Environment Committee on Oct. 31st, 2006

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

I think there's a major concern that's been expressed going forward, so it's no particular secret here. It's the fact that we have a CEPA review, which is a mandated thing. We've had witnesses in. That's pretty crucial, and it's a requirement for us to get it out. It's long overdue in terms of getting it out.

With due respect to the member, I don't know where he intends to go with this; this is kind of left off to the side. I think we should be prioritizing the CEPA review, then getting to his thing, if that's the will of the committee. We have simply far too much important business, and we have witnesses to call who are now on hold in respect of that. I think the Canadian public actually wants something practical, tangible, on the ground, in terms of the completed CEPA review. We should have the witnesses in and so on.

Now we're getting into something that's rather different altogether. In fact, as has been pointed out, it's not respectful of the government's bringing a bill forward that deals with a lot of these things. That's the nature of what the member is up to. I think it gets down to pure politics. The environment commissioner made the point well that the Kyoto targets were very difficult to keep. That was very plain. There have been members all around the House, from all sides of the House...in fact, one of the other members, Mr. Ignatieff, who I think is being supported by the member opposite, expressed grave concerns about whether we'd be able to reach those targets or not.

To me this is a lot of mischief when we had good work that we were on before. The minister now needs to come in at one point again. I just feel that for getting at the practical stuff, what we can do that's before us immediately, this deflects and distracts us from that and really takes us off in another direction entirely.

From my point, I want to be on the record to say that I think we should get back to prioritizing the CEPA review. That would meet with a lot of support in the public and certainly with those who have testified here over many meetings. Now we're not going to be able to complete that work and get a report out by the end of December, or by the deadline.

So I would suggest, Mr. Chair, that this particular mischief that the member is up to now is really not in the best interests of the Canadian public or the work that we've been mandated to do in the committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Godfrey.

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Well, Mr. Chair, we have the possibility, if the members opposite will respect the rules of the committee, to discuss that very proposition after we discuss the first motion. The very subject matter, Mr. Vellacott, is on that. We cannot get to it until we discuss the first item of business.

We have been accommodating, I think to the extreme. We have accepted the filibuster that took place. We have resubmitted the motion. We were told by the Conservatives the last time out that if we submitted it in the correct form, they would not then begin again the games of filibustering, that they would accept it.

We will be able to achieve Mr. Vellacott's purpose if we get on with voting today, move forward with the work plan, and have this report out by November 23. That will allow us to resume the work on CEPA. We understood that having made their point last Thursday, they would be acting in good faith to allow this to go forward. The clerk has contacted witnesses for Thursday. We particularly are anxious to hear from Mr. David Suzuki, who can come only on Thursday. We think if there are witnesses, which we assume the Conservatives would wish to put forward--in two official languages, we would need to have an explanation—of course they would be accepted.

But I think we should know now if the group opposite is willing to do what they said they would do last week, having made their point, and allow this point to go forward. If not, let us know.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Godfrey, I just want to correct one thing you said, and that is that the clerk had contacted witnesses. He has not contacted any witnesses.

On a point of order, Mr. Warawa.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Thank you.

I just want clarification. I didn't want to interrupt, but Mr. Godfrey made a very salient comment when he said that the clerk has already invited Mr. Suzuki--

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

No, I misspoke. I saw that somebody else had contacted him to confirm interest. I apologize. I misrepresented the position of the clerk.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Warawa, you're next.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Thank you.

I think Mr. Vellacott made some very good points. It is the responsibility of this committee to deal with the CEPA review. We have ENGOs that want us to deal with the CEPA review, and we have a legislative requirement to deal with it. The committee, right from day one, said we were going to begin the CEPA review.

We now have a motion before us to deal with Bill C-288, which is a private member's bill that we have until February to complete. It appears that the committee now wants to put a private member's bill, Bill C-288, from the Liberal member. The previous government had the reputation of not doing very much on Kyoto, on the environment. Basically we have the previous government trying to railroad this committee and force us to abandon our legislative requirement, which is the CEPA review. I'm quite concerned about that.

I'm also a little concerned about Mr. Godfrey's comment on a work plan. He passed out a work plan last week. It involves a list of themes and recommended witnesses and goes on until November 21. We have a requirement to deal with CEPA, yet what was proposed on Thursday of last week was this work plan from Mr. Godfrey. We're changing from meeting to meeting. If we're going to deal with Bill C-288 and there is a genuine desire to deal with it in a proper way, we need to take a serious look at Mr. Godfrey's work plan.

What's being proposed by Mr. Rodriguez today is to fast-track, ram it though, we don't care what witnesses have to say, let's just deal with this in a couple of meetings. This government takes the environment seriously and hearing from witnesses very seriously. If we're going to deal with Bill C-288 it needs to be done properly and not haphazardly. The previous government had a reputation for doing things haphazardly, making plans on the back of a napkin, and we don't support that.

What Mr. Godfrey proposed last Thursday is a reasonable approach, but it needs some work. We need to enhance the themes and the list of witnesses. So we have prepared a list of witnesses and themes to add to the work plan.

But this committee has a legislative requirement to deal with CEPA and a moral responsibility to deal with CEPA for the coming generations and the environment. So I'm going to move an amendment to the bill on the floor right now. We have a motion, and I would like to move an amendment in both official languages. We have handed it to the clerk. It removes everything after the word “bill”, which is about halfway through the motion, and inserts the following:

after the mandated 5-year review of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA) is complete or until after the winter break (Christmas recess), whichever comes first.

That is my motion for an amendment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

We're dealing with the amendment now. We'll get a copy of that amendment around to everybody right away. It is an amendment, so it is in order...in both languages, yes.

Mr. Harvey.

[Luc Harvey, Conservative, Louis-Hébert, QC]

When I asked to have the floor, an amendment had not yet been submitted. Unless I am mistaken, we are already two years late with respect to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

As it is perhaps appropriate at this time to submit a report on the subject, I would like to finish with the CEPA file. I think that would be appropriate. I am new here; I may not understand all of the workings, but I think that it would be useful to deal with the CEPA. I would like that very much. Theoretically, we have until February to respond to Mr. Rodriguez's proposal. It has been dragging on for a number of years, and I do not think that two weeks more will make a difference. We have been talking about the CEPA since I have been here. We met people about this once again last week. I believe that it is a priority to finish dealing with the matter, to complete it and report the bill back to the House. That is my opinion and I believe that, objectively, it is the manner in which we ought to proceed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Thank you.

Next, I believe we have Mr. Watson speaking to the amendment.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm obviously going to speak in support of the amendment.

Let's remember that the Liberals made the legislative requirement for a mandatory review of CEPA. This is actually part of CEPA itself. They had a majority government, and they established that every five years, CEPA will have a mandatory review. I understand that in the last Parliament they were a minority government and they chose at that point not to follow the rules, if you will. I guess that's their prerogative as to whether they want to play fast and loose with legislative requirements. They certainly chose to do that in the last Parliament.

But here we are in a situation now, Mr. Chair, in which they're still playing fast and loose with the rules. They think we can just keep putting this off to deal with other issues first. They want our government to be in a position where we're suddenly not going to respect the rules. Mr. Chair, I don't think that's a good trend or direction. We certainly want to abide by the rules as they've been set. We respect the laws of the land, even laws passed by the Liberals when they were the government. I think it's important that we continue to demonstrate that we're a government that plays by the rules. It's important for this committee to respect that. I think this is an incredible hypocrisy by the Liberals. There are rules that they themselves established and suddenly they don't want to play by them--or they want to continue not playing by them, I guess.

I think the amendment to the motion is important. It's going to re-establish that the CEPA review should be completed. Let's just get on with the business. We haven't said that we're not going to deal with C-288; we've simply said we're going to postpone it. Let us finish the legislative priority first, and then we'll get on with the other issue. We're serious about tackling the issue of greenhouse gas reductions, but let's get the legislative requirement out of the way first. Let's cooperate to work quickly on that particular measure. Then, after Christmas, when we reconvene, we'll get down to business on the other issue, Mr. Chair.

So obviously I'm going to be supporting the amendment as it's worded. I would encourage the Liberals to rethink playing fast and loose with rules that they themselves put in place when they had a majority government.

I would also like to caution the opposition members, whether they are in the Bloc or the New Democratic Party. I'm not sure why they would want to support a Liberal bill, Mr. Chair, unless of course they want to help the Liberals' chances, either in Quebec or against the New Democrats. I guess that's their prerogative. We would think they'd want to get on with doing CEPA and other issues. Let's get on with strengthening those.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Members of the committee, when I started off I said we would end this at eleven o'clock, as we were informed that the status of women committee was coming here. I understand there is a filibuster going on in that committee, and therefore they have found another room and are not coming here at eleven.

So at this point the committee will have to decide what to do. Personally, I have something on at twelve o'clock and would have to ask a vice-chair to step in if it goes past twelve o'clock.

I would ask for a vote. I think that's the only fair way, to ask for your decision as to whether you want to continue this until whenever and come to a decision.

We should realize that we are probably not going to have witnesses on Thursday, that there will be a discussion of the timetable, and that it could be a fairly lengthy discussion. The option, of course, is to do this on Thursday, or to carry on; that's the decision the committee needs to make.

Mr. Vellacott, on a point of order.

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

Mr. Chair, my understanding is that we have a notice of meeting until 11 a.m., and I don't know where we can necessarily get off in terms of an extension. We have to have another call of the meeting.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

The clerk advises me that we can't cut off debate, but we can move rooms, can set another time, and can do whatever.

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

Well, the meeting is supposed to end at eleven o'clock, according to this.m

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Those are the rules of the committee.

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

But the notice of meeting says until 11 a.m.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

That's correct, but debate is still going on. We haven't come to a vote on the motion that's on the table.

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Mr. Chair, on the rules, until we come to the vote, the debate continues on the amendment and then on the main motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

That's right, and I do not have the power to cut off debate.

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

The meeting concludes at eleven. There is nothing about.... You're not doing anything—

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

We need a motion to adjourn. In effect, that's what I'm asking the committee, to make that decision.

The decision, basically, is whether we continue in this room or come back on Thursday with some commitment, I hope, from everybody that we would settle this issue and get on with it.

I do not think it's to Canadians' advantage to carry this on forever. Obviously I think we should get on with the plan, but that is the decision of the committee to make, and as your chair, that is what I have to ask you.

Do you wish to adjourn the meeting now?

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

Do we have a citation from one of the reference books? This is rather interesting.

Can the clerk pull up those references?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Can the clerk give me a...?

Just let the clerk have a minute to—