Environment Committee on March 5th, 2008

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Vellacott, if you want to challenge the chair, please do so.

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

It's not a challenge that is required. Simply, in the House of Commons, if you do recall in your many years--

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

Mr. Chair, you have directed the conversation--

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

--the member is allowed to stand in his place--

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Cullen, you could do your motion.

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

The reason I put forward this motion is to allow for us to have some clarity.

[Some hon. members]

[Inaudible--Editor]

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

It's unfortunate that Mr. Vellacott will not challenge you.

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

I could do that.

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

There is an important reason for us to get to this bill. With the issue of climate change before us, brevity is most important.

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

I've done that before. Other members have done it, and that--

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

The Conservative members have chosen to continue on in this unacceptable way. If Mr. Vellacott wanted to challenge the chair, he had the option to.

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

We want to have...[Inaudible--Editor]...in the House.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Cullen.

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

The reason I put this motion forward was to allow members to include themselves in the debate, to allow themselves to make their points, make amendments if they chose to. The opposition parties have chosen to do their homework and make amendments where they saw fit.

You have tried several times, Chair--not several, many times--throughout the course of the debate on this bill to keep members, particularly of the government, on point, on the subject of the clauses we're dealing with. You've asked them for brevity, and that has often been ignored. In order for the House to continue to do its business, for this committee in particular to do its business, we need to allow some progress to be made.

I have stated a number of times to the Conservative members on the committee that if they would like to make changes they could do so and offer those changes. They have not done so. There are no amendments coming from government.

That homework has not been done, so this motion is put forward with some reluctance, because we would like to proceed in good faith, but we have just seen the absolute debacle that has gone on in the last number of minutes. We need to proceed through the bill. We welcome recommendations and comments, but we simply can't allow filibustering to continue.

For some other reasons that are considered around this place, our duty and our objective here, as members of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, is to look at legislation before us that has to deal with the environment, and that is what we've chosen to do.

I call upon all members to seek progress in their work, to bring their intelligence to bear, and not to seek to continue to delay and obfuscate and offer dilatory motions. We need to get to this. I would encourage members to support this motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Could you repeat your motion, and do you--

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Once you have overruled him--

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

No, I am asking him to repeat it so that everybody knows what the motion is.

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

My motion is that members of the committee be limited to one five-minute intervention per clause.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

On the motion, we have Mr. Warawa.

Were you finished?

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

As I see my esteemed colleagues from the Conservatives present themselves to filibuster even this motion, I would ask them to seek brevity in their comments. They can vote for or against it, but they will chose not to, Chair. I will make a prediction. I have some clairvoyance in this field now, that the government will choose to wind out the clock. That's unfortunate.

I don't believe when they put themselves forward for election they said, “Vote for me. I guarantee to go and filibuster committees on your behalf.” There is an intention we can all arrive at, and disagreements on where we may be, but this motion allows us to proceed through the bill in an orderly manner, find some resolutions, allow for disagreements, and move on.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Thank you, Mr. Cullen.

Mr. Warawa.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

I appreciate the comments from Mr. Cullen. The problems we've seen over the last few days at committee have been because Bill C-377 is such a poorly written bill. If it were a good bill this committee would be united in supporting it, but we heard not just a few witnesses, Chair, we heard from witness after witness after witness that Bill C-377 is a poorly written bill.

We've seen tactics from the opposition to try to stop input, Chair, and share our concern--

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Chair, on a point of order, could you rule on the relevance of these comments to the motion on the floor?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Just to clarify the motion for everyone, the motion is that one five-minute intervention per person per clause would be the limit. That is the motion we are discussing. Again, if we can talk about that motion--