Evidence of meeting #31 for Status of Women in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was amendment.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Marilyn Gladu
Yes, that is the motion that has been brought forward. The Conservatives identified witnesses in their motion, and the Bloc identified the amendment that we voted on that is now included in that motion.
Ms. Hutchings.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
Gudie Hutchings Liberal Long Range Mountains, NL
Thanks, Madam Chair.
I just want to be sure that Ms. Sahota's.... It now seems it was four days ago that we added that this study would end with one and a half meetings. I just want to make sure it's in there.
Maybe you could read the motion that we're now about to vote on.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
Jag Sahota Conservative Calgary Skyview, AB
Madam Chair, I just want to clarify what Mr. Serré said. They can bring in their witnesses later if they want. This was my motion for one and a half days. That's what we're voting on. It doesn't prohibit his or the other party from bringing in witnesses later.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
Gudie Hutchings Liberal Long Range Mountains, NL
Madam Chair, I think our colleague in the room, Mr. Angus, has his hand up.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
12:10 p.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
I want to thank Ms. Hutchings so much. I was feeling so lonely and left out. I thought maybe it was just me.
I wanted to correct the record in case people had a false idea. Mr. Serré said this motion was not allowing the NDP to bring witnesses. We are pretty fierce when we want to bring witnesses. For my colleague Lindsay Mathyssen, it's my understanding that this was an attempt to get this study done because there are many other priorities. We agreed with that, so this was an agreement on one and a half meetings. You can stack it up with as many witnesses as you want, but it probably wouldn't be all that useful at the end of the day.
If there were witnesses we felt we needed to add to the study, we would add them, but we are focused on the other priorities of this committee that have been identified. I don't need to enumerate them all. However, if we believe we have to bring witnesses, we will certainly be more than willing to bring witnesses to committee, but at this point we want to try to get this study done and get it moved on so that we can get to the other stuff that the committee is very involved in.
Thank you.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Marilyn Gladu
All right. I received the original motion, but I will now read the amended motion for the committee.
It is moved:
That the committee extend its current study into sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces; that the committee invite Zita Astravas for one hour, Lieutenant-General Carignan and Leah West to appear together for one hour, Guy Chapdelaine, the Chaplain General of the Canadian Armed Forces, and the Provost Marshal for one hour.
Mr. Serré, you have the floor.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
Marc Serré Liberal Nickel Belt, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I just want to clarify, because we seem to be in agreement. I agree 100% with what Mr. Angus just said, that we want to get this report submitted.
By approving this motion today, are we submitting this to the House as a final report? I want to clarify that aspect of the motion, because we do have, as Mr. Angus said, other studies that we're looking at.
I want to clarify the point about ending this and moving forward to make sure we have specific recommendations for victims and survivors.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Marilyn Gladu
Yes, it's a good point to clarify, because there's nothing in the motion that says committee members can't decide to have additional defence meetings if they want. I would caution committee members, however, that with the schedule that remains, and with trying to get all the reports done by June 8 in order for them to be translated and presented to the House, you would have to sacrifice one of our other studies if anything further were added than what was added with this current motion.
Ms. Hutchings, please go ahead.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
Gudie Hutchings Liberal Long Range Mountains, NL
Thank you, Madam Chair.
We've talked about it, but I didn't hear it in Ms. Sahota's motion. Can I present an amendment? I'm trying to rethink what she just said, and what you just said. The amendment would be that the study would end after one and a half meeting days.
Can I present that? It's just to put an end to this, so that we can move on.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
Gudie Hutchings Liberal Long Range Mountains, NL
The amendment is that Ms. Sahota's motion will take one and a half meeting days, and that time would be at the discretion of the chair and clerk—it may be one big meeting or whatever—but that the study would end after one and a half meeting days.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Marilyn Gladu
Now we have an amendment before the committee that the study would end at the end of those one and a half meeting days.
We'll hear discussion on that.
Ms. Larouche, you have the floor.
12:15 p.m.
Bloc
Andréanne Larouche Bloc Shefford, QC
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I agree with my colleagues. Time concerns have been raised. Now, as Mr. Angus mentioned, there was nothing that would have prevented the committee from hearing from other witnesses. I had the idea of adding a witness and I wanted to incorporate that into Ms. Sahota's motion. Originally, I wanted to have this witness appear for a full two-hour session. I then agreed to a one-hour appearance, and finally proposed that this new witness be included in the third panel. I felt that the committee members wanted to close this study.
That said, there was nothing to prevent the committee from adding an hour, if the Liberal or NDP members had wanted to add witnesses, of course. That was not the purpose of the process. It was simply to include in a motion the appearance of a witness whom I considered to be important. The committee seems to be concerned, and rightly so, about the issue of time. That is why the motion focuses on a meeting and a half. If that's the will of the committee, we'll go along with it. I just wanted to make the point, again, that the intent was not to limit the power of members of the Liberal Party or the NDP to add witnesses. Quite simply, the goal was to be able to both hear from additional witnesses and complete this study in a time frame that would allow us to table the report in the House of Commons before the summer recess.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Marilyn Gladu
To clarify, the amendment we're discussing would end the study after one and a half more days of witnesses.
Is there any further discussion on the amendment?
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Marilyn Gladu
Yes. The amendment says that the study ends at the end of these one and a half meetings.
That would mean there would be no opportunity for the committee to decide to bring more witnesses.
Is there any other discussion on this?
I would ask the clerk, then, to take the vote, which is on the amendment that the study end at the end of those one and a half meetings.
(Amendment agreed to: yeas 6; nays 4)
The amendment is then added into the entire motion.
Now, for the benefit of the committee, I will read to you the entire motion so that you know what we will vote on.
The motion is that the committee extend its current study into sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces; that the committee invite Zita Astravas for one hour; Lieutenant-General Carignan and Leah West to appear together for one hour; and the provost marshal and the chaplain general of the Canadian Armed Forces for one hour; and that the study ends at the end of these one and a half meetings.
Is there any discussion?
(Motion agreed to: yeas 10; nays 0)
The clerk, the analysts and I will work together and come back to you with a schedule that fits those things in and meets all of our timing.
The one point that was raised during our discussion that I do want to discuss is the possibility of changing. In the future, if we have studies of a sensitive nature, does the committee want to entertain doing something different from the current time allocation for questions—you know, the first round with everybody having six minutes and the second round with all the timing.
One of the things that other committees have done when there was sensitive testimony was to say that each party would get a question, the person would be able to answer and there would be no time limit on that sort of thing. We would go around, each party would get one question and you would keep rotating, so that there isn't so much pressure and we don't have to interrupt witnesses during sensitive testimony.
Does anybody have any commentary on that?
We don't have any of those type of witnesses in the existing study, so it's something the committee can also consider later.
I see that people are nodding that it's a concern but you don't look entirely sure. Maybe we should take some more time as a committee and look at other options. One thing I would ask the clerk and the analysts to do is to reach out to people who are experienced in trauma-informed witness interviews and ask them if there are best practices the committee should consider. I think that would be very helpful.
With that, we now return to our consideration of the pay equity report, where we're making tremendous progress. We are down to the recommendations.
Is it the pleasure of the committee to continue in public or do you want to move in camera for this?
Ms. Hutchings.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Gudie Hutchings Liberal Long Range Mountains, NL
I think that when we're working on the report we should move in camera. We still haven't decided on what's public and what we're going to be publishing. I'd like to say that we move back in camera for the report.