[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Tuesday, October 3, 1995
.0932 
[English]
The Clerk of the Committee: My name is Susan Baldwin. I'm the new clerk of this subcommittee. Pursuant to Standing Order 106(1), it is my duty to start the proceedings with the election of the chair.
Mr. Dromisky (Thunder Bay - Atikokan): I would like to nominate my colleague, Gar Knutson, for the chairmanship of this committee.
The Clerk: Is it agreed?
Motion agreed to
The Clerk: I declare Mr. Knutson duly elected as chairman of the subcommittee.
The Chairman: Thanks very much for that. I appreciate the confidence of the committee.
We have some housekeeping issues. We need to nominate a vice-chairman.
Mr. Assadourian (Don Valley North): I nominate Mr. Dromisky for vice-chairman.
Mr. Dromisky: Can you do that?
Mr. Assadourian: Why not? Can't I do it?
The Chairman: Sure.
Mr. Assadourian: It's done.
The Chairman: Do you want to be the vice-chairman?
Mr. Dromisky: I'll accept, if you have faith in me for a month.
Mr. Assadourian: For a month.
The Chairman: For two meetings, hopefully.
Mr. Dromisky: Okay, sure.
The Chairman: All in favour of Mr. Dromisky being the vice-chair?
Motion agreed to
The Chairman: The next motion we need is that the chair be authorized to hold meetings in order to receive and authorize the printing of evidence when a quorum is not present, provided that at least one opposition member be present.
The clerk has advised me that these are verbatim. These are the same motions we passed when we originally struck the subcommittee last year.
Mr. Dromisky: May I ask a question, Mr. Chairman? This is something I've always wondered about. Would members not present at that session, especially of the opposition, have already received the minutes in their offices prior to the meeting? To me, that's very important.
.0935
The Chairman: Notice?
Mr. Dromisky: Whatever it is. It's an authorization for the printing of evidence.
The Chairman: The printing takes place after the meeting. I think you really mean that you want us to be able to take evidence as well?
Mr. Dromisky: It's to hold meetings in order to receive and authorize the printing of evidence when a quorum is not present.
Ms Meredith (Surrey - White Rock - South Langley): I move that this be the procedure: one opposition member should be present to receive evidence from witnesses.
Mr. Dromisky: It does not entail documentation or anything else that's going to be presented at that time.
The Chairman: It just means receiving witnesses, hearing their evidence, then printing the transcript after the fact.
Mr. Dromisky: Okay. Fine.
Mr. Assadourian: May I ask a question of clarification. Does ``opposition'' mean the official opposition or any opposition?
The Chairman: Any opposition.
Mr. Assadourian: Thank you.
Mr. Nunez (Bourassa): Is this the same as the provision we adopted last time?
The Chairman: Yes.
[Translation]
The Clerk: It's exactly the same thing, word for word.
[English]
Motion agreed to
The Chairman: The clerk has suggested that I ask for unanimous consent on what would be numbers 3(b), 3(c), 3(d), 3(e) and 3(f).
Mr. Assadourian: Do you want a motion for the whole thing?
The Chairman: Sure.
Mr. Assadourian: I make a motion that we accept the whole thing.
The Chairman: It's moved by Mr. Assadourian. Any objections?
Mr. Nunez: In the past we've had some problems in getting the French version of documents. Could you work on that?
The Clerk: Receiving the translations?
Mr. Nunez: Yes. Most of the witnesses come from English Canada, and they submit briefs only in English. We have problems getting the French versions.
The Chairman: We'll work on it.
If there are no objections, I'll declare that motion carried.
Motion agreed to
The Chairman: Now comes the hard part. Our plan for today is to take a first crack at considering the draft report put together by Kevin, our researcher, based on the evidence we'd heard.
I'd like to suggest that we should just move through this fairly slowly. Then, if either of the opposition parties at some point want to denounce the whole thing and advise us that they're going to write a dissenting report, they can leave the process if they want. But we'll preferably try to reach some consensus on the whole thing.
Mr. Nunez: We are supposed to have the discussion after tomorrow.
The Chairman: After tomorrow?
Mr. Meredith: It's on the agenda for Thursday.
Mr. Nunez: Yes.
The Chairman: It's a continuation of the discussion.
Mr. Meredith: It sounded like it was the only discussion. Today was just on the selection of the chair and vice-chairs.
Mr. Kevin Kerr (Committee Researcher): The notice that went out regarding this meeting referred specifically to organization. I think some members may have interpreted that as not getting to the report today.
Mr. Nunez: That is my case. I thought today was an organizing meeting.
The Chairman: If we're not ready, that's fine. I don't want to try to force a square peg in a round hole. We can have Kevin talk about it, or people can just go.
.0940
Mr. Nunez: Or you could explain the highlights.
Mr. Kerr: Sure. Probably the most important piece of evidence that the committee received concerning the publication entitled Diminishing Returns is the belief that -
The Chairman: The clerk has just advised me that normally this is done in camera. Maybe I can take a motion to go in camera.
Mr. Loney (Edmonton North): I so move.
The Chairman: It's so moved by John Loney. Is there agreement to go in camera?
Mr. Dromisky: [Inaudible - Editor] ...what you're going to be dealing with since you're going to be making [Inaudible - Editor] presentation or something that will be public.
Mr. Kerr: Right, but the report hasn't been adopted by the committee. As such, it's still a confidential document.
Mr. Dromisky: Fine, but when are we going to be having our sessions to go through it?
Mr. Kerr: This is what we're going to be talking about.
Mr. Dromisky: It will be in camera in every meeting and session?
Mr. Kerr: When you are discussing the report?
Mr. Dromisky: Yes.
Mr. Kerr: That's normally the practice.
The Chairman: Then we do a press release, and it becomes public.
Mr. Kerr: It's up to the committee.
The Chairman: There's a motion on the floor to move in camera. Is there any discussion?
Mr. Assadourian: May I ask a question? I just went through the report quickly. I may be wrong, but we're supposed to have two sections: immigration consultants and Diminishing Returns.
Mr. Kerr: That's the name of the subcommittee, but the report is just focusing on Diminishing Returns.
If you recall, when the subcommittee was struck there were two references, one of which was to study Diminishing Returns and the other was to examine immigration consultants. It's my understanding that the immigration consultant reference has now been moved to the full committee.
The Chairman: Right. So technically we've been re-struck. So it's just a draft report of a subcommittee on Diminishing Returns.
Mr. Assadourian: So some of the testimony we heard in this committee about immigration consultants has been sucked out. What's going to happen to that now? Is it going back to the committee?
The Chairman: You're going to deal with it in the full committee.
Mr. Assadourian: How about testimony? How many witnesses came in?
The Chairman: It's been summarized by the parliamentary researcher -
Mr. Assadourian: And forwarded to the committee.
The Chairman: - for the main committee.
Ms Margaret Young (Committee Researcher): When the matter comes up before the main committee, which has not been decided yet, then I will distribute the summary of evidence.
The Chairman: Okay.
Ms Young: The main committee hasn't turned its mind to it yet. When they do, you'll get the summary.
Mr. Assadourian: So this report will deal only with Diminishing Returns.
Mr. Kerr: Okay.
The Chairman: That's correct.
Mr. Kerr: So you will change the title, since we've been re-struck.
The Chairman: All right. Let's deal with the motion to move in camera.
Motion agreed to
[Proceedings continue in camera]