Natural Resources Committee on Feb. 5th, 2009

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mrs. Marie-France Renaud]

Good afternoon, honourable members. My name is Marie-France Renaud and I am the clerk of this committee.

I see a quorum.

We can now proceed to the election of a chair.

Pursuant to Standing Order 106(2), the chair must be a member of the government party. I am ready to receive motions to that effect.

Mr. Hiebert.

[Russ Hiebert, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC]

I'd like to nominate Mr. Benoit.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

I second the nomination.

[The Clerk]

Are there any further motions?

(Motion agreed to)

I declare the motion carried and Mr.Benoit duly elected chair of the committee.

Before inviting Mr. Benoit to the chair, if the committee wishes we can proceed to elect the two vice-chairs.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

I nominate Mr. Alan Tonks to be vice-chair.

[The Clerk]

Are there any further motions for the first vice-chair?

(Motion agreed to)

I declare the motion carried and Mr.Tonks duly elected vice-chair of the committee.

I am now prepared to receive motions for the second vice-chair.

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

I nominate Mr. Nathan Cullen.

[The Clerk]

Moved by Ms. Brunelle that Mr. Nathan Cullen be elected second vice-chair of the committee.

Are there any further motions?

[Russ Hiebert, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC]

Does he not need to consent?

[The Clerk]

No, he doesn't need to be here.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

He can always refuse later.

[The Clerk]

Are there any further motions?

Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the motion?

(Motion agreed to)

I declare the motion carried and Mr.Cullen duly elected vice-chair of this committee.

I now invite Mr. Benoit to take the chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

I'd first like to thank you all for electing me as chair. I appreciate the stronger support from the opposition than I got from my colleagues on the government side, but I guess that's to be expected.

Before we get to the routine motions, which I assume you'll want to deal with today, I want to say that I am delighted to be chair of this committee. In the past this committee has functioned quite well, even when others have had their problems. Of course, there's always a partisan nature to committees to some extent; that's the way our system works. But I believe we can--and I certainly hope we will--work together to make this committee work for the benefit of Canadians. I'm certain that's the intent of all of us. I look forward to that.

On a point of order, Mr. Anderson.

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

In that spirit of cooperation, we have the supplementary estimates to deal with, and the minister has offered to come on Tuesday if the committee is ready to hear her. She'll be here for an hour and the bureaucrats will be here for another hour, if the committee is interested in that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

You've heard the proposal by the parliamentary secretary that the minister come this Tuesday to deal with the supplementary estimates.

Mr. Regan.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

I didn't quite hear what Mr. Anderson said about how long she would come for.

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

She'll make herself available for one hour and the bureaucrats for the two hours.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Bains.

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

I appreciate the offer made by Mr. Anderson. If we can just go over the routine proceedings first to make sure we get them set up properly, then I will have no objection to dealing with the work plan going forward, if that's okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

So you don't want to deal with that now.

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

Yes, not now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Okay, let's start with routine motions.

We'll hand some material out here so you can see the routine motions committees normally start with at least.

Does everybody have a copy? Let's start with the services of analysts from the Library of Parliament.

Would someone like to move that?

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

So moved.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

So moved by Mr. Tonks.

Is there approval from the committee to support that motion?

(Motion agreed to)

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

The second motion is on the subcommittee on agenda and procedure. As you will notice, this committee hasn't had a subcommittee on agenda and procedure previously.

What is the will of the committee on that? Should we just go on with the whole committee determining the agenda?