Natural Resources Committee on March 10th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Thank you so much, everybody. That concludes the part of business related to Bill S-222.

We have two other items to deal with briefly before we conclude today.

The first is that we need approval of the travel budget related to the Inflation Reduction Act. That was distributed yesterday. Does anybody have any questions on it?

We included travel for seven members, plus a support team. The three locations that were costed out, as discussed on Tuesday, with field trips to be taken, are Houston, Denver and Sacramento.

Did anybody have any questions, or are we ready to vote on a proposal that we can then send off to the Liaison Committee?

Seeing no questions, shall we adopted the budget as presented?

(Motion agreed to)

The very last item I have is to welcome back to the table our analyst. One of our analysts is still back there. We've kept our legislative clerk.

Ross has been with the committee since before I started. He wanted a moment to address the committee.

With that, Ross, it's over to you.

[Ross Linden-Fraser, Committee Researcher]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That's very kind of you.

I've had a chance to speak with some of the members. Sadly, for me, this is my last day on the committee, so I wanted to take a moment to thank the members for the opportunity to work with the committee. It's been a pleasure. It's a privilege to work with each of you.

Thanks to the members of the committee and the other staff members, I have learned a lot.

So I would like to take this opportunity to thank Ms. Geneviève Desjardins, the clerk of the committee, the chair and my colleague Dana Fan. I thank you all very much.

The committee will be in good hands.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Ross, thank you so much for your service to the library and to Parliament.

For the members who are here, I have a card, if you'd like to stop by and sign it on the way out. I have a small gift in my bag, but I'll wait until we're not being televised before I pull that out to present it.

Congratulations on your new role outside of the House, and best of luck with your future endeavours. We'll miss you dearly here. We also know that we're left in good hands, so all the best to you.

With that, folks, we are adjourned. Have safe travels home, a great week in the constituency, and we'll see everybody back here in a week.

On the first day back, on Tuesday, March 21, we have the minister coming. Actually, no, we're not suspended yet. We have the minister coming with officials to go over supplementary estimates (C). The issue I want to flag for everybody is that the way the budget cycle works, the last supply day ends up being at a point when, because it works back from that, today is actually the last day we can report back to the House on supplementary estimates (C). However, it wasn't possible to get the minister here. We can still have him come with officials. It simply means we can't amend any of the votes that are put to us, but we can still report back to the House. It would just be without amendments.

The plan is to still have the minister and officials here on the Tuesday when we're back. Then, on Friday, we'll be continuing with the recommendations on the just transition report. We're not calling it “just transition”, but the new title hasn't been adopted yet, so that will be the first week back and we'll see where we're at. The plan for the second week, then, is to move into the first panel of witnesses for the Inflation Reduction Act, just to get that one started. I'll share details after that for the rest of the work plan.

Now, that's it. Safe travels. Have a good week at home.

Mario, do you have a question?

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Are we not going to study the draft reports when we return?

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

We're going to do the minister and the supplementary estimates (C). Then we'll do the recommendations.

Hopefully, we'll see if we can conclude on the Friday for the just transition report. I thought we'd be further along in the report. We have invited a panel for the just transition, for the Tuesday. It's going to be, I think, a lot easier to have the IRA on Tuesday, because if we have anybody outside of this time zone on Fridays it becomes very early. I'm going to keep Fridays for continuing to move along on our reports, so we can get those concluded.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

If I remember correctly, our motion said that we would first conclude the consideration of reports. So we would do that before we go on to Mr. Angus' study.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

The wording—and we can get our clerk to give you the exact wording—I didn't take as an absolute, and I've heard from other members that there's some interest in and urgency on the Inflation Reduction Act, so I'm trying to do the dance of getting that one started, at least with one panel. We are going to be holding at least some of it until after the budget and then coming back to report, but I wanted to get at least the one panel of witnesses in this next week's session.

I'll get the wording from the clerk, because it's not an absolute. It's how I interpret it. If the committee wants to direct otherwise, it can—

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Okay, but—

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

—but let me get the clerk to give the wording of the motion first, and then I'll go to you, Mr. Simard.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Geneviève Desjardins]

The part of the motion you're referring to is the following:

That, notwithstanding anything else in this motion, the Chair prioritize the consideration of draft reports.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

That's it. Unless we do this in subcommittee, I would prefer that we give precedence to the consideration of draft reports, as agreed, before starting a new study.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

I have Charlie now, and then Shannon.

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

I don't think we need to overthink this, Chair. If we're second-guessing, we're not going to get much done. I think this is a very reasonable position. I think we're all very interested in the IRA. It's going to be strange to be going to the United States if we haven't actually started the study, because we're going to be going in blind, so I think your attempt to balance this works, and I support it.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Okay.

Next is Ms. Stubbs.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

I would just say that the Conservatives read and understood the motion in the same way that our Bloc colleague is articulating. We support his position that we should conclude the study report.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Okay.

How about we have, in the first week, as I've said, the minister and officials on the supplementary (C)s, which was at the request of the committee? The Friday is set for continuation of the report—the recommendations we're on. Let me see where we are at that point, and we'll get a work plan the first week back. If we want to continue with reports, then we can continue with reports. There's some time to figure this out. We have the first week's work plan, which fully respects what we have laid out for the committee.

Go ahead, Mario.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

I don't wish to nitpick. However, before we decide on the work for the next few weeks, we should discuss it, at least in subcommittee.

Since we had a motion before us, it was pretty clear to me that we would be looking at the reports. I prepared myself accordingly.

Before we decide on that, we should at least discuss it in subcommittee.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Charlie is next.

It's over to you, Mr. Angus. You're next on my speakers list.

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

Thanks.

Yes. I don't want to be combative, but I think that if we wait for a subcommittee, that just delays things. It just means that our work in committee is going to be slowed down. I think you've offered a reasonable thing. There's no conspiracy behind it.

How about we put your suggestion to a vote? If the vote doesn't pass, we can take it to the subcommittee, but I would like to get this thing dealt with today so that our analysts have instructions and the clerk has instructions to draw the witnesses we need. I would say that we put it to a vote.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Okay.

Mario?

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

There is no conspiracy. We are setting an agenda for the committee.

Why would we vote on a proposal? It's up to all the participants to decide what our agenda will be. We cannot be presented with a fait accompli because it suits Mr. Angus, who wants to launch his study as quickly as possible.

We prepare ourselves before coming here. I, for one, prepare well in advance. I know that we have reports to study, which will not be fresh in our minds if we consider them in six weeks' time.

We already had a set agenda. We cannot play around with the agenda at will without consulting the committee. I do not think it is appropriate to do that. If we did, our agenda could change every week and we could move on.

Unless we discuss it in subcommittee and have time to do so, I don't see why we would vote on the proposal without everyone having had a chance to think about it. We're not going to vote five minutes before the end of the meeting.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

I've heard the considerations and the concerns of the committee. I'm willing to work with them.

As I said, we have the schedule for the first week. Let me come back with a proposed schedule for the rest of it. We can deal with it when we're back.

With that, folks, we now need to get on with the day. I'm going to adjourn the meeting. You'll get the notice once we're back, in a week.

Thank you. Have a good constituency week.

The meeting is adjourned.