Evidence of meeting #10 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was going.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
I'll make it clear. Obviously the subcommittee is trying to be co-operative.
What we originally agreed to in our motion that was unanimous was this. We would do CEPA. We would do protected areas in concert, together, in parallel. We would do the federal sustainable development strategy, which has now turned into the strategy and act. We would do that third. It has bumped up, clearly. Then after those are done, we would move on to climate change.
That's the way the motion was approved unanimously. Obviously, we have not completely followed that.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
The motion was approved unanimously at committee...?
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
There has been flexibility. I'm just saying we did, obviously, already make a change when the sustainable development act and strategy got bumped up, because it was going to be third.
The floor is open. We did make an agreement. Everything has to be unanimous if we're going to change it. It's up to you guys.
Mr. Gerretsen.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
When you say that everything has to be unanimous in order to change it—
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
We need to vote on it. This is why it's in front of committee right now.
I think the subcommittee tried to be flexible and to help show everybody that we're all trying to move them along. But, really, it is a decision of committee as to how we're going to do our work plan.
It's in front of you today and discussion is on the floor.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
If we want to change it, are you looking for a motion to amend?
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
We're amending it yet again, because we're not going to get our drafting instructions done today. We're going to have to amend the subcommittee. Right now it's on the floor. This was the recommendation of the subcommittee. It is up to the committee to make changes to this and adopt it. I need to know how we're moving forward with this committee. I need specific suggestions to make this change and then we will adopt it. We will vote on it. It doesn't have to be unanimous. We will vote on it, and whatever it is, that's what it will be.
12:55 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Are we discussing the motion on the table for the calendar to be slightly changed?
1 p.m.
Liberal
Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON
When I initially looked at it I thought, okay, we're all trying to play nice. We're all trying to work together on this.
I want this to come across correctly. With the House now directing us to go to CEPA, I think that we need to stick with the original plan that we had and get CEPA done and out of the way, because it has to be done. It was one thing when we set the original plan and could say, “We are the committee. We can adjust that.” But now that it has been passed down to us from the House to do a legislative review of CEPA, I think it behooves us to do that and get on with it.
1 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
Just to be clear, we do have a year. We are a separate committee. We can choose to do what we want in committee. I'm hearing you. It was asked that we consider it, and we have a year to do that.
Who's next?
Mr. Cullen.
1 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
[Technical Difficulty—Editor] your point, the House gave a directive but we have a full calendar year. First of all, who knows what the committee is going to set for its study on CEPA, but Will could probably comment. It's not small. There's no way it's a three-, four-, or five-meeting kind of operation. Typically, it's a big review. The prospect of getting something out of this committee with all the other things we're trying to do before the summer is slim to none. We have a year. There literally isn't urgency on it. We're starting it. We're dedicating meetings. We're going to get a sense of the scope of the study that we want to do.
The chair has made some suggestions about getting some drafting time in, which is all new for me. I'm learning how the committee wants to go through the process of writing this report. It is about giving and taking, and the offer from the chair was a give-and-take offer. That's what your subcommittee has recommended. If we want to go back into the discussion, it's now 1:02 and we can have a full committee discussion about the calendar. I'm sure we're all thrilled by that prospect. I know I am. It's awesome.
1 p.m.
An hon. member
Is that what you offered, Madam Chair?
1 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
I want to make sure that we have this subcommittee report adopted today, in whatever form it comes out of this discussion, so that we know what we are doing.
1 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
I said that we have to fit in drafting instructions. I take the 21st and we do drafting instructions on the 21st. I said, shift everything. We have federally protected areas and now we're down to four meetings, one of which is for drafting instructions, whereas I think we agreed that we needed five. I think we're really limiting our time on the federally protected areas. I'm seeing the time for areas shrink. We did agree that we would have that concurrently with CEPA, and that it would come ahead of the climate change discussion.
I'm getting worried because we're trying to do a lot in this committee. We have lots of balls in the air. We're all trying to accommodate each other with our ambitions and our hopes for this committee. I think we want to be effective. If we have too much going on, I think we're not going to be as effective as we could be. I'm trying to make sure that we are moving these along and giving ourselves the time to do it well, because the better we have drafting instructions the better the end result, and the less time we'll spend haggling over it at the end.
My recommendation was that we take the 21st to do the drafting instructions for the sustainability development act. We can't shuffle everything along, but we can allocate May 17, which was going to be for CEPA, to federally protected areas. I still think it's a squeeze, but we're working our way towards that.
1 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
May 17 will now be devoted to federally protected areas because we took one of the days off federally protected areas and gave it to the Federal Sustainable Development Act. Then, we have consideration of the draft report of the Federal Sustainable Development Act on May 31. We've stayed with that because we're trying to make a deadline. Then, we have the commissioner coming forward with her reports. We did hear comments at the subcommittee that we may not need to do that, but I did find it helpful so I don't want to take that away.
