Transport Committee on May 26th, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

I call the meeting to order.

Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities. This is meeting number 18. Orders of the day are pursuant to the order of reference of Wednesday, March 3, 2010. We are doing clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-442, an Act to establish a National Holocaust Monument.

Before we start, I want to make sure that everyone has the updated amendments. An original package was put out, and two Liberal amendments have been added. I want to make sure everybody has the same--

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

I thought you wanted us to bring our own.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Bonnie Charron]

We've got more copies.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

We have two new members, so I just wondered.

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

If anybody has an update, I'd like an updated version, please.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

We just actually have them loose. They can be inserted.

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

That would be fine.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

We have new members on the committee.

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

That's no problem. I understand.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

It'll be the original package we had at the last meeting, plus two new ones from the Liberals. I just want to make sure everybody has them. They are headed LIB-1 and LIB-2 and deal with clauses 6 and 7.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

What are we dealing with first, by the way? Will it be the government ones or ours?

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

We'll just go as they came in.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

So we'll go with the government amendments--

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

But yours will fit into the clauses that they apply to in that order. Yours are applying to clause 6 and clause 7, so they would follow G-5. Then we have LIB-1, then G-6, and then LIB-2.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

We're becoming accustomed to efficiency. It's an acclimatization thing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

As in normal situations, I am proposing to postpone the preamble until the end. Clause 1, the short title, we will postpone until the end. I'm asking that we stand clause 2 because we have to rely on other amendments to apply clause 2 when it comes up, so we'll come back to that.

(On clause 3--Establishment of Holocaust Monument)

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

There are no amendments to clause 3.

Go ahead, Mr. Jean.

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

This is a point of order in relation to clause 2, the definitions of “Council”, “Minister”, “Monument”, and “public land”. I understand we'll be dealing with that clause at a later time, so if some of the amendments deal with the description and the definition, and that description and definition change, we can then encompass those in the final compilation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Actually, they pre-empt some of the changes that are going to be made throughout the bill or some amendments that will come forward.

(Clause 3 agreed to)

(On clause 4--Council to be established)

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

I like the way we start.

We're looking at the first amendment, and it's on page 3 of the bill. It's government amendment G-3.

Go ahead, Mr. Jean.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to propose that this motion be accepted in its amended form. What it does specifically is take away a lot of the powers of the minister through a later compilation of all the other sections and instead and puts the onus on the minister to make sure the council remains at arm's length, consistent with other acts.

In essence, it assigns the minister responsibility to make sure the minister stays at arm's length from the council and that the council performs its duties, which I think makes a lot of sense. It actually achieves consistency between the establishment of the national Holocaust monument and the establishment of other monuments pursuant to the National Capital Commission's policy.

This amendment also deals with eligibility requirements for the council itself. The government's position is that this council should be responsible for most of the issues contained within the original bill, in that it would be better for decisions to be made by council members who are directly connected to and affected by the Holocaust, which are the eligibility requirements set out. These council members would ultimately be responsible for making most of those decisions, which I think would be consistent with what most members want.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

It is at this point that I will make a ruling, and then we can see where we move from there.

I'm advised that this amendment would be inadmissible. It introduces a new concept beyond the scope and cannot be adopted unless G-4 is adopted.

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

Let's do that, then.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

It is also inadmissible, but the two, if accepted by the committee, can be worked through.

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

Is it the position to take clause 4 first, or which clause are we going to deal with first?