Industry Committee on March 7th, 2017

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Mr. Chair, I don't need to discuss a motion because we're talking about Ms. May's amendment to the bill.

I'm asking for further information before we vote on her amendment. That's totally in order. The Liberals have indicated that their preference is regulation, which is fine. That's part of our debate that we're having in the committee. It would be more than useful and helpful to see that regulation before we take our vote. All I'm asking for is further information.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Again, we have Ms. May's motion on the floor. That's what we are dealing with. If you are suggesting that we break or we suspend the meeting for another time, that's up to you to decide if you want to put a motion through for that.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

I'm sorry, Mr. Chair. Are you talking about her motion or her amendment?

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Yes, we have a motion right now on the floor from Ms. May. That's what we're trying to deal—

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

A motion to amend...a subamendment?

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

No. Right now all we have on the motion is PV-5. If there is no further debate on PV-5—

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

I'd like to know what the motion is.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

It's PV-5.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

That's the amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Yes. That's the amendment we're talking about.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Okay. Correct.

I am unaware of any motion to make a subamendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

As Ms. May cannot propose a subamendment, I asked if somebody would like to put something forward. That's up to them.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

With all due—

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

You mentioned that we should break until Thursday. If you're proposing a motion to do that, then you should put that on the floor. Right now we're dealing with Ms. May's amendment.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

I understand that, with all due respect, Chair.

What I was saying was that I would appreciate it if one of the Liberal members over there—our parliamentary secretary's here today, and that's fine—could provide us with an indication of whether they would be willing, in an act of good faith, to put forward their proposed regulation to remedy our question here.

Ms. May's amendment is in order. There's no motion to adjourn. There's no motion for anything. There's no subamendment. We're just talking about her....

There was a discussion about what a potential amendment would look like, or what a subamendment would look like, but we haven't done that step yet. We're simply asking for information on whether or not somebody over there would be prepared to show us a regulation. That's all.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

We are still debating PV-5. The floor is open.

Mr. Masse, you have the floor next.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you.

I appreciate the interventions. I just want to be clear that Mr. Lobb makes a lot of good points, but I would not want to go in camera for any of this. I come from a municipal background, where there was very little in camera business. I think the intent is the co-operative one, to try to find a solution to this very significant problem. I appreciate the sentiment that's expressed there.

I think there are a couple of things here. I'm okay with the motion as it is. It covers off the majority there. I think there are some Conservative subamendments that could be considered, but generally speaking this actually is a good, prescribed way of approaching this. Some of the Ontario human rights definitions are in there. It provides some informational gathering, which I think is important, and a statement from Parliament.

That's critical, because if nobody over there can even explain what the regulation is, how can you be critical of this amendment? I really don't understand that logic. I don't understand the logic of, “Okay, we have a better way, and it's a regulation. By the way, we don't even know what the regulation is.” I mean, really, for an issue like diversity and all this, is that the best we can expect? Again, this is about proper processes. We're going to turn that over to the bill, if the Liberals have their way, and they have about seven years to deal with this. Hopefully we'll get some Liberals who will want to identify what exactly is in the regulation that they have. That would be helpful to hear today. It would show that they're prepared and they're willing to come to this committee with a suggestion.

If you're going to be critical about what we have here, then please, list it out. Provide a copy for all of us. It should be in the official languages. Why not? If you're coming here to rely upon something else that's not here, and you're critical of what's being presented, maybe there's a solution. We could deal with this in another meeting.

I think one of the worst things that's held us back on many of the problems we've had is that basically people are not being open enough to take them on and leaving it to others. That's often been the case. It's fine to have symbolism in things, but action is required on issues of gender and racism and ethnic discrimination. I deal with it every single day on our border, and have for the last 20 years of my life as an elected official.

These are things where you need to step forward with leadership. I would hope that on this one right here, if you have some more add to it, then please add a subamendment to it. If you have what the regulations are and it covers things off, please explain to me what those regulations are and share them with the Canadian public.

It would be surprising...because this was left open in the bill for us to be able to do that. Think about all the things that the minister has shut down for us with regard to this bill. They shut the door on so many different things, but this was left open by the minister. The minister has invited us here at the table and he's invited us in the House of Commons. If he actually has suggestions and amendments from committee members, he's willing to hear them. He wants to have them.

Is the only one being amended the one I caught him on in the House of Commons, the mere fact that it didn't have a review of the bill? In the original proposal, they needed an amendment on this bill. With so many different things involved and how important it is, they actually forgot to include a general oversight in five years. One of the fundamental things a bill requires is oversight.

If that's the case, and the minister really was sincere about including us in this and actually including suggestions, here's one. Was he was making it up and just playing us along, or was he really serious about it? If he was serious about it and this was left open for us to deal with, let's deal with it.

I'm surprised that the Liberals really haven't come here with a proposal on this. Seeing that there are three parties with this type of amendment, or similar to it, I would have expected to hear, “Hey, these guys are interested in this. Maybe we could do something about it.” But apparently not. Maybe it was just a ruse by the minister when he came and provided his testimony.

I'll leave it at that, but I certainly think there was no doubt at all. They were very clear about limiting the scope of this bill. With a majority government moving this through, I can only believe one of two things in this discussion, either the minister wanted us to have it or he made a mistake.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Thank you.

Mr. Arya.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Mr. Chair, I would like to ask Mr. Schaan how the regulations get formulated and what process is involved in that.

[Mark Schaan]

The regulation-making process follows the legislative authority of Parliament. Once an act has given regulation-making authority to the minister, the royal assent on the bill is then prescribed to justice drafters, who then work through the regulation-making process. The regulation-making process normally, then, has justice drafters draft the regulations as per the instructions. Those are then made public through the Canada Gazette part I process for public comment. Those comments are then received and incorporated. The Canada Gazette part II process happens for final publication, and then it goes through the Governor in Council process for approval as regulations.

The standard process would be that regulations can't be formally drafted in advance of the royal assent of the bill, because the minister doesn't yet have regulation-making authority.

In this particular case, the intent of prescribed information on diversity, there has been some guidance given in terms of what that would look like, notably following through on the securities commission's current guidelines with respect to form 58-101F, which sets out the gender makeup of boards and senior management; and then a further requirement of a diversity policy where the intent would be to indicate that if a corporation has adopted a written policy related to diversity other than gender, which may include the employment equity groups amongst the directors and members of senior management, to disclose that to their shareholders.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

The employment equity groups include indigenous people, visible minorities, and people with disabilities. Is that correct?

[Mark Schaan]

That's correct.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Mr. Lobb.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

With all due respect to Mr. Schaan, I hear what you're saying, and members of Parliament who have been here for a while understand the gazetting process and how long it takes, and all this and that, and the regimen that goes through that.

To be quite honest, though, it was the department and the minister who presented the changes to the act to the House of Commons. We had a vote on it, and now it's here. I'm not saying it's disingenuous, but it's not realistic to say he can't do anything or he can't think about anything until he gets the bill back from Parliament. It's obvious. We just heard from Mr. Longfield that it will be dealt with through a regulation, so obviously somebody somewhere has thought of this, crafted this, and considered what would be legally acceptable and what wouldn't be legally acceptable.

I understand Mr. Arya's question, and it's a fair question. Everybody understands the process with regulations. However, it doesn't mean that we have to vote on this amendment right now. It doesn't mean that we can't ask the minister to present his thoughts on this. We have three parliamentary secretaries here to speak on his behalf, who would be able to talk to us. That's why I said, if it's so sensitive or the government is so concerned that what they've put forward in a regulation is going to be unacceptable to Canadians, well, okay, that's probably a concern.

We could discuss this in camera if you want to have a frank discussion—not yourself, but somebody from the minister's office, the minister, deputy minister, or whomever. A parliamentary secretary would be fine.

It's just that this issue, to me, has come back time and time again with witness after witness. I'm not saying this was the only voting issue for a lot of people who felt like voting for the Liberals in the 2015 election, but this very amendment that the three parties have brought forward here, I think most members, or most Canadians who voted for the Liberals in the last election, would have figured would be 1 or 1(a) in their thoughts for every single bill they bring forward to the House of Commons.

To see the elected members opposite remain virtually silent on this issue and defer it to someone who we'll never know, to craft something that we'll never get a real opportunity to change, to me, is unacceptable. I would suspect that if this doesn't get dealt with today—and we're still talking about it—there will start to be a lot of people wanting to sit in on this committee, even if it's at 8:45 in the morning, to understand why Liberal members of Parliament were elected and now are abdicating one of the things that I think most people who voted for them thought they would deal with. A lot of people are going to want to see this thing take place live and in action. We might end up having 200 or 300 people here by our third meeting on this very amendment.

I, completely in good faith, would love to discuss this further to hear what they have to say. I'm prepared to park this bill until the minister has had time to discuss with his people around him what he's thinking about, or what they are thinking about, and hear about this further.

Thank you.