Evidence of meeting #4 for International Trade in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was agreement.
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1:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
We'll call the meeting back to order.
Ms. Bendayan has the floor, because she hadn't finished speaking when we interrupted her to have Mr. Tremblay and Mr. Blaikie have their time with the witnesses.
1:35 p.m.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
Can I have my motion? It doesn't change who has the floor. You have a process you have to follow.
1:35 p.m.
Conservative
1:35 p.m.
Liberal
1:35 p.m.
Liberal
Rachel Bendayan Liberal Outremont, QC
Madam Chair, I move the motion that I read into the record earlier this morning and—
1:35 p.m.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
A point of order, Chair.
You can't move it until Mr. Carrie's motion is dealt with first. They're conflicting motions. They're dealing with the same issue at the same time, so—
1:35 p.m.
Liberal
1:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
My understanding is that, per procedure, we had Mr. Carrie's motion on the floor, and we agreed the other day that we would deal with it as the first point of business in our second hour.
1:35 p.m.
Liberal
1:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
Hold on.
That's exactly what the procedure was. The only way it can be different would be if the committee voted to change that and to proceed with your motion. The committee would then have to take a vote to do that.
1:35 p.m.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
But then you have to have a motion from the committee to change it.
1:35 p.m.
An hon. member
A point of order.
1:35 p.m.
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Surrey—Newton, BC
Madam Chair, on a point of order, I want to thank you for telling us the process, and the Conservatives, the NDP and the Bloc Québécois for their patience as well. Even though Rachel has the motion on the floor, so does Colin Carrie. Let's deal with his motion first. If that is not successful, then we'll deal with Rachel's motion. How is that?
1:35 p.m.
Liberal
1:35 p.m.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
I'd like to make a friendly amendment to the motion. In light of talking to the minister and different people over the last week and a half, we'd like to do a couple of things.
The first thing is that we'd like to change the number of committees that was in the original motion to three, so basically it would be the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology, and the Standing Committee on Natural Resources, which I think is very similar to the Liberal motion.
We'd like to change the date from April 2 to March 12. That gives those committees enough time to bring witnesses forward and deal with the issue and then get it back to us so that we can deal with it. The reason we say March 12 is that the week before that is a break week, so they may or may not be sitting. And I want to highlight the fact that it would be no later than March 12. If they can get it done before then, we can come back and deal with it before that.
I want to remind the Liberal members of caucus that they chair all those committees, so the chair of that committee can actually.... If they want to hold more meetings faster and during the break week or on weekends, which we'd entertain and work with them on, that would be their prerogative, too. As I was saying, it would be no later than March 12. That would allow us to get the bill through clause-by-clause that week and hopefully back to the House, assuming everything flows the way it should. That would be my amendment.
1:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
Does everyone understand the amendment to Mr. Carrie's motion?
(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])
That's the amendment. Now we have to vote on the motion itself.
Mr. Carrie.
1:35 p.m.
Conservative
Colin Carrie Conservative Oshawa, ON
Madam Chair, I would like to speak to my motion.
When I brought this forward, it was in good faith, because in the past we've taken this process forward for bills of extreme importance. We had no idea at that time how many witnesses we were going to have. In order to give the witnesses who were concerned about this bill an ability to tell parliamentarians how it's going to affect them, I did make these recommendations.
I was extremely upset this morning when I read an article from CBC in regard to my motion. It was a matter of poor faith. I'm going to quote it because the Prime Minister quoted my motion. The reporter wrote, “A contentious motion Justin Trudeau characterized as a 'near miss' will come to a vote”. Trudeau said, “There are certain messages that could be passed to some parties that might be playing some challenging games around delaying NAFTA”.
First, I want to tell my Liberal colleagues how upsetting that is to read, when I was not even given the courtesy of being in the story. Second, the Liberals brought forward a very similar motion today. I want to read this into the record because it says how the Liberals were surprised. This comes from the House on February 6, when John Nater, one of our MPs, asked:
Mr. Speaker, when Bill C-4, an act to implement the agreement between Canada, the United States of America and the United Mexican States, is referred to committee, could the government commit to supporting a proposal at committee to have other committees, in addition to the trade committee, study the provisions of Bill C-4 and the impacts within their respective mandates in the same manner that budget bills have been considered at committee in recent years?
Now this is what the Liberal House leader said in the House, on record. Pablo Rodriguez said:
Mr. Speaker, the government is supportive of adopting the process that has been used in the past for budget implementation legislation. Under this process, the chair of the Standing Committee on International Trade would write to the other committees and invite them to do a subject matter review of the relevant provisions of the legislation, as long as the motion contains a fixed date and time for the start and end of clause-by-clause consideration of the bill.
That's basically what I was trying to achieve. The Prime Minister was aware of what the House leader said. I'm just curious, and maybe the parliamentary secretary can comment on this. Was the House leader trying to play politics here, or was the Prime Minister trying to play politics with this, because that certainly wasn't the intention from this side of the House?
1:40 p.m.
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Surrey—Newton, BC
I don't think anyone is playing politics on either side. It shouldn't be about politics. This is about Canadians. This is about Canadian businesses. This is about Canadian workers. Our intent on this side is to make sure that we have a deal in place solidly done so that we have the accountability, credibility and stability that we know people expect from the government.
The only difference I see between the Conservative and the Liberal motions right now is basically the date: One is March 12, and the other one is February 25. If there is a way, we can have longer meetings to convince my Conservative colleagues that we can live with the motion presented by Rachel. The intent is the same; as Mr. Hoback said, it is only the timeline. If we can meet the end of February deadline and have longer meetings and work longer hours, if they would be able to support that, I would really appreciate that.
We worked in the last Parliament. There was no difference, whether it was the NDP, the Conservatives or us. We worked together as team Canada, whether here or outside, and that's the way I would like to see us work on this particular matter, because this concerns every Canadian and we want to get it done.
1:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
Mr. Carrie, I think the end date is four days' difference, between February 28 in Ms. Bendayan's motion versus the amendment that Mr. Hoback proposed, which was March 12. We're away for constituency week. Mr. Dhaliwal is requesting that we continue to try to work these things together.
I'm going to say that as the chair, if I had read that I would have been upset. I apologize. Things happen, people say things that sometimes can cause another person to get upset. I hope that doesn't happen very often.