Fisheries Committee on Oct. 19th, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

You're not helping.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Okay. Are we ready to proceed?

It's been moved by Mr. Allen that the amendment be amended by adding the words “pursuant that the scope and witnesses be determined by the Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure”.

That would follow the amendment that stated we should hold a two-hour meeting. So this is how the motion would read, taking into consideration the amendment and the subamendment: “That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans hold a two-hour hearing pursuant that the scope and witnesses—”

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Not “pursuant”.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

You need a comma, that's all. It's just a phrase.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Okay...“hold a two-hour hearing, that the scope and witnesses being determined by the subcommittee on agenda and procedure,”

[A voice]

Not “that”.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Okay. We'll get it yet: “hold a two-hour hearing, the scope and witnesses being determined by the Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure,” and then back to the original motion.

So we'll take out “pursuant”; it's just a comma.

On the subamendment, Mr. Blais.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

If I understood correctly, there will be a two-hour meeting. However, the steering committee will decide on the witness list for this two-hour session. That's what I understood.

To my mind, this would only delay the process. I urge my colleagues to vote against this subamendment. The steering committee would consider the matter, but because it cannot come to a decision, it will have to go back to the main committee to get any proposals approved. Then there would be another debate to determine the witness list. According to the amendment, the witnesses that will testify are the first nations band council and departmental officials. That's it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you, Mr. Blais.

Mr. MacAulay.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

It's my opinion that the subcommittee makes suggestions to the committee. It is not the subcommittee's job to design or decide who comes before the committee. It would seem to me by this motion that we would be asking the subcommittee to decide who was going to come before the committee, instead of the committee deciding who should come before the committee. It just seems strange to me.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you, Mr. MacAulay.

Mr. Kamp.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

The intent was not to delay things here. It's just because generally the committee lists are decided by the chair in informal consultations with members, and occasionally we have a motion to decide who the witnesses should be. But that seldom happens in this committee. It's usually done more informally.

In this case, because there has been some discussion on who should be here in a two-hour meeting, we just thought it would be better if that discussion took place in the subcommittee. It's represented by all parties. You have the majority of the votes on that side, so there's no ability for the government side to push its list, if it had one on this, and it doesn't. And we're willing to do that right away.

On the motion, I think Lawrence is right that the motion does sort of give the power to the steering committee to make that decision, as opposed to just the clerk or one member deciding who the witnesses should be in this two-hour meeting.

So I think it's a reasonable approach to this, and I hope the subamendment passes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you, Mr. Kamp.

Mr. MacAulay.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

What I would see happening, and possibly I'm wrong, is that we would go to the subcommittee, we would come back with the same recommendation, we would go through the same thing at the next committee, and we'd be at the same point again. I don't see anything in the procedure that would change that.

I understand there can be some disagreement as to what we're doing or who we're hearing or who we're not hearing, but that's not the point here. It's the committee that decides what the committee does, in my view.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Mr. Donnelly.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Yes, I agree. If it was to go to the subcommittee to further this discussion, I can't see it really changing much. We've discussed this long enough. We've had a good back and forth with a number of amendments. I think it is clear, in my opinion, after hearing from others, what the intent of this is.

The issue may be that some may not want to have this hearing or to hear from those who I'm proposing we hear from. But I think that's.... I mean, I've had a request. I've brought it forward to this committee. If others want to add specific people to hear from during that two-hour committee, make that suggestion now. I'm hearing that there aren't specific people or delegations to be heard from. I do have a very specific stakeholder group and I've put that out there to the committee. The committee has heard that.

I'm not sure if going to the subcommittee.... Again, I'm quite open. If the committee feels it's going to be more productive to push this to the subcommittee for further discussion or clarification--if that would be useful--then I'm all for that. However, I am not thinking that will be the outcome. As Lawrence has said, if this goes to subcommittee, we'll have more discussion, there'll be a recommendation, it will come back to the committee, and we'll be right back to where we are right here.

So I think it's clear. In this two hours we'll hear from DFO and we'll hear from the first nations stakeholders. They'll have their limited time and the committee can ask questions. If after that point there is a will to look at this and create a further study or a more in-depth study, because it's a complicated issue--I agree there is a lot involved--then it perhaps should go back to the subcommittee at that point to amend the work plan. I am all in favour of that.

However, the point here is to just really limit the amount of time we spend on this topic to one meeting, ideally, or two if we need the full two hours over two meetings. But it's essentially to limit it so that we can hear from the stakeholders on the specific issue of fish and fish habitat as it relates to this issue.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you, Mr. Donnelly.

Mr. Allen.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

At the end of the day, the whole intent of the amendment, and then the subsequent subamendment, is to try to look at a practical way to plan the two hours. We've expressed very strongly over here the need for a balance on this.

Just as a little digression, I would hope that when someone from New Brunswick approaches me, as a person on the committee, and wants to come to our committee, I'll be able to put a motion in and we'll be able to have the consideration at that point in time as well.

But having said that, the intent is that the Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure will be an efficient way to deal with this. Otherwise, what's going to end up happening is we're going to put our witness lists in, it's going to be by a certain day that we have to have our witness lists in, and it will be the chair and the clerk's responsibility, and God knows how many witnesses we'll have here.

To Mr. Blais' point, which might have lost a little bit in the translation, the subcommittee is an opportunity to pre-chew our food. That's the opportunity this subamendment would allow us to do: to pre-chew that food so that the whole committee doesn't have to digest something they can't digest.

Chair, feel free to call the question on the subamendment, as it is 10:40. We've gone past our time, and I know that--

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

No, we haven't gone past our time.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

No, we have five more minutes, don't we? Yes, I keep forgetting the time. And we started on time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

My clock here is at 10:35.

Monsieur Lévesque.

[Yvon Lévesque, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Mr. Chair, the original motion mentioned two potential witnesses, namely the department and Mr. Donnelly's clients. Mr. Donnelly admitted that he may have erred by asking for a study, rather than a hearing. Mr. Blais proposed an amendment to that effect.

The government seems to assume that a hearing will automatically result in a study and that we are prepared to look at a witness list. I disagree with the last point. The committee has to decide first if a study is warranted. I don't think it is appropriate at this time to consider a potential witness list. The witnesses have already been identified and all that's left is to hold a meeting and let them testify. Then we will see if we need to proceed further and undertake a study.

I agree with Mike that we should put the subamendment to a vote.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

In a couple of points that have been made here today there have been very specific references to a certain stakeholder group. If you go back and read the original motion, it does not identify a specific stakeholder group. I want to make that point very clear, because there have been many references in the discussion today to it being very specific. It is not very specific. The only specific point made in the original motion is that “the Minister and relevant officials as well as stakeholder groups be called to testify”.

To be very frank with you, this is going to end up being a discussion of the subcommittee. It will be a discussion of the committee as a whole if this motion passes in its present state. I just don't want anybody to have any illusions here that by passing this motion, it lays forward a clear path for this committee, because it does not do that.

Does everybody understand that?

I am going to call the question on the subamendment.

Mr. Shory, you haven't had anything to say on the subject, but I will ask you to make your comments very brief.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Well, the brief comment I'm going to make is that I don't know what's going on in this committee, Mr. Chair. I tried to say something, and Mike Allen, my colleague, took the point, and now I wanted to talk about stakeholder groups in the motion and you took that point.

I guess you're absolutely right. If you go back to the motion, amendments, and subamendments, basically it is not talking about the first nations only. It is talking about stakeholder groups and what that means. If we pick only first nations, in my view, and leave other stakeholder groups on the side before we determine.... The intent of the motion, basically, is that we want to determine whether DFO's response is in keeping with its mandate. We need to listen to all the other groups and stakeholders as well. So it will not be finished in two hours, in my opinion.