[The subcommittee sat in public to discuss whether the meeting should be in camera.]
MR. CHAIRMAN: I will ask the honourable member for Fairview to lead off on where you stand and why.
MS. EILEEN O'CONNELL: I guess my position is really simple. I just think that the nature of this committee and the difficulties we have had, it would be really valuable to have the discussion in a forum that would allow for input from other people and to have a discussion because I think there is a lot of confusion on a number of levels around what this committee is, does, what it can do, what it should be, who decides what it is and what it should be and so on. Also just my general bias is in favour of openness. I think unless there is something earth-shattering about this committee that I do not know about, that our general posture should be one of openness. So I would vote to keep it open myself and I will do that.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Don, do you want to speak to that?
MR. DONALD DOWNE: I believe you and I talked about it on the phone that I had indicated I would prefer to have it open simply because there is nothing that I have prepared for today that would be looked at or manipulated in any other way than, hopefully, constructive ideas as to how this process can work and to meet the expectations that John Hamm talked about, that Tim talked about, that I have talked about, that you, Mark and Eileen, and other members of the committee have talked about, that we want a fairly open and transparent process.
I think Dean Jobb's comments are somewhat striking when he said that this process is losing credibility in all Parties and we need to do something about it, and that is why I thought it would be very simple to have them here and go forward with it on that basis. So I had suggested having it open because I did not think there was anything fiduciary or personal or any individual being discussed or any pertinent information being discussed that would be detrimental to any individual. It is policy.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Tim, did you have any comments?
MR. TIMOTHY OLIVE: Mr. Chairman, I do not disagree with what has been said as far as the actual ongoing discussion that there is anything that the general public should not be party to. I just have a real problem with having a meeting with no direction, with no clear mandate, with a lot of complaints that are going to be aired without what appears to be a solid direction as to where we are headed.
It seems to me that this dysfunctional process for an initial meeting probably should be in camera from the point of view of trying to get some direction about where we are going and who thinks what about what. We can be all over the board here and it does not make a lot of sense to me that an all-Party committee be seen to be rudderless at the first meeting in the eyes of the general public. That is the way I feel about it.
I do not have any problem if someone can explain to me how we are going to go through the process or are we just going to sit here and hash out issues that have already been decided in this Human Resources Committee before I got here and have been decided by the majority government of which I am now part of. If we are just going to sit here and tear it apart, let's get some direction and open it up to the public and let them see how it is being torn apart, but to do it without any direction or with any plan, I do not think it does any of the Parties any good just to sit here without having some firm direction about where we are going in our first meeting.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mora, do you have any input?
MS. MORA STEVENS (Human Resources Committee Coordinator): Only the fact that standardly when we do have mandate discussions, they are considered in camera, that has been done. I know when we went through it with the Public Accounts Committee, it just made everyone feel a little more comfortable, but we were also dealing with a very partisan committee and we had to sit down and just have the discussion. Members knew that anything they said, whether it was for or against maybe their own Party's beliefs, that they did not have to worry about it, it was kept confidential.
MS. O'CONNELL: Don and I voted to have it open. Tim voted presumably to close it.
MR. DOWNE: The Chairman gets two votes.
MS. O'CONNELL: Does he?
MS. STEVENS: Yes, always.
MR. DOWNE: I think normally.
MR. CHAIRMAN: I do not know in the subcommittee. In the other . . .
MS. O'CONNELL: I guess I am asking about the subcommittee. The Chair gets two votes?
MS. STEVENS: Yes, any time it is tied.
MR. DOWNE: He would be able to vote as a member . . .
MS. O'CONNELL: As a member and then as the Chair.
MR. CHAIRMAN: I vote one way as a member and another way as the Chair.
MS. O'CONNELL: Yes, except if you vote the right way on the first one, you will not have to vote the second time.
MR. CHAIRMAN: So traditionally in mandate discussions it has been closed. That is precedence then?
MS. STEVENS: Yes.
MR. CHAIRMAN: You see, that was what I was going on initially when I was asked, precedence, but do you have any insight into it, Jim?
MR. JAMES SPURR: Not so much an insight as a comment and that was that since we are a subcommittee, I had hoped to be as helpful to you as I could. I guess from my perspective as a public servant, I can be most helpful to you if I can be candid. I cannot be candid in an open meeting. So for me to be as helpful to you as I can, I would not be able to do that unless we were in camera but, again, it is your call.
MR. CHAIRMAN: My own feeling besides the precedence, it would facilitate discussion better if there was no worry about press reporting. I was hoping, and I guess we would have to decide on this, and this is precedence again, that we would vote on any recommendations, but it would be by unanimous agreement and then we would be taking them to the larger committee, in which case everything would be open at that stage.
MS. STEVENS: Once it goes to the full standing committee they can go over every minute detail of what report we would put together.
MR. CHAIRMAN: My thinking was based more on precedence than on that. If you would like a recorded vote, Eileen, then let's go for a recorded vote now that everyone sort of had their say.
MS. O'CONNELL: I think I would.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Is there anything further to be said about this issue before we go for the recorded vote? How should I frame this?
MR. DOWNE: Who is in favour of opening this meeting to the public.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, because by precedent it would not be open. Would all those in favour of opening this meeting to the public please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.
[1:14 p.m. The motion was defeated and the subcommittee resumed in camera.]
