Industry Committee on Feb. 1st, 2011

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

On that point of order, though--

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

It's actually not a point of order.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

I want to comment on that. We support that. We'll take as long as we need to. That's fine. There's no intention to filibuster.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

I thought Mr. Wallace was making a point.

Go ahead, Mr. Wallace. Do you remember what it was?

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Yes, I do, and I just want to finish up my comment, because the motion deals with the three items that we want to discuss. So I discussed the Investment Canada Act and the CRTC decision.

The final part, which was part of the motion, was that I believe we can wait on Bill C-568, which is a private member's bill and which, in my view, will probably take, at a maximum, a couple of meetings. It's not due to be reported back to the House until May 12.

So I'm supportive of what Mr. Lake has put forward, because I think the priorities are set out correctly and because there's time to meet the deadlines in front of us as a committee and as a House of Commons to deal with this.

I was not intending to speak for another 20 minutes, but if people want me to I certainly can.

Those are my comments based on the motion that is in front of us.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

You're welcome, Mr. Wallace.

I normally never enter the debate, nor would I now, but I would just like you to know that Mr. Wallace mentioned two companies--U.S. Steel and ArcelorMittal--and he said they're on the same street.

Mr. Wallace, what street are they on?

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

It's Burlington--I thought you'd like that--in Hamilton.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I'm just glad that we can hopefully have a vote on this and get to these issues. I'm ready to vote.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

There are two more people on the speakers list, Mr. Masse.

After you there are Mr. Cardin and Mr. Rota.

[Anthony Rota, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Please take my name off.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Okay. There's only Mr. Cardin.

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Chair, I would ask that we vote on the rest.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Seeing no other debate, then, we will move to the vote on Mr. Lake's motion. It's a recorded vote, so I'll leave it to the clerk to do that.

(Motion negatived: nays 6; yeas 5)

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Chair, I'd like to move that the industry committee study recent CRTC decisions for three meetings, followed by concurrent meetings on the Investment Canada Act and Bill C-568, with one meeting for Bill C-501, when appropriate, and report back to the House of Commons.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Mr. Masse.

Mr. Wallace, then Mr. Lake.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The question I have, and the comment--and the mover can say forget it or not--is that if we're going to do concurrent meetings, I'd rather have concurrent meetings, to be frank with you, on the Investment Canada Act and on the CRTC decision. We'd get those meetings done with and then we'd move to the private member's bill. Doing that would still move the private member's bill up sooner. There's no doubt about it.

I'm not a big fan of concurrent meetings, but if we're going to do them--and this obviously will pass one way or another--I think we should get started on the Investment Canada piece. I think in your own arguments you said that we don't know how many meetings there will be, and we may have to have a fairly long invitation period for people to come if they're coming from overseas, and so on. So why would we not do that? If the committee has decided that we're going to go in the format of concurrent meetings, then on one day we'll study one item and on the next we'll study the next different item, and go back and forth. We've all agreed that those are two big items for us. Let's do the concurrent meetings with those two big items. We'll get those done--maybe not by the first break but by the second--and then we'll deal with Bill C-568.

That is my suggestion.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Mr. Lake, do you mind if Mr. Masse responds to that?

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

No, that's great.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you.

I appreciate Mr. Wallace's trying to find some compromise in this, but here's the reason, especially with my having been someone who has studied the investment act at this committee in the past. What we found is that we had a lot of international and other types of witnesses who required some line-up. And there were some very important people. I think of Leo Gerard, for example, and I'd want to make sure his schedule was freed up to come and present. Also his industry; it is going to have some presentations as well, which are going to require some scheduling.

I'm really worried about that aspect of it. To me, it makes a lot more sense to just deal with the CRTC thing. It would be a week and a half. That's all we're talking about here. I'm glad there seems to be willingness now to study concurrently, because the census thing is still an issue out there. It's important. Those are the reasons, and I think we can handle it. I think this is a strong enough committee to be able to handle two studies at once. We've been ably served by our researchers and our clerk.

To me, it doesn't seem like a bad idea to do the CRTC thing, and I actually think it will help the minister. The minister, I'm hoping, is going to reject the CRTC's decision here. I think there is some good testimony about why this is such a serious decision that's taking place, and there hasn't, until just recently, been a lot of media commentary on it.

I think this can actually help the minister, because it will tell the story about what's at risk for Canadians and businesses with regard to limiting Internet usage.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Mr. Lake.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

I'm with my colleague Mr. Wallace on this.

It seems as though the Investment Canada Act has been a pressing issue up until the time we decided we wanted to study it as a committee, and suddenly it's not pressing anymore. I'm a little bit puzzled by that; I don't really totally understand. I mean, if we were to study it concurrently with the CRTC issue—typically we have officials lead off the first study meeting anyway—we're talking about two weeks before we would have anybody else appearing, assuming they go concurrently. It would be two weeks before we would have anybody else appearing before the committee as a witness. Certainly, two weeks is lots of time for us to get a witness here. Because we would be having several meetings on that issue, a witness could come five weeks from now. The study would still be going on. Certainly, that would give our witnesses lots of time to make their plans.

Again, I'm not in favour of the idea of concurrent meetings. I think we should be doing these things in an orderly fashion, one after the other. I think that would be the way that makes the most sense moving forward.

If we are going to have concurrent meetings anyway, and if the Investment Canada Act is a priority, then certainly we could very easily study the Investment Canada Act at the same time as we study the CRTC issue—if the Investment Canada Act is a priority for the other parties. I'll just put that forward.

Maybe I do have one question for Mr. Masse, if I can ask it.

What is the rationale for having concurrent meetings in the first place? Why would we not study one issue and then study the next issue, as we do all the time in committees? Why is there this need for concurrent meetings? I don't understand why we would want to meet on each of those issues half as much.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

It's simply called compromise. There seems to be an urgency to study two elements here. We have a problem with this committee not being able to move its agenda ahead. We're closing in on the time. In the spirit of compromise, I think we're big enough to do that.

In fact, I would add meetings on Wednesday, if we want to. I don't mind that. If we want to add some more meetings, I'm open to that as well, or we can extend the hours of our meetings. I'm open to that. To me, it's really just simply about compromise. Both of the topics are very important to me; we've been after them for a while. Once again, I really think that if we tried to rush to get witnesses for next week on the Investment Canada Act, we wouldn't have a full slate.

We're talking about individuals who are probably going to be testifying who have significant schedules. I want to make sure it's done the best way. Having been through it before, I know that's what took place. Perhaps our researchers can pull out the old reports on the Investment Canada Act over the years since we've been here. Mr. McTeague would probably remember a few of those meetings as well.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Again, to comment, we don't have to have a meeting with witnesses, other than the officials next week, if we were going to have these concurrent meetings on the CRTC and the ICA that the opposition parties seem to want. We're willing to have concurrent meetings in the interest of compromise, but if the Investment Canada Act is a priority, certainly we can hear from officials next week in the one meeting that's scheduled for the Investment Canada Act. It would be two weeks before we would have anybody else come before the committee.

Again, if it's a priority, if it's as Chris Charlton said, a debate that is long overdue in this country, then certainly that would seem to make sense: that we would move forward and have officials on, say, Tuesday next week on the Investment Canada Act, and then on the following Tuesday, two weeks from today, we would have our first set of witnesses. If the witnesses Mr. Masse wants can't come two weeks from now, then the next meeting we would be having would be four weeks from now. I'm certain they would be able to come by then.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Finish up the dialogue here. I have to go to Mr. Cardin.

Go ahead, Mr. Masse.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Of course, Mr. Chair. I'll be really brief.

The reality is that we have this very serious CRTC decision that has popped into the equation. The Investment Canada Act will be a priority and will get studied--so will the other things. But we can't ignore what the CRTC's decision has done. It has re-scoped Canada's Internet capabilities and the relationship with customers and businesses. It's quite significant.

I think we need to give the minister the proper support necessary to hopefully overturn this decision. If not, you will have net neutrality and throttling. The Internet will also become very expensive for small and medium-sized businesses and consumers. So I don't think it's inappropriate to get this week and a half devoted to the CRTC.

Once again, it's all about compromise, because this hasn't been an issue. I congratulate the members from the Bloc for raising it. Charlie Angus, from my side, has been raising it for a number of months. Once again it's about compromise, and I think we have that compromise to function as a committee.

It's not everything I want, but at the same time it's nothing I can't be willing to do.