Evidence of meeting #107 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 ministers.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
I didn't receive an invitation actually, Mr. Rodriguez.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
I would welcome further interactions of this nature with Mr. Rodriguez.
Liberal
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Hopefully, if not by me, members have been persuaded by Mr. Rodriguez's clear desire to speak, so I will move now that the committee proceed to hearing from the ministers.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Please encourage your colleagues, Mr. Rodriguez, to vote in favour of my motion to proceed to allowing you to testify.
Liberal
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
That is, for once, correct, Ms. O'Connell, so let's vote.
Liberal
Jennifer O'Connell Liberal Pickering—Uxbridge, ON
Your mansplaining will go over well on your podcast. It's okay—you're the party of controlling women's bodies, so—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Heath MacDonald
Excuse me. Please call the vote, Clerk.
(Motion negatived: nays 7; yeas 4 [See Minutes of Proceedings])
The motion is defeated.
Mr. Genuis, you have the floor.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Thank you, Chair.
I'm sorry to disappoint Mr. Rodriguez, and not for the first time. My primary priority here is to make my constituents happy, not Liberal ministers.
We have now moved four times that the committee proceed to hearing from ministers. In all four of those cases, Liberals and their coalition partners have opposed and blocked that testimony from being able to occur.
Our view, as reflected in the amendment we've proposed, is that ministers appear separately for one hour each on the study of auto theft and that the Minister of Public Safety be invited to appear separately for two hours for consideration of the main estimates and his leadership ambitions.
Oh, sorry, no, that's not in there. It's just the main estimates, don't worry, or for one hour on the main estimates and one hour on, I guess the motion says ArriveCAN. It should really say the arrive scam scandal, but we chose not to use that word in the hopes that it would have a better chance of passing.
That's with respect to ministers appearing and also proposing that the committee undertake the legally required statutory review, that the draft report on the Bernardo transfer be immediately distributed and that the committee proceed with hearings on that.
We've also proposed that the committee hold its previously agreed-upon meeting on the transfer of Luka Magnotta out of maximum-security prison by the end of June. This committee had agreed to look at the transfer of another violent criminal, Mr. Magnotta, and again, there was no mention in the original draft of the subcommittee report of completing that work.
In the same spirit as our desire to get to the bottom of what happened with Paul Bernardo, we believe that it is important for the committee to complete its work with respect to the prison transfer of Magnotta. When the committee has passed a motion beginning the process of doing a study on an issue, those motions should have meaning. They should lead to that work being undertaken and being undertaken in a timely way.
Regarding the additional auto theft meetings, the Conservatives are proposing in this amendment to the subcommittee agenda that we hold four additional meetings as part of the auto theft study before the end of June. It's obvious why. I was sharing some statistics previously on the rate of auto thefts occurring—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Heath MacDonald
You're coming up to our time now, so I'm going to suspend after this first hour, and we'll take a five-minute break.
Thank you to the witnesses. We appreciate your time.
We'll continue in five minutes with new witnesses.
Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Heath MacDonald
We're reconvened.
To begin with, I will today resign as chair and turn this over to the clerk for an election. I thank everybody for their time and effort on this committee. It's been an interesting process, but as of right now I turn this over to the clerk to call for an election. Thank you.
The Clerk
Honourable members of the committee, I see a quorum. I must inform members that the clerk of the committee can receive motions only for the election of the chair. The clerk cannot receive other types of motions and cannot entertain points of order or participate in debate.
We can now proceed to the election of the chair. Pursuant to Standing Order 106(2), the chair must be a member of the government party.
I'm ready to receive motions.
Ms. O'Connell, the floor is yours.
Liberal
The Clerk
It has been moved by Ms. O'Connell that Mr. McKinnon be elected as chair.
Are there any further motions?
Yes.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
I know he just resigned, but I would vote for Heath MacDonald.
The Clerk
It has been moved by Mr. Motz that Mr. Heath MacDonald be chair.
Since more than one candidate has been nominated, pursuant to Standing Order 106(3), any motion received after the initial one shall be taken as a notice of motion, and such motions shall be put to the committee serially until one is adopted.
The first motion is:
Ms. O'Connell moves that Mr. McKinnon be elected as chair.
(Motion agreed to: yeas 7; nays 4)
Mr. McKinnon, you're the chair.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon
Well, thank you all.
We still have a motion on the floor, and Mr. Genuis has the floor.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Chair, just maybe as a point of order, the committee addressed another matter of business—I just want to make sure we're procedurally correct here. The committee addressed the election of the chair, which I believe supersedes the item under consideration. Is it necessary to move another resumptive motion if we're going to continue, given that we dealt with a different item? The committee cannot have two motions on the floor at the same time and did just deal with a motion for the election of chair, so I am of the view that this motion is not on the floor anymore and I welcome proceeding to witness testimony. If it is on the floor, I have more to say, but I don't think it's actually on the floor anymore.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon
My advice via the clerk is that it remains on the floor and that this matter of committee business did not side-swipe that. If you want to go to committee business we are happy to do a vote on this, but otherwise you have the floor and you may continue to speak.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Chair, that's not entirely clear to me, because I do think that it is an established principle of committee that you can't have multiple motions on the floor at once. I don't know if you're comfortable allowing the clerk to weigh in on the matter.
