Environment Committee on June 14th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

I've been asked by every member.

[An hon. member]

And he's the chair.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

But I'd like to call the vote on the first motion put, please—

[An hon. member]

No.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

—so we can get on, because you're debating my motion, which is fine--I'm prepared to get into that debate--but can we actually move on?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Well, Mr. McGuinty, I was asked by Mr. Bigras, by Mr. Cullen—

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

I'm calling for the vote. I'm calling for the vote on a motion that's on the table. Thank you. I'm calling for the vote.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

The clerk has advised me that in the House you can do that but here you cannot. I've ruled that we're debating this motion. I have a right, I believe, to explain to the members exactly what happened, which I intend to do.

So anyway, when I finally did talk to Mr. Mulroney, he said he was not available on Thursday but could come on Tuesday. He was leaving town. He asked if I wanted him to come or didn't want him to come. He could bring a deputy minister, who was with him, from Environment Canada, who was there at the meetings attending the G-8 and was part of the whole development of the statement by Canada. So both of them could come for a meeting on Tuesday.

After all these phone calls and finally being able to talk to him, I made the decision that, hey, Tuesday's better than never. So yes, I said to come on Tuesday.

So now what do we do? Well, it would seem logical that the meeting on the G-8 could be.... If he's there--he's the centre, which has been stated--we could now build a very successful meeting around the sherpa who was there, and other people, on both sides, who were not there but had comments about it.

So that decision had to be made. It was made by me. I felt that I had the ability to make that on behalf of the committee. So what do we do on Thursday, today? Obviously, we were planning to do the whole smog issue on Tuesday, so I said let's just flip them. And that's what I did.

I have to add as well, when I read the last part of the motion today, which we're going to be flipping.... I've been here 14 years. I've been on committees with such people as Bill Graham for seven years. I was with Charles Caccia for a number of years, whom lots of you know. There was Mr. Tonks. They switched meetings.

You know, we've never had so many motions, so much hassle about procedure, as we've seen in this committee, much as Mr. Cullen pointed out. That's not the way we deal with the issues Canadians are interested in. They don't care about procedure as much as they care about the issues. I do find it offensive to be asked to apologize for doing what I thought was right.

There was no pressure from the government, absolutely none, Mr. McGuinty. I can assure you of that. Mr. McGuinty, I made this decision on the telephone. You can shake your head all you want, but I'm telling you that was how it was.

I go to the members then. That's my explanation of how it happened. That was a decision I made, and I take 100% responsibility for making that change.

We'll have Mr. Cullen, Mr. Warawa, and Mr. Bigras.

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

Thank you for the explanation, Chair.

I think it somewhat unfortunate that the question being put today has become one, obviously, of a personal nature for you and one of a question of integrity. As you said, Canadians are less interested in procedure than in the issues being dealt with. I was comfortable with the story up to the point of the decision to switch, because in this case it's not an order versus an issue; the order is the issue, with Parliament winding down and with a decision that was ten to zero taken by this committee.

All members said we would conduct ourselves on Thursday in this way. I understand the conundrum you faced with what you saw as the key witness not being available but other witnesses being available. I think having been given the choice, following a ten to zero decision to deal with this issue prior to the threat of Parliament recessing, which is the point, we would have taken anything we could have gotten to dive into the government's climate change plan and what happened at the G-8.

That is the part of the story I regret, because if given a chance for input into that decision, after such a unanimous call by the committee to deal with the issue, and with the likelihood of our capacity to actually deal with the issue at all on Tuesday under some threat as we see this House winding down, I think the order is critical. I think that's why there are such sensitivities.

I understand your reason for emotion or for feeling that this motion is a direct attack on your integrity. I'm not sure that you'd use those particular words. I think in general you've been a fair chair and have tried to do what you do. I take you on your word in terms of the pressure, unless there's other evidence that Mr. McGuinty would like to offer. It's unfortunate that we get to this point on this issue at this time. I still believe, with Tuesday being under a cloud of uncertainty as to whether we'll meet at all, that we needed to deal today, as best we could, with the government's actions at the G-8 and the connection to the government's plans. So I'll leave it at that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

I guess my only comment would be this. I've certainly been told we will be here on Tuesday. In making the decision I had 100% confidence that we'd be here on Tuesday.

Mr. Warawa.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Mr. Chair, I appreciate your explanation.

I have two things.

At the meeting of June 7, I made it very clear that we wanted to have a balanced dialogue. The policy book by Marleau and Montpetit very clearly guides the committees to have a balanced approach to witnesses. The agreement was that we were going to have a balanced approach, a balanced list of witnesses to deal with post-G-8.

The sherpa was the main person, as you explained. I appreciate your explanation.

The motion before us now on the table, which is what we're discussing, deals with two issues--

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

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Yes, Mr. Godfrey.

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

Mr. Chair, we're not discussing the motion. We're discussing reversing the order of business today so that we can discuss the motion. We haven't reached that point yet.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Thank you for the clarification.

Mr. Godfrey is quite right. I appreciate the explanation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Godfrey, the clerk advises me that is incorrect. We are now debating the motion by Mr. McGuinty to reverse the order.

Go ahead, Mr. Warawa.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

The motion we're dealing with right now is to reverse the agenda. I'm speaking to that.

You've given a good explanation. We have witnesses here. I believe we need to hear from the witnesses.

If we go to this motion and reverse the agenda, then I have some comments on that motion. At this point, I think we need to get down to business and listen to the witnesses.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

I would hope we could vote, first of all, on the motion we have on reversing the order and then get to the debate on the actual motion itself. I think it would make things much easier if we could proceed that way.

Mr. Bigras, you're next on my list.

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

Mr. Chairman, that is the very least we need to do, in my opinion. We will support the Liberal motion, simply because it is aimed at having a calm debate about the issue that was decided on on June the 7^th. We need to have that debate.

Frankly, you have to admit that you have a responsibility, which is to apply the decisions that are made through a majority vote in the committee. That is your responsibility. I understand the arguments from Marleau-Montpetit quoted by my colleague, the parliamentary secretary, to the effect that there needs to be a balance at every committee meeting. However, what is even clearer and more important is that decisions made need to be complied with. It seems to me that there has been a major breach in the implementation of the committee's decisions. In that context, I do not see why we would move ahead with a study of this issue, even though witnesses are here, when a decision was made on June 7^th.

I want us to have this discussion to basically reverse the debate. I hope that we can listen to one another without having to vote on Mr. McGuinty's motion. I think that it is still possible. This is a key point. We cannot go ahead and study this issue without having discussed the agenda.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Bigras, I agree with you. It's the very point I'm making. We should get to the first thing of reversing the order. Basically, everybody is now debating the other motion, Mr. McGuinty's motion, and not switching the order.

I'd really like to make that decision. Are we going to switch the order and then debate the actual motion itself?

I'm going to call the question. Shall we switch the order from one to two?

Mr. Vellacott.

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

I have a question on background information that I think might be helpful to all of us in terms of being able to do this logistically.

You have a motion here to flip the order and to have these people in. I don't see them in the room here: Mr. Bramley, Mr. Jaccard, and to deal with....

[An hon. member]

That's by video.

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

I understand it's a video conference thing.

My question is simply this. Is this already set up by the clerk, by the chair? Is this already in place?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Again, let's not deal with the motion; let's deal with the switching first. Then we can deal with your question, Mr. Vellacott.

We'll check the feasibility once we make the decision on whether we're switching or not. If not, we'll hear our witnesses who are here and carry on.

So, first of all, who is in favour of switching the order?

(Motion agreed to)

We're now talking about the notice of motion.

I believe at this point--I'll check with the clerk--we'll ask you to stay to see what happens with the motion.

Yes, Mr. Warawa.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

So, Chair, we're now dealing with the motion—