Evidence of meeting #35 for International Trade in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was julian.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Susan Baldwin  Procedural Clerk
Paul Robertson  Director General, North America Trade Policy, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
Cindy Negus  Manager, Legislative Policy Directorate, Canada Revenue Agency

9:30 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit

That is correct.

9:30 a.m.

NDP

Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC

I'd be surprised by that.

9:30 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit

Just hold on. I'll discuss this with the clerk.

Okay, Mr. Julian, if this motion does pass, it would mean that you can't go to a vote on your motion today. Of course, you can bring it back at a future meeting, but there will be no vote on your motion today--just for clarity.

I'm calling the vote on the motion. Did you ask for a recorded vote on this, Mr. Julian?

9:30 a.m.

NDP

Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC

On all of them, yes.

9:30 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit

Okay, let's go to a recorded vote.

(Motion agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

November 2nd, 2006 / 9:30 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit

We will now then go to the next order of business, which is clause-by-clause of Bill C-24.

We're just going to change and get Susan in position here to answer any questions on the process.

Do you have a point, Ms. Guergis?

9:30 a.m.

Conservative

Helena Guergis Conservative Simcoe—Grey, ON

I actually wouldn't mind, by point of order, Mr. Chair, making a request to bundle some of the clauses, just in the interest of time and because they all actually pertain to the same thing--specifically date changes. They are clauses 10, 18, 104, 105--

9:30 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit

Could you just hold on, Ms. Guergis?

We have them. It's okay. They're being recorded.

9:30 a.m.

Conservative

Helena Guergis Conservative Simcoe—Grey, ON

They are amendments, sorry.

9:30 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit

They are amendments, yes. Just repeat them, please, Ms. Guergis.

9:30 a.m.

Conservative

Helena Guergis Conservative Simcoe—Grey, ON

Sure.

I would like to request that the government amendments be bundled for the purposes of debate. Those would be clauses 10, 18, 104, 105, 107, 108, 109, and 126. All these amendments relate to changes in the effective date of the legislation. We're proposing, of course, eight amendments to reflect the softwood lumber agreement's October 12, 2006, entry into force date.

I think these should be read together in their entirety to ensure the correct understanding of the act and its proper functioning. Of course, they are very important to Canadian softwood lumber exporters. They will ensure the correct date for application of the export charge, refunds of all the duty deposits paid, refunds of charges paid, the transition period calculation of surcharges, the making of regulations in a timely manner, and a definition of their variance.

9:30 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit

The members of the committee have heard the proposal here. If it were agreed, we would deal with them at the time the first amendment comes up. Is that agreed?

Go ahead, Mr. Julian.

9:30 a.m.

NDP

Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC

Mr. Chair, I would like to get a legislative interpretation of what that means for the clauses and amendments.

We have very extensive amendments on clause 10, for example, from Monsieur LeBlanc. We have an extensive number of amendments around clause 18; there have been serious concerns raised about that. So I would like to hear from the legislative expert we have with us today what that means in terms of the consideration of all these clauses. Ms. Guergis has moved to have eight clauses wrapped together, unless I've misunderstood, and she's just referring to dates.

9:35 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit

She is referring just to government amendments, and they're just date changes to reflect reality. The other amendments would be proceeded with in the appropriate order, Mr. Julian. The member is simply trying to deal with all the date changes together.

9:35 a.m.

Susan Baldwin Procedural Clerk

Mr. Julian is correct inasmuch as there are.... I haven't had time to look at this carefully, because this has just been moved. But if you look at the amendments to clause 10, there is a line conflict between G-1 and NDP-4. I would like to be able to go through and sort of mark all these line conflicts.

If the committee agrees, what we'd do is deal with the amendments that have line conflicts with the government amendments before we proceeded with all the other amendments and before we dealt with the proposal to group all of these for debate.

That would be the fairest method, so everybody would get a chance to propose their amendments.

9:35 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit

The line conflict would just determine which one would be debated first.

9:35 a.m.

Procedural Clerk

Susan Baldwin

No, you could only amend an amendment in one line, at one stage, once. So if we adopted Ms. Guergis' proposal without carefully looking at the line conflict situation, we could eliminate some of the other proposals on that line. I would like the committee to at least look at all the amendments to the same line before we proceed.

9:35 a.m.

Conservative

Helena Guergis Conservative Simcoe—Grey, ON

There is no line conflict with respect to the date changes.

9:35 a.m.

Conservative

Ron Cannan Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC

October 1 to October 12.

9:35 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit

We're just going to check that out.

9:35 a.m.

Conservative

Helena Guergis Conservative Simcoe—Grey, ON

That's not what I'm asking for. I'm only asking for the date change.

9:35 a.m.

Procedural Clerk

Susan Baldwin

If you just give me two seconds, I'll look.

9:35 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit

We're just going to check this out.

9:35 a.m.

Procedural Clerk

Susan Baldwin

If you'll turn to your bundle of amendments and look at NDP-4 on page 7—I'm just using this one as a first example, since I haven't had time to look at the rest of them--you'll see that Mr. Julian's motion proposes one date. Government motion G-1, on page 8, proposes a slightly different date.

It would not be fair to pre-decide, by packaging the motions, which ones the committee would like to have.

9:35 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit

Ms. Guergis, yes, I see the issue here.