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Results: 1 - 15 of 35
View Jennifer O'Connell Profile
Lib. (ON)
I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.
Once again, where is the relevance? If she would like to point to the section on the supplementary estimates, I am still waiting.
View Ron McKinnon Profile
Lib. (BC)
I asked if you wanted to respond to the points. However, I am prepared to rule.
I agree that we generally give wide latitude in asking about estimates. I believe that the microbiology lab is relevant. However, I take Ms. O'Connell's point. The direct line of questioning that you reference, Ms. Rempel Garner, is about a House procedure. It's far too peripheral. I would rule that this line of questioning is not relevant, and I would ask you—
View Ron McKinnon Profile
Lib. (BC)
Thank you, Ms. Rempel Garner.
I will ask the clerk to conduct a vote.
(Ruling of the chair overturned: nays 6; yeas 5)
The Chair: Thank you to the committee.
Ms. Rempel Garner, you may continue with your line of questions.
View Michelle Rempel Garner Profile
CPC (AB)
On a point of order, Mr. Chair, you have just stated that you intend to either suspend or attempt to adjourn this committee meeting based on resources. I realize that we are undertaking this meeting from a virtual perspective, but I believe that democracy has to proceed regardless. It is actually incumbent upon the House of Commons to ensure that we have resources for situations like this.
It is clear that the Liberals are filibustering this motion. I don't believe that they should be given a convenient window to stop the debate on this motion using the excuse of “resources”. The House of Commons—whoever it is, the Speaker's office, your office or whatever—should be attempting to find resources rather than shutting down the committee because of a “lack of resources”. My privilege as a parliamentarian is being violated by your decision to attempt to shut down the committee with regard to this.
I submit this as a formal point of privilege and I do not accept your attempt to shut down this committee due to “resources”.
Find them.
View Tony Van Bynen Profile
Lib. (ON)
I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.
What does a mortgage have to do with COVID and the health committee?
View Garnett Genuis Profile
CPC (AB)
That seems like a point of debate, but I can respond just on the point of order.
The member should know well the motion that allowed this committee to meet online gave the committee explicit permission to go beyond the normal parameters of the health committee. Part of this is because the Canada-China committee has not been allowed to meet despite the majority of the members wanting to meet. The foreign affairs committee has not been called and is not able to meet. The minister wasn't in the House all of last week when I wanted to ask him questions about this.
On Mr. Van Bynen's point of order, I think it is well within the parameters of the unanimous consent motion passed by the House. I would love to be able to ask the minister more of these questions in the House or at the Canada-China committee, but we've been deprived of those fora to ask those important questions.
View Ron McKinnon Profile
Lib. (BC)
Thank you, Mr. Genuis, on this point of order.
I think we are getting into debate. We are engaged in a study on the government's response to the coronavirus. While you are correct that the motion does allow us to deal with other things, that is not the study we're undertaking now.
Please carry on. Hopefully, we'll get more to COVID-19 kinds of questions.
Thank you.
View Don Davies Profile
NDP (BC)
Mr. Chair, before we do that, because I don't want to interrupt Mr. Fisher, I do have a point of order that I think will be helpful for future questioners.
I agree with you generally that, although I believe there's wide latitude for questioning before a committee, when the minister comes before a committee on COVID and spontaneously in his opening statements raises issues of Canada's rejection for a UN Security Council seat and his two mortgages, neither of which have to do with the COVID-19 study, he has obviously waived his right to restrict questions to COVID. A witness can't selectively decide which non-germane issues he wants to talk about and then restrict committee members from going into those. Just as a matter of policy, he's the foreign affairs minister; he has clearly raised issues beyond the COVID-19 issue, and I think committee members should be free to explore issues as they see fit. I think we should have that clarified before anybody goes further.
View Ron McKinnon Profile
Lib. (BC)
Thank you, Mr. Davies.
Whether the minister speaks to these issues is not a matter of the rights to the minister; it's a matter of what the committee is studying. We need to be relevant to what we are studying. The plight of the Uighurs is not part of the minister's statement, for example. Whether the minister was present or not for the COVI committee is not relevant to our study. I give very wide latitude for questioning, but I do think we need to stick to the subject matter of our inquiry, which is the government response to COVID-19. I accept that the minister did introduce these other matters, and I think that it's fair to respond to them, but I really hope we can focus our interventions on the COVID-19 response.
View Tamara Jansen Profile
CPC (BC)
I have a point of order as well.
I'd like to concur with Mr. Davies that if he's going to bring up these other issues, we should not have people's questioning being constantly stopped when we are asking questions on a different matter.
View Garnett Genuis Profile
CPC (AB)
On a point of order as well, Mr. Chair, on that, Mr. Davies made his point. It sounds as though you've made a ruling that you don't want to allow those kinds of questions to take place, and if that's the case, I'd like to move to challenge the chair on that. I think we need to hear the view of the committee as to whether the minister should have to answer questions that respect his opening statement.
View Ron McKinnon Profile
Lib. (BC)
I have not, in fact, made a ruling; I'm just encouraging the members to stay on topic.
View Don Davies Profile
NDP (BC)
If I might, Mr. Chair, just very briefly, if the Minister of Foreign Affairs raises the rejection of Canada's application in a bid for a UN Security Council seat, then I think he's left it wide open to explore what the reasons for that might be.
View Ron McKinnon Profile
Lib. (BC)
I've already granted that point, thank you. He did mention it in his statement, so fair enough, but let's try to bring it back to COVID-19. If you want to address matters brought up in his speech, then by all means, but let's really try to focus on COVID-19. Thank you.
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