Status of Women Committee on Feb. 25th, 2016

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

I don't know.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

No. You're not good with that? Okay.

Maybe we should stick to what we had and say no to everybody else.

Ms. Harder.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

I have a point of clarification. Are we talking about in camera blues as well or are we just talking about public blues?

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

It's just about public blues.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Okay.

In terms of in camera blues, who has access to those? Do we have access to those at a committee level?

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Only the clerk.

[The Clerk]

Anybody is welcome to come and review them. I'll read the motion regarding in camera transcripts that we had agreed to:

That one copy of the transcript of all in camera meetings be kept in the Committee Clerk’s office for consultation by members of the Committee.

Typically, if you need to review them, you would have to visit me in my office and review them there.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you.

[The Clerk]

If I can also clarify one piece of information. Whenever we send out the blues, there is always a disclaimer that says that these are unedited and they're not quotable.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

What I'm hearing then is that we are going to keep the blues here for the people who attend the meeting and that is the way it is and everyone else is out of luck. They can watch it on TV.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

They can record it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

That's what we're going to do. Excellent.

Ms. Malcolmson.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

I have a question. What's the time lag between our meetings and when there is a publicly available transcript?

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

It's 10 business days.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

To me we're fulfilling that transparency requirement from the point of view of the public. We're preventing any errors from going out and showing all the good points that were made. Thank you for that.

I want to just remind people about a couple of things. One is that our meeting on March 8 will have to end early because the minister has invited us to the International Women's Day event that starts at five o'clock at the National Arts Centre. The suggestion is that we end the meeting at 4:30. Is everybody good with that?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Beautiful.

Ms. Damoff, you have one more thing?

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

I actually just had an idea to put out there. We don't have to do it.

Ms. Harder had put forward a request for a study. I incorporated part of that and circulated an idea for a study that we could do.

I'm just wondering if we want to consider doing that, rather than waiting until the eighth. Then we could move on and get witnesses. I know you circulated the list and had asked to have comments back by the second, and I'm happy to do that. I just wondered if everyone wanted to move ahead with that particular study as opposed to waiting until the eighth.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

I think that because we said that anything substantive we're going to work on needs to get 48 hours' notice, and I just saw this today, then I would suggest that we do put it off.

I think it's very good, but I think that in addition to that there may be other ideas that come in before the second, and then we would consolidate those ideas and bring that back on the eighth to vote on.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Can I just have a quick point of clarification from the chair?

I want to make sure I understand this 48-hour limit. My understanding is that this second half of the meeting is with regard to committee business.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

A small portion of committee business was intended for updating you about what happened at the steering committee, and then Alex Smith will be coming.

Because we're all new, and we'll be studying the estimates, and we don't have a lot of training in what we're supposed to be doing on estimates, Alex is going to come and explain the mystery.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Sorry.

My actual question within that—I am treating this as a learning opportunity, I guess—is that if we are talking about committee business right now, in my estimation the motion that Pam brought forward is committee business, and therefore it would be appropriate to bring it forward at this point in time, without necessarily needing to adhere to a 48-hour notice period.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

I'm interested to hear the views on the committee on that.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

On that, I understand there was a motion tabled at the end of the last meeting.

We could do this as an amendment to that motion and just have the mover of that motion bring that forward, if that's your wish.