International Trade Committee on Nov. 1st, 2010

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[An hon. member]

On division.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Shall I report the bill to the House?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[An hon. member]

On division.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Thank you, folks.

We have a comment from the Liberal critic.

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I just want to thank the member from the New Democratic Party for acknowledging that in certain circumstances it is in fact easier to move through a large portion of something rather quickly. I want to express my appreciation; when that was an opportune thing to do, you did so today. Much appreciated.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Mr. Cannis.

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Mr. Chairman, I don't want our good friend, Mr. Julian, to think we're voting in the pattern that we are because we have anything personal against him. On the contrary, we just want to make sure all these trade deals have some consistency.

[An hon. member]

Speak for yourself.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Thank you very much, Mr. Cannis.

Do we have anything else pressing?

We have passed out these budgets. I think it's going to take too long today, and we've had such a grand day.

I'll hear Mr. Julian, but other than that, we'll deal with the budgets for Europe and any possible changes, including Brussels.

Now, maybe I could just suggest that we kind of went at this ad hoc, and we may be opening up a can of worms in terms of who goes where--who's on committee one, who's on committee two. If you have a strong preference for one or the other, might I ask that you contact my office, send me an e-mail, anything, and just say where you'd like to go. If you're happy with the one you're on, or if you'd like to change, we'll see if we can work something out so that everybody's happy.

It looks like we're going to do two trips. Those two trips are going to be half the committee going to London-Brussels-Rome, and the other half will go London-Strasbourg-Budapest. Take your pick and let me know. Hopefully, we'll have six on each side who are happy with that disposition. We need to have that for Wednesday.

That's all for that topic.

I'll hear from Mr. Julian. It's been a good day, Mr. Julian.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

It has been, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to come back on that topic. Has the Liaison Committee approved both trips, as per this budget and this itinerary?

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

No.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

No? Then I'll give you my preference. I'd like to continue to go to Strasbourg, but I strongly recommend that the Strasbourg trip go to Brussels, not to Budapest, if we still have the opportunity to change it. If that is not possible, then I'll continue with the London-Strasbourg-Budapest group.

I think the whole committee should be together in Strasbourg, and I think at least half of us should go to Brussels.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Well, what the heck, we have some time now. Do you want to talk about that?

Mr. Julian is suggesting that we drop Budapest and have half the group go back to Brussels...or drop Rome, presumably--one or the other.

They've all been approved. All the budgets have been approved today, until we make these changes. We haven't approved going back to Brussels.

The two trips that have been approved now are as I described earlier: London-Strasbourg-Budapest and London-Strasbourg-Rome--half and half.

I don't know if we even need to bother going in camera at this point.

Go ahead, Mr. Trost.

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

I don't have any particularly strong feelings about where to travel; I just thought one of the reasons we were going to do a smaller country was to get both the newer east European perspective and to see what people outside the loop of the inner circle are thinking. I do know that parliamentarians outside of Brussels-Strasbourg may have very different thoughts than the ones at the seat of the European Union.

That's why I was open, but I don't have particularly strong, strong feelings on it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Well, I think that was the point, to try to get a little more variety. We would get the view of the parliamentarians, and then we'd get to talk to some people outside of those areas as well. That's why we decided on one country in western Europe, and that would have been Italy, and one in eastern Europe, and that would have been Hungary--to get that variety. Another aspect was going to the U.K. and visiting London.

There was method to the madness, but I also see a benefit of going to Brussels to meet with officials, even though the members of the parliament will be in Strasbourg.

My sense is that we will have at least one, if not two meetings, when we get back, to share the views among the other committee members. Hopefully it would be as if we've all been to those places.

Mr. Allison, do you have a comment?

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West—Glanbrook, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

To rephrase what you were saying, the suggestion that one of the groups goes to Brussels was because there are other groups and organizations that you feel we should be talking to there.

I think that was Mr. Keddy's question originally; I don't know if that was exactly it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Well, essentially the core bureaucracy of the EU is in Brussels all year round. The parliament moves for about six weeks, twice a year, to Strasbourg. That's a condition of it. The parliament happens to be meeting in Strasbourg at the time of our trip, so that's why we decided to go there.

We had originally spoken about the contact being not unlike our visit to Washington. We had some specific issues to discuss, and it made more sense to talk to elected people and our parliamentary colleagues in the other country, as opposed to just talking to bureaucrats. Not that there is anything wrong with talking to bureaucrats, being that we're not in camera.

Does anyone else have any comments?

Mr. Silva.

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

I would say, Mr. Chair, that if the parliament is meeting in Strasbourg, I would actually get rid of Brussels. I've been to the European parliament on many occasions. When the parliament is meeting, the senior bureaucrats--pretty much all of them--move their staff to Strasbourg. They're not in Brussels. You're going to get junior people in Brussels, not senior people, during the time of the parliamentary meetings.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

That certainly has been my experience as well over the years. But then Mr. Julian raised this. I raised it with the department, and they seemed to be quite interested in us going to Brussels.

Mr. Julian, maybe you could elaborate on why you think we should go to Brussels.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

If what we're going to be doing is a consultation with parliamentarians, civil society organizations, and the folks in the European Commission who are involved in the trade negotiations, that's where everybody is. Between Strasbourg and Brussels we'll hit pretty well everybody we need to hit. I'm not inclined to think the same about Budapest as a place where we're going to have a rich--

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

I don't want to get confused. The question here is Strasbourg or Brussels, or just go to.... The other ones aren't going to change. That's already been locked in, and we've all given good reasons for that being the case.

You wanted to go to Brussels instead of to Budapest. That isn't one of the considerations. It's either half the group goes to Brussels or not. At this point, we're so far along in the planning for the other places. We've already got the bureaucrats planning the trip to Rome and Budapest as well as Strasbourg and London. So it would mean adding only one. And it's very easy to add Brussels, because, as you say, all these commissions are there.

I take it your interest is in meeting with the civil society there. Was that your point?

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Parliamentarians and civil society--

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

The parliamentarians will all be in Strasbourg. That was my point. And pretty much all the senior bureaucrats who you want to meet will be in Strasbourg too. There are some offices in Brussels that we will be in on an ongoing basis, but....

Ms. Findlay.