Evidence of meeting #127 for International Trade in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was business.
A recording is available from Parliament.
November 20th, 2024 / 6:25 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Startup Canada
I could not agree with you more. This is a non-partisan issue, right? Reducing red tape for founders benefits everyone.
I commend that moving forward. I think entrepreneurs would welcome it. I look forward to seeing some concrete progress made in that space.
Liberal
Mona Fortier Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
I love the non-partisan approach.
I will lead with my team and other parties. Hopefully, we can pass this one quickly and, funnily, there's a third one ready after that.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
Thank you so very much to our wonderful witnesses Ms. Holder and Ms. Isabelle.
The witnesses can leave.
For the committee's purposes, on November 25, we have our last session on women entrepreneurs. Then we're scheduled to have one more meeting on softwood lumber. At the moment, we do not have any additional witnesses. We've had our meeting on softwood lumber.
Do we need to have another meeting on it? Is everybody okay?
Conservative
Ryan Williams Conservative Bay of Quinte, ON
Madam Chair, were there a lot of witnesses who said they couldn't make it? We submitted quite a few witnesses.
The Clerk of the Committee Mr. Grant McLaughlin
It's a combination of people not being available and parties having similar witness lists. It ended up being fewer people than expected.
Conservative
The Clerk
Those have also been invited.
At this point, if we want to have a meeting on December 2—the third meeting—we require more witnesses. There are no witnesses left on the lists to invite. They have been previously received. If the committee wants to have that third meeting, it is necessary to send us more witnesses.
NDP
Blake Desjarlais NDP Edmonton Griesbach, AB
Is the chair's question whether we should dispense with that meeting? I'm okay not having the meeting, if that is the direction of the chair. Should there be no witnesses, there would be no meeting.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
At the moment, we don't have any more witnesses. Before I cancel it, I want to make sure everybody is comfortable.
Mr. Savard-Tremblay.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
Obviously, we can't really hold meetings without witnesses. However, we can propose others. Generally, we indicate second choices when we provide our witness lists. If the first choice falls through, we move on to the second. If the first choice works, we don't go to the second. I'd imagine we still have some options.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
The problem, I gather, is that many of them were duplicate witnesses coming from the Conservatives, you, Mr. Desjarlais and us.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
For example, I'm pretty sure I had the Quebec Forest Industry Council down as my second choice. My first was the Institut de recherche en économie contemporaine, and they were invited. To date, the committee has not heard from the Quebec Forest Industry Council. I'm sure we haven't exhausted the entire witness list.
The Clerk
A meeting is still planned for Wednesday, November 27, and that group will be attending.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
Okay. So the question has to do with the following meeting.
The Clerk
Exactly. We're talking about the meeting on Monday, December 2. The original motion was for three meetings.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
Thank you all very much.
We are having one more meeting on softwood lumber. There are some companies from Quebec on that list. Unless somebody comes up with a requirement for additional witnesses, it will be the last meeting.
Conservative
Ryan Williams Conservative Bay of Quinte, ON
I would ask that you give us until Friday this week to submit witnesses.
The other option is this: If the witnesses couldn't make the date we had, can there be another date? We have some room for different meetings. Is that correct? Maybe it can happen before the Christmas break.
I think we want the study done by the Christmas break. We don't want to extend it.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
No, we didn't want to have to do that.
Let's have everyone just check to see if there are any witnesses who are outstanding and who they think are important for getting this done, and we will try to make sure that it all happens.
Is that all right?