SMEM Committee Meeting

     I'll first of all call this meeting to order.

     Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you all so much for being here today.

    Before I commence, I would like to mention that Madame Normandin is going to be replacing Monsieur Therrien today. Christine, it's great to see you, a former PROC committee member, again. We also have Kirsty Duncan, who is going to be replacing Mark Gerretsen today, as he was feeling under the weather. Thank you both so much for being here today.

    Welcome to the first meeting of the Subcommittee on Private Members' Business.

    Pursuant to Standing Order 91.1(1), we are meeting to consider the items placed in the order of precedence on February 27, 2020, to determine whether they should be considered non-votable.

    I would like to start the meeting by providing you with some information following the motion that was adopted in the House on Wednesday, September 23, 2020.

    The subcommittee is sitting in a hybrid format, meaning that members can participate either in person or by video conference. All members, regardless of their method of participation, will be counted for the purpose of quorum. The subcommittee's power to sit is, however, limited by the priority use of House resources, which is determined by the whips. All questions must be decided by a recorded vote unless the committee disposes of them with unanimous consent or on division.

    Today’s proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website.

    To ensure an orderly meeting, I would like to outline a few rules.

    For those participating virtually, members may speak in the official language of their choice. Interpretation services are available for this meeting. You have the choice, at the bottom of your screen, of either “floor” or “English” or “French”.

     Before speaking, click on the microphone icon to activate your own mike. When you are done speaking, please put your mike on mute to minimize any interference. As a reminder, all comments by members should be addressed through the chair.

     Should members need to request the floor outside of their designated time for questions, they should activate their mike and state that they have a point of order. If a member wishes to intervene on a point of order that has been raised by another member, they should use the “raise hand” function. This will signal to the chair your interest in speaking and create a speakers list. In order to do so, you should click on “Participants” at the bottom of the screen. When the list pops up, you will see next to your name that you can click “raise hand”.

    When speaking, please speak slowly and clearly. Unless there are exceptional circumstances, the use of headsets with a boom microphone is mandatory for everyone participating remotely.

    Again, I want to thank our interpreters, who do such a tremendous job at all the committees on which we sit.

    Should any technical challenges arise, please advise the chair. Please note that we may need to suspend for a few minutes in that case, as we need to ensure all members are able to participate fully.

    For those participating in person, moi et Christine, proceed as you would normally in any in-person meeting. Keep in mind the Board of Internal Economy guidelines concerning the wearing of masks and all the health protocols. Should you wish to get my attention, please signal me with a hand gesture or, at an appropriate time, just call out my name. Should you wish to raise a point of order, wait for an appropriate time and indicate to me clearly that you wish to raise a point of order.

    With regard to the speakers list, the committee clerk and I will do our best to maintain a consolidated order of speaking for all members, whether they are participating virtually or in person.

    We are now ready to start consideration of the 30 items placed on the order of precedence. Generally, the analyst takes the floor to present the votability criteria. Then the analyst would usually give a succinct summary of the first item, after which members can ask questions. If there are no questions, the chair puts the question. The same process is followed for each item on the order of precedence.

    Since 2016, at times the subcommittee has accepted all items at once by way of unanimous consent. This worked well when all items remained votable, but it could have created some confusion when members had a concern about some of the items.

     I have to say that I was the chair back in early 2016, and this was probably the fastest committee meeting to ever go through, actually. It was pretty quick.

    If there's debate or discussion, we certainly want to make sure that it is allowed, but if we can work through these fairly quickly, we'll be able to do so by way of UC as well. I am in the hands of the subcommittee as to how to proceed. If all members agree to adopt all items at once, we can do it this way. However, if members wish to debate some items, it may be better to take the time needed to discuss and make decisions on each item.

    At this time, I want to ask how the committee prefers to move forward with the first 30 items.

    Personally, I would be quite comfortable doing them in the order in which the clerks presented them.

    Very good. Thank you very much, Ms. Normandin.

    Are there any other comments?

    Go ahead, Ms. Vecchio.

    I'm not sure why I can't hear you, but I fully support where Christine wants to go with that, just going through the order, because I know that perhaps there are conversations on some of them .

    That's great. We'll proceed that way. I will turn it over to the analyst, and we can go item by item.

    I would like to confirm that everyone received the briefing note that was sent out earlier this week that described the criteria to be applied to determine if a bill is non-votable. I can go through those criteria one by one just to summarize, if that's of use to the committee, or we can jump straight into the bills.

    Is there a preference?

    I think it could be helpful if you go through the criteria one by one, just for the first meeting.

    Of course.

    There are four criteria for you to consider today.

    The first is that bills and motions must not concern questions that are outside federal jurisdiction.

    The second is that bills and motions must not clearly violate the Constitution Acts. This includes the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

    Third, bills and motions must not concern questions that are substantially the same as one already voted on by the House of Commons in the current session of Parliament.

    The fourth is that bills and motions must not concern questions that are currently on the Order Paper or Notice Paper as items of government business.

    The only one I'm going to come back to and describe a little bit is the second one, which is that bills and motions must not clearly violate the Constitution Acts, including the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

    I had a question on this one earlier this week, and in my analysis I would define that as it's not whether a bill unconstitutional. It's actually a slightly lower bar than that: It's whether it clearly violates the Constitution and the charter. Therefore, if there's no possible argument that it could be constitutional, then I would interpret it as clearly violating the Constitution and the charter.

    Of course, these criteria are interpreted by the committee. This is only my analysis, and in the end it is your decision on how you choose to apply those four criteria.

    Are there any questions?

     No. Thank you so much for that. That's great.

    Perhaps now we can proceed through each item. To be efficient with our time, we could maybe just go through them item by item, and if there are no questions or comments, we can dispose of them fairly quickly. We'll be able to address the ones for which there is debate.

    Does that sound appropriate to everyone?

    We'll start off, then, with Bill C-210. Does anyone have any issues or comments about that one? No.

    Next is Bill C-238.

     I see there are no comments, so we'll move right along to Bill C-224. Good.

    Next is Bill C-215. No comments.

    Next is Bill C-204, and now Bill C-229.

     I'm not going to jinx it, but we're on a roll.

    Now we have Bill C-218 and a motion, M-34.

    Next we have Bill C-214, Bill C-220, Bill C-221, Bill C-222 and Bill C-213.

     I love working with women.

     Next is Bill C-223, followed by M-35.

    Now we have Bill C-206, Bill C-216, Bill C-208, Bill C-205, Bill C-237, Bill C-225, Bill C-228, Bill C-236, Bill C-230 and Bill C-232.

    I have a comment on that one. I'm wondering where we're at with it, just looking at the notes. Could someone brief me on where we're at? I know there was something about its being similar to Bill C-215. I want to heat input from the other members if possible.

    Would the analyst be able to provide us with a little feedback regarding the status, please?

    The criterion that was flagged for this one was that two bills should not be substantially similar. Again, this is for the committee to determine, but my analysis of this bill is that they deal with the same topic, but they go about it in slightly different ways, and they don't in fact have identical goals, in that one of them is actually broader than the other.

     Bill C-232 provides for transition towards a green economy and for upholding the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. These are things that are completely absent in Bill C-215. My opinion would be that they're distinct enough that they could proceed, but that is up to the committee to decide.

    Go ahead, Ms. Mathyssen.

    Thank you.

    In my reading of both of them, I really appreciate the analyst's input that they had enough differences to ensure that they were both supported and votable.

    We have Ms. Duncan and then Ms. Normandin.

    Thank you, Madam Chair.

    We are in agreement with what the analyst has said. We feel they are different enough.

    Thank you, Madam Chair.

    Thank you.

    Ms. Normandin, you have the floor.

    Thank you.

    I would like to ask the analyst a question, out of curiosity.

    Let's say Bill C-215 is amended to such an extent that it ends up close enough to the other bill and is then defeated. Would that suddenly make the subsequent bill out of order?

    Thank you for your question.

    If Bill C-215 were amended to such an extent that it was identical to Bill C-232, that might possibly be an issue. However, for now, that is not the case.

    At first glance, then, I see no reason to eliminate one of them.

    That is how I see it.

    There's no one else on the list.

     Since we have no one else on the speakers list, can we proceed with continuing with the list? Yes, okay.

    Let's move on to Bill C-231. Are there any questions or comments?

    Ginette, I don't know if there are other mikes on, but I don't hear you well on your floor mike. I'm wondering if Christine's light is on or something, because I'm not getting full feed.

    I'll speak closer to the mike.

    We'll go back to Bill C-231. Is everyone okay with that one? Are there any questions or comments? No.

    Next we have M-36, Bill C-226, Bill C-234 and last but not least, M-18.

    We're efficient. We can proceed by unanimous consent, I'm assuming, to move forward.

    Some hon. members: Agreed.

    The Chair: One moment please.

    I've been told that I have to officially read something. It is “That the subcommittee present a report listing those items which it has determined should not be designated non-votable and recommending that they be considered by the House, and that the chair report the subcommittee's findings to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs as soon as possible.”

    Is everyone in agreement with that?

    Some hon. members: Agreed.

    The Chair: Is there anything else that we need to do before the end of the day? No? That's great.

    Thank you to everyone for being here today. We're quick and efficient. I'm sure we have lots of other things that we can do.

    The meeting is adjourned.