Mr. Oliver.
Evidence of meeting #62 for Health in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was antibiotics.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #62 for Health in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was antibiotics.
A recording is available from Parliament.
1:05 p.m.
Liberal
John Oliver Liberal Oakville, ON
An assumption has been made here. I won't deal with all the questions, but the motion puts this responsibility for booking us onto the chair and the clerk. I know there are a number of different issues, a number of different things, and that's why I thought giving more specific direction to them was.... If we don't have one in there, then we're all going to submit a whole bunch of witnesses, and we're going to have a sort of potpourri of witnesses during that week, and it's going to be harder for us to process what they're speaking to and what the issues are.
An alternative would be that the steering committee meet, and instead of putting the mandate to the.... First of all, if we are going to have 72 witnesses in a four-day period and then the ministers coming in on the fifth day if we run that day, I do think we need to organize the witnesses in a way that gives us sort of pros and cons around a topic. I just wasn't sure that that would happen without us giving clear direction to the clerk in advance. That's why I proposed this. It wasn't meant to be restrictive; it was meant to be guidance on how we want to do our work as a committee.
We have have a steering committee that has often met to set who the witnesses will be, the timing of them, and how to organize the blocks. We could do that sometime in that first week of August. I did check and we have to sit together. It means coming back. We have to come together, then, as a subcommittee in that first week of August to meet with the clerk and the chair and to set our committee list. I'm quite prepared. I can't speak for my counterpart, but I think it's a really important topic. I'm prepared to put my time into it during the time when we're in the constituency.
The reason I did four-hour blocks is that it allows us to have nine witnesses. If we go back to our traditional two-hour blocks, which is what Ms. Harder had asked about, then we lose that extra witness. We'd have to go back to our normal four and four and four and four, so we'd lose eight witnesses if we stayed with eight-hour days. That's why I'm suggesting the four-hour block. It puts more on us to take on that additional witness time, but it gets more witnesses in front of us.
I think workplace safety and indigenous communities are both important topics. The indigenous communities, I'm sure, will have some views and perspectives on this, but perhaps not for four hours. Maybe we would do a two-hour block on workplace safety and a two-hour block on labelling and packaging, and we would do a two-hour block on indigenous communities and a two-hour block on another topic. We could do edibles, or—
1:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bill Casey
Just for clarification, could you just tell us what might happen on Monday, September 11?
1:05 p.m.
Liberal
John Oliver Liberal Oakville, ON
On Monday, September 11, the goal would be to have nine witnesses for the first four-hour block starting whenever the chair decides—
1:05 p.m.
Liberal
John Oliver Liberal Oakville, ON
—at 8:30. It could be however you want to structure the four-hour block.
1:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bill Casey
We could do it with half the witnesses for two hours, take a little break and then half the witnesses for the other.
1:05 p.m.
Liberal
John Oliver Liberal Oakville, ON
It would be however you want to set the four-hour block up for us, Mr. Chair. And then we would break for an hour, and then have nine witnesses on justice and public safety.
1:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bill Casey
I think that would be more effective. Also, I think the meeting should have a theme, because the subjects are so different. We should have a theme for every meeting, I think.
1:05 p.m.
Liberal
John Oliver Liberal Oakville, ON
Just as a friendly amendment to the motion, we can go to Friday, September 15, and we can move the ministers to September 15. I don't believe, based on what I understand to be the cabinet schedule, they would be available on the Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday of that week. I don't know that's the case, but I would like to stay with some organization of the witnesses so we don't just get a potpourri of witnesses for the full week. I think we just won't know which way we are looking if we don't organize it thematically.
I'm happy to split workplace safety with packaging and labelling, and happy to split indigenous communities with....
Is it edibles that you wanted in, Don?
1:10 p.m.
Liberal
John Oliver Liberal Oakville, ON
That would be the topic? So that would be four and four and four and four. Those would be two-hour sessions each on seven. It would be workplace safety and labelling and packaging, and then indigenous communities would be the last block split with edibles.
1:10 p.m.
Liberal
John Oliver Liberal Oakville, ON
The fifth one changes, so that we would ask them to be available on September 15, if possible. Those would be the amendments that I've heard.
1:10 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Thanks, Mr. Chair.
I know there were 90 witnesses proposed for Bill C-46 and I think that almost that number have been approved to come before committee for Bill C-46, which is a much smaller bill. Bill C-46 deals only with the impaired driving provisions. This is the major legislation that has major chunks.
To put it in perspective, this proposal as it stands, if we left it at 72, would actually have fewer witnesses testifying at this committee than would the bill on impaired driving, if that's what the justice committee ultimately decides on.
I'm really concerned that we be able to have really fulsome stakeholder and public input on this bill. The number 72 sounds like a large number, but it actually isn't when you consider all of the different subject areas and how much public interest there is in this. In terms of the commercial interest in this, there are dozens and dozens and dozens or organizations and companies and legal representatives that really want to have their say on this, so I want to really emphasize that.
From my point of view, after waiting a hundred years for this legalization, allowing the public to comment on legislation for only four days is not doing justice to this bill.
1:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bill Casey
I just want to comment.
I don't agree with you on that. I think the only way we're going to get more witnesses is if we do it this way. If we don't do it this way and we spread it out all through the fall, we won't get nearly as many witnesses.
1:10 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
I was going to say that I think we're all mindful of the Prime Minister's declared objective to have this legislation in place for July 1, 2018. I, for one, and the New Democrats are generally supportive of this legislation and generally we want to facilitate that passage, particularly since, as everybody on this committee knows, we've been raising the spectre of Canadians being convicted of possession each and every day that this legislation doesn't get passed, so we want it passed soon.
But let's be honest: we're talking about a date that is over a year from now, and even if we start in the first week of September, that gives us an entire parliamentary calendar year to get this legislation through committee and third reading in the House and then the Senate.
I know that the Senate has had a sudden renaissance of independence in it that is creating some interesting challenges for the government, but nevertheless, I think that if we have other days scheduled in September, and this committee has finished its clause-by-clause by the first few weeks of October, it would go back to the House for third reading by, say, October 15, and that would give a month or six weeks in the House, and this bill could be over in the Senate by December 1.
There is absolutely no urgency. There is no reason to rush this bill when we can get it to the Senate by the end of this year, or even into January, giving the Senate five months to pass it.
I just want to really emphasize that. From my point of view and the New Democrats' point of view, we want to make sure there is fulsome opportunity for public and stakeholder input into this bill, and that's what we'll be urging as we consider this study. I don't think four days, with 72 witnesses, is going to do it.
1:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bill Casey
I just got a message from the analyst. She has suggested that they put together a work plan for the steering committee. The problem with doing that is that the steering committee then has to report back to the committee of the whole before it's all....
1:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bill Casey
I think if we can make the decision here, it would be much better.
Dr. Carrie.
1:15 p.m.
Conservative
Colin Carrie Conservative Oshawa, ON
That was one of the things I was going to bring up. At the end of the day, the witness list and everything has to be brought back to the full committee. If John is saying that we'd have to get together in August, then so be it, but I'll go back to my argument about having point 1 in here. The way it's written with the four-hour blocks, it's very prescriptive.
Again, the analysts put forward this very good legislative summary. Depending on the interest and the availability, perhaps we could give them a bit of leeway to come up with a work plan for us over that period of time. They've heard the topics, and I think we've heard just around the table here more than eight topics that maybe could be congealed into even a smaller number of topics—or themes, as the chair brought up, which I think is a good idea.
Point 1 in the motion takes away some of the flexibility. That's all I'm thinking here. As this gets out, we may want to spend a bit of extra time here or there, or there may be other topics that we weren't thinking of.
I do want to go back to the dates. I sincerely thank John for putting them forward. I don't know how this date of Thursday, September 14, came through the channels of the government, but I'm worried about having the ministers on the 15th. We know that this place is filled with rumours, and the rumours are out there now. If the government does decide to prorogue, one of the dates they suggested was the 15th, which means that the ministers wouldn't be here.
I would like to have the ministers here sooner than later, particularly the Minister of Justice, if we can only get one. I don't know what the cabinet members' schedules will be like, but this is a priority of the government. I think if the government wants to get this through, they know the cabinet schedule way in advance, and I know that cabinets can sometimes be a bit flexible too. It's important to have at least the Minister of Justice here before that date of September 14, because none of us here really knows what will happen on the 15th.