Transport Committee on May 16th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

That is exactly what I said.

[Don Bell, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

We're moving now to the second motion by Mr. Fast. I've been advised that—

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Chair, I will be glad to withdraw my substantive motion—number two, I believe you called it—in favour of Mr. Volpe's motion, subject to the suggestion of a friendly amendment.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Once Mr. Volpe has moved it.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Or someone else.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

We have two amendments by you, Mr. Fast. The first one is on time allocation.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

That's correct.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Are you asking to leave that on the board?

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

That's correct.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Then that'll be the first part of the discussion.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

All right.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

So we're on Mr. Fast's motion on time limitations?

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

We're on Mr. Fast's motion.

I will give you the floor to make your presentation, and then we are going to deal with Mr. Volpe's motion with a friendly amendment.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Are we doing that one too?

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Can I have one minute to confer?

I'll withdraw that motion.

[An hon. member]

Hear, hear!

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Basically we're left with Mr. Volpe's motion, subject to that one friendly amendment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Fast has withdrawn his first motion on time allocation, his second motion on Canada Post, and the committee is in agreement with that.

We will move to Monsieur Bélanger to present Mr. Volpe's motion.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Mr. Chairman, I suspect you will recall the discussion that we had last week around this table. We were still at it at this time and for another four hours after that.

You will recall that there was an attempt after the vote, when the committee came back, to reconstruct some goodwill around the table—and I'll summarize this quickly—in the sense that if collectively we gave ourselves some time, we might find some common ground. We were acting on the suggestion from the parliamentary secretary, and all members of all the opposition parties have also had a chance to discuss this.

The common ground included elements such as a stay of execution, to use the vernacular, for the remailers. It also included not seeking to tamper with the privilege of Canada Post at this time—I don't want to rehash all the discussions—and it sought some time so that the committee could engage in what some would consider its due diligence in terms of these rather complex matters.

The motion in front of you, under the name of my colleague Joe Volpe, that I'm prepared to move now essentially calls for that. It says “That the Standing Committee...report to the House of Commons the following...”. I can dispense with reading, but let's not dispense, so that the sense of it is clear, because there were some questions asked.

The first part is that “The corporation shall, at its option”. This “at its option” means discontinuance, withdrawal, or “consent to a judicial stay of proceedings”. That is what its options are—not to do nothing. At least, that's the advice this committee is giving to the government, if the government wishes to accept it and pass it on to Canada Post via the minister, as it stated.

Finally, in the last part, we are putting some encumbrances upon ourselves, such that we would undertake before the end of this calendar year to look into the matter and make further comments, recommendations, or suggestions, depending on the hearings and the amount of work we do.

I suspect that this defined pretty well the common ground I thought we could reach. Once this motion is formally presented and moved, as it now is, I also hope this would be the result.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Fast.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The only concern I have is the three words in paragraph (i), “at its option”. I know how the drafting would have been done and what the intention was: that the corporation has an option to either “discontinue, withdraw or consent”. It can be construed as being simply an option that the corporation has to act or not act, if you understand where I'm coming from. I think we need to refine that.

In fact, in my version of this particular section, which was actually Mr. Volpe's section, I took out those three words so it would read: “The Corporation shall discontinue, withdraw or consent to a judicial stay of proceedings”. This makes it clear that the corporation doesn't have the option of simply not acting at all.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Bell.

[Don Bell, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

I agree. I'll leave it to the legal drafters, but you either delete “at its option” and put the word “either” in there, or you just delete “at its option”. So it should read: “The Corporation shall discontinue, withdraw or consent“, or “The Corporation shall either discontinue, withdraw or consent”.

It's not that they have a choice to do nothing.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Mr. Chair, I'd treat as a friendly amendment the addition of the word “either”.