Environment Committee on Feb. 25th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

I'm trying to get all the motions that speak to what this committee would like to proceed with in its work package and then we have the prioritization.

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

We could have prioritization today?

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

I am sure hoping so, because the intent today is to get our work plan and the priorities of that work plan. Are we agreed around the committee, both sides of the room? There's no amendment.

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

Can I have a clarification of that supplemental?

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Okay, go ahead.

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

When we go to pass our motion, we could make an amendment to include Nathan's motion in the body of it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

I don't know why you want to do that. It's his motion and to.... Can you please explain why you feel there's value in doing that? I'm not sure you can.

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

You take that.

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

The value is that it enables us to treat both the prioritization aspect of this discussion as well as the substantive, what we are going to discuss, all in one motion. Going through the process of evaluating Mr. Cullen's substance, without having any prioritization attached, puts us in a situation, which I think would be unfortunate and lead to confusion, that we were somehow voting down his motion and not appreciating the content. We do appreciate the content. We are very interested in climate change. We don't want that confusion to arise.

I think the most collegial way would be to say if the motion were to be retracted, with knowledge that it would be included—

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

I understand now what you're trying to do.

Mr. Cullen, if you see what's going on here, whether you—

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I think I do. I was tempted to say the prioritization piece sounds subcommittee-ish to me, but this committee will decide if it wants to do that or not.

I think this simply places this as one of the buffet items that the committee is going to get to. We decide now first what people want to study and what they don't want to study, and then the next step is in what order and how much time, which I don't think we'll get to today. Is it two weeks? Is it four weeks? Maybe. I dare to dream.

But I don't get any sense that Mr. Amos' motion is done in sequence, because there may be some on the government or opposition side who want to put number two as number one. I don't read his motion as a sequential offer, take it or leave it, because that wouldn't make a lot of sense.

[A voice]

[Inaudible—Editor]

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Oh, I see, it is. This is sequential.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

No—

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Here's how I'm taking this. You said before that there are four motions, broadly speaking, on the table.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Four buckets that were—

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

There are four buckets, if you will. Okay. Three of them make it, four of them make it, whatever. The next conversation that follows is: what's first, what's second, what's third, and if there's a fourth, what's fourth?

I understand the collegiality aspect, and it's very much appreciated. There's no thinking on my part that if this motion were to pass, that's number one and it's going to dominate the committee's time for the next eight months. That's not written in here. It's not how the committee works.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Mr. Fast.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Before we vote, I believe I heard Mr. Amos say he wanted to amend the motion to essentially establish a priority of four studies in the order set out in that amendment that would essentially rank Mr. Cullen's study at the bottom and would rank the assessment of the federal protected areas as the first one on the list, at the top.

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

I didn't get to that point of identifying how I would reorder them.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Okay, then I'm in favour of going ahead with Mr. Cullen's motion as is.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Does anybody have a problem with moving forward, as was proposed by Mr. Cullen?

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

Madam Chair, I'm going to move that we suspend the debate for five minutes for the purpose of discussion among ourselves, if that's okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Okay, we'll suspend the meeting for five minutes and grab some lunch.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

We're going to resume the meeting.

We have a motion on the floor. As it stands, Mr. Cullen's motion has been amended with a friendly amendment by Mr. Fast. We are now resuming the discussion.

Should I call the question?

(Motion agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])