Evidence of meeting #73 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 44th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was amendment.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Dan Mazier Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
Could you now read to the committee the natural resources motion that was passed in public yesterday?
Bloc
Monique Pauzé Bloc Repentigny, QC
Mr. Chair, the proposed amendment is quite simple: It would add a witness, the Minister of Energy and Minerals of Alberta.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
We'll do it once no one else wants to speak.
With that, I will suspend for a moment.
Given that we're debating the amendment, and it's very specific about inviting Brian Jean, I think I will decide not to read the NRCan motion at the moment. Let's just get—
Conservative
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
We're back on inviting Brian Jean. I'd be happy to....
Has this been distributed?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Okay, it's been distributed, so I don't really know if I need to read it. Anyway, we'll get to that later.
Conservative
Liberal
Conservative
Conservative
Dan Mazier Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
Last time I checked, I believe that's a natural resources responsibility. I think this is the whole point of what my colleagues are trying to prove out here. The natural resources committee has passed it. They are going to be studying this. I think it would be even better if we could see what they came up with it from their angle. Then, after they did their study, we could complement theirs by doing another study at that time. That's what I would ask of this committee: that we park this motion just to see what they come up with in the natural resources committee. If it's that big a deal and there could be holes being driven right through it, we could actually then get on with some really good solutions from an environmental perspective.
Right now, for a federal committee to call out an energy minister of a province is pretty rare. To call out an industry rep to come out here and to impact a certain industry is doing nothing more than really isolating and making the environmental conversation more divisive than ever. I really don't think this is a good, positive conversation.
Liberal
Liberal
Patrick Weiler Liberal West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC
I would say that one of the reasons it's important that we have this in this committee is that one of the measures the government is actively developing right now is a regulation to cap emissions from the oil and gas sector. When very clear comments coming from one of the major oil-producing companies in Canada are making it very clear that they're deprioritizing action on climate, I think it's directly within the mandate of this committee that we be looking into that in further detail so that we can be better informed and better able to do our due diligence on this forthcoming regulation that we'll be expecting in the coming months.
Liberal
Joanne Thompson Liberal St. John's East, NL
Thank you.
I don't know if it's the appropriate time, but I think we should vote on this. We've spent a considerable amount of time talking. I think it's quite ironic that it's the clean tech study we're pushing to the side again. We spent a considerable amount of time on it in the spring and we've still not completed it.
This is the work of the committee. It is around the environment, it's around emissions and it's around how we address the climate crisis in real time, so I would like to see this go to a vote.
