Industry Committee on March 24th, 2011

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

There are a couple of things. If we want to go to a vote on my amendment, I'm fine to go to a vote on my amendment, but I want to clearly indicate that we will be debating the main motion. It's a completely unacceptable motion. We're willing to defer that question. It was a Liberal choice to bring it up in this meeting, and when you introduce something new completely out of the blue and then completely abandon all principle as it relates to the normal practices of the committee, I think it would be the expectation of any reasonable person looking in on this that we would have a debate over that. I think any reasonable person would agree.

Let's call the question. If we want to call the question on my amendment, let's call the question on my amendment, and we'll get back to debating the main motion, absolutely.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Okay.

Go ahead, Monsieur Généreux.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

I am relatively new to this, but I thought I understood some things during the questions.

We need to go back a bit and remember why we are here today and why we are debating this bill. The NDP had been very aggressive and claimed that the potash situation for Canada was appalling. So this wasn't relevant.

The parties had agreed to have a debate and a full analysis with witnesses. The witnesses were invited and are here.

I find it most unfortunate that the motion from the Liberal party means that people are in the room waiting for us. This is a lack of courtesy. Given the circumstances, which may find us in an election in 24, 48 or 72 hours, it's still fairly incredible.

The reasons why everyone agreed to study this issue are still the same and are still on the table. I don't believe we've exhausted the issue.

Like the NDP, the Bloc Québécois had reasons to believe… If I am not mistaken, they presented this plan to study the issue in depth.

We did not go in depth, far from it. I think that we only scratched the surface. Personally, I think that we should proceed as quickly as possible and listen to the witnesses.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you very much, Mr. Généreux.

There's no one else on the speaker's list, so I'll call the question.

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

I'd like a recorded vote, please.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

This is on the amendment to the main motion.

[The Clerk]

Mr. Braid.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Is this is the amendment with Mr. Rota's suggestion?

[The Clerk]

No, this is Mr. Lake's amendment.

(Amendment negatived--[See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

On the main motion, we have Mr. Lake.

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

Can you clarify for me when we received the motion, or when it was put forward?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

The motion was received on Tuesday and distributed Tuesday evening to all the members.

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

When was this meeting scheduled to study the Investment Canada Act and hear from these witnesses?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

It was a number of weeks ago.

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

So we had something planned, and then Mr. Rota decided to put forward this motion. We have witnesses here ready to present to us on the Investment Canada Act, which we all agree is very important, but Mr. Rota decided a couple of days ago to introduce a motion to do something completely unprecedented.

I just want to go through this to clarify.

Then the chair overruled that with the impartial advice from the clerk. The chair ruled it out of order. Then the opposition parties basically overruled the chair's decision and the clerk's advice.

So here we are. We have a decision to make on our side. How do we address this?

We've heard from some witnesses, but we haven't even had the chance to talk to officials about the substance of the bill. One question I have concerns the census from 1971, which Madam Bennett wants to go back to. It talks about the head of the household having to be a man. I wanted to talk about the impact of the wording of her language, because it sounds as though she wants to go back to the substance of the 1971 census. That would be a critical question for us to be clear on.

There was another question about the percentage of Canadians the census would go out to. It seemed to leave it open to going to anywhere from zero to 100%. One would assume that if the long-form census were to go to 100% of Canadians, it would be pretty darned expensive compared with what it is now.

I wanted to ask questions about these kinds of things of the officials, and maybe even of other witnesses who would come before the committee, but we don't have the opportunity, because for the first time in history—at least in my experience on committees—we wouldn't actually go clause by clause on a bill.

The Liberals expect that we will just vote on this right now with no debate. That's the expectation. The opposition parties have joined forces to ask that we pass this bill without actually having the proper clause-by-clause review that we have every single time, so we're forced to have this debate right now while witnesses who came to discuss something that was planned weeks ago and have prepared for it sit in the back of the room. This is the biggest example of Parliament not functioning that I can imagine.

[An hon. member]

Hear, hear!

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

It doesn't need to be this way.

The motion is pointless. The actual result of this is largely pointless, other than that it completely breaks every principle of the way the committee process is supposed to function as it relates to bills and to our responsibility to the people who elect us to properly study legislation.

I completely don't understand this. We're stuck here, because on our side, or from my standpoint, the only way I can stop this is to discuss it. The only way we can stop it is to discuss it.

We'd like to stop right now. We'd like to hear from the witnesses who have come before the committee to talk about the Investment Canada Act, but we can't, because it would be completely irresponsible of me, as a person elected to represent my constituents, to allow a bill to pass for political purposes without actually having properly inspected it.

It's a conundrum for me. I don't know how to respond to this. Quite honestly, I'm looking for some indication from one member of the combined opposition—just one member—who says that the Investment Canada Act is important, that these witnesses are important to hear, and that there is a willingness to defer this in the interest of hearing from those witnesses. However, I can't allow a piece of legislation to pass through the committee that I'm a member of, that I'm responsible for, without our actually properly looking at it. That's completely undemocratic; it's completely opposed to the systems we have set up in over 140 years in this Parliament.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Mr. Lake.

Go ahead, Mr. Rota.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I listened to the parliamentary secretary speaking about the importance of what we're studying right now. The Investment Canada Act is something I brought up on March 9, 2010, and it really was put on the back burner until the minister decided that they could get some political mileage out of it. All of a sudden it's important and we have to rush it through. Maybe the Conservatives feel as though they can get something through this committee and make it look as if they've actually done something.

Now here we are, Mr. Chair. You received this motion on Tuesday. Is that correct?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

That's correct. It was submitted by the clerk on Tuesday.

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

Right. I consulted with some of the members on the opposition side, and they thought it was a good motion. I thought if there was anything wrong with it, surely the chair would have told me about it. I didn't see anything wrong, and suddenly there's a hang-up. We had to challenge the chair. Now we have to wait on the minister before we can study it. Executive power has gone crazy here. They control everything.

What's important in this committee is the will of the committee, and the will of the committee is to send this to the House. To me, that would take precedence over everything, even what the minister is sending to the parliamentary secretary over his BlackBerry. I don't know whether he's tweeting it or sending it directly, but it's probably sent directly, because it's private.

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

Mr. Chair, on a point of order, I'm not sure what the member's getting at here, but if he has some knowledge of what's on my BlackBerry or if he's getting a feed from my BlackBerry, then I would say that I have a point of privilege, because the honourable member apparently knows what's on my BlackBerry.

I'm confused. What's he getting at?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Mr. Lake, I can assure you that it's not a point of order, and if it's a point of privilege, I have learned by being instructed by the very qualified clerks that it's something you have to take up with the Speaker in the chamber. If your privilege has been breached, then I'm certain that Mr. Rota will be duly dealt with.

Mr. Rota, right now you have the floor.

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

I want to assure you, Mr. Chair, that I am not breaching Mr. Lake's.... I just made that assumption because of the way he was tapping away at his BlackBerry. It may not be his BlackBberry. It might be ministerial staff feeding him the information. I'm just speculating. I'll take that back, and we won't go there.

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

On a point of order, I'll just clarify. What I'm seeing on Twitter on my BlackBerry right now is a headline from the National Post: "Liberals, NDP must be honest about coalition." I'm willing to print this off and table it before the committee if the honourable member wants to see it.