Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
It's a pleasure for me to talk to this amendment brought by my colleague, Ms. Stubbs.
Just to bring people up to speed again, I'm going to read what the amendment actually is so that viewers watching this by television understand what it is that we're talking about. The amendment is that prior to engaging in the Liberal study motion that was brought forward, we:
1. First undertake the following study on Bill C-69: “Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the committee undertake a study of the Supreme Court of Canada's ruling that Bill C-69, an Act to enact the Impact Assessment Act and the Canadian Energy Regulator Act, to amend the Navigation Protection Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, is unconstitutional; for the purposes of this study, the committee: (a) hold at least 5 meetings, (b) invite the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources and the Minister of the Environment and Climate Change to appear for one hour each, (c) report its findings and recommendations to the House and, (d) pursuant to Standing Order 109, request that the government table a comprehensive response to the report.”, then
2. Complete its consideration of Bill C-49.
The rest of the motion that was brought forward would follow that.
Really, putting things in the right order is what this motion is doing. We've heard from the Supreme Court in their reference opinion that Bill C-69 has many parts of it that are not charter-compliant and are not constitutionally sustainable.
Bill C-49 and Bill C-50 all have references to Bill C-69 in there and, because of that—sometimes the language is verbatim—need to be studied in the light of Bill C-69, which should at least be charter-compliant and constitutionally sustainable. At the moment, it's not.
That's why I think it's incumbent on this committee to take a look at Bill C-69 and look at the reference opinion that the Supreme Court has provided. Then, in the light of that report, we're better able to deal.... Once we've done a fulsome study on Bill C-69 and the Supreme Court's opinion, we're better able, once that legislation has been modified and has become compliant, to look at Bill C-49 and Bill C-50.
What I would like to do is make a subamendment to the amendment at this time. I'd like the subamendment to be that the witness list for the study of Bill C-69, as proposed in the amendment, include representatives of the resource companies from Timmins—James Bay. I can repeat that: that the study include witnesses, that a representative of the resource companies operating in Timmins—James Bay....