Evidence of meeting #2 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.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

12:40 p.m.

NDP

Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC

To have her in twice, unless there's some nuance about it.... The way I read it, I could have been reading your proposal wrong.

12:40 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte

Why don't you let me quickly explain what we had in mind, and then you can go from there.

What we had in mind is on Thursday, two days from now, we're going to have the commissioner in to give her overall mandate. She's going to have Environment and Climate Change Canada, Parks Canada, and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency come in to talk to us. That's what we're going to have. For that whole day, the whole meeting is for her and those three—

12:40 p.m.

NDP

Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC

On the 18th.

12:40 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte

—on the 18th.

12:40 p.m.

NDP

Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC

And then the 23rd?

12:40 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte

It's not the report. It's not her audit. She's talking about her department.

12:40 p.m.

NDP

Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC

Okay, is it like an intro to the environment commissioner?

12:40 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte

Yes, it's like a one-on-one.

12:40 p.m.

NDP

Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC

Oh, I see.

12:40 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte

It's like a one-on-one. You see, some of you have more experience than others around the table, and a lot of us are new. We thought it would be helpful, before we start deciding, to hear from her what her issues are with the department, what they are doing, and what way they're going. It's a 101 basically, and then we're having the agency and the departments come and talk to us.

Tuesday is when I propose to have her back. In essence, those departments she did the audit on would also be present so that if we had questions we'd be able to talk to them, too.

12:45 p.m.

NDP

Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC

That's normal and I think it's good, because she's going to have critiques of certain departments, and officials are going to want to tell us why she's wrong.

12:45 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte

Exactly. They're going to want to talk.

12:45 p.m.

NDP

Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC

On the 101 piece, I'm going to respectfully disagree about the idea of having her twice. It's not complicated. The commissioner is a part of the Auditor General's office. She has a brief on it.

12:45 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte

She's not the main piece. She's going to come in and do a quick presentation, and then the departments are going to talk to us about what they're dealing with.

12:45 p.m.

NDP

Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC

This is the second one.

12:45 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte

No, that is on Thursday.

12:45 p.m.

NDP

Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC

That's the first one. So she will say hello as if she were a department, and then CEAA will say hello.

12:45 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte

It's really about bringing us up to speed.

12:45 p.m.

NDP

Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC

I rarely want to dive in. This is why I like subcommittees; you can actually start to move around the little pieces to determine what's what. I'm running out of time here, but I've made a commitment to have us discuss the idea of this motion before the minister decides on a nuclear facility, and the clock is ticking.

12:45 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte

Okay. I said we'd have a discussion for 20 minutes, and we're now at 20 minutes. Let me just make sure I get a couple of things done.

Normally we have a subcommittee for agenda and procedure but we're early and we haven't...so I'm just trying to get going, and then we'll have that little committee meeting and work from there. We may spin off into subcommittees as well, but we're not there yet.

Can I get agreement on the Thursday agenda from the committee? I also need to ask, can we have more than 10 minutes?

Right now we have 10 minutes for Environment Canada. They would like to come but they have more to share with us. They'd like about 20 minutes to talk to us, to present.

12:45 p.m.

Conservative

Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC

Is that inclusive of all their officials?

12:45 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte

Yes.

12:45 p.m.

Conservative

Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC

Do they have the commissioner coming?

12:45 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte

Just Environment and Climate Change Canada want to come, and they have a 20-minute presentation to give us.

12:45 p.m.

Conservative

Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC

All right.