HUMA Committee Meeting

37th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION

Standing Committee on Human Resources Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Tuesday, November 5, 2002

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1550

The Clerk of the Committee

Mr. Eugène Bellemare (Ottawa—Orléans, Lib.)

The Clerk

Mr. R. John Efford (Bonavista—Trinity—Conception, Lib.)

The Clerk

Mr. R. John Efford

The Clerk

Mr. R. John Efford

The Clerk

Mr. Jim Gouk (Kootenay—Boundary—Okanagan, Canadian Alliance)

The Clerk

Ms. Anita Neville (Winnipeg South Centre, Lib.)

The Clerk

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1555

The Chair (Mrs. Judi Longfield (Whitby—Ajax, Lib.))

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1600

Mr. Monte Solberg (Medicine Hat, Canadian Alliance)

The Chair

Mr. Eugène Bellemare

The Chair

Mr. Alan Tonks (York South—Weston, Lib.)

The Chair

Mr. Jim Gouk

The Chair

Mr. Jim Gouk

The Chair

Mr. Jim Gouk

The Chair

Ms. Libby Davies (Vancouver East, NDP)

The Chair

Ms. Monique Guay (Laurentides, BQ)

Ms. Anita Neville

The Chair

Mr. Alan Tonks

The Chair

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1605

Ms. Libby Davies

The Chair

Ms. Monique Guay

The Chair

Mr. Larry Spencer (Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, Canadian Alliance)

The Chair

Mr. Larry Spencer

The Chair

Ms. Libby Davies

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1610

The Chair

Mr. R. John Efford

The Chair

Ms. Monique Guay

The Chair

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CANADA

Standing Committee on Human Resources Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities

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NUMBER 001

l

2nd SESSION

l

37th PARLIAMENT

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EVIDENCE

Tuesday, November 5, 2002

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

¹  (1550)  

[English]

    The Clerk of the Committee: Honourable members of the committee, I see a quorum.

    Your first order of business is to elect a chair. The standing orders have just been changed, so you'll be electing the chair according to the amendments that have just passed.

    Do I have any nominations?

[Translation]

    Mr. Eugène Bellemare (Ottawa—Orléans, Lib.): I move that Ms. Judi Longfield be elected chair of this committee.

    The Clerk: Mr. Bellemare moves that Ms. Judi Longfield be elected committee chair.

    Are there any other nominations?

[English]

    Are there any other nominations?

    There being no other nominations, all those in favour of the nomination please say yea, those against please say nay.

    Mr. R. John Efford (Bonavista—Trinity—Conception, Lib.): On a point of order, for a reason that I need to further research, even though there was an acclamation this morning on the fisheries committee, the members on both sides still required a vote.

    The Clerk: Mr. Efford, since there is only one candidate, we don't need to go by secret ballot, and the members are not requesting a vote by name.

    Mr. R. John Efford: I realize that, but there was the same thing this morning, the same circumstances. There was one individual, but they did request a secret ballot.

    The Clerk: We're going under new rules now. The new rules do say that if there is not more than one candidate, we don't have to go by secret ballot.

    Now we're going to proceed to the election of the vice-chair on the government side. Do I have any motions?

    Mr. R. John Efford: I nominate Mr. Eugène Bellemare.

    The Clerk: Are there any other nominations for the government vice-chair?

[Translation]

    Are there any other nominations? No? Then once again, there is no call for a recorded vote.

    Mr. Bellemare is elected vice-chair.

[English]

    Our last election this afternoon is of a vice-chair on the opposition side.

    Mr. Jim Gouk (Kootenay—Boundary—Okanagan, Canadian Alliance): I nominate Monte Solberg.

    The Clerk: Do I have any other nominations?

    Ms. Anita Neville (Winnipeg South Centre, Lib.): I nominate Suzanne Tremblay.

    The Clerk: Since we do have two candidates, we now proceed by secret ballot. We will ask members on both sides to come here. I'm at the front, I've got my colleague here, who's also a procedural clerk from the House of Commons, and we'll give you ballots and you should write the first name and the family name of the person you wish to vote for. We'll count the ballots, and if there's a majority, that will decide the winner.

    One of the candidates has received a majority of votes, and Mr. Solberg is duly elected vice-chair from the opposition side.

    Since Mrs. Longfield is duly elected chair of the committee, I would invite her to come and preside over the rest.

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    The Chair (Mrs. Judi Longfield (Whitby—Ajax, Lib.)): I want to thank those members of the committee who saw fit to reinstate me as your chair. I will attempt to continue to preside over this committee in a fair and impartial manner. I look forward to the same kind of cooperation I received from members on all sides of the House during our last session. We will have to make some determination about the areas we want this committee to study, and that will be the subject of another meeting, but again I want to thank each and every one of you, and I look forward to working with you. I want to congratulate Monte on his election as vice-chair.

º  (1600)  

    Mr. Monte Solberg (Medicine Hat, Canadian Alliance): Thank you.

    The Chair: And I also congratulate Monsieur Bellemare on his election.

    Mr. Eugène Bellemare: Thank you.

    The Chair: I think the three of us will be working rather closely together for at least the first couple of weeks while we sort out the future agenda.

    While I have been speaking, I have asked that the routine motions be placed in front of you. Those of you who have been on the committee before I don't think are going to see anything very different. I'll give you just a moment to refresh your memories on how we have been operating, and once you've done that, I will entertain any motions to adopt the routine proceedings.

    Mr. Alan Tonks (York South—Weston, Lib.): I move the routine motions that have been put forward for consideration.

    The Chair: Is there any discussion on routine motions as featured?

    Mr. Jim Gouk: Would we be able, from time to time, to add other things to this with the approval of the committee? The one thing I think of, and I'm not sure how it works with this committee, is the televising of committee meetings, particularly if the committee should travel, what is involved in getting approval for that.

    The Chair: Most things that require any kind of monetary amounts go through the liaison committee. We put forth the best case we can and fight for the dollars.

    Mr. Jim Gouk: No, I'm thinking in terms of allowing the media to televise an open meeting.

    The Chair: I hope all of our meetings would be open, and where it's deemed that we want them televised, you would get no objection from the chair.

    Mr. Jim Gouk: Okay.

    The Chair: Any further comments or discussion?

    (Motion agreed to)

    The only other item of new business I would propose is this. In the last session we had a very active subcommittee on children and one on disabilities. At the moment a number of the members who were on the children's subcommittee are not associate members, and I wanted to give them the opportunity to be members.

    Ms. Libby Davies (Vancouver East, NDP): We can still strike the committee and then seek members. We've done that before, where we established the two subcommittees, and then it was not necessarily members from this committee.

    The Chair: I have to check with the clerk.

    Madame Guay.

[Translation]

    Ms. Monique Guay (Laurentides, BQ): Madam Chair, four members of this committee served on the previous Subcommittee on Children and Youth at Risk. Therefore, I think it would be a good idea to move immediately to strike a new subcommittee.

[English]

    Ms. Anita Neville: Madam Chair, I'm no longer a full member of this committee. I have asked to be an associate member.

    The Chair: I'm at the pleasure of the committee, so I would entertain motions.

    Mr. Alan Tonks: I was on that committee, and I wish to sit on it again.

    The Chair: Then I'm looking for motions that both those two subcommittees be reconstituted.

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    Ms. Libby Davies: I move that both the committees be struck.

    The Chair: Is there any discussion?

[Translation]

    Ms. Monique Guay: Madam Chair, that doesn't work because this motion deals strictly with the striking of a subcommittee on persons with disabilities, whereas we want children to be included as well.

[English]

    The Chair: We would have an identical one that would be for the children. The clerk only prepared one, but we would just use an identical one for the second committee.

    (Motion agreed to)

    The Chair: Now I would propose that our regularly scheduled meeting for Thursday be an in camera meeting to talk about future business. It would give all parties an opportunity to come up with some ideas about where we might take this committee for the next four or five weeks until we break. Keeping that in mind, perhaps we could come up with some short areas to study, so that we could have a complete little package we could send off to the House. I have no idea what will happen after the committees are reconstituted when we come back in February, and there may be some substantive changes. Perhaps we can be thinking of a short agenda, and I would propose that we get together on Thursday. Do I have any objections to that? Our regular meeting would be at 11 o'clock on Thursday.

    Finally, I would like, as your new chair and on behalf of the committee, to perhaps prepare a press release on some of the topics in the throne speech that dovetail with some of the things we are studying, the commitment to look at children and youth, to look at skills and innovations. I would propose that I draft something and bring it here for the Thursday meeting, so you can have a look at it. We could set out the things we're pleased we saw in the throne speech and perhaps give some more emphasis to those kinds of things. As I say, I would certainly be prepared to share it with all of you before we issue it.

    Mr. Larry Spencer (Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, Canadian Alliance): The children and youth at risk committee was in the midst of a study of the young people on reserves aged 0-6 and 6-12 and then the same groups off reserve. I don't think we're even half of the way through that study.

    The Chair: I'm hoping that committee will pick up from there.

    Mr. Larry Spencer: Okay.

    The Chair: That will be something you'll talk about with the individual members of the subcommittee, but from a main committee standpoint, I think we need to look at what we're doing.

    One other thing is hanging over. I've chatted with the people on the disability committee, and most of them are not satisfied with the response they received with respect to the report on the disability tax credit. That might be something we want to reissue, asking for a fuller, more appropriate response.

    Libby.

    Ms. Libby Davies: I actually won't be here on Thursday, because we have the federal boundary commission hearing in Vancouver. I've got to go back to that, there's just no way I can avoid it. Given that we won't have a long period of time to study something, I think that would be a really good follow-up. It seemed all members from all parties were very concerned about that issue. I know it's been raised in the House, we've all raised it, and I think, given the fact that the subcommittee was very dissatisfied with the government's response, as the main committee, we could just give that one more push before we break for Christmas, get the officials back here, get into it again, and raise a little hell. I think it's still a huge issue, and as the main committee, we could maybe give that some more clout. I'm just putting in my two dibs worth before I go, but I think it's a great idea.

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    The Chair: I see a lot of nods on both sides here.

    Mr. R. John Efford: I agree that we should do that. Would the officials from both departments come in at the one time? I tell you, if you don't get both departments...

    The Chair: I agree, and I think, with both of them here at the same time,you get better answers.

    Madame Guay.

[Translation]

    Ms. Monique Guay: I have a question, Madam Chair. Will the subcommittee chairs be elected the same way as the main committee chairs? Normally, the same procedure should be followed in both instances.

[English]

    The Chair: The clerk is telling me that she thinks the subcommittees are masters of their destiny, but when those subcommittees meet, whoever is clerk will have all the details. I'm as in the dark as you are on that. It's not something I know.

    Are there any other items that need to be raised?

    Okay. Thank you. Meeting adjourned.