Status of Women Committee on May 30th, 2006

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Ms. Minna.

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

I have two questions, Madam Chair.

Just to go back for a second, because I didn't quite understand the operational budget that you mentioned, are we putting this off for discussion to another time?

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Yes, we're going to hold this off until next week. You have it to look at between now and Thursday.

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

Okay. My only question would be, so that the information would be here for next week.... You stated that we were discussing finances to cover costs to study the matrimonial property rights, and then you said economic security of women, but that's not here. I only have the one.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

You should have two in front of you. One is the study on matrimonial property rights of aboriginal women and the other operational budget issue that we will discuss on Thursday is the study on economic issues of women. These are studies that we had already approved.

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

Yes, I appreciate that. It's just that I didn't see the second one, and that's why I was asking.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

It should be there.

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

Okay. Well, I don't have it, so maybe we can get it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Yes, please make sure you have both of them.

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

I would suggest that we start with Ms. Mourani's motion and see how far we get. I don't think that in five minutes we will get very far; that's my only concern. Maybe we need to set up a separate time to clear up the backlog of these motions and stuff so we can continue with discussing and doing the work that we are doing. Otherwise we're going to get bogged down.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Exactly.

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

It's just a suggestion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

My concern is now with our timeline. We have three motions in front of us, and I think they may require some discussion and debate, and there is very limited time left in our meeting.

Mr. Stanton, go ahead, please.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Madam Chair, it might be advantageous to consider the second and third motions in order, and we might be able to expedite those two. I certainly have a lot more questions on the pay equity motion, but if we can expedite the second and third, we could at least get those done and possibly have only one to carry over.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

There is a motion by Ms. Minna on the table, which everyone has in front of them. Do you want to move that, Ms. Minna?

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

Yes, I so move, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

All those in favour of initiating that study?

(Motion agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Thank you.

Ms. Mathyssen's motion is about senior women having a right to a fulfilling life. Does everybody have that in front of them?

Sorry, Ms. Mourani, is it relating to Ms. Minna's motion?

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Madam Chair, how are motions prioritized? Are they ranked according to when they reached the clerk? How does it work, exactly?

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

The order is determined by the order in which the clerk receives the motions. In future, they may need to be marked with a time stamp so we can be sure of the time they arrived.

Yes, Ms. Mourani.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Ms. Tittley, I am wondering if we can agree on the fact that it was my motion that was tabled first. I believe that is the case. Therefore, my motion should be discussed first.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

The only difficulty, Ms. Mourani, is that we were looking at a clock that has two minutes. Ms. Minna's motion and Ms. Mathyssen's motions are basically along the same lines as issues that we had already discussed as a committee and agreed on.

Further discussion of your motion on pay equity has been requested by other members of our group here. That will take more time, so I suggest we hold the issue of pay equity over until Thursday.

Ms. Minna's has already passed. If everyone is in agreement to Ms. Mathyssen's... otherwise we have to leave for the next committee to come. We can discuss your motion on Thursday; we do not have time now, as we've run out of time.

Yes, Ms. Guergis.

[Helena Guergis, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

I was just wanting to make a friendly amendment to Ms. Mathyssen's motion. You've included income splitting in this, and income splitting is under the finance department, so I think it would be appropriate to have the experts from Finance discuss the income splitting part of your motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Is that agreed? All those in favour?

(Motion agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

On Thursday, as one of our first pieces of business, we will deal with Ms. Mourani's motion, which we'll have on the table.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

What I understand, Madam Chair, is that you are breaking a rule. The rule is that the first motion to be received by the clerk is debated first. Therefore, you are breaking a rule, and I find this undemocratic. I am sorry, Madam Chair, I do not understand why you are saying my motion would open an lengthy debate, because members of this committee have already participated in a debate on pay equity in another committee. We all agreed — perhaps not everyone, but the majority of opposition members agreed — to table a motion on pay equity. You are saying that we did not discuss this subject, whereas, indeed, it was discussed. In fact, you yourself have tabled reports dealing with pay equity. Madam Chair, I am wondering what exactly is going on.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Ms. Mourani, Mr. Stanton had requested time to debate this motion and had suggested the other two motions were basically the things that we had already agreed upon. But this motion was going to require debate, so we could not deal with it today because it's 11 o'clock and the committee room is now to be taken over by the next committee. So we do not have the time, not because we didn't want to put it first but because there isn't the time to debate this.

The other two have been passed; this one needs time. There was a request by Mr. Stanton to do that.

Yes, Ms. Minna.