Evidence of meeting #44 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 44th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was fillmore.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Fillmore, as I mentioned to you earlier in our conversation, I want to make sure I'm reading this correctly. The current version of this subclause 3(1) has the Minister of Finance on the list, and if I'm interpreting your amendment G-2 correctly, the Minister of Finance is no longer part of the list.
Liberal
Andy Fillmore Liberal Halifax, NS
We add the Minister of Finance in on G-3.
I can provide a little detail. I beg the members' patience on this. It is a bit confusing.
As written, the unamended bill mentions in this clause the ministers of environment, transport, finance, natural resources and the Prairies. Missing from this list are industry and agriculture. That is what these amendments are trying to put together in a way that works well for the legislative clerk within the construct of these lines and these clauses.
The net result of G-2 and G-3 is to add the two missing ministers to the existing list of ministers. That's what we'd like to get to.
Conservative
Michael Kram Conservative Regina—Wascana, SK
Mr. Perkins asked the question I was going to ask. I'm happy with Mr. Fillmore's answer, so we'll move on.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joël Lightbound
Great.
It doesn't look like anyone else wishes to comment.
Shall G‑2 carry?
(Amendment agreed to)
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joël Lightbound
Since G‑2 was adopted, CPC‑1 cannot be moved because the previous line was amended, so there is a conflict. Everyone seems to be clear on that.
Are there any other amendments to clause 3?
I think you wanted to move G‑3, Mr. Fillmore.
Liberal
Andy Fillmore Liberal Halifax, NS
Thank you.
Here's the other half of the amendment to make sure that the list of ministers is complete.
Now we will replace lines 15 to 17 in clause 3 on page 1 with the following:
Minister of Finance and the Minister of Natural Resources, develop a framework to coordi-
Again, it ends in the middle of a word.
Taken all together, that gives us our complete list of ministers.
Liberal
Liberal
Andy Fillmore Liberal Halifax, NS
Thank you.
This is strictly to correct the omission of municipalities as one of the consultees in the process of working on this bill.
It proposes then to replace line 4 on page 2 with the following:
and with municipalities, Indigenous governing bodies, the private sector
It's exactly the same phrase that's there. We're just adding “municipalities” into the mix.
Bloc
Sébastien Lemire Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
I simply have a comment.
Obviously, the bill does not apply to Quebec, but if it did, we would oppose this amendment because it is not the federal government's job to consult with municipalities. That is a provincial responsibility.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joël Lightbound
Just a moment, Mr. Lemire. I think we have a problem with the interpretation.
Is the issue fixed now?
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
It is now, Mr. Chair.
Can we please have Mr. Lemire start over?
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Bloc
Sébastien Lemire Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
All right, Mr. Masse.
As I was saying, the bill does not apply to Quebec. It applies to the Prairies. If it did apply to Quebec, however, we would not support this amendment because dealing with municipal governments is the responsibility of the provinces, not the federal government.
Liberal
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
I would agree with my colleague. The municipalities are the creation of a provincial act and derive their powers from that. They're not a constitutional entity. As such, I think we would oppose this in general form for that reason.
Liberal
Andy Fillmore Liberal Halifax, NS
Thank you.
I won't chase this one too far. I will just point out that in the investing in Canada infrastructure plan, for example, we got a really good national infrastructure plan in part by consulting with the municipalities. Even though it is the job of the provinces to have that formal relationship, it's important, and I think incumbent on all of us when we set policies that impact all orders of government, that we consult with them, even though there may not be a formal constitutional relationship there.
I'll leave it there.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joël Lightbound
Thank you, Mr. Fillmore.
Shall G‑3.1 carry?
(Amendment agreed to on division)
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joël Lightbound
CPC‑2 is no longer on the list, so that brings us to CPC‑3, which also pertains to clause 3.
Does someone wish to move the amendment?
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I wasn't in the committee for all the hearings on this bill. I was just in on the last one. In some of my questioning of one of the witnesses in that last meeting, I was trying to ascertain that as a company that was in the mining business, they were already highly regulated and their regulator already requires a certain amount of extensive consultation when they do their work. In addition, as a mining company, they were expanding that beyond just what was required by law.
I think from a philosophical basis on our side, the idea that we would impose a duplicate consultation process on a company or an entity when other laws and other requirements, whether they're provincial regulations or national regulators, are already covering it and require them to make those.
In some instances, companies aren't regulated, so the intent of this amendment is to say that this process is okay if they aren't already covered by some other regulatory process that requires them to do this consultation anyway. It's trying to avoid the duplication of two efforts and the prolonging of costs and time to get projects passed when really it's not needed in certain circumstances.
Liberal
November 17th, 2022 / 3:55 p.m.
Liberal
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
My instinct was to say the same as Mr. Perkins, that we don't want duplication. I think we're sensitive to that. We don't want duplicative processes here. However, for clarity, with the language of subclause 3(2) the obligation to consult is not on the private sector. The obligation to consult is not on other orders of government. The obligation is on the minister. That obligation rests specifically in relation to the development of a framework pursuant to this specific legislation.
In my reading of proposed new subclause 3(2.1), effectively what we're saying, if we adopt this amendment, is this:
The consultation process provided for under subsection (2)
—i.e., that obligation of the minister pursuant to the development of this green framework for the Prairies—
is only required if such a consultation process is not already provided for under any other Act of Parliament or any Act of a province or by-law of a municipality.
It's not required. There's no obligation on a minister under any other act to do this development work.
To the extent that we want to avoid duplication in the work of a minister doing this kind of work, I would say that if there's a subsequent act of Parliament before us that would impose such an obligation, then we could deal with it at that time. We could maybe say, “Let's not do it, because we already have this green Prairies framework.”
As it stands, it doesn't make a ton of sense to me.
Liberal