Finance Committee on Nov. 26th, 2014

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

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Cullen.

On this we're going to go to Mr. Saxton.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I just want to take a moment to respond to amendment PV-16 and Ms. May. Since she had some very kind words to say about the government on this particular bill, I think she deserves to have a response to her amendment.

Her proposed amendment to proposed subsection 9(5) does not really strengthen the enforceability of the form for reporting. Reporting entities are obligated to report in accordance with the breakdown in form requirements specified by the minister in accordance with proposed subsection 9(5). Failure to do so is an offence under the act.

So, Ms. May, hopefully knowing that will give you some comfort.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

You'll sleep better.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Saxton.

That's all I have on this, so I will now go to the vote on amendment PV-16.

(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Amendment Liberal-8 and amendment NDP-8 are also defeated.

We'll go to amendment Liberal-9.

Colleagues, you should have a new amendment Liberal-9 in front of you, because there was a correction on the French translation.

Mr. Hsu, do you want to address amendment Liberal-9?

[Ted Hsu, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Amendment Liberal-9 extends the transitional period under which aboriginal governments are exempted, from two years to five years.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Hsu.

We'll go to the vote on Liberal-9.

(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

(Clause 376 agreed to)

(Clause 377 agreed to)

I want to thank our officials very much for waiting and for their clarifying comments. Those were very helpful. Thank you.

Colleagues, we'll move on to division 29.

We have two amendments in this division. We're going to deal with clause 378 first.

We'll welcome our officials to the table. They're from Natural Resources and from Treasury Board.

(Clause 378 agreed to)

(On clause 379)

In clause 379, we have two amendments. We have amendment NDP-9 and amendment Liberal-10. They are essentially the same, so the vote on amendment NDP-9 will apply to amendment Liberal-10.

Monsieur Caron.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

This amendment provides for the restructuring to take place in a period of three years. The restructuring we are talking about is of Canadian Nuclear Laboratories Ltd.

The employees in that organization clearly came under federal jurisdiction in terms of their pension plan. There will be a negotiation in the new structure given that the organization is going to be taken out of the public system. For this restructuring to be done fairly, employees hired during the three-year restructuring period, and who are therefore part of the current bargaining unit, should be considered on the same basis as current employees. That would let us avoid ending up with a two-tier system with new employees having different conditions from those that are currently in effect. Basically, this is really about ensuring that, during the restructuring period, the same rules are applied to new employees hired during the negotiation period as exist for those who are currently employed.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

We'll go to the vote on amendment NDP-9.

(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Amendment NDP-9 is defeated, and thus Liberal-10 is defeated.

(Clause 379 agreed to)

(Clauses 380 and 381 agreed to)

Thank you to our officials. I appreciate very much your waiting until the end for this. Thank you so much.

(On clauses 382 to 386 inclusive)

We'll now go to division 30, public service labour relations, where we have clauses 382 to 386.

Do you want to address these together, Mr. Caron?

We'll just wait for our officials.

Welcome to the committee.

Mr. Caron, the floor is yours.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

For all these measures, the amendments once more are intended to correct things that were established in previous budget bills. There must be five divisions, at least; I have not counted the number of clauses, but it is quite a lot. This shows again that the process used by the government to pass budget bills is completely inadequate because it prevents us from examining the elements in depth.

If the government had used principles of good governance and had introduced the amendments in bills that could have been studied in more depth, these errors could have been avoided. That is not the case, however, and here we are with a fifth division to amend. It is designed to correct errors that we discovered in previous budget bills.

This cannot be repeated often enough. But my impression is that, when we are studying the next budget bill, we will again have to be making substantial corrections to the errors this one contains.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

(Clauses 382 to 386 inclusive agreed to on division)

Thank you very much, Mr. Heavens, for being with us here this evening.

We will now go to division 31, Royal Canadian Mounted Police pensions, and clauses 387 to 401.

We may have a member with a conflict of interest on this one. I hope he's not receiving his pension so far.

Is there any discussion, colleagues, on these clauses?

Mr. Cullen.

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

I just have a small word—not on Mr. Wilks and his pension, but to the officials. We're voting for these.

Thank you for drawing the short straw. You folks got to stay with us all night.

The official opposition will be voting in favour of these.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

(Clauses 387 to 401 inclusive agreed to)

I want to thank you for staying here this evening; I know you were in the last division. We appreciate that very much as a committee. Thank you so much.

Colleagues, we are into the short strokes here.

Shall the short title, carry?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[An. hon member]

On division.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Shall the title carry?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[An hon. member]

On division.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Shall the bill as amended carry?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[An hon. member]

On division.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Shall the chair report the bill as amended to the House?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[An hon. member]

On division.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Shall the committee order a reprint of the bill as amended for the use of the House at report stage?