Environment Committee on Nov. 24th, 2016

[The Chair (Mrs. Deborah Schulte (King—Vaughan, Lib.)), Liberal, Deb Schulte]

I'd like to welcome our guests.

John Aldag has another committee meeting, so we're going to have a substitute coming shortly, so be ready for that.

We have several individuals with us. I'll just let everybody know who's here today.

We have from the Assembly of First Nations, Bill Erasmus. He's the regional chief for Northwest Territories.

From the Retail Council of Canada, we have Jason McLinton. He's the senior director.

From the Canadian Electricity Association, we have Ahmed Idriss. He's the senior adviser of environmental policy with Capital Power Corporation, and we have Channa Perera, director of generation and environment.

We also have Parisa Ariya. She's the James McGill professor from the departments of chemistry, and atmospheric and oceanic sciences.

My thanks to all of you for being with us today.

We have a little bit of housekeeping. You have 10 minutes to make your statements, and the times for questions are generally six minutes. When we get within one minute of the end of the time, I'll stick up a yellow card to give a bit of a warning. When you're at the end, I'll put up the red card. I don't need you to suddenly stop, but I want you to wrap up your thoughts succinctly, and then we'll be able to move along.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

She's a hard-liner.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Well, we do try, because it's all about fairness. If you start to get too carried away, then everybody doesn't feel that they're being treated fairly.

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

She's much harder on us than she is on you.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

That's why two members are missing over there.

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Yes, exactly, they're MIA.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

We are very grateful that you're here today.

We have a little challenge that I want to put in front of the committee. We have had some extensive discussions over the last little while about having presentations in both official languages and whether we allow a presentation when it is not in both official languages.

Ms. Ariya has brought forward a presentation that she feels is really important, but it is just in English. We are at the moment trying to figure out how to get the AV, because we didn't order it. We didn't know about it until not too long ago. We're trying to get the AV equipment up. If the committee is in agreement, we could print it and distribute it so that Ms. Ariya could speak to it.

However, this requires a unanimous decision. I know we have had this discussion before, and I'm open to the committee's will.

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

We're good.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

I'm not good.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

You're not good? Okay.

Linda?

[An hon. member]

It doesn't matter. It has to be unanimous.

[Professor Parisa A. Ariya, James McGill Professor, Departments of Chemistry and Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, McGill University, As an Individual]

I would be able to speak in French, because I'm French.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

She did mention to me that you could hear her in English, and she would speak in French if you needed it.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

I'm fine either way. I don't mind if they only have it in one language.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

It has to be unanimous. At the moment it's not unanimous, so there's not much I can do. We have had many discussions about this, and it is a principle of the committee—

[Prof. Parisa A. Ariya]

I was not informed that it needed to be bilingual. I was informed yesterday to send it. No language requirement was asked. For this reason, because most of the scientific papers are in English, I wrote it in English. But I am a francophone, and if anybody wants to ask me questions in French I would be happy to answer them, but the question was not the lack of sending it. It was sent yesterday and you did not request a bilingual version.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Can I ask for a revote on that?

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

I can't.

Just to be clear, we got it today. Despite when you sent it, it showed up today. It's very clear to all of you that when we ask you to come in front of the committee, there are rules that are made clear to all of the representatives coming in front of us. If you missed it, I'm sorry, but the rules were there and the fact is that we need to have things in both official languages. If it's longer than a certain period, then we need a brief. There's a whole bunch of criteria about submitting in front of the committee.

We'll not argue that, though. I just want to ask the committee again if—

Go ahead, Mr. Gerretsen.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

That fact that you're asking the question again is—

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

I know, I hear you.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

—not appropriate, Madam Chair.

I want to apologize to any delegate who might be here in this situation. We had a similar situation arise a number of weeks ago. We have one member who is substituting for somebody else. A couple of weeks ago, when it happened, the member who was substituting was a francophone. It's with no disrespect to you that I'm not personally in favour of this. We're a country that supports and advocates the use of both official languages. When we have a presentation, it has to be in both official languages so that we don't put somebody on the spot if they happen to show up and want to participate and their first language is French.

I won't say anything other than that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

I appreciate that.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

That's my position on it.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Chair, I think it might be helpful to outline for our witnesses. The same thing came up on Tuesday. If the witnesses reference certain documents, if they are only in one language, then they can be made available to us. If she has simply overheads, those could easily be translated. It's hard to translate a peer-reviewed document.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Yes.