Environment Committee on Feb. 1st, 2021

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

As Unifor has worked with automotive assemblers to get into the electric vehicles, maybe that isn't the first place to look. However, as you mentioned, long-term care was another one that the province was responsible for, but we aren't getting results.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

You may make a very quick comment, Mr. Winfield, for 10 seconds.

[Dr. Mark Winfield]

It's a complicated landscape. The presence of unionized workforces can have a very significant effect. I'm more familiar with this in a rail context, but it means you have an organized set of eyes that are well informed about what's going on, and that can be very powerful.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you very much.

I would like to thank our witnesses and all the members of the committee for a very interesting discussion. We really delved into a lot of topics and gained a greater understanding of the enforcement issue.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Chair, I would like to take the floor. I apologize, I raised my hand.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Sorry, Ms. Pauzé, I did not see you.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Given our tight schedule, I would like us to invite the witnesses to send us any additional details they may have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

That's a good idea.

So I invite the witnesses who wish to do so to send us any information or documents they have without hesitation. We could add that to the upcoming report.

On that, we're not going to go in camera, but we're going to go into a bit of future business.

I want to go over where we're headed from here. We have a meeting on Wednesday. The problem on Wednesday is that there are two votes, so it will be a truncated meeting again. I would suggest we go to 6 p.m. and discuss some motions that I know some members want to discuss. It's the final meeting in our CEPA study, and the public servants from Environment Canada will be here.

After that meeting we have a week's break. Then on the 15th we don't have a meeting because it's Family Day in Ontario and other parts of Canada.

On the 17th, 22nd and 24th, I'm looking at.... We could have some discussion on the motions on the 17th as well. We could start with that if we don't finish on the 3rd. Then we can get into a work plan for the plastics study and some drafting instructions for this CEPA enforcement study, and we can look at the draft report for the zero-emissions vehicles study.

I think all of that will take up a good three meetings. Then we can hit the ground running in March with whatever we're deciding to do.

That's how I see it. Unfortunately, the House doesn't have the resources to allow us to have steering committee meetings, so that's why I'm suggesting that we can do future business if we have time on the 3rd. If we don't get through it, we can do it on the 17th, but unfortunately we can't do steering committee meetings outside of our scheduled meetings.

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

Mr. Chair, can we bid a farewell to the witnesses who are still with us, and perhaps thank them?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I thought I had said that you were free to go, as it were. I didn't realize we were keeping you here. I'm sorry.

Thank you.

Go ahead, Ms. Collins.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

I just wanted to clarify how many votes we had on Wednesday. I thought there were more than that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

There could be. I don't know.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

I could be mistaken. I thought we had a bunch of private members' motions to vote on as well.

I want to move the notice of motion that I sent out about the fourth meeting of our CEPA study. Do you want me to read it out?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Yes. Go ahead.

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

Mr. Chair, I'm really sorry to bump myself in there, but if we can get some agreement around Ms. Collins' motion, I think you will find we're in favour of it.

Do we need to have a formal motion other than to say that we agree with what she's asking for? Then we can move on.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

We have to see if the other parties agree as well.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Maybe we can do it by unanimous consent, if everyone has read the motion. We can just see if—

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Okay.

Does anyone want to speak to the motion? .

Mr. Longfield, go ahead.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Chair, my feeling is that we need more meeting time for the motion, so I was going to make an amendment to the motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Yes, here's the problem, colleagues. Because there's another meeting after this committee, we can extend this discussion a bit, but not that much.

I'm suggesting that if we can't do anything on the 3rd with this motion, maybe we can start on the 17th with discussions of motions and get those out of the way.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

I have a suggestion. I was going to make an amendment, but maybe in general.... We do have a newly appointed commissioner. Maybe we could get that commissioner in for a two-hour slot and some of these questions could be asked at that time, but I think we need a more fulsome study. Maybe we could pivot to having the commissioner here.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Longfield, maybe I can just quickly give a rationale for the motion as it is.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Go ahead, please.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Because our meetings were cancelled on Wednesday and we lost one of our core witnesses for the Volkswagen study, we're talking about reducing my study down to three. I'm just proposing swapping out that last day for a one-day hearing on this. We don't necessarily have to make any recommendations to Parliament that day. Then, if we think that this deserves a longer study, we could talk about it at that point. The new environment commissioner who was just appointed won't really be able to give us advice on their role, necessarily, and potentially we'll need to invite other people to do that in the hearings.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

What you're saying is that we would do this after the officials: that we'd have a meeting on the 17th and push everything else down one meeting. Is that what you're suggesting?