Environment Committee on Nov. 15th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

My experience is that most ministers wouldn't mind that and would in fact obey that. That's the most important part. I guess the question is when we get a minister who says no. Then I guess we can say, “Well, then, don't come.”

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

Or else we'll find him in contempt.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Or you can say, “It's time to stop talking.”

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Warawa.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Chair, I think that has worked well when the minister has been invited to come. He's looked forward to that, he's come.

Again, for some hanky-panky where we're going to be calling the minister on a point of order, interrupting him, it's an unfortunate tactic and a distasteful Liberal tactic. I won't be supporting this.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

We've heard the motion. I don't know that we need to discuss it too much further.

The motion is basically that for 15 minutes, it's 45 minutes of questions. If they're here two hours, it's 30 minutes, and so on. I think that's fairly clear.

Mr. Bigras, do you have a question about that, or can we move on?

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

Mr. Chairman, I have a question. We can invite the minister to appear before the committee, but we cannot force the minister to come. Starting from that premise, how far can we go if we want to limit the minister's time, given the fact that we can invite him but not force him to appear? I think we have to develop a good relationship. I think that we are pushing it. Let's not exaggerate. We can live with certain rules. I seriously question the relevance of this type of motion.

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

The minister will have 15 minutes to make his presentation and then we will move on to questions and answers. So the minister will have a lot of time. He can take as much time as he wants to answer questions. But we simply want to indicate to the minister how much time he should spend on his presentation compared to the time left for questions and answers. That's all. It's to guide the minister for when he will appear before the committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

I think we can provide those guidelines and I think we can have this. I feel a little bit of a conflict of interest because I once gave this speech to a Liberal minister about him dominating and not allowing us to ask questions. I remember the tirade I went through, and that wasted more time than the minister had. Anyway, that's history.

I think we should go to the question. You've heard Mr. Godfrey's motion.

Those in favour?

(Motion negatived)

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

We will suggest to ministers, through the clerk, that they limit their time so that the maximum number of questions can be asked, and we will ask for their cooperation.

Now, are we fine with the 10 minutes, and so on?

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

I am.

I have an additional routine motion I want to present, and I'm wondering when that opportunity will be.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Because of the time, I would ask the members.... Can we first of all just deal with this one and get it done?

What we're saying is witnesses have 10 minutes, and I will try to keep that as tight as I can, but sometimes I do give them a minute or two. I think it's reasonable. It's ten minutes, then, for the first round and five minutes for the next round. Are we happy with that? Can we pass this motion?

Mr. McGuinty.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Just a quick question. Would this be the motion that would treat the question of witnesses who come and are not prepared to distribute something, or something has not been sent in first? There are often translation problems, we don't get text, we have no text to read prior to their arrival, we're scrambling to read text as they're presenting their testimony, and we have no chance to synthesize it. We haven't had the chance even for the government to consider it. Can we not—

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

I think that's a separate motion.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

A separate motion?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

I think we need a separate motion if we want to really.... But again, the clerk sends out the advice to the witness. Sometimes these witnesses are very inexperienced; they've never been before a committee before. We can send out all the guidelines we want, but some of them will still show up without the translation and not get it to us far enough in advance.

Now we can ask for that. We can tell the clerk that every time he calls witnesses to make sure they know they must have it. Do we want to say if they show up and they don't have it, we're not listening to them? I guess that's the question.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

I don't know if that's the answer to the question, but I know that in fairness to the government, which is often having to respond to things formally, to us who are preparing and reading texts that come in—

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

I agree.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

How many times has Mr. Bigras rightly been upset over the fact that documents come in untranslated and not ready for distribution? I don't know how formal we ought to be.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

I'd just hate to restrict hearing witnesses because of that. It's frustrating that you haven't read it. Certainly, as chair, I'd like to know what the heck is coming before us.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

I'm not sure if other members have other views, but I know it's been a continuing problem in many committees.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Whether we want to formalize that or whether we should just try to put as much pressure on the witnesses as we can, that's how I would like to proceed.

Mr. Warawa.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

I appreciate what David has said, and it's been a frustration, I think, for every member of the committee. We have a new clerk, and I hope the clerk can emphasize that, and it could be resolved that way.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Agreed.

Now, again, I'd ask you to pass this motion—I don't believe we've done that—on the time limits and witnesses. We've made an amendment, which has been passed, but 10, 10, and 5.... Agreed?

(Motion agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

There are a couple of other things we could deal with, but I suggest we end the meeting, and at the next meeting we deal with future business.

Mr. Godfrey.