Evidence of meeting #53 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 40th Parliament, 3rd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was centres.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
I don't understand what we're accomplishing here at all. We've had five good years of good work and here we are debating an issue that we can't control. We have no input into it, and quite frankly, to my mind, we're interfering with the role of justice within this particular quasi-judicial function. It doesn't make sense.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
That's why I'm saying that “final adjudication by the board” is the way I would put it.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal John McCallum
I think we have the wording of the amendment, because Mr. Jean had proposed the word “final” and the proposer accepted that as a friendly amendment. So that's how the amendment stands.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
On a point of order, this motion was your motion. You're now the chair. Now we have a mover of an amendment and another mover of an amendment to a motion that belongs to you as the chair. I don't think you can actually do that, but that would just be my guess.
I just want to make sure if we're going to debate this thing, we do it right and we're not going to end up doing something silly.
Bloc
The Vice-Chair Bloc Michel Guimond
Given that no one else wants to speak, the question is about the amendment. Do we need to reread the wording we're voting on? Right, we'll reread it.
Procedural Clerk
That the words “on Thursday, March 24, 2011, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.” be replaced by “the earliest available opportunity after the final decision of the Labour Relations Board”.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
I think we need to put in “final decision of the board on this matter”. That might be an idea, because they're not going to make a final decision probably for a couple thousand years.
Bloc
The Vice-Chair Bloc Michel Guimond
Mr. Bevington, do you agree with this new very friendly amendment?
NDP
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
I really don't have an opinion on this friendly amendment, since I don't understand the nature of labour standards board decisions. I would assume “final decision” would be good enough.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
I can explain, if I may.
It's a quasi-judicial board--
Conservative
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
He's a great guy. I actually have that in my book somewhere, that Chad's a great guy. I'm not sure where it is.
Mr. Bevington, my understanding is it's a quasi-judicial function, which means that they have the ability to make a decision on representations as a board. But of course they make decisions on a board every day, I would suggest, or at least more frequently than you would expect. So if we don't put “on this matter”, it would be the final decision by them in 3,000 years when they change to a judicial function, possibly.
That is why. I don't know if anybody else has any questions.
Conservative
Bradley Trost Conservative Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK
I have just one final question. The amendment says “that representatives of the drivers, the limousine companies and the GTAA be asked to appear”.
I'm assuming there's an association for each of these. If we're not able to get all of them lined up on the same day, what action we would take? We're going to try to get them on the soonest day possible, which I think is wise, because they might not be able to come on March 24. People do have schedules that don't quite fit what parliamentarians do. My question is, who in particular are we looking for as the representatives, and how would we juggle that if we couldn't get them all on the same day?
Liberal
John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
Oui.
I accept all of these amendments proposed by the government side. I suggest that the drivers choose their own representatives to come here. We accept all of that. I suggest we proceed to a vote.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
I do have one question. I just want to be clear. I have found that 99% of our meetings are very effective and 1% aren't. Usually the 1% is when people come in and make a political statement. I love political statements, as you know.
My biggest issue is that we have representatives of drivers. My brother owned a cab company for about 10 years in Fort McMurray, and I understand the cab business. I would prefer that a representative of a group of cab drivers come, and be duly noted that they are representing that group, and not just somebody here to grind an axe or to cause problems. Let's make sure that we invite the appropriate people to come and give evidence in relation to this particular matter.
In respect of that, has anybody talked to these individuals at the Greater Toronto Airports Authority to see whether or not they would even come?