Evidence of meeting #106 for Public Safety and National Security in the 44th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was point.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
—the subcommittee report would have made no mention whatsoever of the—
Liberal
Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC
Mr. Genuis says the government is trying to point this committee one way or the other. I can categorically assert that the government is doing no such thing.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Thank you, Chair.
Perhaps I'm under the misapprehension that there are some representatives of PMO or the House leader or the whip's office sitting behind the member who are providing some direction in the execution of the government members' activities in this committee. If there are no such members in the room, then perhaps that direction takes a different form. I will add, of course, that what was said was not a point of order.
I will now go back to the issue of the agenda and of the Bernardo transfer as it relates to the agenda.
The agenda proposed from the subcommittee has one fundamental problem: It makes absolutely no mention of that report on the Bernardo transfer. From what I understand, the report is ready—
Liberal
Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC
I believe that this business of the subcommittee was in camera. The recitation of its presumed agenda would be unacceptable at this point.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Heath MacDonald
Thank you, Mr. McKinnon.
Mr. Genuis, he makes a good point. Let's resume, please, with that understanding.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
I want to comment on the point of order. It would be a violation of the rules if I referred to deliberations that took place in the subcommittee, but in camera proceedings of meetings still show up in the minutes in terms of decisions that were made. Some people forget this. If there are motions that are considered passed, etc., those show up in the minutes. It is not a violation of the rules to refer to things that are published in the minutes.
I have no idea—and if I did, I wouldn't speak about it—whether the Bernardo issue was discussed in the meeting. But what I can say is that the minutes and the report of that subcommittee make no mention of the Bernardo transfer. There were no decisions made with respect to that.
Hopefully, that puts your heart at ease.
Liberal
Liberal
Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC
Mr. Genuis speaks of the minutes of that meeting. The minutes would be privileged as well, because they were in camera.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Sorry. On a point of order, that's not correct, and it's worth members' note—
Liberal
Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC
Mr. Genuis is very up on these things, but it seems inappropriate to be discussing the business of the subcommittee—which did occur in camera—in great length at this point.
I would really encourage Mr. Genuis to get back to the motion that he has put on the floor to actually go to an order of business in which we could properly discuss these matters.
Liberal
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Yes, I'm keen to get back to that, but I don't want members of the listening public to be under the misapprehension that “in camera” means the minutes are not published. The minutes of every meeting are published, which means that decisions that are made in camera are not secret decisions. The decision is known.
The conversation that happens and the things that members say are privileged information, so I would not speak to what was discussed in the subcommittee, but the minutes are published.
Liberal
Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC
The minutes are published privately to the committee—
Conservative
Liberal
Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC
Do you mean the minutes of subcommittee? How can it be an in camera meeting if the minutes are published?
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Maybe the clerk can share this with members.