Environment Committee on Nov. 23rd, 2006

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Okay, then I have wrong information.

[The Clerk]

We have witnesses from both sides.

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Do you want to proceed with your amendment, Mr. Cullen, at this time? Or would you like to withdraw it?

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Let's withdraw it. It's getting too complicated.

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

So we're back to the original motion from Mr. Warawa.

Is everybody ready for the question?

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

And this is the one saying that the Minister of the Environment will appear before us.

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

I believe it's Mr. Dion.

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

I will simply comment as well before we go to the vote.

I believe the actions of our vice-chair just moments ago, in terms of not even being willing to take his responsibility to sit in the chair at the start of the meeting.... I don't know where this leaves us in terms of precedent for the future. And then in dishing all of our stuff...we cannot even get to our duly filed amendments. That is the whole point of having notice requirements. We filed, and then the chair walked away. I think that is something that deserves a chiding from the House, because he was clearly out of order—I will just finish, I am speaking on the motion—at the time in respect to walking away. The clerk confirms that he was out of order.

The unfortunate thing is that we didn't get all of these motions under way. In particular, on this one, there might have been more extensive discussions.

As was already pointed out by my colleague, Mr. Dion is a past environment minister who proposes to be the leader of the Liberal Party. More importantly, he was the minister over a period of time when there was nothing in terms of proper analysis for the minus-6% Kyoto target. It was under Mr. Dion's watch where we dug the hole, if you will, and there was no concrete action taken during that period of time.

The Canadian public wants to hold governments to account. They did that at the last election. I think they want to hold ministers to account. Mr. Dion is a fine man, but he does need to be brought to this committee to answer and respond for the lack of action that we had over that period of time under his watch.

Again, I can't understand why there would not be an agreement by Liberal members. They tout all that they're doing in Bill C-288 and so on. Mr. Dion may have something very revealing to divulge to us in respect to reasons why he could not...excuses if you will, or maybe some very exceptional kind of rationale that would be helpful to us to understand the current dilemma and mess that we're in, as foisted on us by the Liberal Party, which is now not in office.

I obviously am supportive of this, and I think the Canadian public would want to hold Mr. Dion to account for being the Minister of the Environment at the time when there was no concrete action to meet Kyoto targets.

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Thank you, Mr. Vellacott.

Is there anybody else who would like to speak to this motion? No. Then I'll call the question. I have a request for a recorded vote.

(Motion negatived: nays 7; yeas 4 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

The motion is defeated.

Is there any other business? Mr. Warawa.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Yes, I have a second motion. Rather than take a lot of time, the points have already been made on the importance of accountability.

The motion is to invite the Honourable David Anderson to appear as a witness before the committee by November 28 for the discussion of Bill C-288.

The rationale is that Mr. Anderson was the Minister of the Environment under Prime Minister Jean Chrétien when we signed on to Kyoto, and I believe he has a responsibility to come before this committee. That is why I propose the motion. I think it is very fair and, again, in the spirit of accountability.

Unfortunately the previous motion was not supported. It provides grave concern for me, Mr. Chair, that the members of the committee do not appear to want accountability for poor decisions of the past. Hopefully they will change regarding Mr. Anderson.

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Speaking to the motion, we have Mr. Vellacott.

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

Again, that was well put by my honourable colleague. As a past Minister of the Environment at the time when the Kyoto Protocol was signed, it makes every bit of sense to have Mr. Anderson come forward. I think he might well divulge some very interesting things as to why we're in this morass or dilemma of falling so far short of meeting the Kyoto Protocol and the targets. My understanding is that there was not the support for Mr. Anderson within the caucus. As a result, to his disappointment and great dismay, there weren't those action steps taken to meet the Kyoto Protocol target. So I think it would be very interesting for us to have it on the public record from him, now that he's not in cabinet and did not run, of course, in the last election.

He could give us some insights in terms of the inertia and the lack of concrete support from cabinet colleagues at the table at that time. It would be very helpful for us to be made aware of that. Maybe it was more of a vanity exercise by the Prime Minister of the day to say we would meet this, when in fact there was not the tangible support at the cabinet table in terms of taking any actions to get those goals accomplished.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Thank you, Mr. Vellacott.

Would anybody else like to speak to the motion? Mr. Watson.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Just to add a point to this, we heard today, of course, that inaction has caused some problems with respect to what options are left to us with respect to compliance with the Kyoto target and timeline. Particularly while knowing that, at the time, the Liberals had a very solid majority government, it's well worth asking the former minister, if he were to appear before us, why there was inaction for four years. Clearly they could have pushed anything through the House had they wanted to. That's the kind of information Canadians need to hear, so it's important that Mr. Anderson be called as a witness and appear before us to answer a question like that.

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Thank you, Mr. Watson.

Is there anybody else who would like to speak to the motion? No? I'll call the question and we'll have a recorded vote.

(Motion negatived: nays 6; yeas 5 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Is there any other business?

Mr. Warawa.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

There's no surprise with the results of the previous two motions and the lack of accountability from the former government. It actually, Mr. Chair, discredits Bill C-288 big time.

On the next motion that's on the schedule, Mr. Chair, the one the chair unfortunately vacated over, in the spirit of cooperation, I'm not going to present that motion. We've heard from the clerk that the 28th, which was what we were proposing in that motion, is filled up with a number of witnesses. Rather than try to reschedule them on the 7th, which probably would not be fair to them, we will try to arrange another day when we can have the minister come to speak to the committee.

Thank you. I will not be presenting that motion.

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

I believe that completes our agenda.

With that in mind, I adjourn the meeting.