Evidence of meeting #52 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Merv Tweed
We're moving now to the second motion by Mr. Fast. I've been advised that—
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
Mr. Chair, I will be glad to withdraw my substantive motion—number two, I believe you called it—in favour of Mr. Volpe's motion, subject to the suggestion of a friendly amendment.
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Merv Tweed
We have two amendments by you, Mr. Fast. The first one is on time allocation.
Conservative
Liberal
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Merv Tweed
We're on Mr. Fast's motion.
I will give you the floor to make your presentation, and then we are going to deal with Mr. Volpe's motion with a friendly amendment.
Conservative
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
Basically we're left with Mr. Volpe's motion, subject to that one friendly amendment.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Merv Tweed
Mr. Fast has withdrawn his first motion on time allocation, his second motion on Canada Post, and the committee is in agreement with that.
We will move to Monsieur Bélanger to present Mr. Volpe's motion.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Mr. Chairman, I suspect you will recall the discussion that we had last week around this table. We were still at it at this time and for another four hours after that.
You will recall that there was an attempt after the vote, when the committee came back, to reconstruct some goodwill around the table—and I'll summarize this quickly—in the sense that if collectively we gave ourselves some time, we might find some common ground. We were acting on the suggestion from the parliamentary secretary, and all members of all the opposition parties have also had a chance to discuss this.
The common ground included elements such as a stay of execution, to use the vernacular, for the remailers. It also included not seeking to tamper with the privilege of Canada Post at this time—I don't want to rehash all the discussions—and it sought some time so that the committee could engage in what some would consider its due diligence in terms of these rather complex matters.
The motion in front of you, under the name of my colleague Joe Volpe, that I'm prepared to move now essentially calls for that. It says “That the Standing Committee...report to the House of Commons the following...”. I can dispense with reading, but let's not dispense, so that the sense of it is clear, because there were some questions asked.
The first part is that “The corporation shall, at its option”. This “at its option” means discontinuance, withdrawal, or “consent to a judicial stay of proceedings”. That is what its options are—not to do nothing. At least, that's the advice this committee is giving to the government, if the government wishes to accept it and pass it on to Canada Post via the minister, as it stated.
Finally, in the last part, we are putting some encumbrances upon ourselves, such that we would undertake before the end of this calendar year to look into the matter and make further comments, recommendations, or suggestions, depending on the hearings and the amount of work we do.
I suspect that this defined pretty well the common ground I thought we could reach. Once this motion is formally presented and moved, as it now is, I also hope this would be the result.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The only concern I have is the three words in paragraph (i), “at its option”. I know how the drafting would have been done and what the intention was: that the corporation has an option to either “discontinue, withdraw or consent”. It can be construed as being simply an option that the corporation has to act or not act, if you understand where I'm coming from. I think we need to refine that.
In fact, in my version of this particular section, which was actually Mr. Volpe's section, I took out those three words so it would read: “The Corporation shall discontinue, withdraw or consent to a judicial stay of proceedings”. This makes it clear that the corporation doesn't have the option of simply not acting at all.
Liberal
Don Bell Liberal North Vancouver, BC
I agree. I'll leave it to the legal drafters, but you either delete “at its option” and put the word “either” in there, or you just delete “at its option”. So it should read: “The Corporation shall discontinue, withdraw or consent“, or “The Corporation shall either discontinue, withdraw or consent”.
It's not that they have a choice to do nothing.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Mr. Chair, I'd treat as a friendly amendment the addition of the word “either”.
