Notices of Meeting include information about the subject matter to be examined by the committee and date, time and place of the meeting, as well as a list of any witnesses scheduled to appear. The Evidence is the edited and revised transcript of what is said before a committee. The Minutes of Proceedings are the official record of the business conducted by the committee at a sitting.
Honourable members of the subcommittee, I see a quorum.
We can now proceed to the election of a chair. According to the motion adopted by the standing committee on May 29, the chair will be a member of the governing party.
Do you mean motions concerning how we do it, or who—or if? I think we should do it, and in that regard, I would feel comfortable if we followed what's set out in the document before us.
Having said that, I would nominate Roy Cullen as vice-chair from the official opposition.
According to this document, one would be from the official opposition and one would be from another party, if this is what we're going to follow. Is that how we're going to proceed?
It is moved by Mr. Wappel, seconded by Mr. Cullen that the chair be authorized to hold meetings to receive evidence and to have that evidence printed when a quorum is not present, provided that at least three members are present, including a member of the opposition.
The correct way of saying this in French is: “disponibles dans les deux langues officielles”. If we say “dans deux langues officielles”, we're implying that there are more than two official languages, whereas in fact there are really only two.
The expression “dans deux langues officielles” doesn't quite have the same meaning as “dans les deux langues officielles”. If we go with the motion as worded, “dans deux langues officielles” implies that there are more than two official languages.
I'm just wondering, before we get into the next routine motions, whether we shouldn't have a little discussion about what our plan of attack is--are we going to have more witnesses, the timelines, all this kind of stuff.
That is definitely a discussion we should have. We do have the benefit of a number of members of the committee who served on the last group who do have a lot of knowledge of the witnesses. We have to decide whether we want to recall some of those witnesses. We also should probably have a discussion on whether we wish to travel, or put in for travel, to learn more. That's a discussion we should have.
I guess it's a reasonable working assumption that we'll have a witness or two or three. If we're not going to have any witnesses, we don't need to move number 5. I'm happy to go through the routine proceedings, but I think at some point we need to talk about what our plan of attack is.
It is moved by Mr. Cullen that witnesses be given ten minutes for their opening statement; that, at the discretion of the chair, during the questioning of witnesses, there be allocated seven minutes for the first questioner of each party, starting with the opposition parties, and that thereafter five minutes be allocated to each subsequent questioner, continuing with the opposition going first and alternating between government members and opposition members until every member has spoken once.
On witnesses' expenses, it is moved by Mr. Comartin, seconded by Mr. MacKenzie, that if requested, reasonable travel, accommodation, and living expenses be reimbursed to witnesses, not exceeding one representative per organization; and that, in exceptional circumstances, payment for more representatives be at the discretion of the chair.
I would imagine there's a hierarchy of some kind among staff members in all parties and that occasionally, when the committee is examining an important question, a member may ask someone who ranks higher up that a staff member to attend the meeting in his place.
Yes. The wording “qu'un membre de son personnel” refers to a staff member. I'd like the words “d'un membre de son personnel” to be followed by ”ou d'un membre du personnel de son parti”.
We'll move along to number 8. That's in camera meetings transcripts.
Mr. Cullen, seconded by Mr. Norlock, moves that one copy of the transcript of each in camera meeting be kept in the committee clerk's office for consultation by members of the committee.
Number 9 is notice of motions. It is moved by Mr. Cullen, seconded by Mr. MacKenzie, that 48 hours' notice be required for any substantive motion to be considered by the committee, unless the substantive motion relates directly to business then under consideration, and that the notice of motion be filed with the clerk of the committee and distributed to members in both official languages.