Status of Women Committee on Feb. 25th, 2016

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

From the email of February 24, we have been asked, any of us who have ideas for future action, to prepare them in the form of a motion and send them in to the clerk no later than March 2. That gives us the time to read in advance and we would see everybody's motions. That would be the body of our work for the March 8 meeting, so I think we're going to really fill that hour.

At that point, it seems that then we could decide which study or briefing is more important than another. To me, what we talked about at the very beginning of this meeting and what was described for March 2 means that everybody will have full notice. Everybody's proposals will all be in one agenda package, and then we'll be able to look at them all at the same time and really fill that hour probably very full.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

I agree with that. There is one question that I want to clarify in my mind as we go forward. I have brought back to this committee that the steering committee wants the 48 hours in place. I think somebody—was it Ms. Sahota?—asked if it had to come back here. It does come back here and you do have the ability then to talk about it. We could call a vote on that. You can choose not to go with your steering team.

Ms. Damoff.

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

Can I get clarification? When we talked about the 48 hours, we were talking about the scope of study. What exactly is this 48 hours in terms of motions going forward? For everything that we do, do we have to give 48 hours' notice? It seems a little muddied. What we talked about in the steering committee was.... What is defined as substantive?

[The Clerk]

I would want to refer to the rules to provide you with the correct answer to that question.

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

For example, if we were having a committee meeting and decided to start a study, and something came up and we decided we wanted to change the path of the committee, can we not move a motion at that meeting and vote on it without having 48 hours' notice? It doesn't seem to make sense to me that every single motion has to have 48 hours' notice. I'd really like some clarity on this, because I can see our wanting at some point to bring something forward and not necessarily providing 48 hours' notice.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

We have the flexibility as a committee to decide what we want to do. Even if we decide we never want to have 48 hours' notice, we can do that. We just need to make sure that we're clear up front which things we are going to wait for and which things we are not going to wait for, so that we don't—

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

I'm not clear at all.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Mrs. Vecchio.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

At the beginning of this discussion, I wrote down “substantive motion, 48 hours unless it's currently the work of the committee”. Until we have clarification of the definition of “substantive”, I don't think it means that small motions have to be deferred for 48 hours; rather, we're looking at “substantive”.

As Ms. Malcolmson and I agree, this is a substantive motion we're looking at, so the 48 hours now—

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

I'm not worried about your giving.... We've moved on.

But I'm curious, going forward—I'm not clear at all—about what is substantive and what is not.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

That's why I think, with the clerk about to give us that definition, that we will have it clear. She has it right here, as we're speaking.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Here it is. Substantive motions are independent proposals of two types. One is an order. It provides instruction to the chair and to the committee staff. The second type is a resolution, which is a motion in which the committee expresses its opinion on a specific matter.

I would say that this is a motion.

[Eva Nassif, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

It's very elastic.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

It's very “government”, isn't it?

We can agree as a team what we want to do. I would personally like to see the flow such that, when we're here and we are talking about a topic at the table and start to see consensus or a common theme, somebody would make a motion, we could vote at that time, and that would be it.

But I don't want to have things show up that people haven't had time to think about or consider and force a vote on that. To me, that's something on which you can't make a good decision, because you haven't had time to really think about it.

Ms. Vandenbeld.

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

Can I just clarify that the steering committee is not recommending a more stringent application of the standing order or a change to it? It's just an interpretation. We are still operating under the Standing Orders as they pertain to motions. We're not trying to change that. My understanding is that we can't change the Standing Orders.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Right.

Ms. Malcolmson.

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

Could I also please ask the chair to read the qualifier from the rules that you read at the beginning of the meeting? To me it gave some assurance that if it's an agenda item that people were prepared to discuss, of course we can put motions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

It is:

That forty-eight (48) hours' notice be required for any substantive motion to be considered by the Committee, unless the substantive motion relates directly to business then under consideration; and that the notice of motion be filed with the Clerk of the Committee and distributed to members in both official languages; and, that completed motions received by 4:00 p.m. Monday to Friday be distributed to members the same day.

Let's say that March 8 comes along and we're talking about the violence against women study that we want to do. People can bring motions that day, because that's what we're talking about, and there is no issue with that.

But today, because we were talking about GBA and estimates, it's not the topic of conversation for today. That's why it's a substantive motion. Does that help?

Ms. Harder.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

I'm sorry, I don't mean to flog this more than needed. I think Pam is happy to let this rest and I'm happy to let it rest. But just for a point of clarification, in my estimation right now, according to the agenda, we are officially under the category of committee business, which would then mean that this motion can in fact be brought to the floor without 48 hours' notice.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

That would be a lesson for the chair to not call it committee business but call it an update on what the steering committee said—point taken.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

I'm open to it. If you guys want to vote on it, that's great. But I think you need to recognize that Ms. Malcolmson is not comfortable with voting on it and Mrs. Vecchio is not comfortable with voting on it, so I think that in the spirit of fairness to the committee we should take the time.

Ms. Vandenbeld.

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

I think what I'm hearing and what we all agree on is that we are choosing not to bring this forward because there are members of the committee who are uncomfortable, not that we could not have brought it forward. The rules don't prevent us, but we are choosing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

That is correct.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you, Anita.

To add to that, I think here's basically what I'm looking for. Again, I think all of us around this table are brand new and we're learning these procedures and these protocols, so I'm simply looking for a point of clarification and just a note that in the future, perhaps, if we're not wanting to call this committee business, we can call it something else.