Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Legal and Constitutional Affairs
Issue 3 - Evidence for June 22, 2006
OTTAWA, Thursday, June 22, 2006
The Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs met this day at 10:51 a.m. to consider business of the committee.
Senator Donald H. Oliver (Chairman) in the chair.
[English]
The Chairman: Honourable senators, I see a quorum and I would like to call this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs to order. I understand that this is a meeting about the business of the committee and that Senator Joyal has a motion.
Senator Joyal: I would like to move that, in the absence of the Honourable Senator Milne, that the Honourable Senator Sharon Carstairs be empowered to act on her behalf as deputy chair of the committee.
The Chairman: Honourable senators, it has been moved. All those in favour please signify by saying yea?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chairman: Is there any other business to come before the committee at this time?
Senator Joyal, we were waiting to get Bill S-3 and you had indicated before you left that you were going to speak this week.
Senator Joyal: I will speak this afternoon. I understand the bill will be referred. I do not know if there will be other senators who will speak.
The Chairman: However, you will be speaking today.
Senator Joyal: Absolutely. As I mentioned to you, that was my first item upon my return. I will be speaking so that the bill, if there are no other senators, will be referred to us.
The Chairman: Honourable senators, it seems that Bill S-3 will be one of the bills referred to us and I understand that the accountability bill, Bill C-2, will be introduced in the chamber today and also to be referred to this committee. Therefore, I am hoping we will have a meeting of the steering committee now that we have a third member and I welcome Senator Carstairs to the steering committee. We can now meet and do the normal business of the steering committee on behalf of the full committee.
Senator Andreychuk: I had telephoned to try and find out whether we were having a legal and constitutional meeting. There was a major delegation here that had only a window of opportunity and I cancelled that to come because I understood there was a meeting. In the future, if we have to call meetings, could we be advised what is on the agenda other than future business, et cetera? I could have had a substitute handle this. We are very short, as you know. Obviously, we need a pro forma way to get Senator Carstairs on the steering committee, but if we knew this meeting was not one where content was to be discussed, I would not have had to be on it. That would make life a lot easier if we do that.
The Chairman: I apologize for that.
Senator Rivest: On Bill C-2, do we have witnesses already?
Senator Ringuette: We do not have the bill yet.
Senator Rivest: Have some witnesses given their intention to come before the committee?
The Chairman: There are a number of witnesses who have an interest in appearing once the Senate gets the bill and once the bill is referred to the committee.
Senator Rivest: Are there already some groups?
The Chairman: Yes.
Senator Ringuette: I do not know about the rest of you but my office has been inundated with emails from groups on Bill C-2, wanting to make sure that the Senate will hear them.
The Chairman: If there is no further business to come before the committee, the meeting is adjourned.
The committee adjourned.