International Trade Committee on Feb. 4th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

We might be able to pull that off. I don't think anybody here is trying to delay anything.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Chair, I concur with you in regard to hearing from the officials, and then digesting everything they have to say and asking if they can also bring forward a list of major stakeholders, for all of us to think about those stakeholders over that next day, before we come back on Thursday and start discussing our way forward.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

It might be quick. I've seen things done fast. We could have an agreement in the last five minutes of the meeting, when we might say it looks as if we have to do TPP and we could bring in some witnesses on Thursday, just from Ottawa. We're in charge of our own destiny. We're just getting going. We might just say, “Look, we have to get to the TPP. Let's hit the ground running on Thursday. Let's get some witnesses from Ottawa. ” Then maybe we'd be good to go. I'd just like to keep that flexibility.

Does everybody have a feel for that?

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

I just have a question. Will there be a call for witnesses and then a deadline for that call, so that we will be able to get those folks in, even if it is on short notice? Would we receive some type of notice that you're calling for witnesses?

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

We're going to be flexible. Sometimes a committee can hit the ground running fast.

Let's say we all agree when we leave the room on Tuesday that we're going to start with the TPP on Thursday. Of course, that would be difficult. You might have witnesses from the Yukon or British Columbia who want to come in here. They might not go to that first meeting.

We have flexibility. If we do the TPP, there are going to be quite a few meetings.

Sometimes you might put a name forward, and it might not happen at that first meeting. There's all kinds of flexibility. Sometimes, if you're going to go quickly, you have to deal with the ones close to Ottawa and then work the others in. Also, there's dealing with translation and so forth—and travel. Sometimes when you ask somebody to come here, you have to pay their way. There's a whole procedure for that.

Go ahead.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Chair, I was just wondering, looking at what we did historically. We took the breakdown of the Parliament, and that's how we allocated the number of witnesses per party. If you look at the breakdown, 56% of the seats are held by the Liberals, so half or 56% of the witnesses would be Liberal, in theory, 30% would be Conservative, and then 13% would be NDP. Is that the rule you're going to follow, also?

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

That's kind of where I'm going to go, but again, I'll be very flexible. I've been at this a long time. Sometimes the witnesses from the NDP or the Liberals were the same. We're trying to have a mix here. We have to base it on the percentage of Parliament, technically, but....

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

I guess what I'm saying is that, when you look at those numbers, I don't expect you to do that every meeting. I expect you to do that, maybe, for the report as a whole. There may be times when you just can't get a Conservative witness or a Liberal witness, so you may have two Conservative or two NDP witnesses. It's just the way that works out because of travel and everything else. I want to make sure you have the liberty, the freedom to do that, that you don't feel bound that you have to have....

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

The other thing I find is that it works well if, for instance, one meeting on TPP is all about agriculture. You have everybody talking about agriculture. Or maybe it's all unions. Maybe it's all the manufacturers. Sometimes there are broad strokes.

I find it's better to have clusters, if you can, because then you get the whole feel of it. If they're all farmers, all whomever, I think it's a way to get a good feel for what the stakeholders really believe and want.

Yes, we're going to try. We'll look at them, but I think we're looking at them overall so that everybody can get heard, and we can get a sense, and the percentage is there. As you know, the committee's not about getting the voices of the Liberals or Conservatives; it's getting the voices of Canadians. I know that sounds a little cliché, but it's getting everybody's voice, right?

It will go by that rule a bit, but I'm going to try to get people who are in the same group, and then you can get that questioning in. I'll just use an example. You can have the grain growers of wherever and the farmers' union, and they could be totally different, but it's kind of nice to have them at the table at the same time. I was on the agriculture committee, and I found that sometimes it's good to have those types of groups together and you can flush it out a little more.

Go ahead, then.

[Karen Ludwig, Liberal, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Chair, you're presenting the concept of clusters. Are the witnesses literally in the same room at the same time?

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Yes. Sometimes you can have two slates of witnesses. You could have two rounds or one round.

I'll use an example. If we were on the agriculture committee, the first round could be all grain growers or something, and then it could be all supply management. I like that, because it gives the flavour of the meeting, and when you're preparing, it's good.

[Karen Ludwig, Liberal, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Sure. It definitely puts it in context. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Mr. Dhaliwal.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We are talking about giving 15 minutes at the end of the first meeting after we come back, and I don't think that's going to be enough. The way I see it, we don't have a steering committee now, and in the past we had a steering committee where we unofficially sat together as a team from all parties and then we'd decide things, and then we'd bring that forward to the committee. Those 15 minutes, I think, are not enough.

On the other hand, if we bring in the officials, there are a lot of issues on the table, and it will take them some time to brief us. For Tuesday, let's give that meeting totally to the officials. On Thursday, we'll come back in camera and set up this agenda. The way we see it right now, we are just beating around the bush. We're not achieving anything right now. On Thursday, we'll go one item at a time in camera, and then we'll set up....

On this side, I see agreement on the issue that we want to study and also on bringing in witnesses. I have never before seen this many people.... We're all talking about it. This committee is working outside the party lines, which is good for Canadians. A meeting might all be to do with people from the unions that have come forward, and if we say we can only allocate a certain percentage of the time to those witnesses, I don't think it's going to work.

Let me have Tuesday and let me get the briefing from the staff. Then we'll come back on Thursday and set up the first order for the agenda and what we are going to study. The consensus seems to be the TPP, so let me get going on the TPP instead of just going around all of what we can do. These things can be done outside the meeting time between some of the members.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Okay. I guess what we have here is a little disagreement on our first meeting. We have agreement for three-quarters of the meeting, but not in the last part. Are there any more comments on the first meeting?

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

I have two quick comments to make.

I'm going to start first with your comments about witnesses. I'm glad that you're going to show some discretion on witnesses, because you'll find that the Conservatives will always put forward the best witnesses. I'm glad that you'll give some extra consideration to that.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

I hope everyone detected a sense of humour with that comment.

Second of all, I totally understand what MP Dhaliwal is saying. However, in the public accounts committee that the opposition chaired, here's what I found helpful. We did not have a subcommittee. What would often happen, be it from the government side, was that we would hear some of the concerns and some of the ideas of the opposition. We'd then go around and talk to someone like Mr. Hoback or MP Ramsey—both seem very approachable—and say, “Hey, this is what we're thinking for that last little bit.”

It's pretty much common sense. You've already said that it sounds like it's going to be the TPP, so why don't we just let that process happen and see where that 15 minutes goes? If there's a consultation privately outside of the meeting, or a discussion with the whole committee present, to decide what should happen on Thursday, if it can be done in five minutes, let's let it be. If we talk out the clock, well, then I guess we'll just be back on Thursday talking more.

That's just an idea.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

My understanding is that we're going to have the officials here for the full two hours. I'll just go down the list, and if there are no more questions, then we'll break off into future business. If people have questions for the officials right for the full two hours, so be it. Is that the way everybody understands it? Would anyone like to make a motion?

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

Mr. Chair, on Thursday we agreed we are going to study the TPP. I would say that on Tuesday we should bring the officials in to brief us, and on Thursday this committee should start working on TPP.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

I don't understand. You want to bring in witnesses already on Thursday for the TPP? We said that on Tuesday we will bring in the officials. We'll have an opportunity to digest everything that the officials say. We'll talk about all the various stakeholders who are involved and touched by the TPP and then on Thursday we'll map how we're going to move forward. That's how I was thinking.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

I'm using a hypothetical situation. Let's assume that the officials come in here and they say we have to deal with something right away. I don't know what it is. Or maybe somebody is coming to town and we have to deal with it right away on Thursday. I don't know. I'm saying I don't know if you can have this set in stone here until you hear from the officials. That's my sense of it.

Do you have any comments, Mr. Hoback?

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Chair, I like what Mr. Dhaliwal is doing. Because Thursday is so close to Tuesday, even if something urgent came up on Tuesday, you wouldn't have enough time to get the witnesses in for that Thursday. This way you have a week and a half to get witnesses lined up for the first TPP meeting on the Thursday. We have our briefing on the Tuesday.

We can still decide priorities after Thursday's meeting, so the next Tuesday we can sit down and say okay let's take the first half hour, or the last half hour and then look at what other things you want to talk about. If we travel, for example—and I know you talked about going to the U.S.—we may still want to talk about softwood lumber down in the U.S., and we may want to talk about other issues. If we were going to travel down there, TPP would be part of the conversations, and maybe we'd have some other conversations about other things we want to talk about.

But that allows the clerks to at least organize for that Thursday meeting. Then we'll have a very productive Thursday meeting and then, after that meeting on Thursday if there's time or on the Tuesday morning of the following week if there's not, we can coordinate a little bit more. Then if the officials say something is absolutely a must, they will have a week from Tuesday to Tuesday. There's nothing saying we have to have only one study on the go. We can actually have one, two, or maybe three studies on the go.

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

I feel there's the potential that it will take more than one meeting for us to be briefed on the TPP. This is a massive agreement of 6,000 pages. I appreciate the spirit of everyone wanting to get down to work and have witnesses, but we could potentially need more information from those who are coming to brief us. If we can determine that at the end of that meeting as opposed to saying we're going to call witnesses on Thursday, I think that would be more prudent.

We have an incredible amount of work to do, and I understand there's some pressure on us, but I'd also like to have the space if we need more information after that first meeting so that we'd be able to get it at that point before we proceed with witnesses.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

I know it was brought up that to get the most out of our witnesses we would want to bring them in from particular sectors or organized labour or businesses or from those who are impacted. If we're going to do that, I think we need to plan that, so to jump right in on Thursday and start calling in whatever witnesses are around town, I don't think would be wise in terms of how we want to plan out our work to do our due diligence on the TPP. Ms. Ramsey is right; we don't know if we want to have the officials in for just a day. We may need them for longer.