Evidence of meeting #65 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 chair.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Bloc
Bernard Bigras Bloc Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC
It was a change. I would have liked you to call me directly, Mr. Chairman, or call my office to tell us that there was a change being made to the plan that was adopted unanimously by the committee. In my opinion, that is the rule that must be followed.
I maintain that if this motion is adopted and you decide to resign, it will be your decision. I do not want that to happen, as I said at the outset, when I first spoke. I said that we could most likely come to an agreement without voting on the motion, Mr. Chairman. However, it must be acknowledged that there was a breach in the process and that members should at least have been called before changes were made to the work plan established by the committee.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bob Mills
I agree.
We'll have Mr. Warawa, Mr. Vellacott, and Mr. Scarpaleggia.
Conservative
Mark Warawa Conservative Langley, BC
I appreciate the reading from Marleau and Montpetit. I'd like to turn to page 828, where it says:
The chairs of standing and special committees also often assume a leadership role in planning and co-ordinating the committee's work and in conducting its investigations.
On page 834 it says:
clerks discharge their duties and responsibilities with respect to the committee in consultation with the Chair.
That was very clearly the direction from this committee. It was unanimous that the discretion was given to the chair and the clerk to arrange the meeting today. Now there's the question of this being confidence or not.
I've been on the Hill for three years and I've never seen a motion asking for a chair to apologize. I don't imagine you have ever had a motion asking for you to apologize. You have that discretion. You have the authority to cancel a meeting, adjourn a meeting, and notify the members of the adjourning of a meeting. You have the discretion to arrange meetings. You took that discretion and tried to continue with the topics the committee had directed. One of those was smog.
Mr. Godfrey suggested that you could have had the sherpa and the other witnesses at two different meetings, because the sherpa had requested that he be at a separate meeting. Yet in the spirit of what the committee had directed, it was to be one meeting. So you had planned to have the sherpa for one hour and the other witnesses for another hour.
I think Mr. Godfrey is suggesting it would have been two separate meetings. That would have cut into the witnesses being here to speak to us on smog. But smog is important. So you've adjusted it. Why did you adjust the meetings? Using the discretion you had, you did that because the witnesses and the sherpa were not available on Thursday; they were available on Tuesday.
What you have now is a very unusual procedure of a motion being made that attacks your integrity and calls for an apology. Mr. Godfrey said it was unwise of you, Chair. I believe those were his words. To indicate that the chair is unwise crosses some lines.
I very definitely would not support calling for an apology, because I don't believe anything wrong was done.
On page 835 of Marleau it says, “Most committee meetings can be described as evidence-gathering meetings.” Of course, that didn't happen at our last meeting. We had an eight-minute meeting. The Liberal-dominant Senate has their 43-second meetings; we had our eight-minute meeting where we had four opportunities to ask two-minute questions.
In Marleau and Montpetit on page 835 it continues:
They have traditionally commenced with presentations made by witnesses, followed by a question and answer period during which committee members have the opportunity to explore selected aspects of an issue in greater detail.
On page 837 it continues:
Committees may hold meetings to exchange ideas with panels of witnesses representing different points of views....
Chair, that is almost exactly what you said--different points of view. I expressed concern that if you have somebody with an extreme point of view, or even a witness who has political connections, I don't believe that provides a balanced point of view. But I think what you are proposing is to have a balanced point of view that would help guide the committee. To apologize for that I think is absurd.
I very definitely don't believe you need to provide an apology. I hope that members of the opposition will not ask for an apology, because you've done a good job, you've been fair, and I believe you will continue to be fair.
Thank you.
Conservative
Maurice Vellacott Conservative Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK
I was just going to reiterate only slightly here, because I think my colleague has very eloquently explained the sequence of events here. Mr. Godfrey, having heard that explanation...he's a decent person and has been good to work with over the past and is I think a little confused in terms of a possible two-meeting scenario.
I believe if you take that into account, you probably can see the fact that your intended ideal scenario would not work out. There would only be one meeting, and I guess we have a difference of opinion whether that meant a round table or witnesses at a point, sitting, and then you bring in the other group of witnesses, which is still centred around...but I don't constitute that as a round table, which is not anywhere in the records from the last meeting here.
I just thought it was good that that was clarified there. Mr. Chair, in view of the fact that you were restricted by this committee, you were following through in terms of not breaching anything that was decided at committee. We only had one meeting to deal with; that's all you had permission to work around. That being the case, you have to get your people there at the same time. It makes a lot of sense. While Mr. Godfrey's suggestion is well intended, it's not workable in view of the restraint you had by way of that motion that was passed unanimously, ten to zero, at the committee here.
I would say that I'm quite fine in hearing these two witnesses. Mr. Bramley, notwithstanding the fact that he has helped write a Liberal plan...I'm not so sure he is one of the most objective on the file here. They want to hear Mr. Mark Jaccard. He'd probably be an objective witness. So I have no difficulty with that.
But are you going to consume all of your time at one meeting doing it today, and then we're not going to hear from the sherpa? The commitment was to have only one meeting. I'm not sure what's assumed here. If we'd had those people meeting today, did we all of a sudden then have an agreement out of nowhere from the others to have them in at a subsequent date? The agreement was one meeting, not two meetings. I think my colleagues across the way are well aware of that, so I'm not sure what kind of a quandary that leaves the chair in.
For my part, I think it was an appropriate judgment. I disagree with colleagues across the way. I think you did the best in the circumstance: a one-meeting scenario whereby it was going to be done on Tuesday. I'm assuming the House will be sitting and we'll proceed full steam ahead on that.
You're going to have Mr. Bramley in, who is probably not the most objective on the file, but you'll have Mr. Jaccard in, you'll have the sherpa, you'll have them all at one meeting, unless all of a sudden we're having some ad hoc proposal of more than one meeting with these people today. That wasn't ever the original agreement. I think my colleagues will concede that, and an honest review of the Hansard records confirms that. So I wanted that on the record.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
I think the opportunity is with us now to have the vote and move on with things.
Conservative
Maurice Vellacott Conservative Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK
Before we vote, I have some additional remarks to make at this point.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bob Mills
You do have an opportunity to debate, but the vote will be on the first motion first and then on the second part of that, because it has been split.
Go ahead.
Conservative
Maurice Vellacott Conservative Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK
I go back to my original questions that I interjected at an earlier point. I don't at all disagree with others around who put the point that it makes a whole lot of sense to have, on this very crucial matter, as Mr. Cullen and Mr. Bigras have made the point, people from the G-8. If you want to have people who were not there making their comment, critical or otherwise, with respect to what went on there...I think it's fundamental to have those who were at the G-8 before us instead of people just off at a remote distance.
My fundamental question is this, and I'll wait till the chair is ready here....
Conservative
Conservative
Maurice Vellacott Conservative Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK
I was being respectful of the fact that you were deep in a conversation and I paused momentarily.
I'm a little baffled in terms of the viability of having these people before us at this point, because as we say, they're not in the room. The motion says to have them by video conference. In my ten years around this place.... What kind of conniving or plotting or whatever has gone on such that we might have these logistics set up, that we have things in place, not even knowing--talk about overriding democracy--what the outcome of this would be?
I need to ask you, Mr. Chair, and I guess the clerk as well, are we in a position to have these people video conferenced to us within the span of a few minutes? And if so, without wanting to.... My attempt, Mr. Chair--I have great respect for you--is not to embarrass you, but I would like to know how this may have been arranged and if we have a parallel operation going on whereby we could even do this today.
I need to know that before I can vote on this.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bob Mills
The clerk advises me that he has no arrangements made, that he has no phone numbers where these gentlemen could be reached to do a teleconference. He is not aware, and I am not aware, of where they are, whether they are available, whether we should proceed with the half hour remaining.
Those are all questions we'd have to deal with after the vote.
Conservative
Maurice Vellacott Conservative Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK
I would suggest to the members opposite, who are going to vote--we hope intelligently--on this motion, that this is crucial information. It isn't even set up. What would be the point of passing this first motion? Nothing will occur.
I guess you have a pyrrhic or kind of hollow victory here, but it makes no sense. It makes absolutely no sense. I'm not sure why any member opposite would even support this when to my knowledge, or your information, and the clerk's as well, this is not even feasible to do.
What's the point of a groundless, hollow motion like this?
Conservative
Mark Warawa Conservative Langley, BC
Chair, I would agree with Mr. Vellacott.
I have a question. Has Mr. McGuinty arranged for these two witnesses? Are they standing by?
The motion reads, “That this committee immediately resume its agenda as democratically adopted by the committee on Thursday, June 7 by a vote of 10 to 0”--we were part of that, and again, that was a balanced approach--“on the study of a post G8 debrief on climate change developments and Canada's position within the broader international context”, and then, “and immediately bring witnesses Matthew Bramley (Pembina Institute) and Mark Jaccard (Simon Fraser University) to testify, by video or teleconference if necessary....”
So has Mr. McGuinty arranged for those two people? Are they standing by? I think it's a very salient point.
