Evidence of meeting #92 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 cybersecurity.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Doug Shipley
I call this meeting to order.
There has been some discussion since the last meeting about whether it was suspended or adjourned. The chair today—me—believes that we suspended last Thursday. There was a unanimous consent motion at the end of that meeting to continue the debate at the next meeting, so I'll continue with the UC motion on the floor and go to Mr. Motz.
Liberal
Jennifer O'Connell Liberal Pickering—Uxbridge, ON
On a point of order, Mr. Chair, can you please pull up the ruling for a unanimous consent motion? That's number one.
Number two, through you to the clerk, in the minutes that he created, what does it say? Does it say that we suspended or adjourned the last meeting? What do the minutes say?
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Doug Shipley
The last meeting was adjourned, but our UC at the end of that, which we all voted on, was that we were going to continue with the discussion at our next meeting.
I see Mr. Julian has his hand up. Thank you for putting your hand up politely and asking for the floor. I appreciate that.
Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We have witnesses who are here, and I believe we need to hear from them. You'll recall that the last meeting was truncated and we weren't able to fully question the witnesses. We also have witnesses coming at 4:30, so I would suggest that we have that conversation off-line and proceed to questioning the witnesses.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Doug Shipley
Do we have agreement that there was UC at the end of the last meeting to continue on?
You're shaking your heads. Did we not vote to continue debate? Does anyone want to debate whether we discussed and voted on that?
Bloc
Kristina Michaud Bloc Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC
I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.
I clearly remember hearing Mr. Motz say at the last meeting that he wanted us to adjourn debate on the motion he had introduced. That's my recollection. I may be wrong, but I don't recall a unanimous vote or unanimous consent to continue the discussion on this motion. In addition, we also had to question the witnesses who were here.
Today we have new witnesses. I think we could let them make their opening remarks.
The clerk could enlighten us on how the last meeting ended, but, as I recall, Mr. Motz himself asked to adjourn the debate on the motion he had moved.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Doug Shipley
I think I see some other hands up on this point of order. I was definitely sitting in the room, and I definitely remember a UC motion that we all agreed on to let Mr. Motz carry on and to suspend to allow the witnesses....
Mr. Motz, you had your hand up.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
There are a couple of things. First, the original notice of meeting that came out for today on Friday afternoon was for committee business, resuming debate on my motion. An hour later—actually, 61 minutes later—a new notice of meeting came out. I don't know why the committee business was deleted. I suspect there must have been some pressure on the clerk, unfortunately, from somewhere to adjust it.
I'll take you back to the blues from the last meeting. Mr. Julian made an intervention about the witnesses, and I initially said to adjourn the motion. I then corrected myself to say to suspend the motion. That's where we were. The motion was not moved to adjourn. It was suspended. If you want to look at the blues, I encourage you to do so. That's where we are today, based on the history of the meeting last week.
The chair asked, “Is it the agreement of the committee?”, and the motion was agreed to. Then he said, “Okay. We'll go to our witnesses. We'll suspend for two minutes while our witnesses get in place.” That's what happened. That's all I can provide on the history of the last meeting.
Conservative
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB
I would just reiterate that Mr. Motz has the blues, and the blues were very clear. After Mr. Julian's suggestion that we suspend the meeting, there was unanimous consent to suspend it. That is my recollection of how the last meeting ended, and my full expectation is that we will resume exactly where we left off in the last meeting.
Thank you.
Liberal
Jennifer O'Connell Liberal Pickering—Uxbridge, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Motz just made the point. He moved to suspend the debate. There was no clarification on when that debate would then continue. We moved on to Bill C-26. The meeting was not suspended; the meeting was adjourned.
There is a new notice of meeting. Therefore, if you would like to lift the suspended debate back to the floor, you would require a dilatory motion. It doesn't just continue, because the meeting was adjourned and the debate was suspended. However, there was no time and place given, and there was no agreement that it would start off at the beginning. If you can point that out in the blues, I'm happy for you to read that, but I know it doesn't exist.
Therefore, you require a motion to bring the suspended debate back to the floor. Otherwise the notice of meeting is here, and that's what we move forward on, because the meeting itself was adjourned.
Again, we have witnesses here. The Conservatives don't seem to care about safety. I find it interesting, Mr. Chair, on this point, that today we're seeing historic snowfalls in Atlantic Canada, where Canadians, the people there and in Cape Breton in particular, are worried about being able to get out, being able to access resources. In Bill C-26, actually part of this legislation deals with ensuring the sustainability of telecoms so that in the event of a natural disaster, like what we're seeing in Atlantic Canada right now, there are literal lifelines still available—
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Doug Shipley
Ms. O'Connell, we're still on the points of order, not debate.
Liberal
Jennifer O'Connell Liberal Pickering—Uxbridge, ON
That's right, and I have the floor. I'm talking about—
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Doug Shipley
I know, but it sounded like debate. Can you make the point of order, please?
Liberal
Jennifer O'Connell Liberal Pickering—Uxbridge, ON
Oh, I guess the chair and the Conservatives think it's debate to talk about the safety of Atlantic Canadians and the very legislation we're trying to deal with, which would actually create a system to ensure that in events like this their telecoms are protected.
Conservative
Conservative
Liberal
Jennifer O'Connell Liberal Pickering—Uxbridge, ON
If you want to move a dilatory motion not to go to Bill C-26 and deal with that, then I think you can explain that to Atlantic Canadians today, too.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Doug Shipley
We have a couple more hands up on this issue.
Maybe I can ask the clerk, because I got a little confused too. How were those two different meeting notifications given out so closely and yet they were so different? Could you please clarify that for us?
Liberal
Conservative
The Clerk of the Committee Mr. Simon Larouche
The clerks follow the instructions of the chair unless there's any indication from the committee on what to put on the notice of meeting.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Doug Shipley
Okay, so you were reinstructed to make a second one, to get that out.
