Fisheries Committee on Feb. 16th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Mr. Sopuck.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

I beg to differ. The mandate letter relates to his entire duties for his department.

The other point that I wanted to bring up is that time is passing. It's the middle of February now and we have a number of constituency weeks coming up. From my experience on both the environment and the fisheries committees in my first four years, it takes quite a long time to line witnesses up. It's not like you decide on a Tuesday to do a study of fisheries project X and the witnesses are all there on the Thursday.

I think it behooves us to move fairly expeditiously given the time frames. It will be May before we know it, and I think it's quite important that this committee get a number of briefings and studies under its belt, given some of the very serious issues that are facing Canada's fisheries and coastlines.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Mr. Hardie.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

I might have misheard what Mark was saying.

I thought that it was your intention that he be absolutely the first person we talk to at the next meeting.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

The intent of the motion is that this committee request that the minister come and speak to us regarding his mandate letter as soon as possible.

Having been on that side of the table before, I know that sometimes takes time. I wouldn't expect him to be here on Thursday, but I would expect him to receive our request in the spirit in which it's given, and to propose dates to us that the subcommittee or others could consider. The fact that we make the request as soon as possible means it's not a hard deadline. It indicates our desire to hear from the minister and to ask questions of him on his mandate letter, which, to Mr. Morrissey's point, is quite expansive. It covers what the Prime Minister expects of him and lays out a number of key priorities for him and his department.

I think that's not a very narrowly cast invitation. The mandate letter is quite significant and will give us many avenues to speak with him about. It's not that it will be the first meeting, it is that at his first opportunity, as soon as possible, we'd love to hear from him.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Mr. Davies.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

It would be helpful to me if the motion were read again.

If I understand it, the motion is to extend an invitation to the minister to appear before the committee as soon as possible to discuss his mandate letter.

My experience, when ministers appear for things like mandate letters, is that it's similar to when a minister comes and discusses the estimates. You're actually not limited to the estimates because invariably the questions come up. You can ask about what's not in the estimates. So if you were to invite the minister to discuss the the mandate letter, generally that's unrestricted questioning on anything, because you can always question a minister about what's not in the mandate letter and why it's not in the mandate letter. I'd want clarification on what exactly the scope of the questioning is that Mark proposes, recognizing that generally when you call the minister you can ask the minister almost anything because of that general approach to questioning.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Okay, is there any further discussion on this particular motion? For the sake of clarity I'm going to read that motion again for everyone. It is that the minister appear before the committee to discuss his mandate letter as soon as possible.

Should I say, “the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans” or should I just say, “the committee”?

[A voice]

That's okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

All right. I have to make sure I get this right.

(Motion agreed to)

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

All right, before we conclude, Thursday, I propose we talk about committee business.

Good.

All right, folks, thanks for putting up with me for the first one. We'll see you on Thursday.

The meeting is adjourned.