Evidence of meeting #12 for Natural Resources in the 39th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was motions.
A recording is available from Parliament.
The Clerk of the Committee Mr. Chad Mariage
Honourable members of the committee, I see there's a quorum.
Pursuant to Standing Order 106(2), our first order of business in the election of the Chair of the committee.
I'm ready to receive motions to the effect of the election of chair.
Mr. Trost.
Conservative
The Clerk
Mr. Trost nominates Mr. Lee Richardson as the chair of the committee. Are there any other motions?
Seeing no other motions, is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the motion?
The Clerk
Before inviting Mr. Richardson to take the chair, we will proceed to the election of the first vice-chair.
I am ready to receive motions for the election of the first vice-chair.
which, according to the rules, has to be a member of the official opposition.
Monsieur St. Amand.
The Clerk
Monsieur St. Amand nominates Mr. Tonks as first vice-chair. Are there any other motions?
Seeing no other motions, is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the motion?
The Clerk
For the position of second vice-chair, the Standing Orders require that it be a member of an opposition party not being of the official opposition.
Madame DeBellefeuille.
Bloc
Claude DeBellefeuille Bloc Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC
I move that Ms. Catherine Bell be elected to this position.
The Clerk
Are there any other motions?
Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the motion?
(Motion agreed to)
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Lee Richardson
Well, thank you. We will begin.
I first want to welcome everyone back. We have some new members, or at least one new member, and we have Mr. Tonks to welcome back as well.
Can you tell me how to say your name? I'm sorry.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Lee Richardson
DeBellefeuille, sorry.
And Mr. Russell joins the committee. I welcome you as well.
We also have a new committee assistant who you see at the back, and that is Holly Loranger. Welcome.
In terms of business, we don't have a lot of business. We have had a brief discussion with the former vice-chairs in terms of looking at where we're going in the next week and in the upcoming couple of days. We do have upcoming, I think, a report from our previous session.
Jean-Luc Bourdages Committee Researcher
Yes, there's a summary that is now at French translation. Hopefully we'll get it tomorrow in late afternoon, so if possible I'll try to forward it to the members.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Lee Richardson
Okay. It would be a summary of the proceedings of the spring session and of all the witnesses we heard. Much of that was towards the end of finding a topic that we want to pursue over the winter. So we'll look forward to receiving that.
We also have a number of other thoughts on areas we want to discuss. I won't take a long time today, other than to say that I think the book is open at this point. We have a number of suggested areas for discussion, but if there are some you feel particularly strongly about, I would ask you to please advise me, in the next couple of days, of what those would be.
I think we will start off on Thursday with a discussion of that summary, which we hope to have in your hands by Thursday. It's now in translation, but if not, we'll have a general discussion about topics to cover over the fall.
We will have an obligatory consideration of estimates, if that appeals to the committee, and also on October 5, the report of the environment commissioner, Madame Gélinas. I think that will be of interest to the committee, and we have taken the liberty of inviting her. Because of her schedule, we had to extend that invitation before the committee met, but that is scheduled for October 5.
Mr. Cullen, did you have a comment?
Liberal
Roy Cullen Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
I don't want to get into it today, but just as a reminder, we had a trip planned to Fort McMurray and Calgary. I hope we can get that back on the agenda and do that sometime.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Lee Richardson
Thank you for raising that.
The trip was inadvertently cancelled due to problems at the site. We have an open invitation from the Energy Dialogue Group to appear in Calgary. This is a national group that includes industry people, and NGOs as well, who are prepared to give us one-day cram course. Some of us had the opportunity to do that a few years ago. It's really quite a good course, and it gives a sense of where the industry and energy are in the country today. From there, it was convenient to fly out of Calgary, spend the day in Fort McMurray, and be able to return the same day to Ottawa. That would take a couple of days of our lives rather than three or four days. It would be pretty hard to find a place to stay in Fort McMurray these days, anyway.
That seemed to be of interest to most members I've spoken to. If it is, I'll just go quickly around the table to see if everybody's still up for that. I think it would be in the interest of the committee to do it as soon as we can, just because of the weather; it gets a little colder a little earlier up there.
I recall, Mr. Cullen, that we had some difficulty previously with trying to schedule things during a break week. People want to have their break weeks in their constituencies. I think we're still going to have a problem trying to schedule things while the House is sitting. I think the whips are of the view that in a minority government we should be in our places during the session.
Monsieur Ouellet.
Bloc
Christian Ouellet Bloc Brome—Missisquoi, QC
Mr. Chairman, I agree with your idea that we not get into any specific agenda items today, but rather that we consider the agenda from an overall perspective. However, I would like to make one exception. I don't know if the following suggestion will receive the general endorsement of the committee.
Our plans are to invite the Minister, but it might be a good idea if, sometime between now and next week's meeting, that is before we finalize the agenda and assess the situation, we are notified somehow that the Minister will be available. I don't know if everyone else agrees with me or not, but personally, I think his appearance will be more in the nature of a question and answer session. That being the case, we could prepare questions in advance.Our intention is not to trip him up. We simply want some clear, straightforward answers from him. We could hold a preparatory meeting. One and a half, or even two hours, could be scheduled for the Minister's appearance. Based on past experience, we've found that one hour doesn't give us enough time to address all of the items on the agenda.
