Evidence of meeting #117 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.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal George Chahal
Ms. Dabrusin, I'll ask you to hold for a second. We have a point of order from Mr. Lake.
Conservative
Mike Lake Conservative Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB
I just want to make sure the rules haven't changed. All of that witness testimony is public, is it not, and anybody speaking in the House could refer to it regardless ?
I ask that just in case anything's changed in the way that we do things around this place after my 19 years of being here.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal George Chahal
Thank you for your point of order, Mr. Lake.
I'm not sure if it's a point of order from a procedural perspective, but I will answer your point of clarification. As you're new to the committee as well, welcome.
I believe that testimony was public, folks, but I don't believe that members of the public would have access to the physical, approved report of the committee.
Conservative
Mike Lake Conservative Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB
They would have access to the testimony, right? They would have access to the testimony, everything the witnesses said and everything, as Julie said, we heard as a committee.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal George Chahal
Thank you for that point of clarification.
Ms. Dabrusin, we go back to you.
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
All I was saying—and I have said this since the very beginning—is that I've never before seen us decide to send one witness piece, one report piece that's been submitted as evidence to this committee in a larger study, to the House of Commons without completing the full study. I still think that there's merit to it, and I just was pointing out that I think that the arguments that were just made by the two speakers before me exemplify that there's an interest in actually digging deeper into the larger issues.
With that, I'm happy to go to a vote on Mr. Jowhari's amendment, but I just wanted to make sure that my position was known.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal George Chahal
Thank you, Ms. Dabrusin.
We will get to a vote at some point, but we still have a few more speakers
Mr. Falk, you're up next. Go ahead, Mr. Falk.
Conservative
Ted Falk Conservative Provencher, MB
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for this time to speak to this amendment.
It's clear, and I think Canadians can see that what's going on here is that the Liberal government is faced with an issue that the Parliamentary Budget Officer says is going to become quite uncomfortable for them. This is because, for years, they've told Canadians that this pipeline is going to be a good thing and is not going to cost them anything and everybody will be made whole. We know from the Parliamentary Budget Officer's report, which he brought here, that this is not the case. Canadians are on the hook for an awful lot of money, and the likelihood of recovering the full cost of the TMX project is very small.
It would be unwise to delay a debate in the House of Commons for another four months. The sooner the House can debate the issue and dig a little deeper into the facts, as my colleague Mr. Lake pointed out.... This has been a public study. There's no new information in the report that Canadians haven't been able to acquire through following the study. The sooner the House can debate this issue fully and completely, the sooner we can bring some kind of conclusion to this whole thing.
In reference to the study that this committee has done, I don't think it's been quite as thorough a study as the Liberals would like to portray it. There are other voices that need to be heard. There's more information out there.
We still haven't really got to the root of exactly why all of these cost overruns occurred on the pipeline. What should have initially been a $9.7-billion expansion project turned into an over $34-billion project. It's wild that you can go so far up on a project that it's seven times more expensive than it was budgeted to be.
There has obviously been some mishandling of the construction by this Liberal government. I think Canadians will be very curious to follow the debate in the House of Commons, where I'm sure there will be new information that comes forward. Canadians are going to be in a better position to make an informed decision as to whether or not this government should have bought a pipeline and should have attempted to construct this pipeline in the manner it did.
Once we have that debate in the House.... I agree with Mr. Patzer. I don't think three hours is going to be enough time, even in the House, for this debate to adequately happen.
I think we need to defeat this amendment. The motion my colleague Mario from the Bloc has brought forward is a great motion. The sooner the House debates this issue, the better for Canadians.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal George Chahal
Thank you, Mr. Falk.
I'm just taking one last glance at the screen for all those online.
At this point, we don't have any other speakers. We will proceed to a vote.
Mr. Clerk, could you call the roll?
December 2nd, 2024 / 11:25 a.m.
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal George Chahal
Yes.
Do colleagues need clarification on the amendment, or are we pretty clear on what the amendment is?
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal George Chahal
Yes. Thank you for that, Mr. Aboultaif.
(Amendment negatived: nays 6; yeas 5 [See Minutes of Proceedings])
Now we will proceed to the main motion that was previously amended.
I will look to colleagues who want to speak to the main motion.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal George Chahal
You're ready to vote. Okay. I like your enthusiasm and your being prepared, Monsieur Simard.
I just want to give colleagues an opportunity before we proceed to a vote. Is there anybody online who wants to speak to this?
No.
Go ahead, Mr. Clerk.
Wait; we have a hand.
Go ahead, Ms. Lapointe. You have your hand up. Would you like to speak to the main motion?
Liberal
Liberal
Viviane LaPointe Liberal Sudbury, ON
The amendment that I'd like to propose involves changing the four last words of the motion.
At the end of the French version, the motion states that the committee “asks the Chair to report to the House as soon as possible.” I propose replacing that with the following: “asks the Chair to report to the House following the conclusion of the Committee's report on the Trans Mountain pipeline.”
The reason I'm moving this motion has been stated before. For me, there are two main reasons. One is a matter of process—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal George Chahal
Ms. Lapointe, hold on for a second.
We have a point of order from Monsieur Simard.
Bloc
Mario Simard Bloc Jonquière, QC
I simply want to ask the clerk whether Ms. Lapointe's amendment is in order.
To my understanding, the amendment proposed by my colleague would have the same effect as Mr. Jowhari's amendment, which we already negatived. I imagine that, even if we debate it all over again, we'll reach the same conclusions. All the members said that there must be a debate in the House as soon as possible. To some extent, Ms. Lapointe is trying to reword Mr. Jowhari's amendment, and I don't think that there's any point in debating the issue yet again.
No doubt, my colleague is aware that her amendment has a similar objective to that of Mr. Jowhari's amendment. I don't know then whether her amendment is in order.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal George Chahal
As you asked a very specific question, Monsieur Simard, on your point of order, I'll let the clerk weigh in, as it was directed to the clerk.
Go ahead, Mr. Clerk.
The Clerk
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The first time around, the government was being asked to provide a response pursuant to Standing Order 109. That section sets out the number of days within which the government must respond and allows a debate to be held in the House. However, even if Mr. Jowhari's amendment had carried, the committee could have tabled its report immediately. In my opinion, Ms. Lapointe is proposing we wait and table the report once we've concluded our consideration of the Trans Mountain project and finalized our report.
In my opinion, these are two separate motions. Mr. Jowhari's amendment sought to table the report immediately but then wait for the government's response. Ms. Lapointe's amendment seeks to wait until both the study and the report are completed before tabling the report. In my opinion, those are two different motions and I would say that the motion is in order.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal George Chahal
Thank you.
Monsieur Simard, I hope that clarifies the motion and the admissibility of it for colleagues around the table here.
Ms. Lapointe, you were in mid-sentence, so I go back to you.
Liberal
Viviane LaPointe Liberal Sudbury, ON
Thank you, Chair.
I thank my colleague Mr. Simard for his comments. That said, I think it's important to discuss the points raised this morning by my Conservative colleagues.
They made statements that these are delaying tactics and that we're avoiding having this come before the House. I would suggest that just the opposite is the case. This is about ensuring that we have a thorough debate in the House. Really, a thorough debate can only happen if we include all of the testimony that we heard rather than just testimony from one specific witness.
The purpose of the TMX study—which we've been working on since September—is to hear from the experts and to make recommendations to the government. We heard from witnesses, and it's important that we not be seen, as a committee, as disregarding their very important and valuable testimony.
They provided expertise on a number of fronts. We heard from witnesses who talked to us about—
