Evidence of meeting #132 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was arr.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Liberal
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
No, we're voting on whether we should add “subcommittee” to this as an amendment, not send it to the subcommittee.
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
I propose to add “or a subcommittee”. It gives us flexibility if we want it. The argument, then, is that if we do not have time as the main committee, a subcommittee would be the natural progression. That gives us plenty of flexibility.
Liberal
The Clerk of the Committee Mr. Michel Marcotte
It would read, “That the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology, or a subcommittee, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) undertake a study....”
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy
We can't discuss the main motion until we put the amendment away.
(Amendment agreed to: yeas 8; nays 1)
The amendment has passed. Now we can debate the whole motion.
Celina had something she wanted to throw in.
Whitby, Lib.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair.
The main motion and the amendment do have merit and are reasonable and important. Of course we know about the flooding in New Brunswick, the wildfires in B.C. and the tornadoes in the national capital region. We've seen on the news, as was explained, that people were impacted, and our hearts certainly go out to those impacted. We've heard stories from our colleagues. We've seen what's happened, both the tragedy and the triumph of the human spirit, neighbours helping each other and Canadians at their best.
I think we should take a bit of caution with this particular motion in this committee, for a couple of reasons. The first is about the assessment of the telecommunications infrastructure and the tools that are available to our first responders. How are they integrated? We need to know that. We know that the climate is getting wetter, wilder and warmer, and we should proceed with caution in order to be able to build back better.
There are a couple of things that I just want to make sure we clearly understand with this particular motion.
Number one, I think it needs to be strengthened by communication with other departments, but in particular with Public Safety.
Second is the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030. Public Safety Canada is the lead federal department for the domestic implementation of the Sendai framework. Number one, it focuses more on local actions than in the past. Number two, it has a clear definition of risk, which is inclusive of all natural, man-made and technological risk but excludes conflict-related emergencies. Number three, it focuses on preventing new risk as much as reducing existing risks. That falls under Public Safety.
In my opinion, this particular motion should be strengthened by communication but also should fall under Public Safety.
As meritorious as this motion is, it is my recommendation that this committee not move forward with this motion.
Michael Chong Wellington—Halton Hills, CPC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I recommend that we support the motion. I am going to be voting for it.
The industry committee has always had purview over telecommunications policy, in particular CRTC. This is not just an isolated incident with the recent tornadoes that came through Ottawa when the telecommunications networks, particularly the cellphone networks, went down. It was also an issue last May. Our nationwide emergency public alert system, which is to operate over mobile networks, failed. That was a nationwide test, I think you'll remember, last May. It failed in Quebec, and it partially failed in Ontario. I think this is something the committee should take a look at.
I am concerned about committees not doing their job in looking at these very serious matters. We have a Congress to the south of us that takes a look at these issues. We always seem to play follow-up and catch-up to that oversight function.
There was a major near disaster with Air Canada, as reported by the National Transportation Safety Board in the United States, where they said that an Air Canada jet came within mere feet of crashing at San Francisco International, almost crashing into a number of airliners and almost causing a thousand deaths. I'd like to hope that our parliamentary institutions are robust enough to take a look at that and not just defer to other governmental institutions.
It's the same with this. This is a question of emergency response. It's not a partisan issue. I think we should hear from officials from the CRTC about why the national alert system failed over mobile networks last May, what they're doing to address this, and what gaps there were in our telecommunications networks more recently here in Ottawa. This is our job, as a Parliament. If we can't do it, then it really speaks to a weakening of our parliamentary institution.
I am going to support it. I think it's important that we take a look at it. With the amendment that passed, it's not going to delay the study because we'll have plenty of time to do things in parallel.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
Thank you.
I appreciate the motion being brought forth. There are a couple of points I want to make that are important. One is specific to the motion, and the second has to do with how this committee operates in the future.
The first is related to the motion. I think some good points have been made about public safety, but the reality is that at the end of the day, the CRTC is the actual authority for this, for the mechanics behind how we lay out things. In fact, what we need to do is look at the decision-making process in terms of how spectrum auction has been sold off, the terms and conditions, and what's physically available and capable out there in the market that's been created. That's really under the CRTC entirely.
Second, we have another round of auction coming up, and we need to find out what the gaps are in terms of public policy. I think the motion in itself is important because it kind of gives us a road map of what we currently have out there. That's not with fault or blame. It's whatever has been done out there. This is the footprint we have and the strengths and weaknesses of the footprint.
Most importantly, it allows municipalities and first responders to have an idea of what's predictable out there. I would argue as well that some clarity and public information are necessary, because even our first responders rely on other technical devices, but at the same time they have their own personal devices during times of emergency when it's difficult to understand what works and what doesn't work. They often have to work through these crises and have the same frustrations as ordinary consumers do about them.
There are several fronts to that. If we don't do that, in connection with the launching of the new public spectrum, we can't even lay out those terms and conditions, so I think the timing is important for that.
The second part I would speak to is whether this committee wants to continue to operate in the way it traditionally has. I think it's a reasonable request, regarding something that falls within our jurisdictional footprint, to spend a couple of meetings on something like this. I think the motion has been crafted in such a way that it actually wouldn't require an onerous process. It's been done fairly. If we are basically not going to entertain new motions being brought forth—and this isn't my motion—this will be going on, on a regular basis, because it's going to be clear that the government is only interested in shutting down anything that they don't want to even operate on or hear about or be part of.
If that's the road we're going to go down, then that's fine. We're working co-operatively on a science initiative. At the same time, the minister went into my riding and met with the local Liberal riding association on science in my riding. I understand that's happening on the outside of things, but here in our committee, we have a chance to continue the good work we've been doing.
If we're going to resort to this, so that when a reasonable request comes forth.... We had one the other week, and there's another one this time. If that's the road we're going to go down, then that's fine, but don't for a minute think that these are isolated, one-off working relationship issues that we can do. This is really about how our committee is going to function in its entirety.
I support it. I'm glad that members sought it, because if we can strike even a subcommittee, if there's a problem with that, to get at least some public awareness out there, and have some people come in and present some of the things that happened.... There's lots of misinformation about how things didn't work and what did work. I think that has value in itself. To be quite frank, the Conservatives were in power the previous time, and then the Liberals and so forth. It's not even about calling who.... It's what's out there right now. Unfortunately, we don't own a record for it.
The thing is—and Michael is correct—that we are abdicating our responsibility as a committee. You can also see this with our current study in how we are probably not necessarily giving it some of the respect that's necessary for Canadians with regard to calling forth witnesses and testimony here for Canadians. This is a way of elevating that to be more responsible, which other countries are doing.
All we're asking for here is a good accounting of the process for the record so we understand what's happening, what's taking place, and give recognition to what is going on. That's not political. It's nobody's fault for any of that stuff, but we would get an idea of where we're at.
Last, if we do have concerns about public safety, part of our responsibility can be to make those recommendations to the public safety committee and so forth so we can make it a little more wholesome if we want.
We do our little part that's necessary for our first responders.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy
Thank you.
Before we move to Mr. Badawey, I just want to remind you that I appreciate the relationship we all have here. We have been open to and actually adopted motions from the NDP and from the Conservatives. I hope we don't go in the direction of trying to get each other's hackles up. We're a committee, so we all have to decide on where we want to go.
I'm looking at the clock. Is there unanimous support to continue the debate?
Niagara Centre, Lib.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, Dane, it's a great motion. There's no question that I support the intent of the motion. However, more important is the process to get where you want to go. From my former life, I have a great deal of experience with respect to emergency preparedness, both at the provincial level—which by the way is the delegated authority, not the federal level—as well as the regional and municipal levels. We have dealt on many occasions with more drastic situations, like that which happened here in Ottawa, and less.
One of the biggest frustrations I felt as part of the lead on the emergency preparedness team—along with the chiefs of police, fire and EMS—was the lack of discipline and planning within a process. That is why recent provincial governments, at least in Ontario, have made it a priority to put disciplined emergency preparedness plans in place, with the proper delegated authorities to then lead when these situations happen. I wanted to preface my comments by saying that.
For the most part, it goes to Brian's latter comments with respect to this committee's role. I forget what word he used exactly, but he's right. It is a small role. The bigger role belongs to public safety.
If anything, I would suggest that the motion state that we urge the public safety committee to do this, and that we want to be a part of it. Telecommunications, quite frankly, is a small part of the overall bigger picture when it comes to emergency preparedness. In my experience, in situations like this, telecommunications are completely wiped out; therefore, you have to find a contingency to those telecommunications.
Niagara Centre, Lib.
If I could finish my comments, Mr. Masse.... I'll decide whether it's an amendment or not.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
I just asked because you mentioned what it would be, so I was just asking for clarification.
That's for the chair, I suppose.
Niagara Centre, Lib.
Please allow me to finish. I'm not sure who the chairman is here.
Niagara Centre, Lib.
Please let me finish my comments, and then I'll determine whether I want to make it a friendly amendment or not. Thank you.
What I would suggest that the committee move forward with is that the delegated authority.... Being a rookie MP, I'm just assuming that the delegated authority for public safety is Public Safety. There are other committees as well; it's not just going to be this committee. I sit on TRAN. It's going to have infrastructure implications. It's going to have transportation implications. It's going to have community implications. It's going to have telecommunications implications, and the list goes on. The steward to all that should be Public Safety. They would then delegate out to you and to infrastructure, transport, health care and everybody else. That's how you get a wholesome blueprint.
By the way, I would even include the provinces and municipalities. That is how you get a blueprint. Let's not bite off more than we can chew. Let's keep it disciplined in terms of who the delegated authority is, and work from there. Therefore, everybody is involved. That way, the committee doesn't have to go back in three or four weeks, after you've spent some time on the study, and say, you know what, it's now time to get X, Y and Z involved. We should keep the horse before the cart here. Let the delegated authority do that, and of course call upon this committee to give your two cents' worth when it comes to telecommunications.
Mr. Chairman, I'll take your lead on that. If you want that as an amendment, I would make that a friendly amendment to take this great intent and suggest, urge, encourage—whatever word you want to use—Public Safety to take on this role and be the delegated authority to move forward in this direction. It could then call upon the different standing committees to contribute what they would otherwise contribute within their own disciplines.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy
Thank you.
If I understand correctly, you want to put that through as an amendment.
In discussion with the clerk, to go down the road that you've just recommended would be a substantial change to the motion, so it really wouldn't be an amendment to the motion. However, what you're saying is on the table, so we would have to change the whole motion, because it would be a substantial change to the motion itself.