Finance Committee on March 25th, 2021

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

The only point I would add, Mr. Chair, would go to where I think most of the committee members are going—namely, that it will take up some more time, and I think we are trying to get through as much as we can.

From that perspective, I also won't be able to support the motion, although I do appreciate the principle behind it.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Okay.

We will have to go to a vote. I don't know that we need to record it. I can count the hands, I think.

Do you want to go to a recorded vote, Gabriel?

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Yes, please.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Mr. Clerk, we will have a recorded vote.

(Motion negatived: nays 9; yeas 2 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Gabriel, do you want to go to your third one?

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Chair, I would like to make a brief comment.

I understand that it takes away a little freedom when you have to have a translation of a motion that is being debated, but it has to be done so that unilingual francophones understand it.

So I completely understand that my colleagues' rights are limited. Again, we have never had this sort of problem on the committee yet. That said, we are limiting something right now: the rights of unilingual francophone, who will not be sure of what they are debating An example is the topic of the previous motion, the one we have just voted on.

With respect to the third motion that I am putting forward, it is about the Translation Bureau translating documents. It reads:

That all documents submitted for Committee business that do not come from a federal department or that have not been translated by the Translation Bureau be sent for prior linguistic review by the Translation Bureau before being distributed to members.

The aim of the motion is to ensure that, when a witness is appearing and wants to give us a document, a linguistic review has been done. On other committees, documents have sometimes been translated willy-nilly, and even Google Translate would have done a better job than what was provided. The motion is simply to ensure better quality standards. In our offices, as members of Parliament, we have access to House of Commons translation services.

So that is the third motion I am bringing forward.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

All right, it's up for discussion.

Do I see Ms. Damoff's hand up?

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

You do, Chair.

I'm going to jump in here as a newbie on the committee, but earlier this week we debated it at another committee, and we excluded MPs' offices. We're using the same translation services that departments are. I just wonder if the honourable member would be agreeable to amending his motion to exclude members' offices as well.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Yes, absolutely.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Where's that? Maybe I'm looking at the wrong motion.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Where it says “excluding departments”, Wayne, you would just add “and members' offices”.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Okay, thank you.

Does anybody else want to speak on this motion?

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Chair, just for clarification, this would of course not preclude a witness from appearing before committee; it would just preclude untranslated documents from being circulated until translation is complete. Is that correct?

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Gabriel is nodding yes. I believe that's what it would be.

Mr. Julian.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As I see it, linguistic review means the quality of the translation, right? I would like Mr. Ste-Marie to clarify that.

It is possible that other organizations and other witnesses have their documents translated, but we certainly know that it is not always done well. The translations are inconsistent. From time to time, an organization does a translation using Google Translate. It's gibberish, it's neither French nor English, it's translated any which way. It seems to me that the main purpose of this is to have translation quality that is really up to the standard of a parliamentary committee, that we are able to have equal quality in both official languages. Isn't that right?

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Yes, absolutely, that is the purpose of this motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Are we ready for the question?

(Motion agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Ms. Dzerowicz, go ahead with your motion.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Okay, I put notice of motion on the topic for our committee to look at eliminating interprovincial and territorial trade barriers. I think everybody has it in front of them.

It's fairly general in terms of consisting of at least four meetings. It suggests a couple of witnesses, but it's very open to whom it could include. It also invites the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and relevant department officials, and the chair would be empowered to set timelines for witness recommendations. Also the committee would present a report to the House when it's ready.

I have a couple of comments I would make, Mr. Chair. We all know that, for as long as I possibly can remember, we have been attempting to try to eliminate interprovincial trade barriers to have free movement of goods and people. Now is the moment when we have a really great opportunity to tackle this once again and be successful.

Part of the reason I put this one forward is that I truly believe not only that it would be of interest to every single political party, but also that it would be of great interest to every single province and territory.

I don't think we need to eliminate all of the barriers at once for every single thing. We could do it step by step, and we could get a lot of advice about how we can finally break the logjam and be successful on eliminating these interprovincial trade barriers.

We know there have been some successes in the east-west partnership. There has been some success out in the west between B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan. I am wondering if we could have some learnings from there. Maybe we could also get some advice about how we could do things differently so that we don't get into the logjam that we have had in the past.

With that, Mr. Chair, I'd like to move that we consider this as one of the next topics of discussion for our finance committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

I have your remarks, and I have four hands up, starting with Mr. Julian.

I have to look to the clerk. How are we on time? We do have to click out of this system and into another one; that's my worry.

Mr. Julian, you're on.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Chair, just to cut to the chase, it is a good study for us at the wrong time. To talk about unrestricted movement of goods and people at a time when we are hitting the third wave of the pandemic doesn't make a lot of sense.

What I would propose is that we undertake the study in September 2021—I offer that first amendment as a friendly amendment—and that we report on the study with recommendations to the House by fall 2021.

If those are acceptable as friendly amendments.... I see they are not. I will move both of them as amendments, then, and I will speak to the amendments.

The idea is that we are at a time of restrictions with the third wave coming. I don't feel this is something we need to undertake urgently. The government is committed to having everybody vaccinated by September, which would mean, hopefully at that point, if the government keeps its commitment, that we should be fully open in the fall of 2021. That is a good time to talk about this issue for building back better.

That's why I'm proposing these two amendments, so that we do it at the right time, if the government meets its commitment.

There are rumours that the government wants to call an election. If the government doesn't call an election, if the Prime Minister doesn't go to the chief justice of the Supreme Court, the acting governor general, to drop the writ, this would be a very good piece of work for the committee to do in the fall.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Give me those amendments that you're moving.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

It's that the Standing Committee on Finance undertake the study in September 2021, and then the final sentence will be “The committee present a report on this study with its recommendations to the House by the end of fall 2021.”

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

The amendments are on the floor. The amendments are up for debate, and you have two minutes and 18 seconds to debate them.

We have Mrs. Jansen and then Mr. Ste-Marie.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Thank you so much.

Interprovincial trade barriers have been studied to death. This would be a complete waste of time, whether we do it now or whether we do it then. We need to get rid of them.

We need to study COVID-19 spending. We have seen billions of dollars being spent, and we need to do what's right for Canadians right now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Mr. Ste-Marie.