Evidence of meeting #52 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was minutes.
A recording is available from Parliament.
November 20th, 2012 / 11:20 a.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
But that is entirely distinct from the contents of the NDP “Infrastructure Funding Study Proposal”?
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
You received it from the New Democratic delegation to this committee?
Conservative
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
And it was circulated out of camera to the committee members?
NDP
Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON
I want to very clearly mention, since we were talking about minutes on November 1, that the motion I moved is that “the committee consider infrastructure programs of other countries, such as Germany, the U.S. and Australia, and that the study be reported to the House of Commons”.
The document that was circulated was meant as a reference guide. That reference guide was requested from me by Mr. Poilievre, and since we were going to be studying infrastructure anyway, there was a discussion as to what kinds of witnesses and what is the scope.... I thought it would be advantageous for all members to broaden our horizon to look at what's happening in other countries. Unfortunately, some of my friends across the way did not agree with that.
But I do want to say to some members who have talked publicly about the NDP pushing for such a tax that it's blatantly untrue, and no amount of manipulation of the minutes will actually give you the sense that this is what we're pushing for.
The only thing I was doing was putting some ideas in front of the committee and have us look at the example of other countries. To try to make a big deal out of it I think is not very fair, and it's neither here nor there at this point because my motion to study other countries was defeated.
Mr. Chair, in two meetings' time we will need to figure out who will be the witnesses coming in to talk about red tape reduction, more bidders, and the very narrowly focused discussion on infrastructure.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
I take issue with Ms. Chow's reference to manipulation of the minutes.
Let me ask the clerk of the committee: did any member of the committee contact you to ask you to manipulate the minutes?
Conservative
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
Ms. Chow. Okay. That's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. That does happen, but no one contacted you to ask you to alter them or to manipulate them, or did they?
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
So the only person who contacted you about the minutes was Ms. Chow?
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
Okay. Again, I emphasize that she is fully in her right to do that if she believes the minutes did not properly reflect her words. But the implication that somebody manipulated the minutes is false. Nobody has contacted the clerk to ask for an alteration of the minutes whatsoever—certainly not on this side. The only person who did was Ms. Chow, in order to correct what she saw was an error.
The discussion on the “Infrastructure Funding Study Proposal” does not actually come out of the verbatim in the minutes. It comes out of a document the NDP submitted to the chair, which was circulated. Is that correct?
