Industry Committee on Feb. 18th, 2016

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I would ask for a little subamendment. Add that potential date and then ask for “and if possible, within the next following two weeks”. It would give the minister some flexibility, we would get some definition of appropriate time, and this would give some sensitivity to the minister's schedule. That's the way I would do it.

It would be a friendly amendment. It gives a time frame that I think is reasonable. If the minister can't do it even within the two weeks, I'm sure that by our suggesting a day and then suggesting that it happen within that time frame, he is likely to come back and say, “Okay, no, it's going to be in the third week.” It's a clear indication that we want him to come in front of us, and a clear indication also that we recognize the scheduling issues that the minister might have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Mr. Arya.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Number one, I don't know if a motion is required at all. I'm not sure whether every time we want to invite a minister such a motion has to be passed in this committee. Is a formal motion required?

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Or consensus.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Okay. Then we can just pass a general motion that all three ministers be invited and leave it to the chair to get in touch with the ministers and fix the appropriate dates.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Mr. Longfield.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

I think we have to do it all.

If invited, the departments would come, I would assume, if not any time, probably more conveniently than the ministers, possibly. If we're working on the ministers' schedules, we could have the departments come and continue informing us on where they're at. I'm also very much bottom up versus top down, and I think that hearing from the people on the ground is a really good first start. If we had a choice, that's where I'd want to go.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Mr. Baylis.

[Frank Baylis, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

If we're going to have a motion, my motion to Earl's point would be that we do not invite the minister until we've done our homework and met the departments. That would be my proposed amendment to your proposed amendment to the motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

That's a different motion.

Mr. Nuttall.

[Alex Nuttall, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have a few things. First of all, an amendment that would be allowed is that I would ask that we include the deputy ministers on the invitation for each of the three.

Secondly, in terms of top down and bottom up, I'm not trying to insinuate that the information on the ground is not as valuable as the information coming from the minister. However, there is a structure and there is a level of command, and I heard loud and clear from the government that things are going to change.

Well, how are they going to change? I say, please come here and tell us how they're going to change, and then we can get objective, third-party, professional advice from each of the 14 or 15 different bureaucracies. That is a very professional way to do it.

The other thing—and somebody said this—is that if we want to invite the agencies at the same time as the ministers and go around what the minister says, then that's great. At the same time, if the minister says that he isn't coming here for two and a half months, I have an issue with that.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

In the interests of time and getting something accomplished, I think everyone agrees that we want to hear from the ministers and we want to hear from the industry portfolios. Is that correct?

[Some hon. members]

Yes.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Everyone agrees.

Now, we have also made the request that we would like to see the minister at the earliest possible time. Can these two be parallel?

Can we start with the portfolios? I believe we have a lot more flexibility to ask them to come here and give us the state of the nation as they see it and also to ask them where they're going in the future. In the meantime, we can put the requests to all three ministers and ask them when their earliest available time is. If we hear that it's three months from now, we can put a motion together that it's not acceptable and ask if we can have an earlier time.

We're presuming that the ministers are not going to be available or we're presuming that the ministers are going to be available in two weeks. Neither of those is correct, because they're not fact based.

I'm not sure whether this is a new motion, an amendment to a motion, or an amendment to an amendment of a motion, but the key thing is, can these two be parallel?

We put the request in and then we'll see what happens.

[Alex Nuttall, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

A request to all of them...?

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Yes.

[Alex Nuttall, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

We'd request the ministers, the deputy ministers, and agencies to come to make presentations...?

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

No, not at the same time, but we'll put the request and then ask the minister, “When is the earliest time...?” If their response is that it's going to be two and a a half months from now, then we have an issue and we can say that's not acceptable—if that's the case.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

If I can jump in here, the ministers will come when they're available to come. The departmental agencies in our portfolio will come when we tell them to come.

We're going around here. I think we all agree that we want to have the ministers come to see us.

[An hon. member]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Let's deal with that one. Let's put that one to rest.

Mr. Masse.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

That's why I amended the motion. The worst thing you can get in a committee is a ping-pong match between the minister's schedule and the committee. It doesn't do anybody any good, so that's why I think the motion and the amendment to the motion make sense. We're not giving an ultimatum. We're suggesting that if the minister can't make it, then there's a two-week opportunity. They'll look at that, and if they can't actually make that happen, I'm sure he'll know how important it is and will come in a reasonable time frame soon after. I've seen this too many times where it becomes a ping-pong match between....

I think that's more important than just asking the minister to show up, because it's a blank slate. I think the priority is the issue. I'll stop there, with no more interventions, and let you finish your job.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

We want to be effective with our time. Again, we all agreed that we can invite our ministers, right? At the same time, it sounds like it's probably a good idea to also pick and choose some of the agencies that we may want to have come in and act as witnesses for us. They can give us a debriefing.

I hear what you're saying with the minister, top down, but I also hear that as part of our way of doing new things, we want to think outside the box. For me to listen to the head of one of the agencies come here and give us fluff...I don't think any of us want that. I think we want to know a little more as to what's holding them back and what they think their challenges are.

I think the two aren't necessarily connected, the minister's office and.... Because committees are supposed to operate independently, correct? I know from our conversations that we want to be independent, so it's nice to have the ministers here and it's nice to have their mandates here, but I think, too, that we can try to do our own research, and from there.... For instance, if we do bring in the BDC, we may find something in there that can actually speak directly to what you were referring to, and that might actually open the door to something really incredible.

Mr. Dreeshen.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Thank you.

I certainly appreciate Brian's amendment. Changing it to “as soon as possible” certainly works for me, but from my experience on committees, I've yet to see a minister dragging his feet. When they're asked to appear, they appear as quickly as possible.

The other thing is that when the minister comes, he also comes with departmental people. Usually what happens is that the minister is there for the first hour, and in the second hour you have the opportunity to grill the officials. That is then a chance for us to maybe move in a little more to those particular agencies and get some information from them.

Rather than bringing those officials from the agencies to be there, it would be better to actually have that discussion with the department heads and go from there. Then we might have a little better idea on how to move forward with that.

That is all I will say to the particular motion. As soon as you're ready, we can deal with that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Thank you.

Mr. Baylis.