AANR Committee Meeting
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37th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION
Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, Northern Development and Natural Resources
EVIDENCE
CONTENTS
Tuesday, April 8, 2003
| ¿ | 0935 |
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The Chair (Mr. Raymond Bonin (Nickel Belt, Lib.)) |
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Mr. Pat Martin (Winnipeg Centre, NDP) |
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The Chair |
| ¿ | 0940 |
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Mr. Pat Martin |
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The Chair |
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Mr. Stan Dromisky (Thunder Bay—Atikokan, Lib.) |
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The Chair |
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Mr. Julian Reed (Halton, Lib.) |
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The Chair |
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The Chair |
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Mr. Pat Martin |
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The Chair |
| ¿ | 0950 |
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Mr. Yvan Loubier (Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, BQ) |
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The Chair |
CANADA
Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, Northern Development and Natural Resources |
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EVIDENCE
Tuesday, April 8, 2003
[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
¿ 
(0935)
[English]
The Chair (Mr. Raymond Bonin (Nickel Belt, Lib.)): We will call the meeting to order to do the clause-by-clause on Bill C-7, an act respecting leadership selection, administration, and accountability of Indian bands and to make related amendments to other acts.
We have, to assist us, witnesses from the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, Warren Johnson, Assistant Deputy Minister, Lands and Trust Services, Andrew Beynon, general counsel, and Paul Salembier, senior counsel. Welcome.
As we normally do, we'll proceed to clauses that have no amendments, and as I name the clause, you will tell me if you want it pulled for debate or for any other reason. Otherwise, we will vote on it.
Mr. Martin.
Mr. Pat Martin (Winnipeg Centre, NDP): Mr. Chairman, I have a point of order to make before we begin. I object in the strongest possible terms to the fact that we're dealing with the clause-by-clause on this date.
The Chair: An objection is not a point of order, Mr. Martin.
¿ (0940)
Mr. Pat Martin: But you're not letting me make my point of order. The point of order is that I did not receive my amendments when everyone else did. Everyone else got their amendments between 9:30 and 11 o'clock yesterday morning, but I haven't got mine at all yet, I'm borrowing some now to use. The amendments were never delivered to my office. My staff has been disadvantaged, while everybody else had all day yesterday, and presumably all night, if they felt it necessary, to deal with these amendments. I don't think I was singled out, but by some error, these amendments were never delivered to my office. I'm seeing them for the first time in any detail now. We had a brief meeting last night where I borrowed the clerk's amendments, so I could at least read through them as we talked about them briefly in an informal way. It's a serious disadvantage, and it borders on a breach of privilege, in that I don't have the same access to the information everyone else here does, and I have a singular interest in a great many of these amendments. We have 40 or so amendments from the NDP that obviously I've prepared to work on, but we don't have any information about how my amendments might affect government amendments, for instance, or how my amendments might affect Bloc amendments.
So in the first place, I object that we haven't had time to do an analysis of any amendments, especially the government ones, that are being introduced today.
The Chair: An objection is not a point of order. Your point of order is that you did not receive your documents. I'm told by the clerk that they left her office at 9:30 yesterday morning, and they are now consulting with the messengers to find out what happened to your papers. Her office did not receive any calls from your office asking why they hadn't received them, so I will proceed with the meeting.
Mr. Dromisky, do you have a point of order?
Mr. Stan Dromisky (Thunder Bay—Atikokan, Lib.): Yes. I want to inform the chair and the members of the committee that I was supposed to have received a package yesterday, and it still has not arrived at my office either.
The Chair: Would you have that verified, please?
Mr. Julian Reed (Halton, Lib.): Me too.
The Chair: Well, we have a problem. We will suspend until the clerk gets us a response.
¿ (0941)
¿ (0948)
The Chair: The investigation reveals that the books were delivered, but there was no one at the office and they returned the books to the post office, whereas they should have returned them to central distribution.
I will make the decision that we suspend until 3:15 this afternoon. I think we have the room for the whole day.
Mr. Martin.
Mr. Pat Martin: There wasn't enough time, even if it was delivered at 9:30 yesterday morning, for us to deal with it today. There certainly won't be enough time for us to do any comparative analysis between now and 3:15 this afternoon. It's atrocious to introduce 20 new government amendments, 40 from the Bloc, 40 from the Alliance that I've never seen and expect us to do justice to these issues between now and then. It's as much of a farce, a travesty, and a sham as this whole process has been. For the record, I object in the strongest possible terms to your imposing this ridiculous and unrealistic timeframe.
The Chair: In defence of my position, I would have hoped that we had more time, but somebody spoke for 13 and 12 hours last week, and that was time we had scheduled to do important work. So I've made a decision that it be at 3:15 this afternoon.
Monsieur Loubier.
¿ (0950)
[Translation]
Mr. Yvan Loubier (Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, BQ): I'd like to raise a point of order.
Mr. Chairman, aside from the wrong done to my NDP colleague, this morning I received the list of out-of-order amendments and related comments, which also concerned the fact that there are some line conflicts between my amendments and other amendments. I was told that people had worked on this all night so that we might have this this morning. However, this morning, I can't see the relation between what we were given this morning, what I have read, and the comments I made on the amendments submitted.
Thus, I too need much more time than that 3:30 deadline, because there are an enormous number of conflicting amendments and I need some time to think about this.
This is no way to work, especially since I could not be present at last night's meeting because I was in my riding, as I am every Monday. Moreover, we were unable to delegate a substitute to go and apprise him or herself of these conflicts between our amendments and those submitted by the government or the other parties. So I think that if we want to do some serious work...
[English]
The Chair: Thank you, Monsieur Loubier.
I've made a decision, and it belongs to the floor. If there's a challenge, go for it. Otherwise, we'll resume at 3:15.
There being no challenge, we're suspended until 3:15.