Environment Committee on Oct. 8th, 2020

[Yvan Baker, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I suggest that we keep the subcommittee.

My experience is that the more people are involved in trying to come to an agreement on anything, the harder it is to come to an agreement. I think having a smaller group of people who are tasked with finding consensus on some of these issues, particularly the procedural ones, would actually be more productive and more efficient. We would come to decisions faster, and fewer people would have to be involved in those discussions.

Second, it would allow the full committee's time to be preserved for the substance of what we're here to do, which, I think, is also very important, rather than taking up time in committee to discuss more procedural matters and planning matters.

Last, as Mr. Longfield just indicated, having it there gives us the option of using it. It doesn't mean we have to use it in every case, but if we eliminate that option, we eliminate the potential benefits of having a subcommittee, which are some of the things I described.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Madame Pauzé.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you, and congratulations on your election, Madam Chair.

I am proposing a compromise. Let us limit the use of the subcommittee. As I recall, before the pandemic the subcommittee would organize the work. With 12 members, that could take a while. The subcommittee could set the agenda and do the groundwork, and the committee would hold all the other meetings.

I propose that we use the subcommittee the first time to do that work and then that it hold meetings as required. The idea is that we limit the use of the subcommittee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Yes, Madame Collins.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

On a point of order, my audio cut out while Madame Pauzé was speaking. Would she mind repeating what she said?

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Madame Pauzé, could you repeat what you said, please?

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Yes, of course.

I am proposing a compromise. Before the pandemic, when I sat on the subcommittee, we established the schedule. Having 12 people participate in this exercise can be inefficient. The subcommittee could hold a first meeting to set the agenda and do the groundwork. Then everything would be done at committee and we could convene the subcommittee as required.

If we were to adopt a motion to eliminate the subcommittee, we would not be able to re-establish it if necessary. I am proposing a more prudent approach, which would allow us to convene the subcommittee as required.

Setting the agenda would be fairly simple and probably done more efficiently by a subcommittee than by 12 people.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Mr. Schiefke, you are next, followed by Mr. Jeneroux and Mr. Albas.

[Peter Schiefke, Liberal, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I want to echo the thoughts of Mr. Baker and Mr. Longfield and some of the thoughts just shared by Madame Pauzé. Given the amount of time we've already lost, and the limited time we have left to accomplish the work we need to get done, I feel that the steering committee is a valuable tool for us to be able to free up some time that we can then use more effectively as members of this committee. Setting the agendas, prioritizing the motions—these are all things that, if we tried to do them as a committee, all of us together, would take a significant amount of time.

In the limited amount of time the steering committee was able to do their work, they were quite effective. They were able to work together to prioritize motions and to free us up to be able to focus on other work. For me, I think the limited time—and the time that we've lost, actually—only reinforces the need for the steering committee. On the role it could play moving forward, maybe we could have a chat about that, but I think we definitely need the steering committee, moving forward.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Mr. Jeneroux.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Thanks, Madam Chair.

I had actually lowered my hand, because I thought a lot had been said, but I think there are two important points to raise in support of my colleague Mr. Albas.

One, we're in a minority Parliament. As somebody who would not necessarily be on a subcommittee, I do think that having a say in what sets the agenda is important for all of us. That's incumbent upon Mr. Baker and Mr. Longfield as well.

The second point is that these subcommittees were put in place back when we were all meeting every day in Parliament, in the precinct. Now that we're all virtual, the ability to have that discussion is a lot easier than it would have been in the midst of going to question period and then going back to committee, and trying to fit it in within a day. It's a lot easier to fit in these meetings virtually, or at least that's what I find.

I'll just throw those comments on the table, Madam Chair, in support of my colleague Mr. Albas.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Mr. Albas.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'll just give some further context for the committee. Look, I understand that there are always concerns when you take something that is regularly done by a committee, but I would say the following things.

First of all, anything that is forwarded to the steering committee involves the clerk, the analysts, the chair and the vice-chairs, who all find another time. The work is given to them and then they go through multiple discussions, which may not always be reflective of all members. Sometimes an individual member will see an issue, and if they were to have a timely intervention, it would save the whole committee a lot of process. Then this gets forwarded to a future meeting, where we as a committee go through a full argument again over a particular issue before we agree to it. In terms of saving time, I don't think that's there.

The only time I have seen a subcommittee or steering committee really do good work was on the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations. The reason for this was that the committee wanted to update its approach in how staff make reports to members, both for the Senate and for our own House. Quite honestly, there was a lot of technical information as we went through it. Do we want to have briefing notes three pages long? What's the standard template? Those are things that I totally agree should be studied by the committee.

I would simply say that if we can get support today to just eliminate this, and if it looks like we're hitting impasses, if it looks like collaboration would be done better by four individual MPs rather than all of us.... I've already heard from my Conservative members that we will get our own house in order when we come to committee so that we can make decisions. I'm not sure if other parties feel that they are in the same situation. If they are, I would say that we wouldn't need to have the steering committee.

Lastly, I would say again, Madam Chair, that each one of us has been sent by our constituents, and sometimes we'll see something from an angle that others don't. I have to say that my committee members are fantastic. They bring up points to me that I never would have considered. I plan on utilizing that. Quite honestly, I think we can simply eliminate it, and if in a month we want to change that, we can.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Are there any more arguments?

Mr. Redekopp, go ahead.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

What my colleague just mentioned were points I was going to make, but I want to reiterate a couple of things.

In the last iteration of this committee I think we worked well together, so I don't anticipate that there are going to be a lot of issues with setting the agenda where we get bogged down in some of the technicalities that were mentioned. I strongly agree that we can deal with this as a group, together. I think it's better for all of us to be able to have a say if we need to, similar to the points that were just mentioned. I would very much like to see this committee not be a standard routine.

As my colleague was just saying, if we do get into a situation of being bogged down for whatever reason, where it does make sense that it should be taken essentially off-line to a smaller group, that's definitely something we can do at the time, as needed. As a general routine, though, I don't think it's necessary. I think we can do all these things quite efficiently at the committee level.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Madame Collins, you had your hand up. I must have missed it. I'm sorry about that.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

That's fine. Congratulations on your appointment as chair of this committee.

In terms of this conversation, I'm not completely clear on what the impacts would be. In our last session, we had a subcommittee. It met at an alternate time. Would getting rid of the subcommittee free up some extra committee time? Is that correct? Or are we losing additional time to have the discussion?

In my opinion, I'm open to having all the committee members being part of the discussions around what's on the agenda and how we debate things. Either way is fine for me, but ultimately I want to move forward as quickly as possible.

Can I get some clarity around what this would actually mean?

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Ms. Collins, I have been in Parliament for quite a long time now and have sat on different subcommittees. I find subcommittees are more efficient because you represent your constituents and your party, etc., and you bring that thinking to the subcommittee. The steering committee just creates an agenda, because all the motions come in as to what to study and when to study it. We can limit the steering committee's job to creating a timetable and saying what days are available and what slots they have filled up, and then asking what you and your whole committee think.

It doesn't take away the committee time. It just asks the three or four members to give some time to discussing the schedule for the year. That's it. We do not want to make it into a.... It is never a decision-making body; it is just there to ensure people's input.

Mr. Baker, I'll get to you immediately.

For example, the Conservative caucus, the Liberal caucus, the NDP caucus or the Bloc caucus says, “Here is my representation; here is what I need to put before you and here are my motions.” The whole committee decides on the motion and says, “Okay, we will study it.” Then the subcommittee says, “Here is our timetable.” They will work with the clerk and the analysts to see how many meetings to have, what the decision is, etc.

Whether I was the chair of some of those committees during a minority Parliament or I was the vice-chair, I've always found these very important because they cut down the committee's time. I hope that answers your question. If it doesn't, let me know.

Mr. Baker.

[Yvan Baker, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

If I may, I just want to respond to Ms. Collins's question. I think, Chair, that you did that effectively, but if I could, I'll just add, for clarification, that my understanding and my experience so far have been that the steering committee meets separately from the broader committee, at a separate time, which allows the full committee to spend more dedicated time to the substance of the matters that we're here to discuss. The subcommittee is like a delegated group of people who are meant to come to an agreement on some things, like the agenda, the process and everything else.

From my point of view, it would be better to have the steering committee in place. Then we can use it as we as a committee see fit when we move forward and delegate these sorts of procedural items to that subcommittee so we can focus our time on the substance. That would be my suggestion: that we keep it, but that we use it as Madame Pauzé alluded to earlier, appropriately and selectively.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Mr. Longfield, you had your hand up.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Yes. I think Dan makes a good point. We are in a minority government. If we move to send something to the subcommittee and if it isn't the will of the committee, it's not going to happen. It's not like we can force things either way. I think that by having the vehicle there, if there are multiple motions—we have some from last time and there are probably more coming forward that we're going to need to discuss—we get the priorities in that subcommittee and go back to our colleagues to say, “We have consensus around this.” Hopefully, things coming back from the subcommittee have some consensus around them so that we can explain how the discussion went.

When it comes to committee, then, we save ourselves some time by having had the more substantive discussion outside of the main committee work. I think having the vehicle there is good. I think we have some checks and balances in terms of the numbers of votes on the committee, so keeping it in place is something that Dan can live with, hopefully, as long as we're not going to try to overuse it. If we try to overuse it, it can get shut down by the votes we have in the committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Do I have any more interventions?

Seeing none, can we take a vote on it? Those in favour of Mr. Albas's motion to eliminate the steering committee, please put your hands up.

[The Clerk]

Ms. Ratansi, if I may, as per the order adopted in the House earlier this session, all the votes in committee have to be done by recorded division, so therefore I need to—

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

I'm sorry, Mr. Clerk. This is getting to be a virtual thing.

Go ahead, Mr. Roger.

[Yvan Baker, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Chair, just for clarification, we're voting on Mr. Albas's motion that we remove the subcommittee, is that correct?