Evidence of meeting #80 for Natural Resources in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was point.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:10 a.m.
Conservative
Shannon Stubbs Conservative Lakeland, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I don't think this is an issue that everyone has to be concerned or emotional about. I think that this is just a basic matter of fairness and confidence in the committee proceedings and in you, Mr. Chair.
With regard to the former chair, I mean, he.... I'm 100% confident, Mr. Chair, that you can make these decisions on your own.
11:10 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal George Chahal
Thank you.
I will proceed with the decision that I made, and we will go to Mr. Angus.
11:10 a.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
As someone who has spent his life in opposition, I am well used to how, when legislation comes, it bumps the work of the committee.
11:10 a.m.
Conservative
11:10 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal George Chahal
I'm sorry, Mr. Angus. We have another point of order. If you could just hold one second.... I apologize.
11:10 a.m.
Conservative
Jeremy Patzer Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
We cannot hear the member for Timmins—James Bay. I'm wondering if there is an audio issue that could be checked on here.
11:10 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal George Chahal
Mr. Angus, I can hear you through the headset quite clearly. However, members in the room state that they cannot hear you. We'll hold for a second until we can ensure that everything is working.
11:10 a.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Imagine that. They can't hear me. I could speak a lot louder if that helps anybody.
11:10 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal George Chahal
Wait just one second, Mr. Angus. I can hear you through the headset quite clearly. I think Mr. Simard says that he can hear you through the headset as well.
11:10 a.m.
Liberal
Marc Serré Liberal Nickel Belt, ON
I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.
We have to hear the member in the room.
11:10 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal George Chahal
Wait just a second, Mr. Angus. Just hold your thought. We're going to see if there's a remedy to this.
Mr. Angus, if you are ready, please try again, and hopefully we can hear you in the room as well.
11:10 a.m.
NDP
11:10 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal George Chahal
Mr. Angus, hold on one second. I'm sorry.
Mr. Angus, I would ask you to go from the top, please, just to make sure that we can hear you loud and clear.
11:10 a.m.
Liberal
John Aldag Liberal Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
Could I respectfully suggest that we suspend until the audio issue gets fixed?
It's important that we hear our member. I don't think that we need to continue, so I'd say that we suspend, sort it out, and call us back when it's ready.
11:10 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal George Chahal
Thank you, Mr. Aldag.
We will suspend until we can resolve this issue with the audio. We'll have a two-minute suspension.
11:20 a.m.
Liberal
11:20 a.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Thank you so much, Chair.
I will begin from the top. As someone who has spent my career in opposition, I'm well used to committees having their work schedule thrown out of whack by legislation, which bumps other considerations.
We have two pieces of legislation that have been referred to us over the last two weeks, Bill C-50 and Bill C-49. It is essential that we get to them quickly.
In terms of Bill C-50, we had 26 meetings with 64 witnesses in the preparatory study that led up to the legislation. If you add the emissions cap study, that was 21 meetings and 53 witnesses. The emissions reduction fund was nine meetings with 16 witnesses. On energy issues, that totals over 133 witnesses, 56 meetings, over 112 hours of meeting and analysis, so I think we are all very well placed to deal with Bill C-50.
I'm willing to bring forward our witnesses but I do believe that at the end of the day we have to move this because what we learned over many months of studying this is that the world is moving dramatically fast past us in terms of a clean energy portfolio. Half the world is now past peak fossil fuel generation for power. It is going to be peak CO2 emissions in 2023 and then start to dramatically put down. In 2022, imagine this: The investment in clean tech matched pretty much dollar for dollar oil, gas and coal, and that was for the first time. Within less than a year, clean-tech investments have almost doubled that of oil, gas and coal.
If we don't move with a sense of urgency, we are going to be left behind. We cannot allow the sabotage to the Canadian economy, what Danielle Smith has done to the Alberta economy. The Americans are moving dramatically fast. The Chinese are moving. The Europeans are moving. We need to be competitive or we are going to lose out, so the longer we dither and delay and obfuscate, the more Canadian workers are going to lose out.
We've been hearing from Canadian workers again and again. They want this plan in place. There is a sense of urgency that we need to get moving on.
I would agree with my colleagues to move to Bill C-50 first, then move to Bill C-49, which is important. We see massive investments from the Biden administration on offshore Atlantic. We need to be able to compete or we're going to lose out.
I would say that at this point we have an obligation to the Canadian people. We have an obligation to workers and people who are expecting us to deliver. We have an obligation to start setting the stage for the future Canadian economy because this global capital movement of investment is moving and either Canada is going to be at the game or we're going to be left out, and we can't afford that.
I am ready to move on this. I'm ready to sit down and get the work done as soon as we can and get these bills passed. The New Democrats will be there. We will be bringing our witnesses. We'll be bringing our amendments and we're ready to get this job done.
Thank you.
11:25 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal George Chahal
Thank you, Mr. Angus, for your comments.
We'll now go to Mr. Patzer.
11:25 a.m.
Conservative
Jeremy Patzer Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
Thank you, Chair.
I appreciate that we have this motion in front of us. It's a new motion. It would have been nice to get notice of motion in advance. I realize because this is committee business, it isn't technically required to have notice for it to be debated. That's the way I understand it, but it would have been nice to have notice of the motion.
There was one that was debated on Wednesday.
Before we continue, Chair, I'd just like to seek some clarity from you. On Wednesday, we were debating a similar motion, and I had the floor. Standing Order 116(2)(a)—and I'm just seeking clarity from you on this, Chair—says unless a time limit has been adopted by the committee or by the House, the chair of a standing, special or legislative committee may not bring a debate to an end while there are members present who still wish to participate. I'm just curious to know how it was that meeting—I think we ran out of resources in the room—