Industry Committee

The House committee on Industry is currently meeting in Ottawa, however little to no updates on what is happening inside is available, on account of it being "in-camera," meaning closed to media. The meeting was originally called to discuss the closure of the Shell refinery in East Montreal, however it is widely believed that a motion to debate the long form census will take place as well.

According to the latest updates from Kady O'Malley, they will be hearing from witnesses about the Shell refinery until about 2:30 this afternoon. At this time, someone could introduce a motion to debate the long form census. In order to actually debate it however, the committee would need unanimous consent from the members. If you recall, the Conservatives recently prevented the Public Safety committee from debating an inquiry into the G8 and G20 security measures by introducing what the opposition refer to as useless motions. Then, before the opposition could table the motion, a motion to adjourn the committee was introduced and passes, thus ending the meeting.

Let us hope that the Industry meeting goes better than that for the opposition. How, after all, is the opposition to do their job if they can't even debate the policy changes that the government plans to make?

Anyways, Kady O'Malley of the CBC is on the Hill today, just hoping that the meeting returns from "in-camera" sessions. A liveblog has been set up in the hopeful event that it will. I will of course be posting updates as they are made available.