Evidence of meeting #73 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 meeting.
A recording is available from Parliament.
6:05 p.m.
Liberal
6:05 p.m.
Bloc
Kristina Michaud Bloc Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC
Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair.
There were discussions between the vice-chairs earlier, when the meeting was suspended, and I thought we had already reached a compromise. Mr. Julian alluded to this earlier, saying that, in any event, all members of the committee had agreed in private to invite the new Minister of Public Safety to come and talk about his mandate in general.
So we could hold a meeting on that particular situation, as proposed in Ms. O'Connell's amendment, and then hold a meeting to hear from the minister as soon as possible, or as soon as his schedule permits. That would allow members of the Conservative Party to ask the minister questions about this situation.
So I don't know why we're going back to this compromise of three meetings.
I therefore ask that we proceed with the vote.
6:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon
Thank you.
Is there any more debate on the subamendment?
Go ahead, Mr. Lloyd.
6:05 p.m.
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB
I'll be brief.
Just to address the comments made there, my concern is that if we don't have the minister participate or have some participation from his office in this study, and if it's just having the minister come and speak about his new role, we won't be able to include any testimony from the minister in that study.
Maybe the clerk can tell me. If the minister comes for another reason and we ask him questions about this study, can we include his responses in that study if he has not been invited specifically as a witness for that study? If I know the answer to that, then we can be more clear about which direction we're going in.
6:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon
I'll ask the clerk.
I believe we can decide to incorporate results of other studies if we wish, Mr. Clerk.
6:05 p.m.
The Clerk
Yes, we can.
6:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon
Yes, we can.
Ms. O'Connell, do you want to speak to the subamendment?
6:05 p.m.
Liberal
Jennifer O'Connell Liberal Pickering—Uxbridge, ON
Yes. I have a couple of questions about clarification.
6:05 p.m.
Liberal
Jennifer O'Connell Liberal Pickering—Uxbridge, ON
I'm just trying to keep up with this. The subamendment moved by Mr. Lloyd does not include language—and this is to Mr. Julian's point—about a study. My amendment says that we're holding a meeting, so I would need clarification on how a meeting automatically becomes a study. If you could quote the exact reference.... I've sat on many committees, and there have been meetings on topics of particular interest, but it does not automatically mean it's a study unless you include specific text in your motion, which is not on the floor as I understand it.
I want clarification from the clerk. Was there an amendment moved or another subamendment moved to make this a study?
6:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon
Mr. Lloyd's subamendment changes it from one meeting to three meetings. It adds inviting the members of the families and asking for representatives from the minister's office, and that we report our findings to the House.
In my understanding, everything we do is a study, whether we call it a study or not. We can report whatever we like. I'll defer to the clerk, who can advise us with great wisdom.
6:05 p.m.
The Clerk
Procedurally, whether or not we include a study in the motion, if we have a meeting it becomes a study by itself and it's written like that on the website.
6:05 p.m.
Liberal
Jennifer O'Connell Liberal Pickering—Uxbridge, ON
Okay. That's fair enough.
Because that's not said in the paper that was passed around, I just want to be very clear on what we would be voting on first. The subamendment would be no less than three meetings, representatives from victims' families and that the report be reported back to the House. That's all as one. Is that correct?
6:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon
Yes, and it's also that we include an invitation to representatives from the Minister of Public Safety.
6:10 p.m.
Liberal
Jennifer O'Connell Liberal Pickering—Uxbridge, ON
Okay. With that clarification, I want to speak to a couple of items. Then, I hope we can get to a vote on the subamendment, and then on my amendment.
In terms of having three meetings, as my colleagues have pointed out, we were trying to come to a compromise. What is at the three meetings? Why is it the number three, instead of just agreeing to the content and the need for the meetings? This is turning into something partisan. It's some sort of compromise, but it's not about making our work here better.
In terms of representatives from victims' families, if we are truly trying to talk about legislation and the facts.... I'm not going to reiterate how hurtful this is.
Lastly, there is the suggestion to bring representatives from the minister's office. There's ministerial accountability. We don't drag ministers' staff in front of committees. If that's the practice the Conservatives want to get into, I think it's completely wrong.
There have been notices of motions. I know we can't get into the details until they're on the floor. However, there have already been comments today about inviting the minister on his overall mandate, which is completely reasonable and fair. I'm sure the minister has no issues with that. If there are questions for the minister in terms of staff in the former or current office, then direct those questions to the minister. I think it is completely inappropriate to try to drag staff to committee as a way for the Conservatives to try to use this as some sort of political advantage. We need to get back to the work of this committee. There have been many compromises proposed. Let's bring in the commissioner of Correctional Services, the deputy minister, and officials from Justice and Public Safety, and let's have that conversation.
With that, Mr. Chair, I won't be supporting the subamendment.
I hope we can get to the amendment and move on with what I thought was a very reasonable compromise. I will personally, certainly, relay the message back to Minister LeBlanc that the committee would like to see him on his mandate. If there's a formal motion presented, that's great. If not, I will also relay that sentiment.
6:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon
Thank you.
We have Mr. Lloyd, followed by Mr. Shipley.
We have 15 minutes left to get through all of this.
6:10 p.m.
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB
My subamendment was based upon the belief that if we don't have the minister come in to testify on what happened—for these three meetings—we won't be able to include that in the study. Based upon clarification from the clerk, we can ask the minister about this in a separate meeting. Those findings can then be included in any report to the House that we propose.
I want to be clear that there has been a changeover in the minister's office, so we're certainly not picking and choosing to drag staff to committee. We're leaving it to the minister's office to decide. If it's the minister himself—I believe, yes, ministerial accountability is key—that would be our ideal solution for this.
With that being said, I'm willing to drop having the minister, because, as we said, we are having him come to another meeting and we can ask him questions on this.
The key thing is that we would like to include representation from victims talking about their side of the story and how they feel about processes that can be improved to ensure that victims' rights are being respected. Then we'd have the officials who were listed by Ms. O'Connell, so we would cover all the bases I'm asking for.
I've asked for three bases to be covered: the victims' point of view through their representation, however appropriate that may be; a political office point of view through the minister when he comes on a separate matter; and the government point of view through the professional civil service. If we cover all three of those bases, we could have two meetings on this and accomplish this.
6:15 p.m.
Liberal
6:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon
I've written a lot of software that way, by the way. Some of it actually worked.
6:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon
Okay. I'm in a bit of a procedural bind here because we have a subamendment. We can't change the subamendment, but I appreciate your changes. Another subamendment could be moved after this one is dealt with.
Now we'll vote on the subamendment.
(Subamendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])
We are back to Ms. O'Connell's amendment. Is there any further discussion on Ms. O'Connell's amendment?
Mr. Lloyd, go ahead.
6:15 p.m.
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB
I'll just move another subamendment, then, to reflect the changes that I discussed before the vote.
I guess it's unnecessary to say “report to the House”, because we've already discussed that these things are always considered a study, generally.
I move that the committee hold two meetings on the rights of crime victims and the security reclassification and transfer of offenders within federal corrections, and that the committee invite the commissioner of Correctional Service Canada, Anne Kelly; Deputy Minister Shawn Tupper; and officials of Justice and Public Safety Canada to appear.
The committee would also—and this would be the amendment—request that.... How would I word this?
6:15 p.m.
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB
The committee would request representatives from victims' families, as appropriate, to discuss their perspective.
6:15 p.m.
Liberal
Jennifer O'Connell Liberal Pickering—Uxbridge, ON
Mr. Chair, I have a point of order.
I would suggest that this motion is out of order as we've already voted on it, and it lost.