Environment Committee on Jan. 30th, 2007

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

Yes. We don't have to go to clause-by-clause right away, but if we have the witnesses up on a day when we're not doing something else.... Or we just don't have a meeting that day. We have quite a few, so that's fine, too.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

My thinking is that we'd replace that meeting. We'd still have our two meetings, but they would just be scheduled at a different time.

Let us look at it.

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

I hear your suggestion. I know the government's priority is the CEPA review and such, but I hope we don't get all the way into CEPA and put two private members' bills at the very end, because if that's just the—

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

I don't believe that's the intention.

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

That's good.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Are there any other comments?

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

Am I hearing Mr. Cullen suggest--because he's on the committee, and I respect those hard-working people who'll do all this extra work on the committee--that he doesn't want a meeting next Tuesday, that he'd prefer it to be set off till Thursday?

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

I hadn't made a suggestion to cancel it. It was just the idea that we'd be running into CEPA on Tuesday.

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

No, I understand.

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

I don't have an opinion one way or the other about whether we—

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

In effect, you'd have three meetings that day, then, right? You'd have this one plus two others.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Again, let's leave it to the clerks and the two chairs to work something out. If anybody has a huge problem with it, get back to us immediately and we'll try to work around everybody's schedules. But at some point it becomes impossible to please everyone.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

At this point, Chair, we do not have a next meeting date, other than tomorrow at 3:30 p.m.?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Tomorrow at 3:30 p.m. is our next meeting date, and hopefully by then Justin and I will be able to suggest another date for the beginning of the CEPA review and when we're going to deal with the two private members' bills. We'll try to work that out. Certainly, if anybody wants to have input, just get in touch with either of us.

Are there any other comments about that issue?

Okay, let's move on, then, to future business and people's ideas. If you do have ideas and can get them to me in writing, I'd certainly appreciate that. That will just give us a little forward thinking as to where we might go, and we'll bring it back to the committee to make decisions about what our next major topic might be.

I know I have pet issues. I know many of you do. Anybody who's been around me for more than five minutes knows that I would love to talk about waste disposal. There's all kinds of expertise there, but that may not interest everyone in this group. But there are issues that we can deal with and on which we can be constructive.

I would like to see us work productively and cooperatively to do the best for the Canadian environment, and not focus on partisan issues.

I've been on this environment committee forever. Certainly we had, under Mr. Caccia's guidance, some very productive times. I know Mr. McGuinty was there at that time and so on, and Mr. Regan and I served on a committee about a hundred years ago together. So I certainly welcome the new members, and I know we can work productively together.

Anyway, does anyone have any immediate suggestions? That, basically, was the nature of this meeting.

Thank you for your indulgence with Ms. Fraser. She did request that meeting, and I think it did turn out for the best.

Are there any burning issues that we need to discuss?

I would remind you again that this report is in confidence and we don't really need to read about it in the paper.

Because the meeting is now open, we do have an opening for a vice-chair. I know I did not give you notice of that, but unless there's any objection, I would suggest that this would be a good opportunity to take care of that item and to receive nominations for the vice-chair. That was held by the Liberal Party, but now that member is no longer a member of the committee.

Mr. Bigras is the vice-chair, and we—

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Chair, can we get back to you in very short order? It's just that we haven't had a chance to have a discussion ourselves.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Sure, we can do that. It has to be an open meeting. We could even do it tomorrow. It shouldn't take more than five minutes, I wouldn't think, unless there's a huge competition.

Okay, we will deal with this item tomorrow, then.

Are there any other items anyone wants to bring up?

We don't usually end early, but let's end early.

The meeting is adjourned.