Natural Resources Committee on Feb. 17th, 2016

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

This would be our foundation for going forward. The minister, of all people, knows the mandate and knows the sectors, and it is incumbent on all of us to prepare ourselves, to read and to do our research. We were just going to suggest it, but we would be happy with the motion. Either way, we need to immediately, initially, bring in the minister. I don't think he would mind. He's very open and has been talking about his file a lot. He has done a very good job working on his file, so I don't think it would be a problem for him, and he would probably appreciate meeting us and knowing that we really want to know his thoughts on a whole bunch of these different sectors.

My request stands, and whether it's just an informal request or an actual motion—

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

The motion has been made.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

It was made, so we do have a motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

I'm sorry. Mr. Cannings had his hand up and I didn't see him before.

Mr. Cannings.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

I heard the part of the motion that said the minister would be appearing in the future. I just want to make sure that this doesn't preclude us from asking the minister to come to talk about estimates later, after the initial meeting.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Mr. Harvey.

[TJ Harvey, Liberal, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Everybody wants to proceed with this. I would like to clarify that the spirit of the motion was just an informal invitation for the minister to discuss his mandate letter, which is public. I also believe the minister would want to speak with the committee, but it's up to the committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

I agree with that, and I think the spirit of your motion and the suggestion are identical. Since notice of this meeting was only to deal with procedural issues, and notice wasn't given to talk about future items for discussion, including this, maybe we'll just leave that as a suggestion and deal with it in the course of setting our agenda for future meetings, if everybody's content with that.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

It is a motion on the floor. I have no qualms supporting it. I think we should vote on it. I think the group here is willing to do that. I'm ready to vote on it. I think it's something we all agree we should do anyway.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Mr. Lemieux.

[Denis Lemieux, Liberal, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Actually, Mr. Chair, I'm picking up on the point I raised earlier.

Might we consider inviting either the minister or one of his officials to appear?

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

If you want to suggest that amendment, we can do that.

Mr. Harvey.

[TJ Harvey, Liberal, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

I feel that it's very important for any committee to start off on the right foot and to start off as a unified body. We're here to do a job, and it's very important that it be perceived that we are jelling and working together collaboratively as a team. If we don't feel there's a consensus that we want to go forward with this today, then I'll retract it and bring it forth another time.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

That's up to you, because it's your motion.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Mr. Chair, as I said earlier with regard to an informal invitation or whether we are to proceed with the motion, maybe as my colleague Mr. Lemieux mentioned earlier, we could just, without tying ourselves too tightly, say “the minister or a representative”. Otherwise we have to work around the minister's schedule. So either we can just leave it as an informal invitation, or if there is going to be a formal motion, let's not tie it in too much and leave it open to being a representative of the department.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Ms. Bergen.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

I think there are going to be all kinds of opportunities when we will have a formal motion, and we'll probably then say “the minister and/or his representatives”, but for me, this request was, in the spirit of what Mr. Harvey said, to have the minister here to talk about his mandate letter. However we want to proceed, it's just an informal agreement to ask the minister. It's not a formal request, so that doesn't tie him in. Because it's not a motion, it would make it a little less of an issue if he has less time in the near future.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Mr. Harvey.

[TJ Harvey, Liberal, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

In the spirit of collaboration, I'll agree to withdraw the motion and then we can proceed.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you.

So you will withdraw the motion. I was going to suggest that I could extend an invitation to the minister to say that he is welcome at all times and that we would love to meet with him any time in the future. How's that? Okay.

You had your hand up.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

I was just going to concur and suggest that maybe at your earliest opportunity you could send a letter and invite the minister to appear before our committee at his earliest convenience.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Consider it done.

See what collaboration can do? We get to positive results. Is there any other business today?

Mr. McLeod.

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

Just going back to what I was mentioning earlier, are we going to talk about how we want to move forward or are we saying just invite the minister and that's it?

I was hoping we'd be able to discuss who we want to invite, who we want to hear from, and what types of industry we need to focus on. I thought we'd have all those things on the table at one time, including the minister's visit. But if we're going to just zoom in on the minister, it doesn't allow for that kind of discussion.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

I think everybody is in agreement with that. Perhaps for the next meeting, the agenda could consist of talking about future agenda items and the issues we want to look at and potential witnesses and people to invite to committee, including the minister.

Okay? Excellent.

All right, is there any other business?

Mr. Cannings.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

This probably isn't a good place right now for a formal motion on this, but I wanted to say I'm going to leave a motion with the clerk that we discuss conducting a study at the earliest possible time on the softwood lumber issue and negotiations around that.

I think it's a very important issue, and I'd like to mention that I'm bringing that forward.