Natural Resources Committee on Dec. 11th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Good morning, everyone. The Christmas party for the natural resources committee is now over and we'll get down to business.

We are continuing with the clause-by-clause discussion of Bill C-5, the Nuclear Liability and Compensation Act.

We had left the meeting last time after having stood clause 34, to which I will now return.

(On clause 34—Interim financial assistance)

I had indicated that I believed clause 34 would be inadmissible and that the amendment to clause 34 would be inadmissible. With advice from the clerk and having reviewed this again, I believe that is in fact the decision I have made, that the amendment to clause 34, reference number 3176561, is inadmissible.

I won't go through all of the information unless needed, but I will refer to Marleau and Montpetit, page 655, where it says: “An amendment must not offend the financial initiative of the Crown. An amendment is therefore inadmissible if it imposes a charge on the Public Treasury, or if it extends the objects or purposes or”—and this is the part I believe applies here particularly—“relaxes the conditions and qualifications as expressed in the Royal Recommendation”.

So that amendment is inadmissible. We will therefore go ahead with clause 34.

(Clause 34 agreed to)

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Now, we had also stood clause 2, the definitions. The Bloc had indicated at one time that they might bring forth an amendment there. I believe we have an indication that won't happen, so I'll just go to the question.

(Clause 2 agreed to)

Clause 1 is the short title.

(Clause 1 agreed to)

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Shall the title carry?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Shall the bill carry?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Shall I report the bill to the House?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

We are finished. There is no need for a reprint, as there were no amendments.

Thank you very much. It's unfortunate that we can't predict with any certainty what the outcome will be.

So to the officials, I thank you for all the work you've done on this bill, for coming to our committee when requested, and for your very valuable input. Thank you very much.

I will report that to the House tomorrow.

Maybe we'll just suspend for about two minutes. It will allow each party to get their information together. Then we will return with future business of the committee. We have two motions that we will deal with first.

Mr. Alghabra, you have something before the short suspension.

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

I can wait until we come back after the suspension.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Sure.

We'll just have a two-minute suspension and then come back and deal with the committee business and future business.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Welcome back, everyone.

We will start the discussion now on future business of the committee.

We were dealing with two motions last time, which we'd agreed to put off until this meeting.

Yes, Mr. Anderson.

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

Mr. Chair, are we in camera or not?

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

No, we're not.

Mr. Anderson, you had committed last time to approach the minister to try to have him come on Thursday to deal with the subject matter of those two motions. I know you've done that. Could you report on that?

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

Absolutely, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

I did approach the minister. He's not going to be available on Thursday. He said he'll come after the New Year. His schedule was full by the time he got the invitation, so he's not going to be able to be here this week.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Okay, so we know where we stand with that.

Mr. Bevington had withdrawn his motion.

Mr. Alghabra, you had a motion that combined the substance of the New Democratic motion with an additional part. Can we start with that? We had put that off from the last meeting.

Yes, go ahead, Mr. Alghabra.

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

Mr. Chair, I have something of another matter. It is very urgent.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

I won't go to any other issue until we deal with that one, because we'd agreed last meeting to come back to that motion. So let's deal with that motion first. We have a whole list of other motions, other issues that have been brought to the clerk, as well as future business.

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

I understand.

Certainly, as I said to Mr. Bevington, I'd be happy to amend my initial motion to add “invitation of the minister”. Since I have the microphone, I want to table....

We're discussing future business now. It's really important, because this is a matter of highest urgency. The Conservative government yesterday tried to table a motion in the House on the issue of isotopes. Since we are discussing future business of the committee--

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Okay, we're not going to go to that, though. You'd certainly be welcome to bring that up, but we're going to deal with that after we go through the others that were on the table first and that had come to the clerk and to this committee first.

Yes, Mr. St. Amand.

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

Do I hear you correctly that we're dealing with non-urgent, non-emergency, non-critical matters before we deal with the critical, urgent, emergency matter? Is that what we're hearing you say, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

It's a matter of debate, a matter of process that I'm talking about. We'd agreed at the last meeting to come back to Mr. Bevington's and Mr. Alghabra's motion. Mr. Alghabra's motion included Mr. Bevington's, so I'm coming back to that motion first.

Then you all have the list of other issues that have been brought to the committee. It includes six items, at least. Of course, you are welcome to bring other items forward after we deal with these.

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

I have my time now, and I'm going to ask the committee to talk about this issue, and then it's up to the committee to decide that this is not a matter of urgency or that it wants to deal with other business.

We're discussing future business now, so I'm going to table a motion that the Standing Committee on Natural Resources schedule a special meeting on Tuesday, today, December 11, at 3:30 to hear from the Minister of Natural Resources, the president of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, as well as executives from AECL to help the committee understand the ongoing crisis in the supply of medical isotopes and the causes for the extended shutdown of their nuclear reactor at Chalk River.

That was the end of my motion. This is a matter of great concern to the Canadian public. We, as the natural resources committee, have a duty to follow that story, to tell Canadians what's going on.

Yesterday the government wanted the House to pass a motion that lacked some substance, that lacked information. Even the Prime Minister believes that this is of highest importance. So it's really important that we discuss this matter.

We are discussing future business. If the committee decides that this is not of importance now, that they want to deal with the other business and keep this for later, I'll leave it up to the committee to decide. But I will be pushing strongly to have this motion discussed first and voted on as quickly as possible.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Alghabra, we had agreed to a process. I'm concerned about changing the order. We had agreed to deal with your motion from the last meeting. Well, there were two items.

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

I haven't even moved the first motion.