Natural Resources Committee on Nov. 29th, 2007

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Mr. Harris.

Thank you both very much for coming this morning. I certainly do appreciate it.

[Gordon Edwards]

May I make one concluding remark? I would ask the committee members to please look at the exhibits I've prepared and which I will deliver. I'm sorry I didn't have them to hand out.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you very much, Mr. Edwards, Monsieur Duguay, and all of the committee members for their good questions.

We will now suspend for about two minutes while we change witnesses. Then we'll start our clause-by-clause.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

We will resume the meeting with clause-by-clause of Bill C-5.

We have as witnesses today, from the Department of Natural Resources, Brenda MacKenzie, Dave McCauley, and Jacques Hénault.

If you could just let us know what your positions are and in what capacity you're here, I'd appreciate that. We usually have that information, but we don't today because of the short notice.

[Brenda MacKenzie, Senior Counsel, Environment Canada, Department of Justice Canada]

Good morning, and thanks for this.

My name is Brenda MacKenzie. I'm justice counsel and I was assisting the policy officers at Natural Resources Canada during the drafting of this bill. I'm now acting senior counsel at Environment Canada.

[Dave McCauley, Acting Director, Uranium and Radioactive Waste Division, Department of Natural Resources]

Good morning, my name is Dave McCauley. I'm the acting director for the uranium and radioactive waste division at Natural Resources Canada. We're responsible for the policy work and the development of the nuclear liability and compensation bill.

[Jacques Hénault, Analyst, Nuclear Liability and Emergency Preparedness, Department of Natural Resources]

I'm Jacques Hénault, again with Natural Resources Canada. I work in the uranium radioactive waste division and I'm a policy analyst.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you.

I'll just talk a little about procedure....

Ms. Bell, I'll recognize your hand first.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Maybe I should hear your procedure first.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Sure.

If you have any questions as we're going along, don't hesitate to make that clear and we'll deal with them as we go. We're not going to rush through this in any fashion.

The procedure is to go through clause-by-clause. I will ask for a show of hands for votes, unless someone requests a recorded division. In that case, of course, we will go through and have a recorded division. It will be at the will of the committee on each clause to determine that. In some cases, if the committee is comfortable with it, we will group some clauses because I know there are many clauses in the bill on which there has been no indication of any concern or any proposed amendments. There are others for which we know there are amendments and there may be some further amendments coming as we go through this.

Ms. Bell, you've given an indication that you intend to make some amendments, as we go through the process, so just make sure you let us know, as we're going through this, where you want those changes to be.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

The problem is that my amendments have been submitted and they are not back from the law clerk yet, and I'm really not comfortable proceeding without them here for everyone to see.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Do you know which clauses they're for?

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Off the top of my head....

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

As we go, will you recognize the clauses?

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

The problem is that they're not back yet. The law clerks have some questions they want to talk to us about. I need to be comfortable that they're going to be here and in the right format and all those things. I'm really not comfortable proceeding.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Yes, Mr. Anderson.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

I'm just wondering if we can proceed with clauses that are not being amended by Ms. Bell, if that's possible. This is why we asked that the amendments be done by yesterday at noon. We're able to accept them, but if we start clause-by-clause, perhaps the way to handle it is we can come back to those clauses later and—

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Good suggestion; that's why I was asking, Mr. Anderson. That's about the only way we can proceed.

If you don't know which clauses these amendments will deal with, perhaps you could ask someone to get those for you. That way we would know which clauses to pass by and we can come back to them later.

Yes, Mr. Alghabra.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I really do appreciate the fact that the officials are here, but I hear Ms. Bell's concerns. I don't want us to be seen to be pushing this as if there's something we want to happen quickly under the guise of stifling debate or discussion. I think Tuesday was the first time we heard from the witnesses on this bill, so maybe we could wait until Tuesday to start doing clause-by-clause. I'm sure the amendments by Ms. Bell may include more than one clause or component of the bill.

I'm just wondering if we can give them more time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

I certainly am guided by the committee. We have come here prepared to start procedure on clause-by-clause. I know that Mr. Anderson indicated it is highly unlikely that we will get through it today. If we even knew which clauses to pass over, we could start, and then deal with the ones that we can deal with. The others we could leave until Tuesday.

It's up to the committee. We have the officials here.

Mr. St. Amand.

[Lloyd St. Amand, Liberal, Brant, ON]

With respect, Mr. Chair, we're aware that the officials are here. That point has been made. I appreciate that you're going to be guided by the will or the sentiment of the committee.

I think that Mr. Alghabra's suggestion is prudent and that we should start clause-by-clause on Tuesday morning rather than doing it in something of a potentially piecemeal or ad hoc fashion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Tonks.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Chairman, I don't know if this is in order, and I don't know whether the committee is interested in proceeding in this respect, but we do have the officials here. These officials have been part of the drafting of the legislation. There has been some testimony with respect to implications.

Is the committee interested in asking officials any questions with respect to what we've heard from the various deputants, in order to get clarifications? It seems to me that we have them here, and if the committee were interested in that, we wouldn't have to adjourn. We could ask a few questions of the officials of a general nature.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Tonks, you know—you've been here as long as I have, I think—that this is exactly what the officials are here for, to answer questions on any clauses that any member has any questions about. If we could proceed with it, that would be great.