Industry Committee on Feb. 28th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Mr. Byrne, would you like to address that?

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

The report to the House would recommend to the minister that he withdraw the order varying the telecom decision CRTC 2006-15--not avoid the date of April 6, but actually terminate his decision to vary.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Mr. Van Kesteren.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

We can vote on this and the outcome will be obvious. It says: “That the Minister of Industry withdraw the order varying Telecom Decision CRTC 2006-15 and table in Parliament a comprehensive package of policy, statutory and regulatory reforms to modernize the telecommunications services industry.”

It's asking us to do the exact same thing the minister has proposed to do. It's redundant and is not going to accomplish anything. The only thing it's going to accomplish is embarrassment, in the case of the minister.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Point of order, Mr. Chairman. It is 5:30 p.m. and under the committee standing orders, I have other things to do. I'm requesting that we adjourn, and adjournment is automatic.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

I want to finish my statement.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Is this on the same point of order?

Mr. Crête, you may speak on the same point of order.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

I would simply like to know what the standing order is. I do not think that that is the standing order.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

No? Tell me what it is.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

The chair will tell you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

The clerk has advised me there has to be a motion to adjourn, even though the meeting indicates 3:30 to 5:30, and even though we have votes at 5:45, which I hope we all make. If the committee keeps discussing the business as long as members want to keep discussing it and there's a quorum, there has to be a motion to adjourn.

[The Clerk of the Committee]

The motion is non-debatable, and the question must be put immediately.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

It's non-debatable and the question must be put.

M. Petit, have you moved that we adjourn?

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

I move that the committee adjourn its business.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

M. Petit has moved that we adjourn.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

I would like it to be in the record that I move this because it is past 5:30 p.m. There is a vote in the House that I must participate in and I think that that vote takes precedence over the committee's business.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

(Motion negatived)

The motion is defeated. We continue.

We will continue with Mr. Van Kesteren.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

We are, in essence, asking the minister to do exactly what he has done. He has given us policy direction and statutory and regulatory reforms, and he's modernizing the telecommunications service. He's doing exactly what we've asked him to do.

The order of business--and that's the reason I asked on my point of order whether or not this motion was in order--was to prepare for the minister some direction based on what we've discovered from our witnesses. We've listened to--I don't have the exact number--witnesses for a number of months now. I understand that Mr. Crête has forwarded some objectives and some concerns. We have also looked at these. We've listened to the witnesses and come to some conclusion as well.

I feel this is redundant, that this is a waste of committee time. The minister needs to have some direction. We know what his timeline is. It is April 15. He's going to rule on this thing. We're going to stand in a couple more days.

We need to give the minister something more substantive. We need to give to the minister the direction that we see as a committee and the conclusion that we've come to as a committee from what we've heard from our witnesses.

I stated at the outset too that my first impression, when this was first brought to our attention, was that this would be the next part of our study. I had some serious reservations. I had some serious problems with questions that I didn't have answered, and yet in my mind, having listened to those witnesses and most of those concerns, with the exception--I'll state this publicly--of the smaller businesses, the ones that need some protection, I personally feel that the minister is going in the right direction. Not only do I feel that, but I think that opinion can be found among the witnesses we interviewed and in the statements they made.

Mr. Chair, I feel that this motion is out of order. Unless we accept the argument that the language is inadequate or that it hasn't been properly drafted, and I'd have to trust my francophone friends when they say that--if that's been overruled, and if my point of order that the motion is out of order.... The order of the day says committee business; it doesn't even say that we're going to rule on whether or not we're going to come up with a committee report.

My argument is that if we're going to insist on this we are wasting our time, and we'd be far better served if we came to the minister with a concrete proposal, something we could all agree on. I really believe that even if we don't have a majority report--we can offer a majority or minority report--it won't be that far removed from how committee members opposite feel we should move and from the way we should instruct the minister to move.

Mr. Chair, that's what I think, and I'd like to discuss this further. I would like to hear some other committee members' opinions on this, but you have to convince me that this is the right direction to go. Quite frankly, I don't believe this is where we need to go with this.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay, thank you.

I have Monsieur Petit.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

First, on the current motion, if you have the text in front of you, you will note that on the fifth line something has been crossed out and the same has not been done in the English text. When a text is submitted, the way it is presented must be identical in both languages. Why has something been crossed out? Is it because there is a word missing?

Second, the fifth and sixth lines say this: "...ensemble détaillé de politiques reforme..."—one can see he was writing in English and in French at the same time—"...réformes aux politiques, aux lois...", but I can't find the same in the English text. Do you have a version that I do not have? The current version is different. That is why I am telling you that, with all due respect to the mover—and I don't think he holds this against us—this motion is not consistent. This is important. We can't send a document with words crossed out like this.

Why did he cross out the words "politiques reforme" in the French text and not in the English text? I am not familiar enough with English; you are more familiar with it than I am. However, you are not familiar with French; I am more familiar with it than you are. That is why I am telling you that the two versions of this motion are not identical.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Monsieur Petit, I'm advised, with respect to translation.... I mean, there are situations that come up in committee, notably during clause-by-clause, when members will put forward an amendment or a motion in their own language, whether it be French or English, and the translators, at that time, will do their best to translate the motion. So that is allowed in committee. It's certainly allowed in clause-by-clause. That's standard practice.

I think that whoever pointed it out was correct to point out that obviously the translators, who are excellent at oral, may not be as good as those who translate specifically in terms of written translation. So it's a challenge, but we have to stay to the practice here that we would have in a clause-by-clause on a bill, when what might happen is that even perhaps a government member would introduce a motion in one of the official languages. I have to ensure, as chair, that we adhere to the rules.

So there may be problems. And if you have specific problems, Monsieur Petit, with a specific word or two words or three words, you can certainly bring that forward, and we can certainly address those one at a time and perhaps try to correct the translation.

Now I'll move to Mr. Shipley and then to Monsieur Arthur.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

I am actually disappointed about the way this thing is going. When I came today, I thought we were going to sit down and talk about recommendations put forward by the Bloc.

When I asked about this earlier, nothing moved forward other than the fact that we'd gotten off track into a discussion that took us away from any direction or moving ahead, other than trying to set up something that led to a motion that's going to request that the minister withdraw his order. There was nothing about discussing the witnesses we had in front of us.

We had set up 14 new witnesses to come in. I don't know what this does with them. I suspect we won't carry on with them. I would see that as a direction from the opposition that we don't want to do that.

We even had some discussion around this table today about whether we would put out a report or wait and hear all the witnesses. That makes sense to me. In fact, when you're in the middle of something, to pull a report before you're finished raises some questions.

We just went through a manufacturing committee. It was very complex and came out looking like we were a committee that wanted to see the government...but mainly see our manufacturing industries flourish, by going across Canada and visiting these people and their plants, and hearing them when they come here.

I forget how many recommendations there were in total at the end, but we've been able to focus on about five of those as a group. We pulled them together and were able to focus on them. We spent a good time talking and negotiating about some of those recommendations that came out of that report.

We didn't agree on everything on that manufacturing tour. We didn't agree on all the witnesses who came in. In fact, if I were to reflect to you the witnesses who came before us in terms of the manufacturing, I suspect that if we wanted to summarize it, we could have easily said that we have this group on this side, these ones on that side, and some in the middle. Yet we were able to come to a consensus on what was best for our Canadian manufacturing industries to be able to move ahead in this country. We went ahead with a good report.

We've asked the minister to consider these things in the upcoming budget. Some of those things may get addressed--we hope--but that's what the committee actually worked on. That's how this committee pulled together and worked.

When I came today, the Bloc recommendations came forward. We didn't have recommendations from anyone else, but we did from the Bloc. I thought we were prepared to sit down and have those negotiations and discussions. I'm fairly disappointed in that part.

Now we have an obligation as individuals to be in the House to vote, and we're going to sit here and debate about whether we should pass a motion that was put together willy-nilly today, without forethought, for us to consider voting on tonight.

I think that for the members opposite who sat through the committee on industry, this isn't how we operated. We built an amount of trust and security with each other when things came forward. If we knew it was going to be good for the committee and good for the industry, we were able to move ahead on it. This particular motion actually stops everything we're doing in its tracks and takes away the value of the report that came out over two years ago, or a year ago, whenever it was.

Everybody agrees that the report's recommendations are good; we're just in a bit of a match about how to implement them. As a result, we're now sitting here landlocked, I guess, in our discussion.

Mr. Chair, we obviously can't support a motion like this. It doesn't take this committee forward. It does not take telecommunications forward; in fact, it puts it on the back burner for I don't know how long. We had an option where we could actually take telecommunications and do what the report says and move ahead on those areas that are good for the country, good for the consumer, and good for telecommunications, and then work through the legislative part to the rest of it.

If we're going to go backward on this whole thing and put it through legislation, I've been told it'll be at least a year, or maybe two, before the legislation will ever get brought forward, and I don't think that's the intent of this committee. But for those of us who sit at the table, we may have some difference of opinion on how we get there. Obviously we do.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

I have a point or order, Mr. Chair. I know this falls within your discretion or ruling, but this is going to go on forever. We have important votes to get to, and there are people who have to travel tonight.

I would ask that the chair rule this is going to take some discussion and that we adjourn the meeting. It's at the chair's discretion.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Well, Mr. Van Kesteren, it is absolutely my preference that we adjourn and go to vote. That is my preference, but I am bound by the rules. As the sitting chair, I am bound by the rules. And my understanding, based on the advice of the clerk, who's excellent on procedural matters, is that the committee must decide, and that if the committee decides, as it did on Monsieur Petit's motion, to continue debating this matter, we are going to continue debating this matter. So my understanding is that I do not have the option to adjourn this on my own and that the committee has already decided to continue.

If you want to introduce a motion to adjourn, you can introduce a motion to adjourn. We can have another vote and perhaps we might have a different result in that vote.

Mr. Van Kesteren, do you want to make a motion to adjourn?

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

I move that we adjourn.

(Motion negatived)