Natural Resources Committee on Dec. 11th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

We discussed it at the last meeting—

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

We discussed it, but I haven't moved it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

—and we had agreed to bring it forth.

Mr. Anderson.

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

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, I think we have an hour and a half here, so I don't think we have to get immediately to everything, but I think we should clean up the last meeting's business and decide what we're going to do with that, and then if the opposition wants to come directly to this motion, we can do that and have a discussion about it. We have three pages of other motions here as well that at some point we need to discuss.

I know Mr. Boshcoff had some concerns about what we were doing with future business as well. He had a motion that he had indicated he wanted to bring forward, which is also ahead of Mr. Alghabra's. So I'm not against discussing this, but we have an hour and a half, so I think we have time to do it properly and do it in the order that we had decided at the last meeting.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

That's certainly what I was hoping, Mr. Anderson.

I am concerned. When we made the commitment last time to come back to a particular motion, not doing that does concern me.

Madame DeBellefeuille.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm quite in favour of Mr. Alghabra's motion since this is an urgent issue. All committee members could show some openness, as usual, and support the idea that we should have the minister appear to answer questions concerning the Chalk River laboratory. People in each of your ridings are concerned. I think this is an urgent matter. Mr. Anderson says we have a lot of work ahead of us, and I understand that, but sometimes we have to make choices and give them priority.

In my opinion, what is currently happening at the Chalk River laboratory is an urgent matter that concerns a lot of Quebeckers and Canadians. With your permission, I'm going to move that we deal with this matter on a priority basis. Then, if everyone agrees, we can examine the rest of the motions introduced.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Yes, and Madame DeBellefeuille, we do have a motion on the floor, so we are dealing with that motion now. It's unfortunate that we're not dealing with the motion that we had agreed to start with. As I say, that does concern me.

Let's carry on with the discussion on this motion.

Mr. Boshcoff.

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

Mr. Chairman, I'm willing to stand down my notice of motion and let it ride with all the rest of these, as long as it's included in the pile. But I understand the difference between this motion on isotopes being an emergency motion and not one that is scheduling next year's work. So I'll just say that and hope that makes the point.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. St. Amand.

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

Mr. Chair, as a matter of practicality, my colleagues are correct that there is an hour and a half remaining in the meeting, which says to me there is abundant time to deal with the less urgent matters. The sooner we deal with Mr. Alghabra's motion, the sooner we're able to invite the minister—ideally by 9:35 or 9:45—to be available at 3:30. So let's give him as much time as possible to try to coordinate his schedule to be here at 3:30. I think we should proceed immediately with Mr. Alghabra's motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Could you repeat your motion, Mr. Alghabra?

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

Sure, and I apologize that it's not in both languages. This was drafted about 45 minutes ago.

I move that the Standing Committee on Natural Resources schedule a special meeting on Tuesday, December 11, 2007, at 3:30 p.m. 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 extended shutdown of their nuclear reactor at Chalk River.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

So you've changed in your motion the time for requesting the minister's presence from Thursday to this afternoon. The motion sent to the clerk, which I am reading, says Thursday—Thursday morning, I guess.

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

The one I drafted 45 minutes ago but never tabled was saying Thursday. But I never tabled it because I realized that we talked about the urgency of this matter, and I thought I would propose that we do it as soon as possible. So I'm suggesting that we do it at 3:30. If there are legitimate reasons for delaying it until tomorrow, we'll discuss it as part of the debate. I'm not going to be that strict, depending on the availability of the committee, on exactly what time, but I'm stressing the urgency of this matter.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Trost.

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I generally consider myself a pretty good-natured guy, but I am a little irritated this morning. If it's such an urgent matter—and this has been in the press for how many days now?—why didn't we have this motion tabled a week ago?

We're calling witnesses in six hours. Generally, depending on the issue, I sometimes have my staff research stuff, get some briefing notes on stuff like this. We don't know.... Maybe you've got some inside track on which witnesses are available and which witnesses aren't.

I would hope the AECL officials and the regulators and all those sorts of people would be working on the problem and not just sitting around Ottawa twiddling their thumbs and playing with paper clips and whatever, waiting for a committee to call, and the same with the minister. I hope he doesn't have free time every afternoon to shoot some hoops and then, shucks, wait for our committee.

I think this is an issue that would be worthwhile for the committee to look into. It's a serious matter. I don't know if we, as a committee, can really change anything; it's the engineers and company who have to do it. As for fixing regulations and fixing management practices, that's more of a long-term thing.

What we as a committee can do is more in the long-term perspective. So I wouldn't object at all to listening to AECL executives, management personnel, regulators, etc. To do this at 3:30 today, in six hours....

I have another committee scheduled at that time. I sit on two committees. A lot of us on the government side do, because ministers don't sit on committees. It shortens up the numbers, etc. I can't be here or I'd have to skip my other committee, and they're discussing business there too.

So while I'm prepared to look at this when it comes to our regular Thursday morning meeting, for 3:30 today, that's just ridiculous. You've got to give other people a little bit more of a heads-up so they can work together.

I've always tried to work with other members. I have good relationships with members of the Bloc, the NDP, and the Liberals and I'd like to participate in this, and if it's at 3:30 today I won't be able to. That's why I'm a little less good-tempered this morning than I normally would be. I think it's disrespectful to have it today at 3:30.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Harris.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

I would like to appeal to the practical side of this suggestion, but also certainly to the time constraints.

This issue certainly deserves to be looked at by our committee. A good point to make would be.... I'm going to get some help here. I have to listen to what Mr. Ouellet has to say.

[An hon. member]

Even though you have the floor.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Go ahead, Mr. Harris.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

A good point to make is that there certainly is an issue with the Chalk River plant and the shortage of isotopes because of the shutdown. But the point is, will jumping into this now solve the current problem? What more is it going to do than simply make for a news story?

I think this issue is very serious and deserves a planned, scheduled series of meetings. We're not going to solve it even in one meeting. We're going to get a news story. If that's what Mr. Alghabra wants, you can certainly get the news story by having a meeting Thursday or this afternoon, if anyone can attend. But is it going to solve the problem? Is giving it a couple of hours or even an hour going to do it justice?

I believe this is an issue that should be looked at as a long-term solution, as a way of preventing this happening in the future. It deserves more than a last-minute meeting to get together and make some headlines. This is an important study we could do, and if we're going to do it, let's do it properly, let's do it justice, understanding that we can't fix this right now. The engineers and the scientists are working on that, but as a committee we can help lay some guidelines so this would not happen again. That's my point.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Mr. Harris.

Madame DeBellefeuille.

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

Mr. Chair, I understand the nature of Mr. Harris's remarks. Ultimately, perhaps it would be more desirable to have a meeting next Thursday, perhaps an extended meeting, because we don't want this kind of crisis to reoccur and we want to find solutions.

But as parliamentarians, it's important to understand what is currently going on because, when we read the newspapers, we don't understand what is happening. I think our duty is to try to understand, and that's what we could do on Thursday, perhaps in an extended sitting.

I would propose a compromise, that the committee sit for three hours instead of two in order to examine the entire question, to understand and hear from people from the lab and from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. I believe these people could come and answer our questions so that we could understand what's going on. After that meeting, the committee could decide whether to make it a subject for further study in order to find potential solutions to prevent this from reoccurring.

I'm interested in understanding what's going on between the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and Atomic Energy of Canada, and I believe that on Thursday—I'm sure my Liberal colleague would agree on this compromise—we could extend the meeting and take the time to hear from witnesses in order to examine the entire question before deciding to make it a subject of study as such. The idea is that we elected members must understand what is going on by holding an extended sitting on Thursday of this week. I believe that would be a good compromise acceptable to all members.

I don't think we should spend two hours on it; my impression is that there could be a consensus on my proposal.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Tonks.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

I echo the thoughts of Madame DeBellefeuille. I do it on the basis of what Mr. Trost has said. We really owe it to each other to be able to carry on our committee work. I couldn't make it this afternoon. I'm subbing on another committee.

I would appeal to Mr. Alghabra that this compromise is very much in keeping with the spirit and the substance of how we do business. It is an important item. If we could rearrange our agenda for Thursday, that's very much in keeping with the way we should do it.