Natural Resources Committee on Feb. 5th, 2009

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

That's why I didn't see it on the agenda for routine motions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Well, actually, neither was this. This wasn't on the agenda. The agenda is a two-item agenda to deal with routine motions.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

I'm just wondering if this is a routine motion. That's all.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Is there any further discussion on the motion?

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Is there a ruling on whether or not...? It is an extraordinary motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

I'm ruling that it's in order. We're dealing with routine motions.

We'll have Mr. Siksay, and then Madam Brunelle.

A point of order, Mr. Bains.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Can I get clarification from the clerk whether, based on previous practices, this is deemed to be a routine motion or a motion that's been presented to the committee and should follow the guidelines of the notice of motion that we just passed?

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Bains, I ruled on that already. I would like to move ahead.

Madame Brunelle.

[Paule Brunelle, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

On this motion, I would like to remind Mr. Anderson that committees very much appreciate being able to control their agendas and the matters that appear there. Soon, I will have been a member of Parliament for five years and I remember great discussions in committees about what would be put on the agenda and which subjects were the most important to discuss.

Mr. Anderson's motion disrupts the committees' agenda and imposes the government's agenda and the topics it wants to support. That is why I will vote against this motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Siksay.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm against the motion as well. I think Mr. Regan and Madame Brunelle have already spoken eloquently to the reasons why.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Trost.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would just make the observation that if something gets here, then it will have to have had majority support in the House. This means that one of the opposition parties--one of you guys--will have to have voted for this, or at least abstained; we saw that in the previous Parliament, abstaining, so half support.

Nothing is going to get before this committee unless there is some opposition agreement to begin with, in the first place. So the opposition, at least one of the parties, still controls what comes here or not. If the opposition is agreeing to it in the House, I suspect in most cases--maybe not all, but in almost all cases--the same opposition party that agreed to it in the House would then instruct their members, or the members would generally behave in a similar fashion here, and let it come before the committee.

That's why I view this as a bit of a routine motion. One reason to do it is that we could get things done in an orderly fashion, and we could actually plan things in a much more efficient way.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Mr. Trost.

Mr. Anderson, are you indicating that you want to speak?

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

I was just going to point out to Mr. Bains that this was presented at other committees and was found to be in order. That was all.

But I also actually think the comment is worth making that legislation should be a priority of the committee. If we have a bill dealing specifically with things that are inside our mandate, I would expect that the committee would be willing to make that a priority. I don't know why we would object to passing a routine motion that supported that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Any further discussion on this motion?

(Motion negatived)

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

We will now look at the issue that we had agreed to put off until the end of the meeting, the issue of the minister coming on Tuesday and the officials coming for either the first or the second hour, whatever order works for the minister.

Is it agreed by the committee that we have the minister and the officials coming for an hour each at Tuesday's meeting to deal with the supplementary estimates?

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Can you say that again, please?

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Just as we discussed before, is it agreed that we would have the minister for an hour and the officials for an hour on Tuesday?

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Well, Mr. Chairman, I would sooner ask the minister to come for two hours. What often happens in these things is that the minister makes a presentation and it can sometimes go on for quite a while. Now, I suppose if she only has 10 minutes, that's helpful, but it does not leave....

Just to have 50 minutes for questions and answers doesn't provide very much. When you look at the set-up we just created in terms of the time allocation, you don't get through very much of that with the minister in that period of time.

I would have thought that she would want to tell us more and to answer questions on a variety of subjects. I don't see how you could possibly cover them in an hour. If she's prepared to come at a different time, perhaps later in the month when she has two hours available, then I think we ought to make that option available to her.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Regan, you know that a minister's time is quite difficult to schedule. You experienced that yourself.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Yes, and I can recall appearing at length before the fisheries committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

I will put it to Mr. Anderson. He knows--or might know, I'm not certain--the minister's schedule; I don't.

Mr. Anderson, as parliamentary secretary, do you have any comments on whether or not that would be something the minister could accommodate?

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

Mr. Chair, it was my opinion or my feeling that the opposition wanted to have the minister here as soon as possible. The supplementaries, if you look at them, are not that extensive. I don't think we need four or eight hours to study those.

The minister has been more than willing to come. She wants to come. She wants to come on Tuesday. She's made room in her schedule for that. If the committee would like to have her here, she's willing to come for that full hour.

Most of the time, actually, in the committees I've been in, the minister has come for one hour and the bureaucrats for the second hour.

So she wants to be here. If the committee wants her, she's more than happy to be here. If not, we can try to reschedule for some other time, but I have no idea when that would be.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

You've heard the parliamentary secretary's comments. The minister has agreed to be available for an hour, and that works. If we're going to be looking at two hours, we'll have to look at when that can be scheduled.

Mr. Siksay.