Environment Committee on Feb. 25th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

My apologies.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

I appreciate the discussion and people's bringing the rationalizations for whatever they want to do. It helps when you want to prioritize. We've all been through that—give yourself 10 dots and put them on the sheet, right, and what comes out is the most important. We've done a million of those things.

Hopefully we'll get to the point of what the most important is so that we start doing it, because I hear all sorts of good things being said. I'm just waiting for the starting gun to go. That's where I'm at. There are lots of good things being said. Let's get them up there, and let's find that starting line and start working through the list. We have three and a half years. That's fine. But I want to see what happens in the next week, and the next, and some visualization of where we're going.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Okay. It sounds like we're all on the page for that: let's get moving.

We have in essence a few motions in front of us. We still have time—we're at 42 minutes—so if there's nothing else we want to have in front of the committee in terms of discussion for prioritization, I think we need to move into the prioritization phase now. Agreed?

Who would like to kick that off in terms of prioritization? Remember, I do believe there are things we can do in parallel. Let's give that some consideration as we have the discussion.

Mr. Fast.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to put two priorities on the table. They would be in no specific order, but between the two of them, they would be our top priorities for studies.

First, the motion to do a study on clean tech, because of the fact that it is limited in its scope, will deliver information to this committee that will likely result in recommendations that the new Liberal government will embrace.

The second motion is Mr. Amos' motion. Not that I want to tread on his toes, but we find the motion to be one that will also lead to a study that will give this committee a better idea of what still needs to be done on conservation, what has been done in the past on conservation, and perhaps some ideas on specific measures the new government can implement in making our conservation even more robust.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Are you talking about number one? There's one, two, and three.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Yes, number one.

In fact I would suggest that those three studies be treated as separate motions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

I just heard you mention two studies, clean tech and—

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

I'm talking about Mr. Amos' motion, which actually included three studies.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Yes.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

We should probably deal with each of them individually, if we're going to deal with them at all.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

That's what I was trying to get to.

Which one of the two are you...?

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

It's the first one, which is conservation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

All right.

Mr. Gerretsen.

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

Just as a matter of procedure, what are we doing? Are we putting these in order of precedence?

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

We're having a discussion on the prioritization of the different initiatives that have been put forward and discussed this morning.

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

I don't want to sound like a broken record, but I'll repeat what I said earlier. I think the most important thing, and something that can be tackled probably relatively easily in terms of getting some information and developing some kind of recommendation, is with respect to strengthening the enforcement areas for the commissioner and her ability to audit and to follow up on that. That's just my own personal opinion.

I don't see how this discussion is any different from the discussion we had in the first hour. I'm trying to understand exactly what it is we're doing now. Are we putting things in different spots? I thought we were going to just vote on each motion individually.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

The intent was to give everybody a chance to put forward their thoughts behind what they'd tabled, in essence. They haven't really tabled the motions—

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

We did that for the first hour.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

We haven't gone an hour yet, but we're getting there.

Then we were going to get into the motions. I was just running the last little bit of the hour, which is almost over, for some sense of prioritization on what we will tackle first.

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

Yes.

I guess to continue, then, I think we've had an opportunity to hear what people think. We've had an opportunity to raise the different ones. I think everybody knows which one I really care about in here.

I think at some point we just have to, as Mr. Shields said, pull the trigger and start to vote on these. Once we know which ones have passed the committee, if you want to then entertain some kind of discussion on how to prioritize them—or they may work concurrently—I think that would be the proper way to proceed.

That's just my opinion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Okay.

Mrs. Jordan.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

I have just a quick question.

Mr. Fast, you suggested that Mr. Amos' motion be three motions. Is that what you said? Or was it three studies?

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Effectively, I said three studies.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Three studies but it's still one motion, correct?

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Yes.