Environment Committee on Feb. 1st, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I call this meeting of the Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development to order. This is our second meeting of the 44th Parliament.

We meet today in a hybrid format. Welcome, everyone.

I remind you that taking screenshots or photos of your screen during the meeting is not permitted. We must follow some directives from the Board of Internal Economy. First, we must maintain physical distancing of two metres and we must wear a non-medical mask when circulating in the room. If you are in the room, I urge you to wear your mask at all times, except, of course, when you are speaking. You have hand sanitizer if you need it. I would also like to point out that, because of the current circumstances, we have been advised that we can only have one assistant per party with us, not one assistant per member. I see that we are complying with that directive.

I am not telling you anything you don't know because you are all experienced and the witnesses have all appeared previously. But I must mention that you can use the official language of your choice. Please stay on mute until I give you the floor.

That pretty much covers it for procedure and protocol.

Before we start, we have up to five minutes of committee business. Essentially, the item of committee business we have to deal with is adopting the report of the steering committee. Are members all agreed to adopt the report?

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

Mr. Chair, thank you very much, and happy new year to you and to all committee members. It's great to be back here at work at ENVI.

On the subcommittee, I totally understand the clerk is in a very difficult situation, because lots of stuff gets discussed at subcommittee. While I agree that we all agreed on the Bloc Québécois motion to study nuclear waste and the NDP study to study subsidies, and then a yet to be determined or named Conservative study, the Liberal one contains a “seven meetings” reference.

I wanted to see if we can separate out the number, because I don't believe we actually agreed to a number of meetings. I think that—in good faith, Mr. Chair—we should have a discussion around that. Either we can remove the Liberal motion as it stands and refer that to the subcommittee to have a little further discussion around the number of meetings.... I'm fine with whatever subject Liberal members want to talk about. I respect their voters and I also just want to have a discussion on the amount of time.

Either we can send that to the subcommittee or we can just delete the reference to the number of meetings—in this case the number is seven—and then simply approve it as is and then have that discussion at an upcoming subcommittee meeting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Mr. Longfield, I don't want to spend too much time. If this becomes a broader discussion, I suggest that we discuss the subcommittee report on Thursday. I was hoping we could get it settled today, but....

Go ahead, Mr. Longfield.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

I put my hand up right away. I was going to move that we accept the report as presented to us.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Would we like to vote on whether we adopt the report as is?

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

Mr. Chair, if you find that motion in order, we can debate that. I'll just make an amendment to delete the reference to the number of meetings, and then we can have a good-faith discussion at the next subcommittee.

As I said, I'm not opposed to Liberals doing a study. I actually think a water study would be rather enlightening. I don't believe we agreed on the number of meetings yet. That's my recollection of it. If other subcommittee members would like to speak up on that, I'd be happy to.... If I'm in the minority, we will simply just have the motion pass.

I do want to get to the environment commissioner, though.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

We have the commissioner waiting. I propose that we just do this on Thursday here in the committee and get on with the—

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

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Wait a minute.

Mr. Longfield, did you have your hand up?

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Yes. The meeting reference, seven, was in the motion I presented to the committee, so there wasn't a change there. That was before the subcommittee. If there needs to be further work, so be it, but that is part of the motion I presented.

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

On my point of order, we actually can't move on to the environment commissioner, and I do want to, until we resolve the report from the subcommittee. You can't defer it, because it allows for today to happen.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Who else?

Sorry, Ms. Collins. Apparently Mr. Duguid was first.

It's very hard. There's a screen and there's in person. There are hands going up left, right and centre.

Mr. Duguid.

[Terry Duguid, Liberal, Winnipeg South, MB]

Mr. Chair, I think this is in the spirit of where you're coming from. We have the sustainable development commissioner waiting. Could we defer this to the end of the meeting and have the discussion?

I think there will be considerable debate on this issue; I think the honourable members want to get on to the sustainable development commissioner.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Ms. Collins.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

I'm going to echo the same thing. If we could at least defer the conversation around the seven meetings, if we could separate that out and continue on, we'd like to get to the commissioner.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

We're debating Mr. Albas's amendment to Mr. Longfield's motion to adopt the steering committee report. Is that correct?

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

I didn't enunciate the specifics, though.

Mr. Chair, just to speed things up, I move that we amend the original motion that is for the Liberal study on water so that it does not refer to number of meetings, and just say “yet to be determined amount of meetings”. Then we'll just pass that to the subcommittee and we can get it moving.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Would somebody like to speak to Mr. Albas's amendment?

Mr. Duguid.

[Terry Duguid, Liberal, Winnipeg South, MB]

Well, Mr. Chair, it seems that our friends from the NDP and the Conservatives have been chatting about this issue. While I certainly hope they will come to the conclusion that seven meetings or more are warranted on a topic that has been dominating our headlines, the ridings of two of the honourable members, if not three, have been under water. We have a water crisis in this country. We have a climate change adaptation crisis in this country. My friends from Manitoba will know that we've had the worst drought in some districts in 130 years. I'm really surprised that members opposite wouldn't give this study its due. I guess their minds are not completely made up. I will certainly be working hard to change their minds if they are proposing that the number of meetings be reduced.

I would remind honourable members that I was there for your speech in which the honourable member for Victoria asked you to reduce the number of meetings, I think, from nine to seven and you agreed. I'm really disappointed in the honourable member for Victoria.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Ms. Pauzé, the floor is yours.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Chair, I am wondering about the procedure.

Ms. Collins suggested moving right away to the Commissioner's presentation and finishing these discussions later. Am I wrong?

In my opinion, the Chair can decide whether the committee must continue the discussion or postpone it to the end of the session. Once again, am I wrong?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

One moment please, Ms. Pauzé.

You can make a proposal, but I cannot rule on it. Your proposal can be that we discuss it at another time.

The clock is ticking and that would leave us less time to ask the Commissioner questions. But, you can suggest, for example, that we discuss the matter on Thursday.

Is that what you're proposing?

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

I am proposing that we hear from the Commissioner and the officials from the department right away.

If we have any time left at the end of the meeting, we can discuss it then. If not, we can postpone the discussion until Thursday.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I don't think we will have any time left at the end of the session. We have already used 15 minutes at the start. That means that our witnesses are going to have less time for their appearances. One moment, please.

We are going to have to continue. Unfortunately, Ms. Pauzé, we cannot discuss or decide on your proposal. We must decide on Mr. Albas's proposal, which we are in the process of debating.

Mr. Longfield, you have the floor.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to Madame Pauzé. I really like the direction she was taking to try to get back to our meeting. A dilatory motion to do that would be, I think, something that could be considered in order. I would make that motion that we postpone the discussion of our motion, which, again, is exactly what I presented to the committee, and it's also the motion that we were considering in the last Parliament.

Nothing has changed, other than all of a sudden, today, at the last minute, Mr. Albas wants to reduce the number of meetings for a critical study for this committee to undertake, a study that includes the Canada water agency, which should be reporting back to Parliament. I would love to see what they're doing. Water is a critical issue.

I agree with Mr. Duguid. We need meetings to do that discussion, but obviously this is going to be a longer discussion, so I would defer this debate until our next meeting.