Natural Resources Committee on May 30th, 2022

[Dale Swampy]

We have environmental protection and regulation that's sufficient to protect our country, and we have Canadians running these businesses. We don't need another level of regulatory hurdles to go through in bureaucracy. It's big government all over again—

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

To oversee the industry....

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

I'm sorry, I have to jump in. We're out of time now.

I would like to say thank you to each of our witnesses for the very important insights you shared today. We weren't able to make the first meeting happen because of votes, so I really appreciate your coming back and sitting with us while we got through more votes today. That is really appreciated. The invitation is there, if you have additional thoughts, to submit those to us.

You're free to sign off now, unless you want to stay for the last couple of minutes, but don't feel that you have to. Thank you so much. Have a great evening.

For committee members, before I get into responding to Mr. Simard's and Mr. Angus's question from the beginning, I just want to say that June 1, on Wednesday, the plan is to try to conclude the current study, with Ministers Wilkinson and O'Regan appearing along with officials for the first hour. In the second hour, we have a second panel of witnesses coming in, and I'd like to carve off about 10 minutes at the end for drafting instructions. If anybody has drafting instructions, it would be great to have those sent to the clerk in advance, so that if we need to get them translated we can. That's going to hopefully be the plan for Wednesday.

To both Charlie's and Mario's points on where we are at, where we are coming from in this study, I want to go through the parameters I have tried to work within and respect, in keeping with the motion that was given to us.

The motion included that the study was going to have up to 12 sessions and that it be concluded—I think the intent was to table by June 17. It was a very tight parameter, dealing with the analysts and the clerk, to try to get to that timeline. We were hoping to wind up before the constituency week we just had so we could have a first draft by next week.

We've had to carry it over now, because there was a meeting that was cancelled with the ministers which was agreed to with all of the whips, but without any discussion with me as the chair. We've lost time to votes, to these types of things, and it's had an impact on us.

We also know that the government intends to introduce just transition legislation sooner rather than later. In discussion, the hope was to have our study concluded before that legislation is introduced, as we could perhaps try to influence it.

On Wednesday, we are going to have the eighth session—which I know doesn't get us to 12—and there is also, I would say, the final sort of context piece, which is that I've heard from the committee, including Mr. Angus, that it would be good to conclude some of the studies we have started. So we've also tried to carve off some time to get through reports. My intention was to try to conclude the witnesses today for just transition, work with what we have, but then to get the analysts working on that and finishing up some of the studies we have on the go already.

I'd also like to mention we have the low-carbon fuel study that we still need to get back to, from the last parliament. That was put forward as a possible discussion that is on the table, and we still have a proposed study from Mr. Simard for a three-session study. I don't see how we can get to that before the end of June, but it could start building our agenda for September.

The master list was shared with everybody. We had 159 witnesses. If you do the math, over eight to 12 sessions, we had too many witnesses to try to fit into that length of study. We tried to make it proportional to the seats on the committee. With that, the way the numbers will stand, as of the end of Wednesday, are that the Liberals have had 16 of their witnesses come before the committee, the Conservatives 11, the Bloc 4 and the NDP 3.

[A hon. member]

Can you say that again?

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

It's Liberals 16, Conservatives 11, Bloc 4 and NDP 3.

I also want to point out that not everybody who was on the list accepted the invitation to attend. Not everybody was available to participate. Those who were not able to attend the sessions were invited to submit a 10-page brief. We've made every effort that we can to hear from everybody who was put forward on the list.

Those are the parameters that I was working with. Those are the efforts I made with the team to try to respect the desire of the committee to meet that June 17 deadline, which is extremely optimistic and ambitious.

That hopefully gives at least some idea of where things have gone since we started this particular study.

Mr. Angus, you have your hand up.

I was told that we have a hard six o'clock deadline, because this room is getting used at 6:30, and they need to reset it, so please be really tight with your comments.

We'll go to Charlie, Greg and Mario, and I don't know if there's anybody else. My mike is going to get cut here at any moment.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Okay. I'll be very short.

I think this is total bad faith, Mr. Chair, absolutely bad faith. You never said, ever, that this was going to be divided up between seat proportions. That is a major decision you made. What you've done is you have not allowed us to have our witnesses be heard, and it will certainly favour the government. It will favour the Conservatives.

As I said, am I sitting on a committee on just transition denialism? Without having the voices who are key to this, this report will be a joke. It doesn't really matter what I say about drafting instructions, because we have not been able, as New Democrats, to bring forth credible witnesses. I'm hearing the same witnesses I heard the last time the Conservatives brought them forward.

You're bringing forward farmers organizations when you're ignoring the Athabasca Chipewyan, the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, Indigenous Climate Action, Labor Leading on Climate Initiative and Workers Action Centre.

I just have to say that what I've seen from you and this committee is really bad faith. You never, ever, told us that you were going to try to limit our input based on an arbitrary decision based on seat allocation.

If that's how we're going to move forward, then we're going to play a lot more hardball with this committee from a New Democrat perspective. Things that you expect will be easy to get through are not going to get through based on the kind of bad faith I've witnessed here today.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

To that point, though, I will say that the list was shared. I have been very transparent in who has been invited and where it's gone. You have had the opportunity to—

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

You shared a list. You didn't say who were going to be the witnesses. We never had that discussion. We trusted you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

The the master list of everybody went out.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

You sent out a master list; you didn't tell us who was going to be chosen.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

I'll need to check with the team afterwards to see what....

Anyway, I have been trying to keep things moving along here, and that's what I'll say.

I hear you. It's unfortunate that you feel that way.

Next I have Mr. McLean and then Mr. Simard. Like I say, we need to be out of here shortly.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Chairman, you're doing a good job. Thank you. I would make somewhat similar decisions if I were in your chair.

I take Mr. Angus' point, in that it wasn't transparent and clear to us how the witnesses on the list were chosen. Nevertheless, proportionally I would make the different argument that 16 to 11 is not proportional to our representation here on the committee or in Parliament, if you will, and I would ask that you to look at that.

Let me put something on the table that I think would be a progressive move forward. You're fighting two different requirements. One is that, in this study, we have a minimum of 12 meetings. The other is that we report by June 17. You're choosing the latter, but not the former.

I suggest that we choose the latter and push the study out when we have to report back on this, as opposed to rushing towards a report that may or may not be considered by the government in the drafting of its legislation. If we do that, we can have the report more fulsomely reported later in the parliamentary session, presumably in the fall. Or, if we have to have these meetings sometime in the summer between ourselves, so be it.

I would suggest that there's a way to get that math back into the equation, but 16, 11, 4 and 3.... Like I say, it doesn't seem far off to me, but just a little off. If we can get square on that and make that decision, it would be better for me, Mr. Chair.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Thank you for that.

I only received the split a few minutes ago. I hear what you're saying, and I can happily look at it.

I will also say that the intention was to have a subcommittee meeting before the end of the session. We can do that sooner rather than later.

If we want to make this an ongoing priority, I'm happy to do that and we can have a discussion in a subcommittee meeting about how we want to balance witnesses. Hey, if we want to have all 157 here, we can fill the fall calendar with them, but the government's legislation is going to get out ahead of us.

Where do we want to be with this? That's a discussion I'm happy to take to the subcommittee in the interest of moving the room availability forward for today.

Go ahead, Mr. Simard.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

I'll try not to be as caustic as Mr. Angus. At the outset, it was a very bad idea to say that we were going to hold eight to 12 meetings. Planning a 12‑meeting study and planning an 8‑meeting study are two different things, if only for the preparation of our witness lists. There was no discussion at the subcommittee about prioritizing the witnesses we wanted to hear from or the topics we wanted to cover.

Personally, I find that this study is not representative of the mood of the stakeholders on this issue in Quebec, since we did not invite them to appear before the committee. The management of witnesses was haphazard, and the themes we discussed will not allow us to produce a report of any consistency. In fact, the scope of the study was far too broad.

What I would suggest for future studies is to establish clear rules on how our witness lists work and to ensure that a list of priorities is established at the subcommittee, so that we are a little more efficient and at least succeed in giving direction to the studies we do. In this case, I get the impression that it has been a waste of time.

Advancing the idea that there can be clean oil is one thing, and I don't want to criticize my Conservative colleagues, but tainting an entire study on just transition with these concerns and bringing in witnesses who say these things doesn't serve the public well, in my view. That's why I think it's important that we have discussions about this at the subcommittee.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Thank you, Mr. Simard.

Mr. Maguire, you also had your hand up.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

I agree as well. With 157 witnesses listed, there's no way that we would ever get to them all given the time frame that we have here. There are only about three years left in the mandate—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Well, apparently, there are three years.

I just want to say as well that there are other sectors, and Mr. Angus alluded to one that I think is pretty pertinent in a just transition as well, and that is the agricultural industry.

I'm just wondering if the Canadian Canola Growers Association has been one of those that were contacted, because they play a major part. It is a major part of their whole research program for the types of canola products that could be used in biofuels and other areas, particularly in the area of the industry that's certainly going to be very impacted by any decision that we make here or any decisions that the government comes forward with in legislation. That's all I would say on that one.

If we need a meeting or two more to accommodate some of that, I have no problem trying to do that. If Mr. Angus feels that there are some witnesses who he wants to have as well, that's fine with me.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Charlie, briefly, if you would, because we do need to get out of here so they can get the room ready for the next committee.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

I just want it to be very clear that whenever I've been on committee, if we had a lot of witnesses, we sat down and said, “What are our priorities?”

We weren't given that opportunity. I thank my Conservative colleagues for offering to say that we could expand, because I agree with Mr. Simard: I can't sign off on a report at this point. To me, if we stop it now and we don't have those other voices, it's been a complete waste of time. We'll just be saying, “Well, you guys can do it.” We can't sign off.

It's about the process. We all come up with many witnesses and then we come back and say: “Well, who do we need to hear from? How do we feel this this is going to work?” If you're going to say that it's going to be decided on seat allocation in the House, then it's a waste of our time as well, because then I can't bring forward.... While I think that for the good of the committee these are witnesses who need to be heard, I'm going to have to be a lot more parochial in my decisions, and that's going to affect the quality of our work. From here on in, we're going to have to decide how we're going to operate.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Yes. I've heard you.

Just as we prepare to gavel out, I understand that Minister Melillo has a big weekend ahead, so I just want to wish you all—

[An hon. member]

He's Prime Minister now...?

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Thanks for that—

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Have a good one.

Our meeting is adjourned.