further discussions to be had, but the subcommittee did adopt the report. All parties on the subcommittee adopted the report.

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

Yes, so the process is that the subcommittee considers a report and then the report is referred to the main committee. The subcommittee cannot bind the main committee, so the main committee considers its—

[The Chair, Liberal, Heath MacDonald]

It almost sounded as though you were saying that we didn't adopt it, but we had full majority to adopt it. That's all. I just wanted that to be on the record.

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

Well, Chair, if there's a misunderstanding here, let me be very clear about what I said, or at least what I meant to say. The role of the subcommittee is to consider matters of agenda and procedure and to refer its determinations to the main committee, but the role of a subcommittee is not to bind a committee any more than a committee can bind the House.

[The Chair, Liberal, Heath MacDonald]

That's correct.

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

The process then is that this committee receives the subcommittee report and considers it, and it may make changes to it. If the views of everyone are properly reflected, then—

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Mr. Chair, on a point of order, as you rightly note, the subcommittee report was adopted by the subcommittee. It is a matter of practice for the full committee to adopt the report. There is majority support for the report from the subcommittee. I'm sorry that Mr. Genuis's feelings may be hurt that he didn't get his way and that he wants to persist in moving on with this and filibustering a bill that he purports to care about, which, for those who are interested in knowing, is about—

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

I have a point of order.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

— a young person having access to explicit content on the Internet, which he purports to care about. If that is indeed the case and we believe that there is majority support for the report, which was passed by the subcommittee, then Mr. Genuis should have no problem putting that subcommittee report to a vote in this committee right now and moving on so that we can get on with the business of listening to these witnesses who have taken time out of their day—again—to be with us.

Otherwise, do Conservatives want to tell Canadians what they do, which is to simply waste resources, as they did in the House yesterday, of officials and simply sit here trying to waste everybody's time while there's important committee business and important business of passing legislation, discussing and debating legislation to be done?

[The Chair, Liberal, Heath MacDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Noormohamed.

Continue.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I think sometimes at committees the chair has recommended that a member be asked off the top of a point of order to cite a specific standing order that they're referring to. That's not required, but it might be a useful practice insofar as Mr. Noormohamed seems to be of the mistaken impression that a point of order is a time to express one's broader philosophical concerns and objections to what somebody is doing.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

I have a point of order.

Relevancy is actually in the Standing Orders. Mr. Genuis, again, is just going off in all directions. We're talking about his amendment, and again—

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

No, I'm responding to the point of order.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Genuis loves to quote the rules at people—

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

I have a point of order now.