Environment Committee on May 11th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

We're back in business—out of camera.

Madame Pauzé has a motion she would like to table.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

That's right, Mr. Chair.

My motion concerns the toxic tailings pond leak investigation. We've had three meetings about this. We just discussed how important it is that we go to Alberta to see the mine and also meet with the first nations involved.

The witnesses who have come—

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

Obviously, the meeting we just had before this one was in camera. Not that it matters, but—

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

When a meeting goes out of camera, we mustn't mention anything that occurred or was said in camera.

Thank you for raising that point of order, Mr. Lake.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

He's absolutely right, I am sorry.

All witnesses who appeared before this committee were required to submit their documents, and they had until Monday of this week to do so. That deadline has now come and gone. The documents have been placed in the digital binder. My motion aims to have those documents in the digital binder posted on the public portal. I will read it out:

That the Clerk of the Committee publish on the House of Commons website, under the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, all correspondence, briefing notes and briefs received by the Committee from invited witnesses in the Toxic Tailings Pond Link Investigation and that these documents be made available as soon as their translation is completed.

The motion has been sent to all members' personal email addresses. We haven't received a ton of documents, but the ones we do have include graphs and numbers.

I believe it's worthwhile to make the documents available to the public.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I'd like to make a slight clarification.

In the French version, we're clearly talking about briefing notes received from witnesses, not the briefing notes the Library of Parliament prepares for us.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Exactly. The motion says “notes d’informations et mémoires reçus par le Comité de la part des témoins”. So it's very clear.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I wanted to make that clear because in English it could be understood in a different way. It could be taken to mean the briefing notes prepared by the library. We are talking about the briefing notes sent by the committee's witnesses.

I want to raise a second point. We discussed it briefly during the rounds of questions, Ms. Pauzé.

One of the documents is 1,250 pages long. That would be a massive translation. I haven't seen the document, but from what I understand, it's graphs and tables. It includes an executive summary that we could easily have translated. I don't know how long it will take to translate the entire document, including the tables and graphs.

We may come across other documents that we find we don't need fully translated once we look at them. The committee will have to decide that, but I guarantee you that if we get that entire 1,250-page document translated, it won't be posted on the committee's website for quite some time.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Let me be clear, Mr. Chair. I don't need all 1,200 pages translated. The executive summary would be quite sufficient.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

In that case, that's agreed upon. If any other documents fall into that category—

I'm sorry, Mr. Longfield. I've been so busy with the opposition that I've forgotten my colleagues from the Liberal Party.

Go ahead, Mr. Longfield.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you. You were doing well. I wanted to let you keep going.

I think it's a good idea to be as transparent as we can. During the witness testimony, we heard over and over that transparency is an issue here. I think whatever we have that we can share with the public would be worthwhile. I agree there is Google Translate, or other ways people can translate without having to go through the resources of the House. If we can avoid that, it would be an easier way for us to get it out.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I just want to be clear here, because we're talking about a particular document.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

I understand. Yes, 1,200 pages to go through the House translation versus—

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

There is technical data.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Mr. Lake has a point of order.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB]

I don't think it's okay to say that people can use Google Translate in place of official translation from the House. I represent a municipality in my riding that is officially bilingual. I don't think the francophones in that constituency would say that using Google Translate is the answer.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I don't think it would work for this particular report. It's very dense.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB]

We put the documents forward in both languages, don't we? We definitely don't put any one document in only one language and expect people to Google Translate it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

No, no; I don't think that's what Mr. Longfield was saying.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

That's not what I was saying. I was saying that the executive summary is a good thing to get translated for us, but if there are additional things, then that's beyond our resources.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I want to make it clear, though—because it's not mentioned specifically in this motion—that with regard to this particular document, Madame Pauzé is fine with translating just the executive summary and the recommendations, as opposed to technical tables.

So that it's understood, with this motion, the totality of that particular document will not be sent to translation, just the executive summary and the recommendations.

I mean, we could send it to translation, but it would take a translator a year to do, unless they do it in portions. However, Madam Pauzé has no problem with it being just the executive summary and the recommendations.

I have Mr. Deltell and then Mr. Kurek.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have no problem with transparency, obviously, but I have some concern when we will be publishing something that has been sent to us without the sender knowing that it will be public.

So I'm putting myself in the shoes of those who are writing to us. Do they know that the communications they send us will be made public?

I'm in no position to judge whether the information they provide is confidential or whether it comes from a business or community group. However, I do believe these individuals are telling us about their condition, perhaps not their “emotional” state, but they are nonetheless providing their take on the situation. They're sharing that information with us, but do they know it will be made public? That's what concerns me.

Perhaps we should check each document. The people sending us information certainly know that MPs are not doctors or bank managers. Perhaps they should expect that it will be made public. However, I feel it's best to make sure, because once the information is in the public realm, it's hard to walk it back.

That said, I'd like to warn you about discussions between various groups, like email that we send to each other. Sometimes we cut corners. I wouldn't want any information sent that way to end up in a newspaper headline.

Mr. Chair, you're an experienced MP. You can assess whether it's better if certain items that might be contentious or personal, among other things, did not end up on the front page of Le Journal de Montréal or Le Journal de Québec.

That's always my barometer when I'm about to hit Send: Would it be okay with me if my message ended up on the front page of those newspapers? You have to think about it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Correspondence we receive from outside, not what we send to each other or we send outside, but what is sent to us, often includes briefs. Would you agree, Ms. Pauzé?

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

In this case, it's a public study, so the documents sent to us are public. I believe there are eight of them. We don't have that many and they come from the Northwest Territories department of environment. It's press releases and graphs. So there's nothing contentious.

Therefore, you won't likely see it on the front page of Le Journal de Montréal or Le Journal de Québec.