Natural Resources Committee on Dec. 11th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

That is for Thursday, and we will do our best to get the witnesses here.

Now we'll go to other business. I see Madame DeBellefeuille.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

My question concerns what we've just adopted.

Can we agree that, if ever a miracle occurred and we finished the business of the session Wednesday evening, we would stay here for the meeting on this urgent matter?

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Yes, I think we have passed a motion to do that.

In terms of other business, you have the list in front of you. I think we'll go through the motions in order. I don't know if it will work that way, because we have them by party, but the first item on the list is from the Conservative Party: “That the Standing Committee on Natural Resources hear witnesses and report to the House on labour retention in the mining industry”.

Would a member of the governing party like to discuss that? Go ahead, Mr. Anderson.

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

I want to address all the government ones. I know my colleagues are perfectly capable of doing that, but--

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

I'm not sure who they came from, so go ahead.

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

We had the mining industry in town about a month ago. They had a two-day meeting on labour retention. They said that's the big issue facing them right now, trying to find and train workers for their industry. They're toward the end of a working cycle right now where they're losing a lot of members from their industry and are trying to determine how they're going to continue in the future. So that was one of the reasons we put that forward.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

What I would like to do now, just so we're clear, is to go through all the suggestions that have been brought forth, for people to make a short presentation on each one so we know what the thinking is behind it, and then we'll go to a discussion of where to go after Thursday's meeting.

I think it would work best to set the agenda if we don't get into pre-emptive motions now. That doesn't work well. I know that from past committees. It may work for particularly political items, but it doesn't work well for substantive committee meetings.

So if we could move that way I would appreciate it, and in the spirit of that, I would now go to the Liberal Party and then to the Bloc and then to the New Democratic Party, and then go back and finish the other ones, one at a time.

Is someone ready?

Mr. Boshcoff, you have put in four suggestions, I think.

Just the first one, please.

[Ken Boshcoff, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Chair, just to make it easier for you, under the section where it says “1, 2, 3, 4” and then you see Mr. Alghabra's point, number 4 as written would become our top priority. I'll go through in order. We'd strike number 1, strike number 2, because the Conservative Party has mining down, and there's no sense in duplicating things. I don't really want to debate them. If the mining industry is coming, I think we're all happy with that. So number 3 would be our number 3 priority. Number 4 would be number 1 as written and suggested by both labour and the industry. And then Omar's point of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership would be our second priority.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

I'm not sure where that one is.

[Ken Boshcoff, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Just down a bit.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Down lower. Okay--

[Ken Boshcoff, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

So that should clarify it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

To you, number 4 then—

[Ken Boshcoff, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Number 4 is by far the top priority.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Do you want to give a little bit of background as to why you would like that to come before the committee. It's your chance to make a short pitch.

[Ken Boshcoff, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

I'm hoping that members of the committee, no matter what their party, understand the nature of the forest crisis. In Ontario over the last two weeks we lost 1,100 jobs. I know that in New Brunswick and Quebec, similar numbers have been happening. The issue has to be addressed from a labour standpoint, a community standpoint, and our international competitiveness from an industrial standpoint.

So as an issue, I can't think of any one that deserves more front-burner attention at this time, Mr. Chair.

I'll keep it brief, because I could use the rest of the time talking about it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Yes. Thank you.

Now we'll go to the Bloc Québécois. If you would give me your priorities too, if you could pick your first priority, that gives us a good indication of how you place them in terms of importance and that would be helpful.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Chair, we feel that our point 3, which concerns geothermal and solar energy, is by far the most promising and most important. For some years now, there has been an enormous amount of development, particularly on mid-depth geothermal energy, to power the electrical generation stations and to replace carbon, gas and nuclear energy. It would be important for Canada to be aware of the research done elsewhere in which we have not yet really been interested.

The same is true for solar energy. There have been a lot of developments in recent years, and we realize that we haven't yet integrated it.

So we should examine the prospects for these types of energy, which will become very important. If we want to head in the direction of the present government's policy, which is to reduce greenhouse gases, these two topics are priorities. It seems to me we should put them forward and study them in depth with the people doing this research.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Merci, Monsieur Ouellet. I appreciate that. Number 3 is your first priority, geothermal and solar energy.

Mr. Trost, one that you had suggested is number 6 on the Conservative list, that the Standing Committee on Natural Resources hear witnesses and finish its report on greening of electricity. That report, I assume, would fit in with what Mr. Ouellet is talking about. I wasn't here at the time that report was done. Could you comment on that?

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

Mr. Chair, that's the entire point. That report isn't done. We had originally planned to finish it up. By the time we start in January it will have been eight or nine months since it was last looked at, and 40% of the committee is new since that period. I think it would fit. It would depend upon how we would do it, and I'd be willing to look at that. There are other options here that I'm willing to look at too.

I think there would be a bit of natural synergy there. We're still working over here to figure out our priorities, but I wouldn't be opposed to it. I don't know if it would be my first priority. I do think it would be respectful for us to finish the original report, which is the point I made when we originally discussed it about 10 months ago.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

I will come back to the Conservative Party to ask for the first priority. That is what I'm doing with the other parties. So we will do that.

We'll go to the New Democratic Party, Ms. Bell, for your priority.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have two motions.

One is on the forest sector, and it fits in with what the Liberal Party has proposed. In Canada there is a growing crisis in the forest sector. It's not just in British Columbia, where we're losing $1 million capacity due to raw log exports and we're losing forest because of the pine beetle, and we have a lot of communities that are having real difficulty. It's something that has moved across Canada. There are issues in Alberta with respect to the boreal forest. In Ontario and Quebec there is also loss of capacity. So there is a growing crisis in the forest industry, and we're hearing it from all sides, as Mr. Boshcoff indicated. I think that's a really important issue, and we should look at it first and take a few meetings to do that.

The second one is to talk about the confusion surrounding the offshore oil and gas moratorium that's been in place in British Columbia for a number of years. It keeps rising to the surface, and I think it's something we need to look at. Whether it's part of the oil and gas study, it is something we should touch on. It would only take a couple of meetings, and I would like to make sure that is something that we get to in this session. As I said, I think it fits in nicely with our energy discussions on oil and gas. It deserves some attention.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Ms. Bell.

Mr. Harris, you're going to present the Conservative priority.

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

I was going to just express an opinion on the suggestions. Are you going in a different—

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Yes, I'd like to come back to the Conservatives first to get the first priority.

Yes, Mr. Trost, do you have that?

Do you mind, Mr. Harris? I'll come back to you after.