Natural Resources Committee on Oct. 30th, 2023

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

You interrupted when I was discussing precisely those matters.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Mr. Sorbara, for your point of order.

I'd ask colleagues to not use points of order for debate. Also, to the individuals who have the floor, keep it relevant to the conversation at hand on the subamendment that's been provided by Mr. Falk.

I have Mr. Brock on the point of order. Go ahead.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

I'd like the chair to be aware that at least the last two—I've lost track, quite frankly—points of order by MP Sorbara were not points of order. They were debate. Quite frankly, if he wishes to engage in this type of intervention, which is clearly what it is...it's meant to stall the ability of my colleague Mr. Genuis to actually get to the point. He's raising issues of relevancy.

That's not a point of order, Chair, and you know it. As a suggestion to Mr. Sorbara, he should listen to the actual statements made by Mr. Genuis before he raises another point of order. With the last two, he was literally interrupted midstream before he actually got to his point.

I hear what he's saying. He wants to move this forward, but his own actions defy that logic.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Mr. Brock, for your point of order.

Mr. Brock, as you stated and have said in your own comments, we don't use points of order for debate. We have had a number of points of order over the last month and a half to two months that have been used in committee as opportunities to debate.

I would ask members to ensure that they use their points of order for procedural relevance. I would ask members who have the floor to ensure that their debate is relevant to the motion or the amendment. In this case, it's the subamendment that Mr. Falk has brought forward on this important topic.

Mr. Genuis, the floor is back to you on the subamendment. Go ahead.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you very much, Chair.

I wasn't sure how long that would go on for.

I will resume the points I was making previously with respect to the substance of this issue. I will say in passing that Mr. Sorbara raised three points of order in quick succession, first interrupting the points I was making about workers and then saying on the third point that we should get back to talking about workers.

I hope I don't cause a flurry of disorder by saying that this is the kind of duplicitousness we have come to expect from my colleagues opposite, who, in one instance in this committee, claimed that they want to hear from witnesses, but I expect that they are planning on supporting a motion in the House that would make it impossible for this committee to hear from witnesses.

This is what is happening. This is what people need to know. This is what is really an unprecedented attack on the ability of our democratic institutions to do their jobs.

The way the legislative process is supposed to work is that bills, when adopted at second reading, come to committee. They are considered in committee. In the process of consideration, there is a consensual process around hearing from a certain number of witnesses, and then ultimately the individual clauses and related amendments are put to a vote, and the committee is able to use its expertise on the issues at hand to study the bills and their effects.

Parliamentary committees are not supposed to be simply a rubber-stamp process. They are supposed to be a substantive investigation of critical issues by the members who are tasked with being on this committee and, therefore, becoming expert in the particular issues associated with it. That's why we have parliamentary committees. That's a critical reason that we have a legislative process in general.

Too often this government has treated Parliament as if it's some kind of a rubber-stamping sideshow. In particular, parliamentary committees are essential to the process of crafting good legislation.

We have been trying to establish a good process for working through this legislation. I think, if you look at the extended committee meeting that has been ongoing for the last month, you will see that the majority, if not the vast majority, of the talking has been done by members of the NDP and the Liberals. There have been constant interruptions and almost no opportunity for members of this committee to put thoughts on the record.

I had an experience early on when I was planning to speak to this issue, and I had the floor arbitrarily taken away from me by the chair, but we have had many instances throughout, as we have just seen across the way, when reasoned attempts to make arguments about the substantive issues associated with this legislation are being put forward, there are constant interruptions.

I think the claim by the government that this is some kind of sustained filling of the time by opposition members is just not consistent with the record. The record is very clear here in terms of what has been going on.

Nonetheless, we have, as I have been trying to identify for the last half hour in the midst of interruptions, motion number 31, which the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons has put forward that radically abridges the committee study process and effectively eliminates the committee study process on Bill C-50.

Once adopted, it would give members less than 24 hours to submit their amendments, which is extremely limiting, especially given the constraints around the legislative drafting team to do great work. Demanding a turnaround of a couple of hours if there are multiple complex amendments is obviously quite unreasonable. Even the ideas that we would want to hear, about what type of amendments would happen and the possible refinements of those amendments that should be coming, we will not be hearing from the witnesses, because witnesses will not be able to appear.

The motion created by the government involves no witnesses and no ministers even coming before committee to explain their position around the bill. It envisions a process where, after a mere two hours of clause-by-clause consideration, the committee would be subject to a procedure whereby there would be no debate whatsoever on the clauses. This is in part 4 of the government motion that, after 8:30, all remaining—

[Viviane LaPointe, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Mr. Genuis, I will ask you to hold, please.

We have a point of order by Ms. Lapointe.

[Viviane LaPointe, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

I'm just going to ask for relevance on the subamendment from Mr. Falk that this committee is currently dealing with.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

On the point of order, Chair—

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

I'll ask Mr. Genuis to just hold for a second.

Thank you for your point of order, Ms. Lapointe.

I would ask the member to keep it relevant to the subamendment that's been presented by our colleague, Mr. Falk.

Mr. Genuis, if you could keep it connected to that as you debate, go ahead.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Chair, now that Ms. Lapointe has decided to intervene on this, I wanted to actually highlight the fact that a while back she had accused me of unparliamentary language. I had asked her to simply say what I had said that was allegedly unparliamentary. She didn't even respond at that time.

If Ms. Lapointe has comments—

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Mr. Genuis, I will ask you, on that point—

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

I would welcome her to clarify her earlier accusation. She won't, of course, because she didn't then. She has nothing to stand on, but I would encourage her, when making accusations—

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Mr. Genuis, I would ask you to hold, please.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

—against other members to actually have in mind what she's accusing them of.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Mr. Genuis, I will ask you to hold because there is a point of order by Ms. Jones.

Go ahead, Ms. Jones.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Genuis' comments have no relevance to the debate here today.

For a point of clarification, Mr. Chair, I'd like to say that we've had since the end of October to bring witnesses to this committee—

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

I have a point of order, Chair.

Are you allowing members to just make editorial comments and call them points of order?

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

It's been the choice of the Conservatives to delay the proceedings, to filibuster the meetings and to discuss irrelevant information as part of this debate. That's the reason we have not been able to get to witnesses.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Ms. Jones, for your point of order.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Chair, are you enforcing order here?

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

I will remind members—Mr. Genuis and others here—that when I turn on my mic, this red light comes on. That is an indication for all members to pause in their intervention, so we don't have multiple members speaking through the mic for our interpreters.

We all know the interpreters do a tremendous job of interpreting in both official languages. I want to make sure they can continue to do that, but when there are multiple individuals speaking into the mic and speaking over each other, it makes it difficult for the interpreters.

Now, thank you for the point of order. I would also remind all members around the table that we do not engage in lengthy debate as we use points of order. They're only for procedural use. I'm going to remind everybody of that.

Now I'm going to the next point of order.

Mr. Dreeshen.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would hope that you would believe that I do not use points of order for anything other than points of order.

I would submit to you that once you recognize that it has gone into debate, from any member here, if you stop the comments at that particular point in time, we would not have to worry about the issues that you've had to address.

You have had experience here. You can recognize when it is debate. If you simply say that it is debate and shut the mics off at that point in time, then we won't have the issues that we seem to have at this point in time.

Thank you.