THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON RULES, PROCEDURES AND THE RIGHTS OF PARLIAMENT
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Monday, December 13, 2021
The Standing Committee on Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament met with videoconference this day at 11:11 a.m. [ET], pursuant to rule 12-13 of the Rules of the Senate, to organize the activities of the committee.
[Translation]
Adam Thompson, Clerk of the Committee: Honourable senators, as clerk of your committee, it is my duty to preside over the election of the chair. I am now ready to receive motions to that effect.
Senator Carignan: I would like to nominate Senator Diane Bellemare as the chair of this committee.
Mr. Thompson: Are there any other nominations?
The Honourable Senator Carignan moved:
That the Honourable Senator Bellemare do take the chair of this committee.
Is it your pleasure, honourable senators, to adopt the motion?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
Mr. Thompson: I declare the motion carried and invite Senator Bellemare to take the chair.
Senator Diane Bellemare (Chair) in the chair.
The Chair: Thank you to all the senators who are here, and thank you for the honour of appointing me to chair this committee. I must say candidly that this is the first time I have chaired a Senate committee since I became a senator. It is a great honour for me.
I will be very brief. I just wanted to say that, in my capacity, I would very much like the committee to be able to meet regularly. There is a lot of work to be done; there are a lot of things we would like to discuss.
I hope that we will achieve a quorum for most meetings and that we will discuss issues of your choosing at our next organizational meeting. I am a very transparent and collaborative person. I will work with you and the steering committee to come up with an agenda that will make everyone happy, and I will redouble my efforts to ensure that we do things diligently on these issues.
Without further ado, let’s move on to motion 2: election of deputy chair.
I am ready to receive a motion to that effect. Would anyone like to move the motion?
[English]
Senator Boniface: I nominate Senator Lankin to be deputy chair.
[Translation]
The Chair: The Honourable Senator Boniface moved:
That the Honourable Senator Frances Lankin be deputy chair of this committee.
Shall the motion carry? I declare the motion carried.
Senator Carignan: I understand that there are two deputy chair positions?
The Chair: Yes. I am now ready to receive a motion to elect a second deputy chair.
Senator Massicotte: I nominate Senator Carignan as deputy chair.
The Chair: The Honourable Senator Massicotte moved:
That the Honourable Senator Carignan be deputy chair of this committee.
Shall the motion carry? I declare the motion carried. Congratulations to the two deputy chairs who have just been elected.
I invite you to take the floor for a few seconds.
Senator Carignan: Thank you very much to all the members of the committee. This is a committee that I am very interested in. As many of you know, when I arrived in the Senate, I paid particular attention to the Standing Orders. I was involved in the drafting, and the Standing Orders were completely reviewed, both the English and the French versions. The rules were rewritten. It was a long process that I did at the time with Senator Stratton and Senator Fraser. I am pleased to be a member of the Standing Committee on Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament again. Let’s see how we can develop it in the future.
[English]
The Chair: Senator Lankin, do you have some introductory remarks?
Senator Lankin: Just a couple. I look forward to working with this committee. It is a phenomenal committee. I served on Rules when I first came to the Senate. I was on the steering committee when Senator Fraser was chair. We were able to accomplish some things. In the last while, because of the pandemic and other reasons, there have not been meetings of Rules. I look forward to re-engaging.
I am happy to see that many of the people on this committee were members of the Modernization Committee too, so we bring a lot of thinking already done on this subject. Of course, it all has to be revisited with the composition that’s here. However, I am excited, and I hope we can make progress and get some things done. I would like to be part of turning around the reputation that this committee has in the Senate, which is that if you want something to die, you send it to the Rules Committee. Hopefully, that’s not the truth in the future.
The Chair: Now we will move on to the third motion, which is about the Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure. Do I have a mover for this motion?
Senator Black: So moved.
The Chair: The Honourable Senator Black moved that:
That the Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure be composed of the chair, the two deputy chairs and a fourth member of the committee, to be designated after the usual consultations; and
That the subcommittee be empowered to make decisions on behalf of the committee with respect to its agenda, to invite witnesses, and to schedule hearings.
[Translation]
Does everyone agree with this motion?
[English]
Senator Lankin: On this particular motion, I wanted to give notice that in the future we may want to revisit it. I know that at least one other committee — the Social Affairs Committee and some others — have been discussing [Technical difficulties] that the steering committee should and must undertake on those committees. I want to give notice that I support this motion for now, but I hope that we, as a committee, will discuss whether there is a preferable way to go.
The Chair: Thank you. We will add that to the agenda for the coming work to be done. I remember all the discussions we had the last time.
By the way, we have consulted, and Senator Greene is the fourth member of the steering committee. Congratulations, Senator Greene.
Now the motion to publish the committee proceedings. Do I have a mover?
Senator Boniface: I so move.
The Chair: Honourable Senator Boniface moved:
That the committee publish its proceedings.
Is it agreed?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
[Translation]
The Chair: Next is motion 5 relating to research staff.
The Honourable Senator Duncan moved:
That the committee ask the Library of Parliament to assign analysts to the committee;
That the chair be authorized to seek authority from the Senate to engage the services of such counsel and technical, clerical, and other personnel as may be necessary for the purpose of the committee’s examination and consideration of such bills, subject-matters of bills, and estimates as are referred to it;
That the Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure be authorized to retain the services of such experts as may be required by the work of the committee; and
That the chair, on behalf of the committee, direct the research staff in the preparation of studies, analyses, summaries, and draft reports.
Is that motion carried?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: This leads us to motion 6, “Authority to commit funds and certify accounts.” Do I have a proposer for this motion?
The Honourable Senator Massicotte moved:
That, pursuant to section 7, chapter 3:05 of the Senate Administrative Rules, authority to commit funds be conferred individually on the chair, the deputy chair, and the clerk of the committee;
That, pursuant to section 8, chapter 3:05 of the Senate Administrative Rules, authority for certifying accounts payable by the committee be conferred individually on the chair, the deputy chair, and the clerk of the committee; and
That, notwithstanding the foregoing, in cases related to consultants and personnel services, the authority to commit funds and certify accounts be conferred jointly on the chair and deputy chair.
Is that motion carried?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Thank you.
[English]
Now we turn to travel. Do I have a mover for the motion on travel?
The Honourable Senator Busson moved:
That the committee empower the Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure to designate, as required, one or more members of the committee and/or such staff as may be necessary to travel on assignment on behalf of the committee.
Do you agree with this proposition?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
[Translation]
Senator Massicotte: This is not the committee that deals with trips, however.
The Chair: No, we’re talking about travel, specifically.
[English]
Motion 8 deals with the designation of members travelling on committee business. Do I have a mover?
The Honourable Senator Cordy moved:
That the Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure be authorized to:
1) determine whether any member of the committee is on “official business” for the purposes of paragraph 8(3)(a) of the Senators Attendance Policy, published in the Journals of the Senate on Wednesday, June 3, 1998; and
2) consider any member of the committee to be on “official business” if that member is: (a) attending an event or meeting related to the work of the committee; or (b) making a presentation related to the work of the committee; and
That the subcommittee report at the earliest opportunity any decisions taken with respect to the designation of members of the committee travelling on committee business.
[Translation]
We are moving on to motion 9, on travelling and living expenses of witnesses. Do I have a proposer for this motion on travelling and living expenses?
The Honourable Senator Ringuette moved:
That, pursuant to the Senate guidelines for witness expenses, the committee may reimburse reasonable travelling and living expenses of one witness per organization upon application, but that the chair be authorized to approve expenses of a second witness from the same organization should there be exceptional circumstances.
Do you agree with the motion?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Motion 10, on communications.
The Honourable Senator Mockler moved:
That the Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure be empowered to direct communications officer(s) assigned to the committee in the development of communications plans and products where appropriate and to request the services of the Senate Communications Directorate for the purposes of the promotion of their work; and
That the Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure be empowered to allow coverage by electronic media of the committee’s public proceedings with the least possible disruption of its proceedings, at its discretion.
Does everyone agree with the motion?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Motion 11, on other business.
As you know, the time slot for regular meetings has been adopted by the Senate. I don’t think we need to adopt this motion. I simply have to inform you that our meetings will be held on Mondays at 11:00 a.m. I hope the committee will be able to meet as often as possible and as soon as we can. The next meeting could be towards the end of January.
Lastly, I would like us to discuss our agenda. I think that everyone has several issues in mind. There is a lot of work to be done, as I said and as others have pointed out as well. We have experienced people on this committee, and it’s a good committee. I think everyone is ready to discuss all these issues.
I think there are a lot of issues that can be solved very easily, so we might as well start with those.
[English]
We will invite the steering committee to meet in January, and I invite you to send to us, to Adam, any subject that you would like the committee to discuss, and you could put them in order or not; it doesn’t matter.
We will put these into a list of all the subjects that senators would like to discuss in the near future, and the subject of our first meeting will be to select particular topics from the list that we think we can move on very quickly. I want to remind everyone that we have the liberty of initiative in this committee, so that’s good. That’s a chance for us, after our deliberations, to move and to propose to the Senate things that will be easy to apply.
Do you have any comments or questions, or any other business?
If not, I think our next meeting will be January 31, when the Parliament reconvenes on Monday, and we will have our steering committee before that in January. So if that is all, then meeting will be concluded. Thank you very much.
[Translation]
I am very happy to chair this committee, and I hope that I will do what is right for you.
[English]
If you have any concerns, don’t hesitate. My door is always open.
(The committee adjourned.)