Evidence of meeting #19 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was clause.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
The NDP has withdrawn amendment NDP-14.
(Clauses 78, 79 and 80 inclusive agreed to)
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
We now come to clause 81. There is an amendment on page 30.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
The amendment on page 30 is withdrawn.
(Clauses 81, 82, 83 and 84 inclusive agreed to)
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
The government is proposing an amendment to clause 85. That would be amendment G-8.1 which can be found on page 31.1 Would you care to explain your amendment, Mr. Woodworth.
(On clause 85)
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
In this case there are two different government amendments--G-8 and G-8.1. If I am reading my notes correctly, they are not the same thing.
I will speak first to G-8. It is similar to earlier government amendments, in that we wish to replace “environmental studies”, which might be interpreted too narrowly, with “studies related to the environment”. I think this is very similar to or the same as G-1.
I'm not sure what we ended up doing with G-1, but the point of it is pretty clear and simple. I'll say no more about G-8, and I hope we can get some clarification as to whether we passed G-1 or not. I don't remember.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
In any event, it's the same issue as in G-8. It's simply to broaden “environmental studies” to “studies related to the environment”.
Liberal
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
I wonder if Mr. Bigras' earlier comments also apply and if he's requesting a friendly amendment to insert “including” after “educational institution”. If he is, I accept it as a friendly amendment.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Mr. Bigras, you would like the word “notamment” to be inserted. Is that right?
Mr. Trudeau.
Liberal
Justin Trudeau Liberal Papineau, QC
I'm wondering, as we're addressing these, if we haven't bypassed the whole discussion we had around G-1, which was related to how broadly we wanted to look at studies related to the environment and whether we were willing to direct some of those funds towards intervenors. That was the hold-up and why we decided to follow up on the discussion around G-1. To just be passing G-8, which is the same as G-1, is, for me, not completing the discussion around G-1.
I'm wondering if we're being consistent with what we said about holding this discussion to the end. Should we not put G-8 into that discussion around the end?
But having said that, I realize that a few times already we've passed clauses very similar in terms of scholarships with the “notamment” addition, with the “including for scholarships” related to the environment. Have we just short-circuited or brushed aside our intention to discuss G-1 at the end of all this? I'm just wondering where we are with this whole discussion, not having gone through clause-by-clause issues before and not understanding all the implications.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Would the officials have an opinion about this?
Yes, Mr. Warawa.
Conservative
Mark Warawa Conservative Langley, BC
I'm curious if the request of Mr. Trudeau is for us, if we're going to be dealing with G-8, to also be dealing with G-1 and to deal with it now. We were going to defer it to the end. We could defer this to the end, or we could deal with both at the same time.
Conservative
Mark Warawa Conservative Langley, BC
I'm ready for the question on G-8 and G-1 right now. I think we adequately discussed it when we dealt with G-2.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Do you want to deal with both of them at the same time, right now?
Bloc
Bernard Bigras Bloc Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC
Yes. A few minutes ago, I moved an amendment to clause 17. Basically, we could deal with clause 17 at the same time. I have a [Editor's note: inaudible] of clause 17, which we deferred yesterday.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Would someone like to speak to amendments G-8 or G-1?
Ms. Duncan.
NDP
Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
Mr. Chair, I have no problem with calling the vote, but subject to also amending G-1 to add in the same amendment Mr. Bigras has asked for. Is that understood?
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Okay. So that's a friendly amendment. Shall we vote on G-1?
Mr. McGuinty.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
I just want to make sure. This is tangentially related to intervenor funding, but it was much more related to the question of giving the court the flexibility to direct moneys to interns, to folks doing guild training, to folks doing apprenticeships.
In the first reading, what concerned me was that it was restricted to scholarships for colleges and universities. I think if you look at educational institutions as defined by the tax code, certainly under the RESP regimes, it now includes things like hairdressing schools and trade schools. I'm trying to make sure that if the judge or court wants to direct some of these moneys to be used for these purposes, they have the flexibility to suggest putting them into a fund that's going to help train 10 more marine environmental inspectors. That's not in a college or university. That was the import of the concerns I raised the first time around, and I want to make sure that's caught.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Correct me if I'm wrong, but by amending the amendment to say “including for scholarships”, are we not opening up the whole concept of educational institutions? No?
I have Ms. Duncan and then Mr. Trudeau.