Human Resources Committee on Nov. 26th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Pursuant to order of reference of Thursday, November 5, 2009, Bill C-56, An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, we'll now get started.

Before we get started, there's a budget before you. It's a supplementary travel request that needs to go before the Liaison Committee tomorrow morning to be approved. It's for additional witnesses and equipment that was omitted on the first budget. I'm sure there are probably not a whole lot of questions regarding that. I'll call the question on the budget.

All in favour of the $21,580 request for additional funds from the Liaison Committee.

(Motion agreed to)

We have the Department of Human Resources and Skills Development before us today. We have Frank Vermaeten, Louis Beauséjour, and Luc Taillon. Thank you for being here.

I understand you don't have a statement, but you have a few comments to make before we get started.

[Frank Vermaeten, Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Skills and Employment Branch, Department of Human Resources and Skills Development]

Thank you very much.

I just want to say that we—

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

I'm sorry.

Go ahead, Mr. Lessard.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Chair, before we begin, the clerk received a notice of motion from us. A little while ago, in the House of Commons, I brought up the fact that we had received new information that could be very useful to the committee. The information comes to us from the former chief actuary. We submitted a notice of motion to the clerk that reads as follows:

That the study of the clause by clause of Bill C-56 be postponed in order to hear the previous chief actuary to the employment insurance commission, Michel Bédard.

Immediately after hearing from our friends here today at the committee meeting, we hope to hear from Mr. Bédard, which would not delay our proceedings very much. Right after that, we could continue with our clause-by-clause study of the bill. That is my proposal.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

Since this motion has not been brought before us 48 hours in advance, we're going to need unanimous consent of the committee for this to proceed.

Do we have unanimous consent for this motion?

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

We do not have unanimous consent, so we will not proceed in that fashion.

Go ahead.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

I just want clarification from Mr. Lessard.

Mr. Lessard, do you have this witness here now?

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Yes, he is here now. It would not delay our proceedings. His testimony would not take long, unless there are questions. I think people will have questions for him, but his presentation will be fairly brief. We could ask him a few questions. Then we could continue with our clause-by-clause study of the bill.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Mr. Savage, go ahead.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

I wonder if the committee wouldn't mind adding this person. We're here. The potential witness is here. This addresses a number of questions that had been raised at this committee by us.

We remain supportive of Bill C-56, but there are some questions that have been raised. It seems to me that if the person is here, we should hear from that person. I don't think it would add any time. We could add him to the panel or we could do it separately.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

I agree with that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Once again, I'll ask the question for unanimous consent.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Do we need unanimous consent to add a witness?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Yes, and once again, if this had been put out with 48 hours' notice, I think everyone would have had the same amount of time to respond.

Go ahead, Mr. Lessard.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Chair, there is a major reason why we did not have 48 hours. First of all, I did not learn about the information that I received from Mr. Bédard until last night. It was not until today that we could check to see if he could appear before the committee at today's meeting.

Furthermore, Mr. Bédard learned of our proceedings. He is not here to make the officials who are here look bad. That has never been his style. He is here to provide additional information that he considers relevant, given his experience and expertise, as well as his knowledge of the current situation and the issues related to Bill C-56. That is why it is important to hear from him. It would be unfortunate for the committee not to benefit from such a knowledgeable resource and informed opinion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

Mr. Martin.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

I want to speak in support of Mr. Lessard's motion. We have an hour set aside this afternoon.

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, we've dealt with this twice now in the way of votes. Why are we carrying on? I don't know if that's even procedurally correct. We've had the vote twice on the issue, so what are we doing?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Actually, we had it once. We'd like it a second time. We'll see if we get there in one second.

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

Why do you do things twice, even?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

We're still having some conversation. We can get to the witnesses in one second.

Go ahead, Mr. Martin.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Out of courtesy, Maurice, we're just trying to make a case that maybe it wouldn't be such a big challenge here to add this person to the panel we have. I don't think this is going to take an hour, frankly. There were some areas we wanted to explore. They're obvious. They were raised before. If this witness could add some value to what we're going to hear from the witnesses already at the table, then why wouldn't we want to take advantage of that? This is important work we do, and I have an amendment to make later that might be helped by the information he would present, so I could make my case for it.

I would ask the government side to consider having this extra witness added to the table here, so we can move on and move forward.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

I have Mr. Vellacott and Mr. Komarnicki.

Go ahead.

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

With respect, Tony, I think it's also an issue of courtesy to all of us. I'm not an obstructionist in respect to this, but we don't normally just throw people on a panel. I'd like to have notice, then we can maybe check out the kinds of questions we'd want to ask, have the background of the individual, remarks they made in public, etc., subsequent to their being in that role. I think it's a courtesy, not an issue of time; I think we could probably get through the time. But I don't understand why we didn't have this name put forward at a point earlier, if it was that critical. We were thinking about this for a while.

I respect that he has good intent, no doubt, but I just feel a little taken aback at being jumped by having a witness come to the committee table on short notice. I've never had this happen, actually, in 13 years of being a member of Parliament. It's a bit of an irregular procedure, to say the least.

I mean no offence to my friends across the way there, but I find it highly irregular. I like notice of these things in advance; we come prepared as a result.