OGGO Committee Meeting

    Good morning everyone. As you know, there are now 10 members in a standing committee rather than 12. That is why you will have to re-elect your chair and your two vice-chairs this morning.

    I see that we have quorum. We may now proceed to the election of the chair.

    Pursuant to the standing order, the chair must be a member of the official opposition.

    I am ready to receive nominations for the chair.

    I nominate Mr. Pierre-Luc Dusseault.

    Moved by Mr. Trottier that Mr. Pierre-Luc Dusseault be elected chair of the committee.

    Are there other motions?

    Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the motion?

    Some Hon. members: Agreed.

    (Motion agreed to)

    The Clerk: I declare the motion carried and Mr. Pierre-Luc Dusseault duly elected chair of the committee.

    Before inviting Mr. Dusseault to take the chair, if it is the wish of the committee, we shall now elect the two vice-chairs of the committee.

     Pursuant to Standing Order 106(2), the first vice-chair must be a member of the government party.

    Mr. Martin.

    I'd like to take this opportunity to nominate the honourable Gordon O'Connor as vice-chair.

    It has been moved by Mr. Pat Martin that Mr. O'Connor be elected as first vice-chair of the committee.

    Are there any further motions? Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the motion?

    Some Hon. members: Agreed.

    (Motion agreed to)

    Mr. O'Connor has been duly elected first vice-chair of the committee. Congratulations.

    We move now to elect the second vice-chair. Just a reminder that it must be a member of the opposition party other than the official opposition, that being the Liberals.

    I'm now prepared to receive a motion for the second vice-chair.

    I move to elect the honourable Gerry Byrne as second vice-chair.

    It has been moved by Mr. Hayes that Mr. Byrne be elected as second vice-chair of the committee.

    Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt this motion?

    Some Hon. members: Agreed.

    (Motion agreed to)

    The Clerk: Mr. Byrne has been duly elected as second vice-chair of the committee.

    Congratulations everyone.

    I now invite Mr. Dusseault to take the chair.

    Thank you, Mr. Clerk.

    Thank you very much for your renewed confidence in me this morning. I am pleased to be at the service of the committee once again.

    As you can see, there is nothing on our agenda. However, as you know there will be 16 meetings from now until June 19. Consequently I suggest that the subcommittee that has already been struck meet, so that we plan our next meetings. That way we will have a clear idea of our agenda for the weeks to come.

    Are the members of the committee in agreement?

    Mr. Martin, you have the floor.

    Mr. Chair, on that subject, given that we've had a reduction in the size of the committee, there has been some conversation between government members and ourselves, and we don't really feel there's a need to have a planning committee for this committee any longer.

    We feel that given the truncated size, we could probably operate simply as a committee as a whole. You could still set meetings for planning, but it would be all of the members wishing to come that would be in attendance, and it would save us duplicating and debating the same issues.

    So as early as next Tuesday, we can examine our future business, as a whole committee.

    Yes. I discussed it with Mr. Martin and we think it makes some sense, given that we're now a 10-person committee. The subcommittee consisted of five people, but there was some duplication because the discussions and the decisions that we would have in the subcommittee then had to be carried over to some extent to be explained to the larger committee. In some ways, it's more efficient to have the plenary of the committee have that discussion.

    If we could have that meeting on Tuesday, that would be fine. I don't know if that requires a change to our routine motions where we identify a planning subcommittee right now.

    Our experience, Mr. Chair, was that at the last meeting it was very efficient. It wasn't a long meeting anyway. We'd be very amenable to meeting as a whole committee.

    I don't think we will have to change the routine motions.

    I'm sorry, I think I misspoke. I said Tuesday, but I think there may be some sense that we can have our first meeting for planning on Thursday, given that Tuesday is budget day and that some activities have to take place that morning.

    Fine.

    As I was saying, I do not think that we will have to change the routine motion.

    I think Mr. Byrne had a comment.

    We can meet as we wish in order to plan our next meetings.

    Mr. Byrne, go ahead.

    I want to raise with my colleagues my past experience sitting on the public accounts committee, which decided to dispense with the subcommittee on planning. It didn't work out well, because there was no mechanism to vet or to try to convene with compromise on key issues. It ended up that we spent a lot of time in regular committee talking about procedural matters and other things.

    I understand the sense of collegiality, about seeing whether we can make this happen within the limited timeframe that is normally reserved for hearing witnesses and conducting studies, but I would like to say that I think it's a mistake to do away with the subcommittee, which we're obviously not doing, because it's already confirmed in our routine orders for this committee. I really like the idea of a subcommittee and having it meet on a somewhat regular basis to vet procedural matters and not have the time consumed within the committee.

    My experience with public accounts is that we did very little business during our allotted committee time because we just wrangled about procedure. That's it.

    Thank you for your comment.

    Mr. Aspin, you have the floor.

    Chair, I'd like to agree with the notion of not having a subcommittee. Mr. Byrne is right. The public accounts committee didn't have a subcommittee. There were many reasons that committee didn't function properly, and the lack of a subcommittee certainly wasn't among the primary reasons.

    We have gone along before on this committee without a subcommittee, and I think it has worked very well. I don't see the need. As Mr. Trottier has pointed out, the numbers simply bear out that the subcommittee is almost the same committee anyway, so it's just redundant.

    Thank you.

    Mr. Martin, go ahead. 

    Not to drag out the point, but I'm going to add that the other committee I sit on, the ethics committee, which I chair, doesn't use a subcommittee, and even with the larger numbers we haven't had any difficulty at all. The subcommittee meetings usually have taken 15 or 20 minutes, and we've never had anything proposed by the subcommittee that wasn't ratified by the committee as a whole.

    This therefore just skips a step. It doesn't preclude the possibility, if we find that we are ground to a halt by debate at the main committee, of using the subcommittee at a future date.

    I like the idea at this time. I don't think we need a motion to that effect. I think there is general agreement, with all due respect to Gerry, that we should meet as a whole.

    Mr. Trottier, you have the floor.

    I'll make a comment too. In the government operations committee there has been a fairly collaborative process. There are certain things we have to do involving estimates and oversight of various government departments and agencies, much of it just dealing with calendar dates. There are appointments also within Treasury Board and Privy Council Office often just dealing with specific calendar dates. Experience in the past is that planning was very collaborative and collegial.

    If it doesn't work out, I suppose we can always revert to having a planning subcommittee

    Thank you for your comments.

    From what I understand, we are indeed going to meet next Thursday to plan our future business. This gives everyone a week to suggest topics of study for the winter session. If we see that it is difficult for all of us to agree on that in the full committee, we can revisit the way in which we plan our future business. We can always look at that in the subcommittee.

    No one else has asked for the floor and there is nothing left on the agenda.

    We will meet next Thursday, at the same time, to plan our future business.

    So this concludes our meeting for today. The meeting is adjourned.