Evidence of meeting #12 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 41st Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was investigation.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Committee work is going to go on whether it's here or not. But there was, I guess, a motion in the House yesterday that needed unanimous consent, and the opposition—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
The official opposition, the NDP, didn't give that approval. So what it means at this point, unless something changes, is that there will be no travel as far as the rail study, which personally I find very disturbing, because I think that's an important part of the rail safety study. That's all that I can tell you, Mr. McGuinty.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
Was it travel for all committees, Mr. Chair, or just this committee?
Liberal
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
On that point, that affects immediately the three proposals that were approved for travel with respect to the east coast, west coast, and the U.S., but we had also discussed the potential of a day or two trip to Lac-Mégantic. Would that rule out something along those lines or not?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
I can't give a specific answer to that, Mr. Watson, because that request hasn't officially gone in. For now, I'm hoping that cooler heads will prevail. I think the travel on this is an essential part of rail safety. If we're all really serious about it, cooler heads will prevail. For now until something changes, we're just going to continue with the meetings. If we're not travelling on those weeks that we had planned to, we will fill them with meetings here in Ottawa. That's all we can do.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
Mr. Chair, with all due respect, there are 10 extremely busy parliamentarians here. I don't think many of us are in a position to wait to find out what's happening in the next two or three months. My calendar is booking right through until the end of June right now in terms of travel, meetings, speaking engagements, etc. So we need to have a drop-dead date by which we decide what's being proposed here as a work plan.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
If cooler heads prevail, Mr. McGuinty, we will be travelling the week of March 30 to April 4. In the event that we don't, then we'll be here. What I'm doing is pencilling off those planned travel weeks, and I can't recall the second one offhand—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
April 6, no, that week is not one of them. Anyway, pencil that week off and we can go from there.
I'm keeping our witnesses here. You are free to go. I apologize for that. Thanks again, gentlemen.
Mr. Mai.
NDP
Hoang Mai NDP Brossard—La Prairie, QC
Just on that point of order on the travelling—and I understand your position with respect to travelling—did we confirm with respect to travelling to the U.S., because with a limited amount of time—
NDP
Hoang Mai NDP Brossard—La Prairie, QC
There's nothing we can do in terms of not doing that part of the travel?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
The commitment, Mr. Mai, was to do it. If the committee wants to change that, fine, but the commitment was to do it. Okay?
Everybody have a good weekend.
The meeting is adjourned.