THE COMMITTEE OF SELECTION
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Monday, November 2, 2020
The Committee of Selection met by videoconference this day at 6:00 p.m. [ET], pursuant to rule 12-13 of the Rules of the Senate, to organize the activities of the committee.
[English]
Shaila Anwar, Clerk of the Committee: Honourable senators, as clerk of the committee, it’s my duty to preside over the election of the chair. I’m ready to receive a motion to that effect.
Senator Plett: Madam Clerk, I would like to nominate Senator Terry Mercer as chair of the committee.
Ms. Anwar: Are there any other nominations?
Senator Mercer: If I could, I would prefer to be a deputy chair as opposed to the chair of this committee.
Ms. Anwar: Senators, as the clerk —
Senator Plett: If Senator Mercer is asking for permission, I would say no, he doesn’t have permission. He needs to be the chair.
Senator Saint-Germain: I second.
Ms. Anwar: Senators, I will remind you that as the clerk, I cannot preside over debate; I can only accept nominations for a chair and then put the question to the committee.
If there are no other nominations, it is moved by the Honourable Senator Plett that the Honourable Senator Mercer do take the chair of this committee. Is it your pleasure, honourable senators, to adopt the motion?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
Senator Mercer: I am voting against it.
Senator Plett: Democracy is a great thing.
Ms. Anwar: I declare the motion carried and I invite the Honourable Senator Mercer to take the chair.
Senator Terry M. Mercer (Chair) in the Chair.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Anwar, I appreciate that. We will move on to the second item, the election of deputy chairs.
Senator Saint-Germain: First, congratulations. As a veteran in the Senate, I’m very pleased that you have been selected chair of this committee, Senator Mercer. I move that Senator Carolyn Stewart Olsen be deputy chair of this committee. I also move that Senator Percy Downe be deputy chair of this committee, and I also move that Senator Ratna Omidvar be deputy chair of this committee.
The Chair: I guess I won’t bother calling for the second or third nominations for deputy chair. Senator Saint-Germain has taken care of that for us. Thank you, Senator Saint-Germain. Are there any further nominations? Hearing none, I declare those three people elected. Congratulations, colleagues. I look forward to working with you.
On the Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure, it is moved:
That the Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure be composed of the chair and the three deputy chairs; and
That the subcommittee be empowered to make decisions on behalf of the committee with respect to its agenda and to schedule meetings.
Do I hear a motion to that effect? Senator Plett says yes; he moved that motion.
Senator Plett: So moved, yes.
The Chair: All those in favour?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Thank you, colleagues. A motion to publish the committee’s proceedings is next. Would someone move that motion, please?
Senator Stewart Olsen: So moved.
The Chair: Senator Stewart Olsen has moved:
That the committee publish its proceedings.
All those in favour?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Next on the agenda we have an item, which I believe we’ll not be proceeding with, but I’ll look to the clerk for her advice. It’s the nomination of Speaker pro tempore. Is there not a motion before the chamber to deal with this separately?
Senator Plett: There is, chair, and I would move that it not be part of this meeting, that a future meeting be called for that purpose.
Senator Mercer: Are there any other comments on that, colleagues, before we move on to the next item on the agenda?
Senator Saint-Germain: I second Senator Plett’s motion.
The Chair: Okay. The next item is the major item to be dealt with by this committee. It is the recommendations on virtual committees. This year, we need a recommendation on virtual meetings, so we need a motion to allow the committee to meet virtually. I think that’s what we need, isn’t it, Ms. Anwar?
Senator Plett: Chair, if I could, the next item on the meeting actually is the nomination of all the committees and not the virtual sittings.
The Chair: I’m sorry. You’re absolutely right, Senator Plett.
Senator Plett: So if we could do that first. Then, when we get to the next item, I have a few comments before we discuss it.
The Chair: This committee has worked in two ways in the past on the nomination for senators to serve on the committees, so that those of us who are from different groups know the number of spots that are reserved for our groups on the various committees, and we can either submit that to the clerk and have her assemble the nominations and we can meet again just to prove it, or we could go committee by committee tonight and do it that way. I’m in your hands. We can do it either way. I don’t think the clerk has a preference, do you, Ms. Anwar?
Ms. Anwar: No preference.
The Chair: Okay. Colleagues, does anyone have any preferences?
Senator Woo: The ISG is ready to name its members to committees if the others are as well.
Senator Plett: The Conservatives are as well.
The Chair: You want to do it tonight, then?
Senator Plett: I think it’s important, chair, that we have a report going to the chamber here either tomorrow or the next day, so it’s pretty important that we do it.
The Chair: I don’t see anyone wanting to go the other route.
Ms. Anwar, would you like me to read the list of committees as I have them listed? There are two committees with nine members — the Human Rights Committee and the Official Languages Committee.
Maybe since I have the floor, I will nominate, for the Human Rights Committee, Senator Bernard. Other nominations for the Human Rights Committee?
Senator Saint-Germain: Senator Plett, do you go first?
Senator Plett: I’m happy to go first. I don’t have it in that order here, unfortunately, so if you’ll just bear with me for one second. For Human Rights, the Conservatives nominate Senator Ataullahjan, Senator Martin and Senator Ngo.
The Chair: Thank you. How about the ISG?
Senator Saint-Germain: We nominate Senator Boyer, Senator Hartling, Senator Mégie and Senator Pate.
The Chair: And the Canadian Senators Group?
Senator Downe: We’ll have a nominee to be named later.
The Chair: Did I miss somebody? I think that was everybody.
Ms. Anwar: Yes.
The Chair: Did I miss someone?
Ms. Anwar: No.
The Chair: Instead of stopping at each one to vote, we’ll go through the whole list and then we’ll approve the list, unless there are more people nominated than there are spots.
The next one I have, Senator Plett, is the Official Languages Committee. While people are looking for their list, since I have the floor, I would nominate Senator Lovelace Nicholas.
Senator Plett: Okay. I will nominate Senator Mockler, Senator Plett and Senator Smith.
Senator Saint-Germain: I will nominate Senator Cormier, Senator Gagné from the Government Representative Office, Senator Mégie and Senator Jaffer.
Senator Downe: And I’ll nominate Senator Dagenais.
The Chair: The next list of committees, colleagues, are the 12-member committees. There are 11 of those committees. I have them listed in alphabetical order. The first one is the Aboriginal Peoples Committee. Again, I will nominate mine first: Senator Francis and Senator Lovelace Nicholas. We normally only have one spot on here, but the CSG was kind enough to give us one of their spots on this committee. We have an email from the leader of that group confirming that, if we need to put it on the record.
Senator Plett: The Conservatives have Senator Martin, Senator Patterson and Senator Plett.
Senator Saint-Germain: I’m sorry; I need to be clear. Which committee are we speaking about?
The Chair: Aboriginal.
Senator Saint-Germain: For the ISG, I nominate Senator Coyle, Senator Christmas, Senator Anderson, Senator LaBoucane-Benson from the Government Representative Office, Senator Pate and Senator Sinclair.
Senator Downe: We’ll nominate Senator Tannas, and I can confirm as well that we have given our other seat to the Progressive Senate Group for Senator Lovelace Nicholas.
The Chair: Okay. Thank you, Senator Downe. Any other names for this committee?
The next committee is the Agriculture and Forestry Committee, and I get to nominate myself as a representative of the Progressive Senate Group.
Senator Plett: There you go, Senator Mercer. I’m looking forward to working with you on that committee. I nominate Senator Plett, Senator Oh and Senator Seidman.
Senator Saint-Germain: For the ISG, I nominate Senator Colin Deacon, Senator Hartling, Senator Bellemare, Senator Mégie, Senator Petitclerc and Senator Miville-Dechêne.
Senator Downe: For the CSG group, we nominate Senator Rob Black and Senator Griffin.
The Chair: Is that everybody? I guess it is.
The next committee I have listed is Banking, Trade and Commerce, and I nominate Senator Klyne.
Senator Plett: And I nominate Senator Marshall, Senator Smith and Senator Stewart Olsen.
Senator Saint-Germain: And I nominate Senator Bellemare, Senator Moncion, Senator Loffreda, Senator Ringuette, Senator Colin Deacon and Senator Wetston.
Senator Downe: We nominate Senator Wallin and a member to be named later.
Senator Woo: Colleagues, if I could revert to an item, Senator Saint-Germain, you might want to take a look at an email that you’ve just received. It’s a clarification on our APPA membership. She will confirm if this is correct, but our APPA members for ISG should be the following: Senator Anderson, Senator Christmas, Senator Coyle, Senator Hartling, Senator LaBoucane-Benson and Senator Pate. Senator Sinclair should not be on that list.
Senator Saint-Germain: Senator Sinclair will be replaced by Senator Hartling on the list. Thank you for this; I haven’t seen the latest email. I’m sorry about that.
The Chair: That’s everybody’s nominations for Banking, Trade and Commerce. The next is Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources. And we would nominate Senator Cordy.
Senator Plett: We will nominate Senator Carignan, Senator MacDonald and Senator Patterson.
Senator Saint-Germain: And we nominate Senator Galvez, Senator Massicotte, Senator McCallum, Senator Simons, Senator Miville-Dechêne and Senator Anderson.
Senator Downe: We nominate Senator Doug Black and Senator Verner.
The Chair: Next I have Fisheries and Oceans, and we nominate Senator Francis.
Senator Plett: And we nominate Senator Ataullahjan, Senator Manning and Senator Poirier.
Senator Saint-Germain: We nominate Senator Busson, Senator Christmas, Senator Cormier, Senator Ravalia, Senator Kutcher and Senator Ringuette.
Senator Downe: And I’m the nominee for Fisheries from the CSG.
The Chair: The next committee I have is Foreign Affairs and International Trade. I nominate Senator Harder.
Senator Plett: And we nominate Senator Ataullahjan, Senator Housakos and Senator Ngo.
Senator Saint-Germain: And we nominate Senator Boehm, Senator Coyle, Senator Marty Deacon, Senator Dean, Senator Ravalia and myself, Senator Saint-Germain.
Senator Downe: We nominate Senator Doug Black and Senator Greene.
The Chair: The next is Legal and Constitutional Affairs, and I nominate Senator Dalphond.
Senator Plett: And the Conservatives nominate Senator Patterson, Senator Boisvenu and Senator Carignan.
Senator Saint-Germain: And we nominate Senator Boniface, Senator Cotter, Senator Dupuis, Senator Jaffer, Senator Keating and Senator Boyer.
Senator Downe: We nominate Senator Campbell.
The Chair: National Finance is next, and I nominate Senator Klyne.
Senator Plett: And we nominate Senator Marshall, Senator Mockler and Senator Smith.
Senator Saint-Germain: We nominate Senator Boehm, Senator Marty Deacon, Senator Duncan, Senator Forest, Senator Galvez and Senator Loffreda.
Senator Downe: We nominate Senator Dagenais and Senator Richards.
The Chair: National Security and Defence is next. We nominate Senator Dalphond.
Senator Plett: And we nominate Senator Boisvenu, Senator Martin and Senator Oh.
Senator Saint-Germain: We nominate Senator Cotter, Senator Boniface, Senator Busson, Senator Duffy, Senator Moodie and Senator McPhedran.
Senator Downe: We nominate Senator Richards and Senator Dagenais.
The Chair: The next is Social Affairs, Science and Technology. I nominate Senator Bovey.
Senator Plett: And we nominate Senator Manning, Senator Plett and Senator Poirier.
Senator Saint-Germain: And we nominate Senator Dasko, Senator Kutcher, Senator Forest-Niesing, Senator Moodie, Senator Omidvar and Senator Petitclerc.
Senator Downe: And we will name our member later.
The Chair: The next is Transport and Communications. This is the last of the 12-member committees. I nominate Senator Dawson.
Senator Plett: And we nominate Senator Boisvenu, Senator MacDonald and Senator Manning.
Senator Saint-Germain: We nominate Senator Cormier, Senator Dasko, Senator Keating, Senator Miville-Dechêne, Senator Simons and Senator Woo.
Senator Downe: We nominate Senator Griffin and Senator Wallin.
The Chair: That’s the end of the 12-member committees, colleagues. Next there are two 15-member committees. For Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration, I nominate Senator Munson and Senator Dawson.
Senator Plett: This was CIBA, right, chair?
The Chair: Yes.
Senator Plett: We nominate Senator Carignan, Senator Marshall, Senator Plett and Senator Seidman.
Senator Saint-Germain: We nominate Senator Dean, Senator Forest, Senator Forest-Niesing, Senator Jaffer, Senator Marwah, Senator Moncion and Senator Saint-Germain.
Senator Downe: We nominate Senator Tannas and Senator Campbell.
The Chair: Thank you, colleagues. The next, the second 15-member committee is Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament. I nominate Senator Dalphond and Senator Bovey.
Senator Plett: And we nominate Senator Batters, Senator Frum, Senator Housakos and Senator Wells.
Senator Saint-Germain: And we nominate Senator Bellemare, Senator Massicotte, Senator Dupuis, Senator McPhedran, Senator Duncan, Senator Ringuette and Senator Lankin.
Senator Downe: We nominate Senator Rob Black and Senator Greene.
The Chair: Thank you, colleagues. There are several other committees. The Committee on Selection, we’ve done that, For the Library of Parliament Committee, I nominate Senator Mercer. That’s a joint committee.
Senator Plett: We nominate Senator Frum and Senator Plett.
Senator Saint-Germain: We nominate Senator Duffy and Senator Ravalia.
Senator Downe: We nominate Senator Rob Black.
The Chair: The next committee is Scrutiny of Regulations, a joint committee again. There are five to eight members. Nominations, colleagues?
Senator Plett: We nominate Senator Martin and Senator Seidman.
Senator Saint-Germain: We nominate Senator Boyer and Senator Woo.
Senator Downe: Sorry, chair. I wasn’t clear. What’s the committee?
The Chair: Scrutiny of Regulations.
Senator Downe: We have a member to be named later.
The Chair: The final committee, colleagues, is the Audit and Oversight Committee. There will be three members plus two external and there was one from us, but we’re not prepared to nominate. We’ll require a motion later to add a spot for us on the Audit Committee.
Senator Plett: Our nomination is Senator Wells.
Senator Saint-Germain: Our nomination is Senator Dupuis.
Senator Downe: Chair, I’m the nominee from the CSG group for the Audit and Oversight Committee.
Ms. Anwar: Senators, if I may, I believe the Audit and Oversight Committee is supposed to have three senators in total.
The Chair: It did.
Ms. Anwar: So no PSG?
Senator Plett: No. That’s what Senator Mercer said. There is an agreement that there will be a motion coming later. That will be discussed.
The Chair: Colleagues, if I could have one general motion to approve the names just nominated for all the positions named on committees, I think that would suffice, Ms. Anwar?
Ms. Anwar: Yes.
An Hon. Senator: So moved.
The Chair: All those in favour?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Contrary minded? Thank you, colleagues. That’s the bulk of the work of this committee. Now I’ll go on to the recommendation on virtual meetings. Senator Plett, you had something to say on this?
Senator Plett: Yes, I do, chair. I have no issue if we want to get into some discussion on this tonight, but I would very much like a motion or a report by this committee that could be very quickly adopted in the Senate.
The Conservatives, at this point, have a number of questions around the possibility of virtual sittings. We are very much of the mindset that we would like to see hybrid sittings of committees. That would still allow those in Ottawa who want to attend committees in person to do that. There have been some questions about the possibility and feasibility, mostly around a shortage of staff from what I understand.
In order to have a clean report so that there won’t be a lot of debate, and we possibly don’t accept a report in our first sitting and this drags out, I would very much suggest — and indeed make a motion — that our report ends with what we have done so far.
Again, I have no problem if we want to further discuss the virtual meetings, but we won’t be prepared to have a lot of discussions until we have been able to sit down with Ms. Anwar and all of her people, and possibly even the Speaker, to find out why we would not be able to have hybrid sittings rather than virtual meetings. I would make the request that we do that maybe later this week, or certainly we can be in communication on that.
Senator Woo: I’ll let Senator Saint-Germain lead on this if she has a comment. If not, I will jump in.
Senator Saint-Germain: I do agree that it is better to adopt a report this evening and to make sure that we have further discussion regarding hybrid sittings for committees, which is an option that deserves to be carefully looked at, so I support Senator Plett’s motion on this.
I will add that we also need to make sure that the scheduling of the committees abides by the priorities that we would have decided, notably, government bills to be prioritized when we schedule the committee meetings.
The Chair: That’s not the responsibility of this committee, but that’s tradition anyway.
Senator Downe: I agree. The important point tonight is to get the committees set up, the report submitted and, hopefully, approved by the Senate.
The Chair: That’s what we will do. I did want to mention the other responsibility that this committee has, and it was added two years ago. It is the approval of office allocation. Senator Plett and I were on the committee, and Senator Plett was chair of the committee. I forget who the third person was at the time.
Office allocation is actually a reasonably simple job, but there is more work to that than any other part of this committee. In the past, we’ve empowered the steering committee to make decisions on allocation on behalf of the committee. Since steering has representatives from all groups, then all groups would be represented in discussions if there were controversies. Obviously, if need be, it could come back to the full committee.
Senator Plett: Senator Mercer, I agree. For a while, the third member was Senator Wallin, representing the ISG.
This isn’t terribly onerous, but it’s certainly time consuming to some extent. Clearly, it can be done by the steering committee. Over the years, we have set up some good parameters around this. Other than it takes some time, it is fairly simple and non-controversial.
Chair, I support that this continues to be something that is left up to steering.
Senator Woo: If I could suggest that for the benefit of the rest of the committee, we invite Senate Administration to give us a proper briefing on the latest protocol for office allocation. There is a reasonably new system, I understand, which many of us don’t understand, and certainly our colleagues who are not on SELE have even less understanding of. I would personally benefit from a briefing so that we better understand how it works before we decide to delegate the authority to steering.
The Chair: It’s up to you, colleagues, to agree with either Senator Woo or Senator Plett. The interesting thing is that the allocation of offices, as Senator Plett indicated, is a bit time-consuming because we have to get together. In the past, Senator Plett and I made sure that we communicated a fair amount by phone. Then when we had an agreement, we would call the clerk, say we’re going to have this meeting and make the decision that way. You don’t report on this aspect of the job to the chamber on a regular basis like you do with other parts of it.
Senator Woo: That could well continue to be the practice, where steering does the heavy lifting. All I am suggesting is that we get a proper briefing on just how the allocation process takes place so that we have some transparency and understanding of what happens.
Senator Plett: I certainly do not, in any way, dispute that administration give us a proper briefing. However, when something isn’t broken, I don’t think we need to fix it.
I do support Senator Woo’s suggestion that the committee get a briefing but, colleagues, we all have representation on the steering committee. Quite frankly, we probably aren’t going to get any new senators here this week where this is going to be a big issue. But there are a lot of committees that we have — probably almost all committees that we have — where we delegate a fair bit of authority to the steering committee, and I wouldn’t see why we would do anything less here. It’s not worth spending a great deal more time over it, whether we do it this week or next. It’s probably irrelevant.
Senator Gold: I encourage the committee to come to a decision as quickly as possible as to how committees can meet — virtually, hybrid — because I expect the committees, once constituted, will want to get to work. There are a number of things. There are discussions ongoing with leaders, and there is legislation that we should expect to come soon. It would be a pity if we leave this week without passing the appropriate motion in the chamber that would allow the committees to get up and running.
The Chair: That would cause an issue. It’s Monday, and we are here until Thursday. It’s probably best if we separate this out from our report on the committees themselves and have a separate motion to do that.
I agree with Senator Plett and Senator Woo. If people need a briefing from the administration, then I would ask the clerk to organize that as quickly as possible. We can do that the same way we are tonight. We’ll have to do it virtually, because a number of us aren’t in Ottawa.
Senator Gold: I agree. I wasn’t going back on the question of separating them. I just underline the importance of getting it done this week.
The Chair: Fine. I haven’t spoken to the clerk about this issue because I didn’t plan to be the chair. Perhaps the clerk and I can talk tomorrow, and we’ll try to arrange a quick briefing from the Senate Administration.
Senator Plett, I’m not sure that that’s the entire problem you outlined. For some strange reason, there is a meeting room problem in the Senate right now. I don’t quite understand it, but maybe the Senate Administration will tell us that and give us a briefing on the subject.
Colleagues, I have nothing else on the agenda. Is there any other business anyone would like to raise? There is no other business. I would entertain a motion for adjournment.
Senator Plett: So moved.
The Chair: It is moved by Senator Plett. Colleagues, we stand adjourned.
(The committee adjourned.)