Evidence of meeting #46 for International Trade in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was witnesses.
A recording is available from Parliament.
3:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
Normally the budget accommodates for travel as well as video conferences, and we try to video conference as much as we possibly can to keep the costs down. This is just a general budget.
3:40 p.m.
Conservative
3:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
Yes, but we can put any of the others into a video conference.
3:40 p.m.
Conservative
Gerald Keddy Conservative South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS
To be clear, we don't always spend all of our budget.
3:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
No, and we don't anticipate actually spending all of this budget, but nonetheless it is there.
Go ahead, Mr. Davies.
3:40 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
There is an allocation of persons by city. Winnipeg has one, Toronto five, Vancouver one, New York and Washington.... This tells me that the witnesses have been selected.
3:40 p.m.
Conservative
3:40 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Okay. It's because the official opposition has put in four or five names, and I just want to know if those names will be included.
3:40 p.m.
The Clerk
The budget was determined with the suggestions made by all three parties. When we took the names of the organizations and determined what city they were based in, that's where we got our determination.
These are not people who have been invited but names that have been suggested by the parties. That's how we develop a study budget to give us sufficient funds to cover inviting all of these people.
To respond to Mr. Cannan's point, any of the amount for witness travel can be allocated for video conferences. The reason we put in an allocation for video conference was just to indicate that there was money available for it, but we can allocate it any time—either the video conference allocation for travel, or vice versa.
3:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
It is just a general budget. It's not specific to provinces.
We have a motion on the floor. Are you ready to vote? Mr. Keddy moved it.
All in favour?
(Motion agreed to)
The motion is carried.
Go ahead, Mr. Davies.
3:40 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Thank you.
I was going to raise a bit of a point of order on this matter too, Mr. Chairman. Picking up on Mr. Easter's point, it was my expectation, based on our motion last week, that we'd have the department officials for the first meeting, and I would have expected we'd have the department officials for one meeting.
As it stands now, given the time and because of the election of the chairs, we're going to have them for less than one hour. To have 45 minutes with the department officials for a trade agreement with Panama, I would argue, is not sufficient. The ministry officials play a very important role because they have access to information that other witnesses don't have, so it is my suggestion that we have the ministry officials for one meeting.
I also understand that we're going to have voting bells at 5:15, so we have a shortened meeting at the beginning and a shortened meeting at the end, and we have put the ministry officials and two other witnesses into what is essentially 90 minutes. That is not sufficient for us to get adequate information from the ministry about this important trade deal.
Second, I'm going to pick up on the issue of there being no notice of witnesses. I found out late this morning, on the day of the meeting, who the witnesses are going to be. The clerk advised me that he had no instructions from the chair to tell us who those witnesses were going to be. Obviously the committee knows, because the witnesses are here. The witnesses knew they were coming, but the official opposition and the Liberal Party didn't know. It seems we are the only parties in the room who don't know who the witnesses are going to be until hours before the meeting.
I would say the same thing for my colleagues on the opposite side. It is most helpful, and in fact I would argue it is essential, for us as parliamentarians to know who the witnesses are going to be instead of finding out who they are as we sit here at the meeting. How can we prepare proper questions for witnesses when we don't even know who is going to appear, particularly in a short meeting?
Therefore, I am going to move that today we deal with the ministry officials only. As it stands, we won't even have them for a full meeting. They are here, so we can get as much information as we can and reschedule the other witnesses so that we have some notice and can actually prepare. That is out of respect for these witnesses and what they are about to say and so that we will have done a little research about their organizations and their perspectives.
3:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
Okay. There's a motion on the floor.
Just to let the committee know, of the two witnesses, one has flown in from Toronto and the other one is on video conference. That's just for your information, but we have a motion on the floor. Is there any discussion on the motion?
Go ahead, Mr. Keddy.
3:45 p.m.
Conservative
Gerald Keddy Conservative South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS
We're taking up the committee's time here. It's a quarter to four; we had an hour and a half that we could have been spending on the witnesses, but we're debating among ourselves. If we have a witness who has flown in from Toronto already, then I think we should try to accommodate that witness. If we need to bring departmental staff back at some other time, we can discuss that at the time. It would seem inappropriate not to hear a witness who has flown some distance to be here, even though Toronto is a fairly handy flight.
3:45 p.m.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
In support of Don's motion, Mr. Chair, I again come back to my point that I've argued with you numerous times, which is that the steering committee is not functioning. A quick call from either you or one of your staff to Don and to me would have rectified this problem that if we were going to have witnesses....
I agree with him 100%. The department is the one that has been involved in negotiations. They have the facts. We do need more time with them. That's just to say that I'm very much in support of the motion.
3:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
Fair enough.
Perhaps another consideration on the motion is that I believe one on the witness list is from the department. Mr. Castonguay is at the table. I think he was on the witness list from the NDP.
3:45 p.m.
A voice
Or from the Liberals.
3:45 p.m.
Conservative
3:45 p.m.
Conservative
Gerald Keddy Conservative South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS
The only other quick point I would make is that generally we get a witness list ahead of time. There was an oversight this time, and that's not the end of the world.
I don't think anyone is disagreeing with that part of the motion. The witness list generally comes out—
3:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
Just to clarify, I would have really been guilty if I had sent out a witness list when I was not the chair, because legally I wasn't the chair from the time the committee was disbanded until now, so that was the restriction that I'm under. It was really the clerk's call on where we're going on this.
We can keep going around and around if you want, but we're just burning up the clock.
Go ahead, Mr. Davies.
3:45 p.m.
A voice
There are witnesses.
