Industry Committee on Dec. 14th, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you very much, Mr. Fillmore.

First, we need consensus among the members of the committee to pass these routine motions as a package, as Mr. Fillmore has just read them.

Do we have consensus?

Mr. Généreux, you have the floor.

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

I move that we adopt the motions as a package.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

That's great.

So do we have consensus for that motion to adopt all the motions as a package?

(Motion agreed to)

I invite Ms. Lemelin‑Bellerose to introduce herself and say a few words.

[Sarah Lemelin-Bellerose, Committee Researcher]

Good afternoon.

My name is Sarah Lemelin‑Bellerose and I will be an analyst for this committee. I have been working with the committee for four years. I will also be joined by Scott McTaggart, who is participating in the meeting virtually at the moment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Ms. Lemelin‑Bellerose and Mr. McTaggart, on behalf of the committee, I would like to thank you for your work. Without the analysts, committees would find it very difficult to operate.

Thanks for all of your work. It's much appreciated. I look forward to working with you.

The floor is open for anyone who has a motion to introduce.

Go ahead, Mr. Kram.

Then, it will be Mr. Lemire's turn.

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I look forward to working with you on this committee. I understand it's your first time chairing a committee, and it's also my first time being the vice-chair of a committee, so I'm sure we'll learn this whole thing together.

I would like to provide notice of one motion, which I will now read into the record. I have also provided advance copies to the clerk, which he will be distributing now.

The motion reads:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the Committee undertake a study of: 1) how we can best protect Canada’s national security by preventing the sale of critical mineral assets to hostile foreign interests; 2) how Canada can leverage the role that the critical minerals sector will play in driving our clean energy future by positioning Canada as a reliable and sustainable supplier of green technologies, including the development and manufacture of next-generation battery technology; 3) how Canada can reduce its reliance on and vulnerability to foreign supply chains when it comes to the sourcing of critical minerals; and 4) how to protect and improve the competitiveness of Canada’s critical minerals sector.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Mr. Kram, for giving notice of that motion.

I see that I have Mr. Lemire, Mr. Erskine-Smith, Mr. Masse and then Madame Gray.

Go ahead, Mr. Lemire.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We have received a very interesting document reporting on the work of the 43rd Parliament. It rightly told us that we began five studies. We heard very eloquent witnesses talk to us about subjects that are essential for economic development, both in Quebec and Canada.

As we have those studies in draft, I would like us to be able to start the process of having them adopted.

I am not really proposing that we invite the witnesses again, as interesting as that could be. The idea behind my proposal is to come to grips with those studies and get them going again, so that, in due course, we can adopt the reports and table them in the House.

The studies dealt with the domestic manufacturing capacity for a COVID‑19 vaccine, the development and support of the aerospace industry, the economic recovery from COVID‑19, the proposed acquisition of Shaw by Rogers, and competitiveness in Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Mr. Lemire.

Mr. Erskine‑Smith, you have the floor.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Thanks, Joël, and congratulations.

I agree with Sébastien. We do want to do that with the work done by the last committee. Brian, Sébastien and I are the holdovers. In the case of reports that we had already finalized as a matter of course as a committee, it would make sense for us to bring them back online so that the government at least is obligated to respond to them, as we'd expected before the last election. That all makes sense to me.

I would say, though, that it would probably make sense, given the timeline and that this is our first committee meeting, for a number of us to throw out ideas.

I quite like the idea of studying critical minerals. There are a range of considerations there, as our Conservative colleague laid out, but it probably makes sense to kick this to our agenda subcommittee so that we can hash out a timeline. We can meet between now and Christmas, or we could meet in January—informally, even—as a starting point to go back and forth on some ideas. I think there's going to be a lot of agreement as to where we want to go. There are lots of ideas.

In the last Parliament, most of our work was unanimous as we were studying competition, studying the Rogers-Shaw deal and studying competitiveness and affordability in the wireless Internet space.

Rather than tabling a series of motions today, my suggestion would be that we kick the conversation over to the subcommittee, which will probably be more efficient for all of us. We can get going today and get the work going as a subcommittee sooner rather than later.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Mr. Erskine‑Smith.

Mr. Lemire, I think that the clerk has received your motions. There may be a little problem in terms of the language, but he will consult you about that.

I have Mr. Masse, Mrs. Gray, Mr. Fillmore and Mr. Dong on the list to speak.

Go ahead, Mr. Masse.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Similar to that point, even if we don't get the final motion today from Mr. Lemire because it needs to be worked on, if we had co-operation to do that, it would probably be helpful. I don't think it's time-pending for today, but it would be good to get that work and commentary from the government on those subjects.

This committee has a history of working fairly efficiently, so I hope we could extend that.

I have a couple of other small matters. Mr. Chair, I'm looking to you for guidance, because I have a motion here today. Are we going to go through motions, or are we going to push this to a subcommittee? I'm open to either situation.

I'll just put on notice a motion I have for the auto sector. I can read that into the record right now. It reads:

That the House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology, hold immediate hearings on the state of the Canadian auto industry and to better understand plans by the government for investment in Canada's domestic auto industry including greenfield and brownfield investments, and investments in electric vehicles and battery plants.

That's to complement a study that was unanimously adopted at the international trade committee just yesterday. It was proposed by the Liberal Party and supported by everybody else. It would be a a small snapshot of our domestic industry, given what's taking place in Washington right now.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Mr. Masse.

I understand you've just read it into the record, but would it be possible to send it to the clerk so that it can be circulated among members of the committee?

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Normally I do have the motions, but with COVID, my staff was not able to come in today. It's not that they're infected, but they have children they're taking care of under a school thing. Normally I would have that, but I can propose the motion from the floor, as I've done.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

The floor is yours, Mrs. Gray.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Since it appears that the subcommittee will be discussing the different motions, I'll be really brief without getting into an explanation. I have two notices of motion that I will quickly read into the record.

The first is:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the committee invite Daniel Therrien, Privacy Commissioner of Canada, to testify regarding the development and ongoing operation of the ArriveCAN application.

The second one would also be pursuant to Standing Order 108(2). It reads as follows:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the committee invite the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, the Minister of International Trade, Export Promotion, Small Business and Economic Development and the Minister of Rural Economic Development to appear before the committee at their earliest convenience on or before February 11, 2022, to answer questions about the Prime Minister's mandate letters to them; that the ministers appear at the meeting exclusively for the purpose of the mandate letter and no other matters; and that this meeting be televised.

We do have translated copies that we can pass on.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you very much.

I have Mr. Fillmore.

[Andy Fillmore, Liberal, Halifax, NS]

Thanks, Chair.

There are two things, but first I want to make sure we're not falling into any procedural holes here.

We are providing notices of motion today. Is that right? We're not tabling motions.

Okay. Thank you very much. I just wanted to be sure of that.

The second thing is to Mr. Masse. Your motion regarding EVs and batteries is very interesting. It's substantially similar to a motion that the Liberal Party had prepared. If I were to read it into the record to give notice, I wonder if you'd be willing to talk about combining them at the subcommittee.

I'll start with reading it in, and see how that goes. The motion reads:

That pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the committee undertake a comprehensive study on the potential for Canada to be a world leader in the production of critical minerals, particularly as it relates to the growing battery and EV ecosystem in Canada and across North America; that the committee examine how Indigenous communities can be active participants in this sector; that the committee devote a minimum of two meetings to this study and report its findings to the House.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Mr. Fillmore.

I have Mr. Dong, followed by Mr. Lemire, Mr. Erskine-Smith and Mr. Fast.

Mr. Dong, the floor is yours.

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

First of all, congratulations to you and to the vice-chairs.

I look forward to working with all of my colleagues. This looks like a very interesting committee. I'm a new member to this committee.

[Technical difficulty—Editor] collect all the ideas and proposals about different studies and put them toward the subcommittee to figure out an agenda. I will need some time to digest some of these notices. They're brilliant ideas, but they're new to me. I would like to suggest that these notices be forwarded to the subcommittee for agenda.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Mr. Dong. My understanding from the room is that there is a consensus to send notices of motion to the subcommittee, which will then discuss what the agenda of this committee should be going forward.

I have Mr. Lemire, Mr. Erskine-Smith and Mr. Fast.

Go ahead, Mr. Lemire.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As we recall, in the last Parliament, there was a proposal to split the committee in two. Science and research now come under a separate committee.Consequently, when I read our committee's mandate, I realize that an update may be needed, because some responsibilities, specifically the one dealing with scientific research and development issues, are still included.

It is good to be inclusive, but, at the same time, in my opinion, a key word is missing in our description. The word is innovation, and everything involved with it, which is part of what should inform the spirit of our committees. So I would invite you to think about the mandate that we would like for our committee so that we can send it on to the authorities in Parliament for approval. One day, we may even be able to change the name of our committee to include industry, technology and innovation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

That seems to be very reasonable and perfectly legitimate proposal, Mr. Lemire.

However, the clerk informs me that it is impossible to change the name or the mandate of our committee. The House can do so, but not the committee itself.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

I kind of thought that would be the case. That's why I formulated it as I did, so that we can think about the name and the wording, and communicate our preference to the House. Certainly, the House will decide but it can come from us first.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you.

Mr. Erskine‑Smith, you have the floor.