Evidence of meeting #115 for Natural Resources in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was report.
A video is available from Parliament.
Bloc
Mario Simard Bloc Jonquière, QC
I'd like to make a small clarification so that everyone is on the same page.
Perhaps the clerk could tell us that if we hold the debate in the House, that doesn't prevent the committee from producing a report. This report can be presented to my colleague's constituents, if he so wishes. One does not preclude the other. You can wear a belt and suspenders. It's possible to do both at the same time.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal George Chahal
Thank you, Mr. Simard. There is nothing impeding us from taking multiple avenues. However, as a point of clarification, the member is still going through his argument on why he believes this path is the way we should go forward. I'd like to hear more from the member, who can continue his debate.
Go ahead, Mr. Schiefke.
Liberal
Peter Schiefke Liberal Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC
Thank you very much, Chair.
Getting back to what I was saying, I have used, multiple times over the last nine years as a member of Parliament, the reports we have produced within committee. I share them with my constituents when they ask questions. All of those resources are paid for by the taxpayers. That's always an item brought up by my Conservative friends. We need to be diligent about how we spend taxpayer money.
We just spent literally dozens of hours studying this. We brought people in from a wide array of fields, as I said, including ministers and department officials. Now we're basically saying, “No, we don't want to report on what we just learned.” I think Canadians need to ask why we don't want to do that. Were there perhaps things they didn't like that were said, because they went against certain arguments put forward, or against misconceptions that were held by certain members?
In this particular case, my honourable colleague Mr. Simard is right. We can debate this at a later date. However, what we have in front of us now is a plethora of witness testimony we can use to put together a very comprehensive report of a very important study—one that, as a member of Parliament, I would very much like to share with constituents who have questions about this project. As chair of another committee, I would very much like us to see this come to fruition and provide something to the government with recommendations, ideas, comments, etc., then get a response from the government back. If we want to have a debate in the House after the fact, we can use the data and information we have all sifted through and adopted as a report.
I feel we should move forward that way. I see disagreement across the way. Mr. Angus is right. Part of our job is to agree when we are in agreement, and to disagree when we're not in agreement. However, my position is this: Let's move forward. Let's put together this incredible plethora of information in a report we can share with constituents, regardless of which riding we represent. Then, if we see fit and so choose, we can move forward to debate it in the House of Commons.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Liberal
Liberal
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to start by thanking my colleague, MP Angus. He has a much longer runway in the government. He will be missed in the next round. He has institutional knowledge around the committee that I commit to brushing up on, but I thank him for sharing his point of view. We also had comments from the peanut gallery, but I'll let that one go.
Monsieur Simard, my choice of using “political” versus “accountability” in my attempt to make a point was probably misunderstood. I'm not suggesting that you are playing a political game. I could not find a better word to say that we transitioning from accountability into—what? If you want to say that there's a “spectrum of accountability”, that's very much the same— accountability in the House, accountability in the committee etc. If that word is causing stress and is derailing us from the conversation, I'll withdraw that word and say that we are within the spectrum of accountability, and we are looking at the debate in the House.
Really, the point that I was hoping to make was that during that accountability and spectrum of accountability, it's best to have all the facts, and it's best to have a response from the government in the recommendations that we are going to make. We have a lot more substantive conversation.... Where I am lost is when PBO comes in as a last witness, and, all of a sudden, we have a motion, whereas we have other witnesses who come in and align with the PBO from a general direction.
We also had witnesses come in, for example, the TMX CEO, who said that they were going to be smart sellers, and sell this thing and profit. We didn't move a motion and say, “Okay, let's go debate it in the House.” That's the end of the case. We are making money, so we are done.
Really, the point of proposing that amendment was for us to ensure that as we engage the population, as we engage with our stakeholders, we have a set of references that are testimonies. I agree; right now, I can go and get the notes from the committee, have my staff pull each one of those witnesses, get the key points to be able to come in and do a 20-minute debate as part of a three-hour concurrence debate and say, “This is what we heard.” One of the areas that I cannot respond to or debate in the House is the question of the government position.
We are not suggesting that we should prolong this process. It's that one of the pieces that I cannot go back and debunk or support is the government response. The only way that the government response comes is as a result of us making a report and sending it, and using Standing Order 109 to actually mandate the government within 120 days. This is the tool, at least for the last nine years—that's the way I understand it—that mandates the government, forces them to respond, and gives me the tool that I need, so that when I get up in the House, as part of any of those accountability measures within that spectrum that we were talking about, I am able to say, “Well, I heard this from this witness, and this is the government response.” Do I support it or not?
I come from multimillion-dollar projects that were run. I understand gating. I understand risk management. I understand who makes the decisions. I understand the difference between a political decision and a transformational decision. I'm looking to the government response to be able to figure out whether it truly was a political decision or a transformational decision. If it was political, okay, you're going to pay the price.
If it was transformational and if it puts our country on one of the lists of countries that can get large national projects done, that's good. Were we efficient in doing that? No. Where could we find efficiency? I don't know. I haven't seen the report and I haven't seen the government response about why things happened the way they happened.
I'd like to know, when we went from $7.5 billion to $12.5 billion, what risks were identified? What was the risk mitigation? Once we approved that, who was approving it?
I'm hoping to get those from the government in the response to the report. When we went from $12.5 billion to $22.5 billion, I have exactly the same question. We have a gating process. We have a risk mitigation process. This is the Canadian people's money, so I'd like to get those answers.
I don't feel comfortable going into a three-hour debate having the pieces of information we have without a response. I can say that the PBO said we're going to lose $3 million or potentially $4 million. I can say that the PBO did a sensitivity analysis and within 2.5% up and down on each one of those, such as the interest rate, such as the rate, as well as the utilization, we could potentially be making $4.5 billion, even excluding all the other benefits. I can make that argument, but how is that going to help us?
What's going to help us is a response from the government to say how we went from $7.5 billion to $34.4 billion. That's number one, based on all we've heard. The other thing in the response from the government is what factors it is using to ensure Canadians are not going to lose that money. I don't have those answers.
We want to go to Canadians during a three-hour concurrence debate, whenever it happens and however it happens. Pieces of data are missing. The only way I can get that piece of data, the way I understand current procedures, is through—
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Mr. Chair, I have a point of order.
Is this meeting in public?
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
I'm concerned we're going to be forcing the Canadian people to listen to a three-hour filibuster on TMX, as opposed to just getting this moved so we can get to other very important matters. We now have 10 minutes left.
Will we continue with the filibuster and then move on to Wednesday?
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
A three-hour debate on something that should just be moved is a waste of our time.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal George Chahal
No, it's not. It's more of a commentary.
Just to clarify where we're at, we had a motion on the floor. We are on the amendment of Mr. Jowhari.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal George Chahal
Colleagues, a number of people are still on the speaking list after Mr. Jowhari. Once we exhaust the speaking order, maybe we can get to vote on the amendment, but we'll see. If not, I'll have some comments prior to ending today's meeting.
Go ahead, Mr. Jowhari.
Liberal
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
I'm going start with the point of order.
With all due respect for MP Angus, it is very interesting that when he was responding—
Liberal
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
He has the floor, Chair. I think it's perfectly fair for him to use his time attacking me. He can do that; he has the floor. I don't think he gets a point of order on top of it to attack me. He should just take the floor and continue whatever he's going to do.