Status of Women Committee on April 21st, 2016

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Hello everyone, and welcome. We are ready to begin the meeting.

Today we have, at the beginning, 20 minutes of committee business, followed by the RCMP and the Department of Public Safety.

In terms of committee business, the first thing I want to talk about is the budget. You probably had the budget circulated to you. This is, as before, the budget we need to approve in order to begin our study on gender-based analysis. This is expected to get us through the study.

If we find the expenses that are detailed have to be reallocated, this is allowable. If we need to have more money, we can request a supplementary amount. Otherwise we need to approve it before it goes ahead.

Could I have a motion to approve the budget as presented?

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

I'll move the motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

So moved by Ms. Damoff.

Is there any discussion on the budget?

(Motion agreed to)

The second item is the brief that was sent out for posting on the web. I hope you've had a chance to review it. Well, there's a news release and there's a brief.

First is this letter that says:

Dear Colleagues, As many of you are aware, the Committees website was recently redesigned.

It goes through how they will give their input.

Are there any comments on the brief?

Do I need a motion to post that?

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Andrea McCaffrey]

If you're going to have just agreement by the committee—

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Is there general agreement by the committee?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Let's look at the news release.

Is there any commentary on the news release? You guys are awesome.

That's great. We will go ahead and release this.

Do you have any comments, Ms. Sansoucy?

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

I apologize, Madam Chair, but I am standing in for a permanent member of the standing committee. I have to find my bearings.

I have a few questions about the draft of the press release.

The English version does not seem to have a hyperlink to the online course, while the French version does indeed have a hyperlink. I just want to make sure that a hyperlink for the online course is added to the English version.

Also, in the press release, there are quite a few quotation marks and we're not sure why they are there. In fact, these quotation marks do not seem to frame a quote or reference a document. There are some in the second and third paragraphs.

I would also like to know when this press release is set to be issued, please.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

The first question is on

the hyperlinks.

If we can have the clerk check and make sure the hyperlinks are going to the program, that would be a good thing to do.

[Laura Munn-Rivard, Committee Researcher]

Hello, Ms. Sansoucy.

You are saying that the hyperlinks do not work. Is that it?

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

The French version has a hyperlink to the online course, but the English version does not.

[Laura Munn-Rivard]

It isn't in blue, but the hyperlink is underlined.

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

It isn't in the version we received.

[Laura Munn-Rivard]

In the English version I have the hyperlink is underlined. I can look into it.

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

In any case, there is a version going around without a hyperlink.

[Laura Munn-Rivard]

That must be a different version. I will double-check the hyperlinks.

You also had a question about when the press release would be issued and a question about some quotes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

With the word “plus”, we see a symbol

and then the word. You see it there, there, and plus.

[Laura Munn-Rivard]

The quotation marks are there because those are quotations.

I'm sorry, but I only have a copy of the English. It says:

“At the federal level, gender-based analysis plus”.

That's the second paragraph.

There's a hyperlink in the second paragraph, and the quotations are taken from the text found at that link.

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Okay.

Essentially, there are parts of sentences that are quotations. That's strange.

[Laura Munn-Rivard]

Yes.

Would you prefer a footnote?

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

I don't understand why there are quotation marks.

[Laura Munn-Rivard]

The hyperlink in the second paragraph will bring you to the source of these quotations, but I could include a footnote at the bottom to make it more clear.

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Yes, please, otherwise it's not clear.

[Laura Munn-Rivard]

Okay.

I'll put a footnote at the bottom of the page for these two quotations.

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

We're talking about footnotes at the bottom of a news release.

We could also just turn them into a sentence.