I call this meeting back to order.
This is a resumption of meeting number 27 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, which started on April 13, 2021.
Today's meeting is taking place in hybrid format, pursuant to the House order of January 25. Therefore, members can attend virtually and in person.
Everyone is attending this meeting virtually, so I'll remind you to make sure your interpretation is switched to the correct channel, to make sure that you mute and unmute yourself and you know the rest of the drill.
I'd like to get back to where we left off in the last meeting. Mr. Nater had just moved a subamendment. We are on the prorogation study at this point. There are three motions before us that are in order. Hopefully, we can dispose of these as quickly as possible. My intention is that, depending on what happens, if we do get to the point where we have voted for or against all of these motions, we can move on to the draft report that was circulated to all of you last Tuesday, June 1.
Has everyone received the draft report?
If we do get to that point, we will have to switch to in camera, since consideration of draft reports happens in camera. That link has been circulated to you with the public link as well.
At this point, let's move back to Mr. Nater's subamendment, which was put forward close to the end of the last meeting on June 1. It states:
That the amendment be amended by replacing all the words after the words “disposed of” with the following: “before the Committee begins consideration of Bill C-19”.
I was going over this with the clerk because I want to make sure that everybody knows what decisions they are making, where we are on all of the motions and what the final motion will end up looking like after all of the amendments that we've had. At first glance, when I saw it, I thought the impact of this subamendment would be to make sure that we do not move on to C-19 until the prorogation study is completed. That's a completely understandable desire that Mr. Nater is putting forward. I can completely understand why he would want that.
However, when you put it side by side, it's replacing the words of Mr. Blaikie's previous amendment, which puts in place a timeline. In order for me to know what kind of timeline we're working with, when we remove the words after “disposed of” in Mr. Blaikie's amendment that was already adopted, that is the portion that actually states....
I'll read it out to you and maybe I can have the clerk also read it out for you in case you're not following me.
Mr. Blaikie's subamendment had said:
, and that all questions necessary for the finalization and tabling of the report be disposed of before the end of the day on June 8, 2021 and that the final report be tabled no later than June 11, 2021
If we were to replace the words after “disposed of” with Mr. Nater's subamendment, “before the Committee begins consideration of Bill C-19”, it does essentially remove the timeline that Mr. Blaikie had proposed and that the committee had voted in favour of in a previous meeting.
I'm just wondering, Mr. Nater, if you can explain to the other members and to me if your intention was to remove the timeline or if your intention was just to add it to the timeline.