Status of Women Committee on May 16th, 2006

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

On a point of order, Madam Chair, at this point I'd like to know whether we intend to go through this with all the other motions. I understand Madam Smith has other motions on all other things that were part of our workplan. She's taken the workplans and put motions to them, basically, which is what I find offensive.

So now I want to know, are we going to go through this over and over again, or are we going to go to the workplan, which is what we were approving? If not, we might as well all leave, because we don't have any consensus here.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Let me bring to everybody's attention that it is five minutes after ten. We have accomplished very little so far. I'm going to ask all of us, if I can as the chair.... If we can't work by consensus in this committee, you really have to question what's going to happen in the other committees. I ask all of us to please work together.

These issues are so important. Let's not get tied up in political rhetoric and the rest of it. Lots of other committees do, but this one shouldn't. Let's try to work together. We all want the same thing, all of us in this room. Let's try to move on. Motions cause hassles for all of us. When necessary, let's table them, but if not....

Can we have some order? Let's get together, guys. Let's try to avoid motions, if everybody agrees. We can all play politics here, or we can move on the issues that matter to each and every one of us around this table. Let's try to bring ourselves together. Let's try to avoid motions unless they are absolutely necessary. When there is consensus, we should be moving forward and not wasting time.

Now, can we move forward on the workplan we have proposed here?

Yes, Ms. Smith.

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

You know, I don't think because a motion....

I mean, we could have had this over in three minutes. I also changed the motion. I took out the word “study”. It's unfortunate; in this committee we should be able to put a motion forward, get it simply done in about two minutes, and reiterate it.

Around this table today, there has been a terrible display from members opposite, shouting across the way. Simply, all we wanted to do was table the motion to bring it up as top priority. Members opposite have said, “Oh, the government doesn't want to do this.” We do want to do it, and that's why I wanted to put it into the record.

[An hon. member]

Thou doth protest too much.

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Then to hear from the chair that we don't have political motivations....

My political motivation, and that of members on this side of the House, is to attend to aboriginal women's needs--period. And if it takes a motion to focus on that....

It takes three minutes to pass a motion. I even changed the wording in the motion to accommodate everybody. I don't think around this table we should be made to feel as if that's the wrong thing to do—

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

It is; motions are wrong for the culture of a committee.

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

—when we have decided that it was a really good thing to do. We won't have many motions, and on today, with the other motions, I will not present that....

[An hon. member]

[Inaudible--Editor].

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

That is not true--excuse me--that I have a whole litany of motions to present today. I do not.

This was a very, very important issue. It's not this side of the House that's making this a political issue. If we had gotten this out of the way initially, it would have taken three minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

It is generally the focus and the consensus on committees that when you have unanimous consent, you move forward, and you only table motions when there is not a consensus. That has been the practice on the committees that I have been part of previously. I expect that generally the culture is one of trying to work together to move forward the agenda that's in front of us.

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Madam Chair, I don't know if this is a point of order or not, but--

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Yes, Ms. Mourani, I'm sorry.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

I don't know, you don't seem to see me....

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Wait now; hold on.

If we're going on to the workplan, I have had Ms. Davidson and Mr. Stanton patiently waiting to talk about the workplan. If there's a point of order, raise it as a point of order.

[An hon. member]

No.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Otherwise, Ms. Davidson, I believe you have the floor.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thank you.

I think you did a good job of putting the workplan together for us to look at and to determine where we're going. My problem is not with the content of the workplan; my problem is trying to understand, as a new member, how the determination was made that we came to a unanimous consensus on some of this stuff.

I guess it just went over my head, but I don't remember last meeting saying that we definitely agreed to table the five reports. I think I said that because I hadn't seen them, before I decided that I wanted to do it I wanted to have the chance to at least read them. So I take a little bit of offence to the statement that we definitely decided by unanimous consensus that we were going to do this, because I don't think we did--or I didn't.

So I'm confused. I'm not trying to say we shouldn't be doing it; I'm just a little bit confused with the process, I think.

I like what you've got in here. It's great that for the next meeting, on Thursday, we're going to have Stats Canada here and we'll have the opportunity to go through one of these prior reports and ask some questions. I did have a chance to read them, and I thank the committee for giving me that time.

As my first question, then, are we going to have the chance to go through each of them, maybe spend a half hour on each of those reports, before we make a final decision on where they're going or what's going to happen with them? I'm not saying we should study them to death or anything. We could have maybe 20 minutes for each one of them so that we have the opportunity to ask questions, as the next meeting we're going to do. Maybe we don't even need a whole meeting on the next one. Maybe Stats Canada is only going to be here for part of the meeting and we can put another one in there for discussion at the same time.

I certainly support the joint meetings with justice and aboriginal affairs. I think that's critical. We need to have that. I'm certainly glad to see that there was consensus on the matrimonial real property rights for aboriginal women. I think that's critical, and I was glad to see that everybody supported that. It's just the process that has me a little bit confused, not the content of what the future discussion is going to be.

I would really like to see us accomplish something rather than keep arguing back and forth.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

If I can clarify, the unanimous consent I referred to concerned the work that was done on the previous status of women committee, of which several women on all sides of this table right now were part. It was all five of those reports that were unanimously approved by everyone who was a member of that committee. Last week, I wasn't referring to us giving unanimous consent, but to the previous committee giving unanimous consent to those reports.

I think if we are anxious to hear the government's response and want to give the 120 days the government requires to refer back to these reports, they need to get tabled in the House. Then we can get a response back from the government in order to know where we should move forward on those particular five reports. That's what I was referring to.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much for your comment.

Mr. Stanton.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

By the way, it's very nice to have another male here.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

I was going to say I'm delighted to be here myself.

Good morning to all of you.

It's a tremendous honour to be part of this committee. I'm filling in for Mrs. Gallant, who had some other priorities with scheduling, and so on. I'm delighted to replace her when I can.

I've looked at the workplan, and seeing how ambitious it is, I would agree with the other members who have spoken to this that there is a lot of important work in front of this committee.

My riding is in north Simcoe County in central Ontario. While we are often mischaracterized as a relatively affluent part of Ontario, there are many issues affecting women in my riding. We have two native communities, as well as a large Métis community, that are definitely affected by the matrimonial property issue. These are of critical importance to many citizens in my riding of North Simcoe, as well as across the country.

In looking at the workplan, I do have a couple of questions. I apologize because I've just got the briefing book and started into this. There were five reports tabled in the last Parliament, which I agree should come forward. It wasn't clear on the workplan when we might be doing that. If we're going to bring them back to table them, will we be more or less reviewing them and approving them for adoption, then moving them along? And have we accommodated some time to do that?

The other item that wasn't clear to me concerned the delegation that we'll hear on May 18. Was the Statistics Canada report tabled in the last Parliament? Was it one of the five, or was it separate?

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

It's a recent report.