Evidence of meeting #38 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was meeting.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Noon
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bob Mills
Mr. Harvey, you're the last person on the subject, just very briefly, please.
Noon
Conservative
Luc Harvey Conservative Louis-Hébert, QC
I think it is quite simple. Ms. Fraser has to make an announcement this afternoon. As Mr. Bigras said, the important thing is to meet with you as quickly as possible to discuss this matter. Of course, we could comply with the request for an in camera meeting. If we were to start discussing this in a televised hearing, it would be a poor way of proceeding, because the announcement has not even been made.
Are there any other subjects you would like to speak about with us today? I am not saying that this matter is not important, but were there any other things you wanted to mention today?
Noon
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
Unfortunately, there are none.
Noon
Conservative
Luc Harvey Conservative Louis-Hébert, QC
I see.
In light of what Bernard said, we must bear in mind that tomorrow is caucus day. We are not really available until 12:30 or 1 p.m., and since question period is at 2 p.m., the meeting will have to be late in the day. Otherwise, it would have to be Thursday morning.
Noon
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bob Mills
Mr. Harvey, the clerk and I have just discussed this. There would be a time, provided we can get a room, and I believe we will be able to, from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. tomorrow. That means that the announcement is made this afternoon and we get right on it. I think that will be an open meeting, as I think everyone wants, and it would allow us to explore the two things: the nature of the replacement and in fact the reporting process as it's been proposed. If that meets with everybody's approval, I think we can move on.
Noon
Conservative
Noon
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
The commissioner will be Mr. Thompson.
Noon
Some hon. members
Yes.
Noon
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
I want to understand. Is it the Auditor General and the commissioner, or one, or the other? I want to understand what kind of meeting we're asking for here.
Noon
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bob Mills
Well, we want to talk about the reporting process through the Auditor General's department, so I would hope the Auditor General would be there, and we want to talk about the nature of Mr. Thompson's replacement, for any suggestions members might have. I can think of a number that all of us probably would agree on. If we can accomplish those two things in a meeting tomorrow, then we have the best of both worlds. I trust that everybody agrees with that, and again, that gets us around this issue.
Are there any other comments?
We will advise you what room as soon as possible. We will ask our two guests to be present and we'll carry on. Everybody knows what we're going to be doing at that meeting.
We will now go out of camera.
The clerk has just advised me that of course we have the preliminary CEPA report, which Tim has prepared. We'd like to hand that out today. We can do that in camera...provided we don't start discussing it, because of course that is in camera.
So I look to your guidance here. My plan was that we would hand out the report and give you until next Tuesday to go through it. Everybody is pretty busy with other commitments, so my proposal would be that we begin discussion of that report next Tuesday, February 6. That would give you the week to go through it, and then we would begin our look at that.
We now have our meeting tomorrow with the Auditor General and the commissioner.
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
Mark Warawa Conservative Langley, BC
On a point of order, Mr. Chair, I have a procedural question. Are we in camera or not?
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bob Mills
We are in camera for the distribution of that report. If we want to discuss it, we have to stay in camera. If we are not going to discuss it and simply distribute it, then we will go out of camera and we will discuss future business, which would be some of the ideas that members of this committee have as to where we will go once we finish the two private members' bills and we finish the CEPA review.
It would be good to have some heads-up about ideas within this room, not that they'll be concrete or finalized, but just some ideas that we can then put some meat on and discuss further.
That was the plan for this meeting. It's your decision whether we stay in camera or go out of camera, depending on what you want to do with the CEPA report, but I would say we should distribute that now to give you the opportunity to look at that.
I believe Mr. Cullen had his hand up first.
Mr. Cullen.
12:05 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Obviously we can't discuss the report now. We haven't seen it. We'll get it in confidence and look at it.
The only problem I would pose to the plan you've suggested is that the Bill C-30 committee has agreed to meet twice next Tuesday. It might not be the best day for us to go thoroughly into such an important report.
I'll leave it at that.
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
12:05 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Maybe the two clerks could talk about the scheduling that's going on right now. It will be important for us to maintain some sanity.
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bob Mills
Very good. The two clerks and the two chairs can work that out. We'll work on it.
Are there any other comments?
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
Maurice Vellacott Conservative Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK
I just want to confirm, then, that this draft report is confidential, obviously, until such time as we get agreement in terms of what that report looks like.
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bob Mills
It is confidential, as all reports are confidential until they're gone through and then tabled, presented in the House. So yes, it is confidential.
I just felt that with all that's going on, two days was just not enough time to go through a 50-page report. I had the pleasure of looking at it, and I believe you're going to find that Tim has done an excellent job again. So we'll get on with it, but this isn't the time today.
So if we could hand out the report....
Mr. Warawa.
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
Mark Warawa Conservative Langley, BC
For clarification, your proposal is to provide this to the committee, an in camera document. So it's for us to read through.
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
Mark Warawa Conservative Langley, BC
Your original proposal was to give us a couple of days. As Mr. Cullen pointed out, it may not be—