Environment Committee on April 17th, 2008

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

Okay. And we don't have to say that. That's just the way—

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

The bill as amended, that's what we're saying.

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

All right.

The second issue is the way in which the second report describing the circumstances is prepared. That is a separate operation, is it, then, from what we're going through today?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

As I understand it--and the clerks can correct me--because we didn't complete the entire bill as we were charged to do, we need to give a reason why that was the case. So you know what the reason is going to state: the length of time and the fact that we felt we were at a stalemate—I think that's certainly what Mr. Cullen has in mind—and therefore we report it back where we are. That's what that report would explain.

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

Who is the author of that report? How does that process work?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

The clerks would work on this. I would certainly read it before I reported it back.

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

It would come to the committee, though?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

It can come to the committee.

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

Right. So the first part of this operation, where we send it back in its current state, in the frozen state...?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

We need the report with it.

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

So you would hold off delivering the report until.... So both parts have to go in together to the Speaker, because it doesn't make any sense otherwise.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Yes, it doesn't make any sense if we separate them.

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

So we hope—and I assume you'd be working this out with Mr. Cullen—that you would reflect what our successes had been up to a certain point, that we got through to clause 9, but also where our failures had been. But we will have a chance to look at all that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Just to clarify my words, when I said we weren't completing the bill, by passing this motion we would, in effect, be completing the bill. Thus, it would go back to the House completed as far as we could complete it, with a covering report saying this is why we didn't deal with the clauses as described. That's what that motion does.

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

And we'll have a chance to look at that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Yes, we've got a week to put that together.

Mr. Warawa.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

I want to expand a little bit on what Mr. Godfrey was asking you regarding the report. I had a similar question, followed by a comment.

The report, as mentioned in this motion, is part of the routine proceedings, I believe. We have an opportunity to review it, but my understanding is that it would be approved by this committee. Is that not correct?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Yes, most definitely be approved by the committee.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Good. Thank you.

I think it's important that we have an opportunity to review and approve it, to explain to the Speaker how we ended up where we are. I've gone on at length trying to express my concerns about Bill C-377, that I believe it's a poorly written bill; that we heard from witness groups, including Mr. Layton himself, saying the bill needed to be costed; and we heard from witness groups that it would not withstand a constitutional challenge. The bill has serious problems, and the number of amendments that were tabled by the opposition basically rewrote the bill, or attempted to rewrite the bill.

Mr. Cullen is not with us today. Mr. Comartin is here. I want to welcome him. I appreciate the intent, and I'm trying to send the bill back to the House. It's unfortunate that Bill C-377 ever came to this committee the way it was written, and sending it back to the House now, I think, is the appropriate measure.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Bigras.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

My understanding, upon reading the motion as presented, is that the proposal is to adopt the bill as amended. At the beginning of the motion, mention is made of the title, of the preamble and of clauses 1, 2, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14. What concerns me is that the Bloc made amendments to clauses 5, 7 and 9 that were adopted. I wish to ensure that Bill C-377 as amended is not solely limited to the title, the preamble and the clauses indicated, but that it also includes clauses 5, 7 and 9.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Basically, what we'll be reporting back are those clauses that we dealt with and that we amended, in the amended state. So clauses 3 to 9 will be reported as we dealt with them, as we voted on them, as we amended them. Clause 10 we never, of course, completed, but we did amend it and we voted on that. So it will be as amended, and then the other clauses that we did not deal with will be reported back as they appeared in the bill, and as Mr. Comartin stated, there would probably be amendments there.

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

Very well. The changes will be included in the report to follow. I simply wished to have that assurance.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Yes.

Are there any other comments?

Now, I was thinking this is the sort of thing that might happen. The covering letter would go something like this, and obviously this will be worked on and discussed at our first meeting, which we can report back on Monday, whatever that date is:

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(1), your Committee wishes to present the following reasons for not having completed the study of Bill C-377.

The Bill was referred to the Committee on October 16, 2007. The Committee commenced consideration of the Bill on December 11, 2007 and heard evidence from 25 witnesses representing 23 groups. The Committee commenced clause by clause consideration of the Bill on March 3, 2008 and sought a thirty day extension from the House of Commons pursuant to Standing Order 97.1 on March 5, 2008.

The House of Commons approved the extension on March 12, 2008. The Committee adopted clauses 3 to 9, including eight amendments, postponed clause 1 (the Short Title) and the Preamble pursuant to Standing Order 75(1) and stood clause 2. The Committee was thereafter unable to progress due to a prolonged debate of over twenty hours on clause 10, which led the Committee to an impasse.

During debate, the Chair was overruled on two procedurally sound rulings. The Committee, as a result, presented a Report to the House on Monday, April 14, 2008 identifying inherent difficulties in the practice, procedure and rules of the House of Commons which may impinge on the ability of the Committee to carry out its mandate.

So that's basically the historical background of what happened and when and what dates. Then of course, the final part of it will be what we do today. That would have to be included.

This is just to give you a feeling for what we think, so we don't spend a lot of time having to debate further on this. We'd appreciate any input that you have, and then we will ultimately vote on this motion.

Mr. Godfrey.

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

This is really a point of clarification about the amendments we didn't get to. In other words, I had one, LIB-7, which I actually, ironically, was going to withdraw because we'd already covered it. Now, with respect to the amendments that are in our amendment package, delivered before February 22, those have no status anymore. It's not even about withdrawing them. They're gone, and if there were other amendments, they'd have to be reintroduced at report stage.