Evidence of meeting #47 for Science and Research in the 44th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was study.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Corey Tochor Conservative Saskatoon—University, SK
I will agree to a further reduction to four, but I would like Mr. Collins to withdraw his subamendment. We'll vote on the main motion and then amend it down to four after it's passed. If Mr. Collins is in agreement, he'll remove his motion, or we can vote on it.
Liberal
Chad Collins Liberal Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
I don't know the procedure there. I don't know how that happens.
The Clerk
He can remove his motion, but once the motion is adopted, that's the adopted motion.
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Lloyd Longfield
The main motion would then be discussed, and at the point of a main motion being discussed, you could suggest further amendments.
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Lloyd Longfield
Once a motion has been adopted.... What you're suggesting is to get rid of subamendments and then go to the main motion. Am I understanding you correctly?
Conservative
Corey Tochor Conservative Saskatoon—University, SK
No, I'll just clarify. With unanimous support, we can amend a motion after it has passed, so that can happen, but to get this committee, which I think has been functioning well, back to a place of respect, I will take it further down to four meetings on the amendment, as long as we have a vote on the main motion shortly. After the adoption of this motion, I would expect that we would proceed with the other votes with recorded votes.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Lloyd Longfield
Where we want to go is up to the will of the committee.
Is there further discussion on the subamendment?
Conservative
Liberal
Chad Collins Liberal Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
I'm going to use Mr. Tochor's words in terms of getting the committee back on track.
I'm going to reiterate what I said earlier. There is a big trust issue now that we have here. This morning's proceedings were interrupted with the filibuster. We had four witnesses planned. Obviously this meeting is off track, to use that term, because of what happened earlier. There's a trust issue here.
There's this “trust us” issue, and yet we're dealing, in this political environment here, with an element of political blackmail, in that they're going to keep filibustering, they're going to interrupt all proceedings, they're going to interrupt the report that was coming from our Bloc friends and they're going to interrupt the report that's been done on citizen science from our NDP member.
The filibuster we had earlier threatened to bring everything to a grinding halt unless we agree with everything they say. Then they'll stop. I just find it absurd.
Again, I'm not new to this place but I'm new to this committee. There's a trust issue here in terms of letting this pass and then things will proceed as one party around the table wants, instead of having a collective decision-making process that has worked very well for this committee since its inception.
I'm a little bit disturbed, because if we acquiesce here on this one, I guess the question would be what is next. Will something come again next week? If somebody puts forward a motion or we have an established rule of order of business, will they say, “Well, we're not happy, so we're going to run the clock out”?
Again, it goes back to witnesses, who come in from different parts of the country. It's one thing for people to attend virtually and to say, “Hey, look, we're going to have to interrupt your day. Go back to what you were doing. Sorry for the prep work you did for this committee, but we'll call you when you're needed again.” It might be a couple of days or it could be a couple of weeks, depending on what's happened.
It gives me some consternation in terms of this whole “trust me” line that's been presented to the committee, when in fact we've had a very good working relationship up until today's meeting.
What's changed? I certainly understand the whole Chinese interference issue that's been raised in the House and at several committees. If that's the one-trick pony political debate that's going to happen for several months from one party, so be it. That's their prerogative. I guess the issue that I would have, again, is that it interferes with all the good work that this committee has done to date and has continued to do, up until this morning.
I have some doubts in terms of what comes next if I agree to what has been suggested here. I would much prefer, Mr. Chair, that the committee have some discussion about coming to a compromise, rather than being politically blackmailed into a decision or a position that we're uncomfortable with.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Lloyd Longfield
As the chair, I'm disappointed that the trust has been broken within the committee. I hope the committee can find a way to regain that trust. It was working very well. As a chair, I'll say that it made life move along, because we were able to get some reports done and studied. We have one we'll be tabling in the House of Commons on Tuesday. I was hoping we would see some more committee reports tabled in the House of Commons. Getting reports done has been a hallmark of this committee. I'm hoping we can get to the point where we can see reports being completed again.
However, it is the will of the committee to see where we go on the next steps. I've now heard “four weeks” on both sides, in talking about the subamendment. I wonder whether we can vote on the subamendment to see whether we have some common ground on that. We can then go back to the main amendment and see where we're at on that one.
I'm looking around the room. If there is no further discussion on the subamendment the way it sits now, let's go to the vote.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Lloyd Longfield
It's a recorded vote. This is on Mr. Collins' subamendment. What we're voting on is the four weeks. That's what we have on the table. Then we'll go back to the amendment. We're voting on four weeks as the study period.
(Subamendment agreed to: yeas 11; nays 0)
We're back to where we were at with this. It's good to have these things in writing. Now the subamendment reads, “that the committee allocate a minimum of four full meetings to the study; that the committee begin the study on June 20”.
Can we vote on that full amendment or discuss it?
Liberal
Chad Collins Liberal Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
Mr. Chair, can I ask that we break for a minute?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Lloyd Longfield
If we don't have a discussion on this, I think we're in the process of starting a vote. Let's keep going with the vote, then.
Just to be clear, this will take us back to the main motion. If there is more discussion on the main motion.... This is the amendment “that the committee allocate a minimum of four full meetings to the study; that the committee begin the study on June 20”.
Liberal
Valerie Bradford Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
I have a point of order. I think someone indicated that we wanted—
Liberal
Bloc
Maxime Blanchette-Joncas Bloc Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC
I raise a point of order, Mr. Chair. We are in the middle of a vote, and there can be no points of order during a vote. We must therefore proceed with the vote.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Lloyd Longfield
We're in the midst of doing a vote right now.
Let's go to the recorded vote.
(Amendment as amended agreed to: yeas 6; nays 5 [See Minutes of Proceedings])
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Lloyd Longfield
That passes, and it takes us back to the main motion.
Do we have the main motion that we can read out with those amendments? I'm being a stickler just because it's important to get this one right.
Could the clerk read us the motion the way it is now, with the amendments that include the four-week study that was just passed and splitting the committee meetings to one hour for each?