Environment Committee on June 7th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

I call the meeting to order.

Members of the committee, the first thing I would like to do is to report on the steering committee meeting that we held yesterday. Basically what happened is this.

You see there is a motion, agreed to by all parties, that on June 12 the committee proceed to look at blue-green algae, which Mr. Crête put forward as a proposal. I asked each of the four people to put forward the topic they would like to see us do in the next four meetings. Basically, when we left the meeting yesterday, I presume everyone had agreed with June 12 to discuss phosphorus and the algae bloom situation.

Mr. McGuinty and the others could not agree on what should happen to the next meeting. As I understood it, Mr. McGuinty would be bringing forward a motion regarding the meeting of Thursday, June 14.

Mr. Cullen suggested that we go on, and that for the following week, on Tuesday, we look at smog, and on the Thursday, we look at clean coal technology.

So basically that was it, more or less. Now, the only thing that was solidly agreed upon by all members yesterday was that on June 12 we would look at blue-green algae, and that this would be the topic. On the rest we could not get consensus, and so again we needed to bring it back to you for you to look at.

So you see the report of the subcommittee in front of you. We now have another motion from Mr. McGuinty, which of course we'll deal with next. Let's look at this motion first, which was, as I say, a unanimous decision of the committee for June 12.

Basically, there's not much point in having steering committee meetings and agreeing to something unanimously, and then seeing a motion an hour later. I find that--

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, was yesterday's meeting in camera?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Yes.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

So can I ask why you are disclosing the details of a meeting in public?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

I'm reporting on the meeting that took place.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Well, I think you should circumscribe your remarks, Chair. If we want to have a fulsome discussion about what took place in camera, I'm prepared to do that, but I've always treated those subcommittee meetings as in camera meetings. In fact, if we're going to get into the details of this, we should probably go in camera right now. So I think we should be very careful, in terms of interpretations by any party here, about what took place in an in camera meeting.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Again, I was reporting to the committee, which I believe is my job as the chairman, to report honestly on what happened at that meeting.

Mr. Warawa.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Chair, what we have before us now is the report, which the committee is receiving. June 12 is being proposed to deal with the blue-green algae from phosphates, focusing on phosphates.

Chair, I'm going to propose to give and hopefully to get consensus from the environment committee on where we go, because we're planning what we're going to be doing between now and the break for the summer, which is scheduled for June 22. There were some topics that came up, and I believe there was consensus on the topics.

I would really like to see us at some time have a report to the committee, before we break, of what happened at the G8+5. Those of us who attended the GLOBE forum before found it very informative. A number of members of this committee attended it. I think it would be helpful to the committee to hear a report.

I'd like to hear your perspective, Chair. I'd like to provide what I learned from that. I think it provides a spirit of accountability to this committee and it would be very informative. It focused on solutions. I think we need, as a committee, to focus on solutions.

What I would propose--

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

On a point of order, I don't understand where we're at. This is not a motion that's been put forward here. Maybe the clerk can help us understand.

Where are we procedurally this morning?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

I did ask the clerk prior to this meeting what the procedure would be. The clerk told me, and he can correct me if I interpreted it incorrectly, that we would in fact deal with the report from the steering committee first. That report then, as you see it in front of you, was to agree to June 12, and that the meeting would be on blue-green algae.

If there are amendments to this recommendation by this committee or we want to discuss this report, that's what we're doing right now.

Mr. Warawa has the floor to discuss this motion about June 12, and if he wants to amend it, he is allowed to do that.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Chair, this is not a motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

It's a report that's debatable and amendable.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

But it's not a motion. Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Warawa.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Mr. Chair, smog was an issue that came up. Tuesday is phosphates, so I would propose that on June 14, which is Thursday of next week, it would be smog, which I think Mr. Cullen would be quite happy with. Then Tuesday of the following week, which would be June 19, would be post-G8, and the one I was hoping to deal with on June 21 would be clean coal or garbage gasification.

I would make it a motion that the report be amended as such, that June 12 would be phosphates; June 14, smog; Tuesday, June 19, G8; and June 21, clean coal and/or gasification of garbage.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

So now, members of the committee, we will debate Mr. Warawa's amendment. I think everyone has it. June 12 would be the algae; June 14, smog; Tuesday, June 19, G8; and June 21, clean coal or garbage gasification.

Yes, Mr. Cullen.

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

Similar to a recommendation I'll be consistently making, if we are going to essentially arrive at an impasse, which I suspect we will, I think it would benefit the committee to.... It feels like the basic lay of the land is that the government would like to move the G8 conversations to later. I think I and others in the opposition would like to have that earlier. If that is the essential impasse that we are at, rather than spending a great deal of committee time and then arriving at that impasse, and then having a vote on that very same thing, why not just proceed as quickly as we can to the vote and not have a bunch of speeches--conduct ourselves that way so we can get to other committee business?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

I think, Mr. Cullen, everyone has heard your appeal, but we of course do have to give people the opportunity to speak if they so wish.

Mr. McGuinty.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

I completely agree with my colleague Mr. Cullen. The quicker we can get to a vote.... It is about the timing of the G8 meeting, and because you opened the door yesterday, Mr. Chair, on what took place in the meeting, there was vicious opposition to having an early G8 meeting, and I think that is what this is really all about. That's the fault line. I think we can overcome this very quickly and get on to business with our expert witnesses from Environment Canada.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

I did try to find out when the sherpa would be back from the meeting, and I was told probably not until Sunday at the earliest. Of course, that was something to be discussed and considered as well.

Mr. Bigras, do you have a comment?

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Regarding our future business, I must say that I jumped when I first saw the initial motion of the Liberal party that proposed to discuss on June 12 what happened at the G8 meeting, since the steering committee had already agreed on a different subject for the June 12 meeting. I was very upset and I am less so now. Indeed, it is our duty to find out as much as possible about what happened at the G8. Unless I am told that the officials will not be back, which I greatly doubt, we should hear on June 14 from those who negotiated in Germany. If we use that day to deal with smog, it is however clear that we will run the risk of not being able to hear from them.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

The process will be to deal with Mr. Warawa's motion—and everyone knows what that is: the blue-green algae, smog, G8, clean coal, those four meetings—and then after we vote on that, we'll move on from there, unless there's any other comment.

Mr. Godfrey.

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

What would be a friendly amendment, which would cut through all of this, is simply to reverse the G8 and smog. In other words, everybody agrees on algae; you move on to the G8, then smog, and then clean coal.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Warawa, is that a friendly amendment?

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Well, Chair, my concern is making sure we have the appropriate people. My understanding is that it's you and the clerk who will provide the guidance on that. We'll be inviting the appropriate people to the committee. So what we're talking about is whether G8 should be discussed on Thursday or Tuesday.

In my opinion, we are going to be able to better get the right people if we wait until Tuesday, as opposed to rushing it. There's the old adage, haste makes waste. We want to make sure we have adequate time for you and also the people who have just come back from G8, a little bit jet-lagged, to rush over here. They have commitments. I think we'll have a better chance of getting the right people here for the committee if we allow those extra three days.

That's all I'm opposed to. There seems to be an appetite from the Liberals to rush into things, and when you rush, you make mistakes. That's why I'm just allowing a little more time, three or four days extra. So instead of the Thursday, it would be Tuesday, and that's why I'm proposing this.

That's why I'd ask the Liberals to please show some pliancy.