Veterans Affairs Committee on Nov. 15th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

If you receive a motion on a Tuesday afternoon, what's reasonable in terms of getting something out?

[The Clerk]

Whatever happens, if I'm at the office.... Technically you have until six o'clock to send a motion. If I receive a motion at 5:59 p.m. on my blackberry, I will come back to the office and that motion will be sent out at eight or nine that evening, or however long it takes. I will do that job, and I will send it out. That's my job and I'm here to serve you. So you will have that motion that evening, if I get it. If I don't, then it will be the next morning.

I don't want to give a time. I don't want to pronounce myself on that. Whatever you decide is adequate, I will do.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Okay. I think members just have to be understanding. If they want to deal with a motion on a Thursday, they really should present it during committee on Tuesday. That's just reasonable. If it's somewhat later.... I think we have a general understanding on that; we've discussed the issue.

Is there any other discussion on the issue of 48 hours?

(Motion agreed to)

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

All right. This is the last one, on questioning of witnesses, it states:

That during the questioning of witnesses the time allocated to each questioner be as follows: On the first round of questioning in the following order: Liberal, seven minutes, Bloc Québécois, seven minutes, NDP, five minutes, and Conservative, seven minutes, on the second round of questioning, five minutes per party in the following order: Liberal, Bloc Québécois, Conservative, Liberal, Conservative, NDP, Conservative, Bloc Québécois, Liberal, Conservative, Liberal, Conservative, Liberal and Conservative.

Let's do this one quickly, because this is where it always gets dicey.

Is there any discussion on this?

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

It's just whether we go with your spoken words or whether we go with the written words here, because—

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

I thought I tried to be as careful with that as I possibly could be.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Hang on. I'm actually so confused I want to read this again.

On the first round of questioning, in the following order: Liberal, seven minutes, Bloc Québécois, seven minutes, NDP.... Okay, I'm sorry, it was my mistake. That's why I wanted to read it again. No problem.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Okay. I tried to read that verbatim. When in doubt, it is what is written on the page, not what I said—as you see it written.

I see no discussion. It's exactly what we agreed upon. I think we're all happy.

(Motion agreed to)

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Good. Thank you. That made that so much easier.

Now, I know Mr. Perron wanted to address something, and it may have been....

Okay, I understand. So we've dealt with the issue of meals.

I want to talk about some business issues, but....

Mr. Shipley, yes.

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

I'm just wondering, on the questioning rounds, can you put out a sheet? We had a sheet I think last time that gave us what was coming up.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Yes, I'd like to have one of those to make sense of it, absolutely.

I'd just like to apprise people that since we now have an ombudsman in position, I think it would probably be a good idea for us to have that individual here for questioning as soon as possible. I know there's been some discussion as well with regard to some people's interest in having the minister. We can certainly see if the minister is interested.

We were in the process of doing a health care review, and there have been some questions raised recently on the issue of the veterans independence program--its extension, widows, etc. I think we'd like maybe to have some departmental officials in and have the committee talk to them about that.

Those are some ideas. We'll see what we can do to set up for the next meeting with some of those.

I think that's it.

The meeting is adjourned.