Agriculture Committee on Feb. 18th, 2020

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

I certainly think it wouldn't hurt to have Ag Canada here, or Tom Rosser, or somebody who is well versed on what the impacts will be.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

I can ask, certainly.

Kody.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would certainly echo the comments of the committee members who have spoken to this, and I would also say that we need to make sure that when we are holding this discussion and conversation on Thursday, we hear from a broad swath of the different industries that may be impacted, either positively or negatively, just to take a look at the many different industries within agriculture.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Time is of the essence. I guess I could ask everyone on the committee to forward information today, if you could, on anyone that you think would bring some good information to our committee and our study.

Monsieur Perron.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

We have very little time to examine this matter. Could we ask the Standing Committee on International Trade to give us some more time? Is that possible?

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Mr. Drouin, you have the floor.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

The problem is that the motion has already been adopted by this committee. We haven't received his letter yet. That would have been sent to us. By the time we receive it and send it back.... Other committees are in the same boat as we are, including the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology and the Standing Committee on Natural Resources, to name a few. That is the time frame we were given.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Mr. MacGregor.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Perhaps this is a question for our clerk. Given the time constraints we're under and the logistics of getting witnesses before us, is the end-of-day today when you need those in, 4 p.m. or 5 p.m.?

[The Clerk]

The more notice we get, the better off we are, but how ready your witnesses are to come to committee certainly influences things.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Mr. Barlow.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Just to Mr. Perron's concern, I'm wondering if the committee would agree to extend the hours on Thursday, maybe for an additional hour or two. For us this is important. We can't change the agreement, but I think this is an opportunity for us to highlight positives and negatives that could be part of CUSMA. For something of this magnitude, I'm more than willing to sit a couple of extra hours, again at the will of the committee, if everyone else is willing to do that, including our clerk.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Do committee members want to extend meeting hours to allow more time? Would an extra hour be convenient for you?

Would that be enough? Is everybody available for an extra hour? Are we willing to extend for an hour?

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

We could do an hour. We may need that extra hour anyway if we're going to send a letter back to the committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

We may need it to draft a letter.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

That depends on whether or not we can, on such short notice, even fill that time. I know we will need some time to work out what we as a committee want to send back to international trade.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

If we agree, you can find a substitute if you can't sit. That's the other option we can also look at.

Mr. Barlow.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Thanks.

To Mr. Drouin's comment, maybe it could even be that after that the subcommittee of the vice-chairs and the chair could get together and draft that letter rather than making everyone else stay. I do see some heads shaking. We were all elected here to do a job. I would love to go home as well, but this is very important. I think it behooves us to make sure we do our due diligence with this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Do we have consensus to extend it? Are there any comments?

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

I agree.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

We will extend by one hour. Again, if you can't sit, you can find someone. You don't have to have a delegate. Anybody can find a substitute.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

There will be lots of people interested.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

I'm sure there will be.

That's great. We will proceed with that.

We could do this in different ways. We could bring in departmental officials to brief us on the framework of CUSMA and then do two hours with other witnesses. Would that be something...? Some of us are more up to date than others. That would give the officials a chance to describe what the agreement is all about. After that, we could question the witnesses. I'm just throwing that out. Then we'd have to notify the department.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Mr. Chair, I think that is a good idea to keep everybody up to date on what's happening. Having the officials in first is a good lead-in to having the witnesses so that we will be well briefed and we will have some good questions, and maybe answers, for our stakeholders as well.