Veterans Affairs Committee on May 9th, 2006

[Betty Hinton, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Speaking on behalf of the minister, I will assure you that this government has total respect for both official languages. Having sat on the committee with you last year, Monsieur Perron, you remember some of the problems we ran into with some documentation we wanted to examine that was not in French. So I assure you that will not happen this time. We will be very cognizant of both official languages.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

I will undertake, then, to invite the minister. He expressed that he had an interest. We'll talk about that with him to see about setting up a time. At that stage, I guess we could either adjourn or, if people have some other issues they would like to get on the plate....

I know that as far as legislation goes, the veterans bill of rights is something that's near and dear to all our hearts. It was endorsed by all the parties.

Mr. St. Denis.

[Brent St. Denis, Liberal, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Yes. Congratulations to you, Mr. Chair.

Is this our time slot—Tuesday afternoon and Thursday afternoon?

That's until June, I guess; then there will then be another time slot.

So we can plan our Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Is there a meeting this Thursday?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

That is an excellent question. I think that is at our discretion, sir.

[Brent St. Denis, Liberal, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

I'm just wondering, because I have to reschedule some stuff.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Would you like one?

Mrs. Hinton points out that, because she has tabled these motions, she'd at least like to have them dealt with on Thursday, because it sets the tone for business thence forward. Maybe it can be a short meeting, but at least get those out of the way. I doubt we'll be able to get the minister by Thursday. We'll probably leave that for some other week.

Does that sound acceptable?

[Anthony Rota, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

If we're just rushing in, would it be possible to do it on the following Tuesday, rather than have us show up for three minutes, vote, and then go back? It doesn't really change anything.

[Betty Hinton, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

It's at the discretion of the committee. We want to be accommodating, so it's whatever you like.

[Anthony Rota, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

I'm just thinking it might be good to do it on Tuesday, as opposed to come in for three minutes, vote on something, and then head out.

[Betty Hinton, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

That's fine with me.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

We're at your discretion.

Does somebody want to propose a motion to that effect?

[Brent St. Denis, Liberal, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

I'll move that we deal with the routine motions of the committee at our next meeting, which is on Tuesday.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

All right. We have that motion. Is there anyone willing to discuss it?

(Motion agreed to) [See Minutes of Proceedings]

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Mr. Shipley.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Mr. Chairman, I'm a new member. Just to help some of us who are new, I'm wondering if we have some time now to discuss a little bit around the table what is important for this committee—some ideas to go out, so that we aren't coming back next week at this time. It would be a fresh start in doing some things, and we could maybe put on the table a list. That way we'd have some time to think about some priorities. It would also be helpful to the minister, in that he would know some of the things we have as we listen to his agenda. This may be beneficial to all of us.

I'll take your direction on that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Fair enough.

I know I mentioned previously the Bill of Rights. I understand there are a couple of other countries that already have those on the books—Australia and Great Britain, I believe. We may want to look at how they've configured those things in comparison with what we have, because I think that document is open to some revision, drafting, and improvement along the way.

As well, there are issues we could probably discuss with the ombudsman, and the VIP program and its potential extension. Those are some of the ones I can think of. Obviously, having the minister before us to talk about budgetary estimates and to answer any questions there may be about that is another one. I know Mr. Stoffer has some private member's business he's rather keen on with regard to gold diggers and other things; I'm sure he'd like to talk about that.

I suspect what we'll do at the next meeting is consider the motions; then after that we'll be able to report and let everybody know where the minister is with regard to his appearance and move from there. I think it would be a good idea to have the minister before us and maybe set out some of the things he wants to address and bring before us.

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

What we did at the health committee last year—not that it had 100% success, but it had some success, if we had only had more time, and I hope that committee continues it—was have the staff circulate a bit of a questionnaire, very simple, to all the members asking them to indicate the areas of study members would like to have. Let's say we do that and we come up with 14 or 15 areas of study—sometimes they can be bunched into two or three general areas—then we have a working committee and name the vice-chairs, and they can make a plan for how we deal with it.

You can't achieve as much as you'd like in the committee on that stuff, because the priority is government bills—I don't know that there are any government bills pending, or private members' bills—and then you get to the areas of study that you want. You can't achieve 1,000 of them, but sometimes you could do two or three areas that are priorities in common as much as possible around the committee. That might be a way to get us started, by circulating that type of simple questionnaire.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

How does the staff feel about extra homework?

They laugh nervously, they smile.

Mrs. Hinton.

[Betty Hinton, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

I did have an opportunity to meet with the lead critics from all three opposition parties and ask for a list of priorities. It was sort of narrowed down for me by all three opposition parties. I've extended the invitation to tell you there's no question we will go ahead with a bill of rights. I wondered if there was a commitment on behalf of the committee to have input into that, and I received an affirmative. If you'd like to change subjects you're certainly able to, but I received a bit of a consensus suggesting they would like to be a part of a bill of rights.

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

I think we should proceed at the committee and not by informal consultations.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

I want to recognize Monsieur Gaudet. I think he wants to make an intervention.

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I have a very simple question. I'm curious as to the government's objectives. If we don't know what these objectives are, we run the risk of undertaking studies that do not tie in with these aims and it will be hard for us to do a good job.

I agree with you that the committee should focus on a charter of rights. However, we mustn't lose sight of the fact that responsibilities must also be spelled out. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms does not have much to say about responsibilities. At times, persons are guaranteed full rights, but have no responsibilities. If we focus on a charter, but in the process disregard people's responsibilities, then you won't have my support.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Given this, I think the wisest course of action is to have the minister in and hear straight from the horse's mouth what he's willing to address. You don't get any better than that, so I'll work on getting the minister to come before us, and then you can hear his priorities straight from him.

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

I just want to be clear so that people understand what I meant. When I said that we should invite the minister to discuss what we want to study, I'm not looking at that as orders to the committee; I'm looking at that as a request to the committee. The committee does its own work, and the minister and the department do their own work. If he presents a bill, we have no choice--that becomes priority one for us. We have to deal with the government bills, then we deal with private members' bills, and then we can do our own study.

I have no problem with studying the charter. The government provides the documentation about where you're going, and we start with that documentation. But there might be other areas of study that are of interest to the committee, and I think we shouldn't wait too long to start that, because it's very quick. This spring is almost over. We won't be able to call three witnesses before the spring recess. So we're really working for the fall session right now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Monsieur Thibault, may I ask you for a motion for the committee staff to prepare the questionnaire you're interested in?