OGGO Committee Meeting
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37th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION
Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates
EVIDENCE
CONTENTS
Wednesday, October 1, 2003
| ¹ | 1540 |
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The Chair (Mr. Reg Alcock (Winnipeg South, Lib.)) |
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Mr. Paul Forseth (New Westminster—Coquitlam—Burnaby, Canadian Alliance) |
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The Chair |
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Mr. Rodger Cuzner (Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) |
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The Chair |
| ¹ | 1545 |
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Mr. Paul Forseth |
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The Chair |
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Mr. Ron Wall (Foreign Policy Advisor, Foreign and Defence Policy Secretariat, Privy Council Office) |
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Mr. Paul Forseth |
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Mr. Ron Wall |
| ¹ | 1550 |
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Mr. Paul Forseth |
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Mr. Ron Wall |
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The Chair |
CANADA
Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates |
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EVIDENCE
Wednesday, October 1, 2003
[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
¹ 
(1540)
[English]
The Chair (Mr. Reg Alcock (Winnipeg South, Lib.)): Okay, let's come to order. I see a quorum, not a very pretty quorum, but a quorum nonetheless.
We have one follow-up piece of business today, and depending on how quickly that can resolve itself, if we get through this complicated and difficult bill in the time allotted for this meeting, I will ask members to give me a little time to deal with a couple of items of business, at which point we will go in camera for that particular discussion.
Most people around the table now were in the room on Monday for the initial discussion of the bill and the explanations. Before we begin to call the questions on clause-by-clause, are there any further questions? Mr. Forseth, you asked for a bit of time to look at it. Are you ready to proceed to clause-by-clause?
Mr. Paul Forseth (New Westminster—Coquitlam—Burnaby, Canadian Alliance): The issue we addressed yesterday concerned advice to the drafters about how to distinguish. That is on the record. Other than that, there is nothing at this point.
The Chair: Then let me ask Mr. Cuzner, who's here with us representing the minister, if he has any comments he wishes to make before I begin to call the questions on clause-by-clause.
Mr. Rodger Cuzner (Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister): Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity, but I'm here representing my colleague, the Parliamentary Secretary for the Government House Leader, who is attending to the business in Halifax left in the wake of Hurricane Juan. I assure you that I'll try not to dazzle or entertain you with my depth of technical expertise on the bill, but I am surrounded by a very competent and loyal group here. I'm sure I'll be able to direct traffic on any questions that arise from clause-by-clause.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Cuzner. There has already been a considerable amount of dazzling on this bill, so perhaps I can move to the more complex parts of it.
Clause 1, I am assuming, will stand until we have dealt with the other clauses.
Given that there are no amendments proposed, let me start with this. Shall clauses 2 to 32 carry?
(Clauses 2 to 32 inclusive agreed to)
The Chair: Shall the short title carry?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall the title carry?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall the bill carry?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall the Chair report the bill to the House?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
The Chair: It is all agreed.
Mr. Cuzner, before you leave the table, let me just do two things. I believe, Mr. Forseth, you do have a question that is more general on the bill, on the process. Why don't you ask your question? We'll get an answer, and then I want to make a couple of comments.
¹ (1545)
Mr. Paul Forseth: The committee heard evidence that perhaps once per session we get such a bill that is a collection of odds and sods, and I'd like you to give us some advice as to the process. When various ministries look through their legislation and these things pop up, where is the repository for the collection of this, and how is such a bill created? It looks like railway track has been built, that this is a routine, that we get two classes of bills, but this one was just a little more substantial than the miscellaneous statute amendment act we get that corrects spelling mistakes or is even more administrative than this one. I just want some background explanation as to how this thing works regularly when ministries discover issues or they have an issue. Where is it deposited? Who is entrusted with collecting all of this and making the decision about what is going to be in and what isn't, and then the creation of the bill? We want to understand the background dynamics, not only with this bill, but also with the one that will come next year and the one that was here last year.
The Chair: Can I just say one thing to maybe clarify this a little further? Because I think I added some of the confusion. I understood from Don at the last meeting that there is a bill the comes forward once every Parliament that truly deals with these non-consequential, technical issues, and there is a procedure for dealing with that. I thought this was one of those, but it's not. This kind of bill could come forward more than once, once a session, or once a year for that matter, if there's a bundle of them, but the two are quite different. These things may be consequential. The other things are, by definition, technical in their nature.
Mr. Ron Wall (Foreign Policy Advisor, Foreign and Defence Policy Secretariat, Privy Council Office): There's the miscellaneous statute law amendments act track, and we expect the next one will be ready early next year. That is a bill that's tabled in draft as a document in the House, and it's referred to the House justice committee and the Senate. It deals, as you mentioned, strictly with typographical errors and issues that don't involve the spending of money and are not felt to be controversial. That takes place about once every two years, and the Department of Justice is the coordinator for that. The Minister of Justice carries the legislation in Parliament.
Mr. Paul Forseth: So there's a desk in the Department of Justice that's responsible for that, that collects all that material, and then it is presented through the justice minister to cabinet for an okay. Is that how it goes? Carry on with the rest of your answer.
Mr. Ron Wall: There's a second technical bill that the government House leader has taken on as an omnibus technical corrections bill, which involves matters that require the spending of money, such as the lieutenant-governors' pension provisions here, and issues that might be felt to be more significant than just typographical errors. The government has started to bundle those together about once every two years. So you'd have these two tracks, and the technical corrections bill, this one we have before us, is the second. We've been trying to organize them about once every two years.
I would emphasize that in both cases anything that has any policy significance would not be part of that legislation. That would have to proceed on its own merits.
¹ (1550)
Mr. Paul Forseth: And the repository of that is the same desk that does the other one?
Mr. Ron Wall: The Department of Justice receives all kinds of requests from departments, compiles them, and they come to the government House leader's office and his officials in the Privy Council Office, and we make sure there's nothing controversial in the package. Then the government House leader takes that package through the cabinet process and introduces it as a regular bill. It's been coming to this committee of the House.
The Chair: Thank you. Are we done with that?
Let me simply say thanks to everybody who was involved in this. I'm sorry you had to all come over here, but there might have been a question. Thanks, Rodger. You got your bill all reported. Tomorrow will be the earliest I can do it, I guess. Then you can get on with the next stage.
I should also remind members that there is one report stage amendment you may want to flag for your House leaders and such that we discussed here. That will be coming in.
[Proceedings continue in camera]