Environment Committee on March 11th, 2010

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mrs. Guyanne Desforges]

Honourable members of the committee, I see a quorum. We can now proceed to the election of the chair. I am ready to receive motions to that effect.

Mr. Woodworth, you have the floor.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

I nominate Mr. James Bezan.

[The Clerk]

It has been moved by Mr. Woodworth that Mr. James Bezan be elected chair of the committee.

Are there any further motions?

Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the motion?

I declare the motion carried and Mr. James Bezan duly elected chair of the committee.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear!

[The Clerk]

Before inviting Mr. Bezan to take the chair, we will now proceed to the election of the vice-chairs.

I am now prepared to receive motions for the first vice-chair. Pursuant to Standing Order 106(2), the first vice-chair must be a member of the official opposition.

Mr. Trudeau, you have the floor.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

I would like to nominate Mr. David McGuinty.

[The Clerk]

It has been moved by Mr. Justin Trudeau that Mr. David McGuinty be elected as first vice-chair of the committee.

Are there any further motions?

Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the motion?

I declare the motion carried and Mr. David McGuinty duly elected first vice-chair of the committee.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear!

[The Clerk]

I'm now prepared to receive motions for the second vice-chair. Pursuant to Standing Order 106(2), the second vice-chair must be a member of an opposition party other than the official opposition.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

I nominate Mr. Bernard Bigras for second vice-chair.

[The Clerk]

Mr. Ouellet has moved that Mr. Bernard Bigras be elected second vice-chair of the committee.

Are there any further motions?

Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the motion?

I declare the motion carried and Mr. Bernard Bigras duly elected second vice-chair of the committee.

I now invite Mr. Bezan to take the chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thanks a lot for the vote of confidence and returning me as your chair.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Would you like your “chair medal”?

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

It comes with props and everything.

I'm glad to be back. Everybody has in front of them the routine motions. As everybody is aware, back on Wednesday, March 3, the House of Commons adopted the following order:

That, for all standing committees, routine motions in effect at the time of prorogation of the previous session be deemed to have been adopted in the current session, provided that committees be empowered to alter or rescind such motions as they deem appropriate.

Accordingly, the routine motions, which were in effect at the time of prorogation, are reinstated. The clerk will reflect the House order in the minutes of this meeting. The committee can, if it chooses, amend any of these motions. Finally, for information purposes, the clerk has distributed a copy of the motions to all committee members.

That is in front of you. I believe it worked quite well in the last session.

Mr. Warawa, on the routine motions.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Chair, I'm not disputing that. I do have a question on the agenda for today. I see it's just for the election of the chair. In the interest of time, as there are some people who have a flight they need to catch, I'm wondering if the agenda is just the election of the chair today or if there would be time to offer the availability of the minister to come to committee next week. I can give specifics if you're interesting in hearing them.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

We do have routine motions. There were a couple of motions that were given sufficient notice that were circulated. They deal with agenda. We can either deal with them now or we can go to a steering committee and deal with them at the steering committee.

I understand some of us are flying out tonight. Maybe we could do that on Tuesday.

You said the minister may be available...?

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

I'll ask to have this passed out. It's a proposed agenda.

Again, now is probably not the time to discuss it, but--

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

It's probably not the time, but--

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

I wanted to make the committee aware of the availability of the minister. I had originally thought it was going to be on the 23rd, but the only time on his schedule would be next Tuesday from five to six o'clock.

I propose that the steering committee decide what we're going to do on Tuesday, the 16th. We could still meet at 3:30 but end in time to reconvene the whole committee at five o'clock, and then the minister would be available for that one hour, from five to six, next Tuesday. That would hopefully give us enough time in the steering committee to come up with an agreed agenda that the clerk could then start working on.

That's the proposal.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

So members know the minister is available.

Let's first deal with what I have on the table, which is routine motions.

I'm not seeing any hands going up.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Mr. Chair, can we propose that we simply adopt routine motions?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Yes, and we don't even have to do that because it's already been done by the House, unanimously, by all parties.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Then that's fine.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

We're good?