Natural Resources Committee on March 12th, 2009

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

So I suppose it's just a formality, Chair. I don't know if that's a friendly amendment or, through you to Mr. Anderson, if that's available, because as I said, that's as important to me. I want to ensure that we're able to at least have that discussion here before we go off and then realize we should have just amended this motion to ask for more accurate information.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Anderson, go ahead.

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

I think at some point the members are going to have to do their own work. We're prepared to go along with the motion as it sits right now. I don't want to start messing around with amendments and adding ad nauseam to the information we're supposed to provide. They can go and find their own information.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Regan.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

I wonder if I can help, Mr. Chair. If we were to add the words “and projections if available”, would that be satisfactory? The thing is that we're not going to be able, even from StatsCan numbers, to produce the projections that the department might produce, if there are projections they produce. That's why I say “if available”.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Anderson and then Mr. Trost.

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

I think as a former minister you know full well that we're probably not going to be bringing the department's projections to the committee ahead of time. That's not likely going to be happening here. We'll give the information the department has, but I don't think we're going to be making any hypothetical analysis of what might happen in the future and presenting that to committee so that you can use it in some political way.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Let's keep order here.

Mr. Trost.

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

Mr. Chair, I don't know. I pay my staff to do research and other projects. This basic stuff is very simple to get off the StatsCan website. If Mr. Regan wanted to do a service for the committee, he could just have his staff e-mail it to all of us every quarter here.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Order.

Mr. Trost, go ahead, please.

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

By occupation I was a geophysicist, but I also took a degree in economics, and one of the more useful courses I took was my third-year economics forecasting class. My professor was incredibly candid about the limitations of economic forecasting. I tell people he said that it was better than voodoo but not by a whole lot.

That's a slight exaggeration there. I'm not an economist, nor do I claim to be. I don't change my mind that often. As we've seen with the economists revising their forecasts every two to four weeks this fall and so forth, I'm not too sure how much the back-of-the-envelope calculations, which may or may not project accurately, might be worth. I'm not all that opposed to it, but I just don't see the relevance of this when it is something that could be easily done by MPs' staff.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Okay. We're ready for Mr. Regan.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Mr. Chairman, I want to close this off, but I look forward to mentioning to the Prime Minister what a lack of confidence Mr. Trost has in the speech he made this week as well as the projections in it. I think he would be very alarmed at that.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Okay, this is a public meeting. Shall we go to the question?

Monsieur Laframboise.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

No. It's okay.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Chair, just to understand the question, has it been amended with this projection?

[A voice]

He can't amend his own--

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

That's right. Mr. Regan can't amend his own motion, so I have no amendment.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I had suggested in my comments that if I needed to make a friendly amendment to this, I would.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

And your amendment is what?

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I want to get the language right: “in the following sectors”, and that the clerk provide these. I think it's with updates that contain the number of job losses or job gains and any projections available in the following sectors.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Could you repeat that, Mr. Cullen?

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Sure: job losses or gains or projections if available.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Regan.