Evidence of meeting #2 for Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was going.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Well, of course it would.
I want to challenge you on one thing, Chair. You talked about there being lots of witnesses. There are and there aren't. Obviously each party's favourite element will show in the preponderance of witnesses they have. On our proposed climate change study, I think the government has put forward a total of one witness, while we have more than three dozen.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
My point is that I assume that the government will have a lot more people, and that the Conservatives, who have about five or six, will have more. I wouldn't look at the pages in front of us today and say there are a lot of witnesses on topic X or topic Y. It depends how engaged each party is in the pursuit of those things.
Liberal
William Amos Liberal Pontiac, QC
I would add that it's great that the official opposition has listed somewhere in the neighbourhood of 15 or 20 potential witnesses on the parks issue. That's fabulous. Those are great organizations. We obviously won't hear from the vast majority of them. We'll hear from a few selected ones, and we'll get there.
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
I think the intent is to go through the witnesses on the topics. I'm trying to get to a schedule because I know everybody is very anxious about it. I wanted to do that. We do have quite a number of people whose names have been brought forward to talk, and I'm sure others will pop up as they suddenly realize what we're working on. We do need to go through the witnesses and prepare ourselves for the meetings. That is part of the work of the subcommittee. At the moment, I am trying to get some sense of how we're going to move forward in the next couple of months. Then the work of the subcommittee will be to go through the witnesses before—
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
That was my distracted point. My primary point was about whether you're writing a report on each of these things.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
My expectation is that we will. What's the point of doing the work if we don't make recommendations?
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
That would be to suggest that studies committees have undertaken without a report to government weren't worth the time.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
We do it all the time. The writing of reports sometimes matters and sometimes doesn't at all. It depends on the topic.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
Okay, well why don't I hear from the rest of the committee on that point? I know what I feel, but....
Mr. Aldag.
Liberal
John Aldag Liberal Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
Being new, I don't know what it looks like to do a study without a report. My assumption coming into this was that the things we chose would have some sort of report to go with them. Frankly I didn't know that dismissing studies was even an option and I don't know what that would look like. For the three that we had said here, and when we get into the climate change one, my assumption was that there would be a report on each of them and that we would need to allow time for the drafting of the report and we would review who the report would be sent to.
I don't know.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
Mr. Amos, I'm mindful of the time and I know we have to get into the House by 2 p.m. I'm not cutting you off, but I just want you to be mindful.
Liberal
William Amos Liberal Pontiac, QC
I've seen reports come and be ignored. I think our intention is to have our reports reviewed carefully not just by Parliament but by the general public. I will be promoting this as far as possible and bringing it to caucus as well. I think we're going to be looking at using these.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
I think an assumption has been made that everything we are doing is to be reported on. Keep in mind, my friends in government, that when we do issue that report to Parliament, the committee then expects responses to each of the recommendations, legislative or otherwise.
NDP
Liberal
William Amos Liberal Pontiac, QC
I think for all these topics we've chosen, we want reports. We want to ensure the accountability of government.
NDP
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
Okay, looking at the clock, I'm going to make a proposal and I'm trying to do that. My intent is that we will have a report and that we will have to have that process. But my intent is not to have this all done by the summer. We're not going to have reports on every one of these by the summer.
