Natural Resources Committee on Dec. 6th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Madame DeBellefeuille.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

You know that this bill has been neglected. We've waited 30 years to be able to debate it. Perhaps we could wait a few days for parliamentarians to be able to debate the regulations of a bill as important as this one.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you. Merci.

We will now go to the vote on the amendment.

(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

(Clauses 69 to 74 inclusive agreed to)

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Alghabra.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

We received a letter from the Ontario Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services. I'm not sure the officials have a copy of that letter. I know we went over clause 18, the clause that this letter is addressing, but I think out of acknowledgement and taking this letter seriously, I'd like the officials to respond to the concerns. They're quite short and concise. They basically talk about clause 18 in both points they raise. They're asking for some language adjustment to it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Okay, this is highly unusual because it doesn't apply to any clause that we have dealt with. It doesn't apply to the next clause.

Would the committee allow this question put by Mr. Alghabra to be responded to by the officials? Is there any objection to that?

[An hon. member]

No.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Then we'll go ahead.

Please, is there any response?

[Brenda MacKenzie]

Yes. This letter suggests that in order for this federal legislation to match the provincial legislation, some adjustments to the terms are necessary.

Actually, we were aware of provincial emergency legislation during the drafting of this legislation, and we were careful to draft the terms in clauses 18 and 17, or the two provisions that they refer to, in a broad enough manner that the provincial law would be encompassed. We felt it inappropriate to write specifically to Ontario's legislation, because we're not doing something just for Ontario; we're doing it for all of Canada, and so we were mindful of the various provincial emergency legislation in place and were careful to draft clauses 17 and 18 broadly enough that they would encompass the provincial schemes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Bevington is next on this.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

It's a motion, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

What does your motion apply to?

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

It applies to the next meeting of the standing committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

We've been given notice of this motion. I told Mr. Bevington that we'd deal with this motion at a quarter to eleven and I let that slip.

But I do want to let you know that we are to a clause.... The clause we stood to the next meeting is the next thing we have to deal with. We have to put that off anyway.

We will now go to Mr. Bevington's motion. The officials may leave the table if they'd like.

Mr. St. Amand.

[Lloyd St. Amand, Liberal, Brant, ON]

We had agreed as a committee that the officials be allowed to comment on the letter and they've done that. Further to Ms. DeBellefeuille's earlier point, perhaps I could ask the officials to comment on the second page of the letter from Mr. Helkey, the next to last paragraph, which says “we also request that we be afforded the opportunity to review and comment on any proposed regulations”.

I take it that's an automatic, is it not?

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

There are two things. That really isn't in order right now. The second thing is that I have indicated to Mr. Bevington that we would deal with his motion, and we're running out of time. I'm going to rule that out of order, but I would ask the officials to maybe come with a response for the start of the next meeting.

Could we do that?

[Lloyd St. Amand, Liberal, Brant, ON]

I just need a yes or a no.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Okay, we've got an answer and it's done.

Mr. Bevington, to your motion.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

I'd like to move that, with the government's indication it is about to sign the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, and with the Minister of Natural Resources' comments in front of the committee on November 22, 2007, that “once the government has made a decision then I would be quite happy to come back to committee,” the Standing Committee on Natural Resources request that the minister appear at the next meeting of the committee on December 11, 2007--that's an amendment to this motion--in order to discuss Canada's participation within the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

You've heard the motion.

Mr. Anderson.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Mr. Chair, if the committee asks, I would be glad to take the request to the minister. I can't guarantee his schedule will allow it, but I will certainly take the request back to him.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

You heard that, Mr. Bevington.

Mr. Boshcoff.

[Ken Boshcoff, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

My concern, Mr. Chair, is that we haven't set our priorities yet in terms of what we want to do. I'm getting antsy too. If we want to do this by notice of motion, then I'm sure we'll all start to do it. Either we all sit down and agree on what our program is, or I have a whole bunch in the cooker too.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

I understand that, Mr. Boshcoff. I would certainly prefer to deal with them all together. If we were to get done clause-by-clause on Tuesday, we could certainly have the remaining time allocated to a discussion of future business. It's up to Mr. Bevington. He has a motion on the floor, and we've heard some discussion on it.

Mr. Alghabra.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Mr. Chair, I gave notice to the committee to conduct a study on the government's decision on joining GNEP and also to review restructuring for AECL. I propose that perhaps we can amend my motion, or merge these two motions together, where the testimony of the minister could be part of the study so that we don't have a separation between the testimony of the minister and the study, if the committee agrees to conduct that study.