Evidence of meeting #20 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was 107.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Vice President, Strategic Policy and Supply Chains, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
—confer and get you the actual position from my colleagues who are, specifically, in natural resources and in agriculture as well.
Conservative
Rosemarie Falk Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster—Meadow Lake, SK
Okay. I look forward to receiving those positions.
Vice President, Strategic Policy and Supply Chains, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
We also just produced a paper on exports of—
Conservative
Rosemarie Falk Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster—Meadow Lake, SK
The other thing that you mentioned in your opening statement was that cabinet should have the power to act when everything else has failed. What does that mean?
Vice President, Strategic Policy and Supply Chains, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
Again, we talked about two options. One is providing the federal government with more tools to—
Liberal
Liberal
Natilien Joseph Liberal Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC
The interpreter is having difficulty doing their job because two people are speaking at the same time.
Liberal
Liberal
Natilien Joseph Liberal Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC
Some people are speaking at the same time, Mr. Chair.
Conservative
Laila Goodridge Conservative Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB
I have a point of order.
I'm very curious. It seems this is just being used to try to interrupt my colleague, Ms. Falk. Our Bloc colleague, who is listening in French, is saying there are no translation issues. I'm just wondering if we can have some clarity because they can't just claim translation issues as a way to interrupt.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey
Thank you, Ms. Goodridge.
There is no point of order there and I've stopped the time. Ms. Falk has her full five minutes.
Conservative
Liberal
Conservative
Rosemarie Falk Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster—Meadow Lake, SK
Yes, for sure. Thank you.
Mr. Chan, what does that mean, that the cabinet should have the power to act when everything else has failed?
Vice President, Strategic Policy and Supply Chains, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
Thank you for the question.
There were two things that I mentioned as options. One, first of all, was that the government should have more tools to be able to address dispute resolution. That is, when we look at the process right now where we've gotten to a place where parties are too far from an agreement, the government could appoint a special mediator who would be able to make recommendations to both parties, as well as to the minister of labour, in a situation where all of this is evaluated and they make a recommendation on whether or not they should act. That would provide a bit more substance to the recommendation, if the government needs to act in the case that there is too much economic damage, potentially, on the table that could be caused.
Conservative
Rosemarie Falk Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster—Meadow Lake, SK
When I look at Bill C-5, which I would argue was expedited through the Parliament in June—it's actually the only piece of legislation this government's been able to do anything with—ironically, they've done nothing with Bill C-5. Bill C-5 gives cabinet the ability to exempt major projects from several different laws, like Bill C-48, Bill C-69, the industrial carbon tax and the emissions gas cap.
Is your organization encouraging the government to use the powers that it has within Bill C-5 to get major projects built so that we are able to trade our exports?
Vice President, Strategic Policy and Supply Chains, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
Yes, absolutely.
We've also made the point as well—and I'm happy to share additional resources on this—that we need to make sure we don't create a two-track system where only projects that are deemed of national interest are the ones that progress, but also other major projects—
Conservative
Rosemarie Falk Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster—Meadow Lake, SK
There are no projects that are progressing at all.
Vice President, Strategic Policy and Supply Chains, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
No, I said that we need to create....
The Major Projects Office—
Conservative
Rosemarie Falk Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster—Meadow Lake, SK
I know, but my point is that we have no projects being created at all.
What are new projects—
Vice President, Strategic Policy and Supply Chains, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
So we—
Conservative
Rosemarie Falk Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster—Meadow Lake, SK
Even on this two-track thing, I don't even know if that's real because this government doesn't move anything along by way of major projects....
Look at what we're debating in the House today, the MOU on this pipeline with Alberta. They have the powers that were given to them in June to do that, and they're not doing that. I don't actually think this Liberal government cares about jobs, cares about trade or cares about diversifying our trade agreements and partnerships with other countries to get our products—which are the best in the world—to those markets.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey
Thank you, Ms. Falk. That's your time.
We'll conclude with Ms. Fancy.
I would remind members again that if one person is talking over the other, it cannot be translated. That was the point of order Monsieur Joseph raised, which is accurate.
We'll now go to Ms. Fancy to close, for five minutes.