Transport Committee on Feb. 18th, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mr. Doherty.

Mr. Berthold.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Chair, we already have work to do. There is the motion that our colleague from the NDP has tabled and the two motions to call ministers to testify. If we listen to Mr. Bittle, there's going to be a subcommittee meeting on Thursday. At that time, we're going to recommend to the committee that the ministers be invited next week. We won't be able to have the ministers here on Tuesday. So we'll only have one day left. If we only have one day for the ministers, it's not going to be enough. We are not the ones who decided that it would take so long to convene committees and start work. I think citizens expect us to get to work as quickly as possible.

I proposed a solution earlier, that we adopt both motions by unanimous consent. Unfortunately, that suggestion was rejected. The first meeting on the agenda is next Thursday. I think it is important that we have that meeting. The subcommittee could meet in 10 minutes, given that all members are present. If the subcommittee meets in the next few minutes, we can meet on Thursday and deal with motions that require 48 hours' notice. I really don't see why we couldn't do that.

It's part of our role to have these discussions, but first and foremost, we need to get the ministers here as quickly as possible to talk about the mandate letters. It has been several months since we were elected. I think ministers are accountable to the committee. That is why I remain committed to holding a formal meeting of the committee on Thursday.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mr. Berthold.

Mr. Sidhu.

[Maninder Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

I understand the urgency, but we have to be respectful to stakeholders and constituents. I have meetings scheduled with people coming up from Brampton. I can't just say, “Hey, listen, there's an important meeting, and I have to cancel. Thank you for travelling the 400 kilometres or so to Ottawa.” Let's be realistic here.

I think we can decide amongst all our members on a time that works for all our schedules. It's not one hour right after this committee meeting. I have a pre-committee meeting to go to right afterwards. There's a domino effect. Everyone has their own schedule. I think we can work together. As my colleague Chris said, we're not saying no, but we have to be willing to work together.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mr. Sidhu.

Mr. Bittle.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Thank you so much. I don't know if I appreciate the suggestion that we should get our house in order. There's no disagreement on having the ministers come. There might have been more agreement if it weren't so firm that they must come on this date, not giving us any heads-up so we can coordinate the schedules. We agree that the ministers should come. They should come within a reasonable period of time. They should come relatively soon, in a week. Specifying a specific day may not work. I don't know why there's a suggestion that we don't want to get back to work, especially when we have suggested that we meet during the day that is scheduled for us to be here. Members, as I've said, have other committee business. They have constituents coming down. It's not as though we're going to put our feet up and go have a drink at the bar. We're here to work and we're ready to work, but let's do it during the time that the House leaders have agreed on, that the whips have agreed on. It's disappointing that we would start this process by not abiding by an agreement that had been reached by the whips.

I have the floor.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

So that's how you want to do it?

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Let's have one person talking at a time.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

In terms of this notion that we need to have this emergency meeting tomorrow to discuss something that we have all agreed needs to happen is not what is required for an emergency meeting. Mr. Doherty brought forward an excellent point of a study that needs to be discussed, and Monsieur Berthold had a valid suggestion that the ministers come. The ministers may be able to meet on the date that he is requesting. We don't know. We've asked to go back and request and meet with them. That's something we can do during our regularly scheduled business.

Let's have that opportunity to meet. Let's do it. Let's strike the subcommittee and have them meet during regular business time. Let's plot a course, because I'm sure there are items the opposition wants to discuss other than the Max 8. There are issues. I've spoken with the Bloc and with the NDP on the issues they look forward to discussing, such as transportation and climate change, access to rural communities and transportation in remote and rural communities. I know that Mr. Bachrach is interested in discussing infrastructure issues as well, so let's take the time that we have.

I know you said to get our house in order, but let's use that time to plot the course so that members can attend, so that members can be here. I don't think there's contention on what happens next, but again, let's have a study that works for everyone. Let's have a study where we're not putting the clerk under the gun to get witnesses here. We may not be able to get those witnesses. If we're forcing that and demanding a.... There's a motion for a four-meeting study. If we can't get the witnesses we want, let's do this in a way such that we have a good study and we can get the information that's required.

I appreciate the desire to rush, but we know that when we rush we don't necessarily get the best information. We won't necessarily get the best witnesses. We won't necessarily get the people who we want to be here.

Again, Mr. Doherty is right. This is something that we need to get to the bottom of. It's something that we need to discuss. Many Canadians have been impacted. There's no disagreement on this side, but I'm curious as to the request for an emergency session. Let's do this—

[An hon. member]

No, it isn't—

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Well, it's a session outside of our regularly scheduled time—

[An hon. member]

No.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

—and the subcommittee.... I don't know. I'm new to transport. I apologize to the grizzled old veterans of the previous Parliament, but my experience has been that the subcommittee meets during the regularly scheduled time. Let's use that time, especially since there's an agreement with the whips that we have one full committee meeting this week. Let's use that. Let's take the time that wouldn't have been used, time that members have in their schedules and that has been blocked off because it is for a committee meeting. Again, since there is no argument in terms of....

Are we supposed to adjourn this at...? I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, I overheard a comment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Go ahead.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

I'll finish up at this point. I'll put my name back on the list in case we're not scheduled for this.

Again, let's use the regular committee business. Let's get this done right. Let's get a study set up so that we have the witnesses in place and ensure that the ministers can be here. Again, it may be that the ministers are available or that one of the ministers is available on the 23rd instead of the 27th. Maybe it makes more sense to do it that way rather than starting a study, stopping it and moving forward. I'll leave it there at this point.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mr. Bittle.

Mr. Barsalou-Duval.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

We've been going around in circles for 20, 30 or 40 minutes on this subject. Everyone should have an opportunity to speak, but some have had the opportunity to speak a lot. We could allow members who have not spoken to do so. My colleague to my left has not yet had an opportunity to give his opinion on the subject.

I do not understand why we spend so much time debating when a subcommittee will meet. All the time we are wasting on whether or not we will hold a subcommittee meeting could have been spent on a subcommittee meeting. Perhaps five or ten minutes would have been enough to finish the job.

I do not think we are rushing things that much. The goal is to meet to start moving forward. I fully agree with my colleague across the way that we need to give some flexibility to ministers in terms of when they appear, but we should still meet with them fairly quickly.

After my colleague has spoken, I propose that we take a vote to end this discussion, which is wasting a lot of time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you.

Mr. Bachrach.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My perspective at this point is this. We have a limited number of meetings together as a committee. I think everyone around the committee table wants to maximize the work we're able to achieve in regular committee meetings. Every time we take a regular committee slot to hold a subcommittee meeting, we're effectively pushing the work of the committee down the road by at least half a week.

The routine motions that I brought forward today could have easily been dealt with at today's committee meeting. I had no advance notice of the routine motions that were brought forward for us to consider, and yet I followed through them very quickly and voted in favour of them. We could have easily taken a recess and read through my very short additional motions.

I don't want the subcommittee to be perceived as creating tension by delaying the important work of the committee. On Thursday I hope we can have a full committee meeting. We can deal with Mr. Doherty's motion on the Max 8. I think that's a very important bit of work. We can deal with my routine motions, and I look forward to that conversation.

It's seems that the subcommittee work should be fairly brief. We're talking about comparing calendars and about what to do with these routine motions, which we're also going to talk about at the committee meeting when we debate them, correct? Other than if we want to slow things down, I fail to see the need to take up our Thursday spot with a subcommittee meeting instead of a regular meeting.

I'm in support of having a full meeting on Thursday and finding some time—we're all here in the city—prior to that to meet for 15 minutes to look at the minister's schedule to see when he can appear.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mr. Bachrach.

Mr. Doherty.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Again, Mr. Chair, I appreciate the comments of my colleague across the way. First off, I take offence at being called a grizzled, old—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

I might be old, but not grizzled.

On the other part, where he continues to use the wording that there was an agreement among the whips, there was no agreement among the whips for this specific committee. There might have been something on other committees. There just was no agreement, so that is completely false.

Second, where the comment was made about the shadow minister or critic on a file, I'll remind my colleagues around this table that the parliamentary secretary is an arm or an extension of the minister. Committees are supposed to be masters of their own destination. I will just leave it at that.

Also, nobody is talking about an emergency debate or lighting our hair on fire. First off, if it was me, it would be a short fire.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

All we're talking about, as my colleague from the NDP mentioned, as well as the Bloc, is that we are here. When we got notification that we were having a committee meeting on Tuesday, we knew it was standard procedure, normal procedure, that if you have one on Tuesday, you were going to have a follow-up meeting on Thursday—unless those who are here have already booked their flights home on Thursday, which would be a shame, from somebody who's got one of the longest travel schedules.

I think again, to Mr. Bachrach's comments, if we're here to work, let's work. Again I take offence to the comment about getting our house in order. All I'm saying on that point is that it allows us an opportunity to use what would be normally scheduled as a two-hour committee meeting to have a fulsome discussion about the motions that are there. Perhaps there are others that are going to be brought forward at that time. At that point, we can chart the course, or we can discuss the agenda as was charted by the subcommittee, hopefully tomorrow.

There's nothing about lighting our hair on fire, no ulterior motive. We just want to get back to work and use Thursday, which would normally be scheduled as a committee meeting, as an opportunity for us to talk about the motions as tabled today and move forward.

Mr. Chair, I think it's a reasonable request. We are here to work. I'm not saying that constituents, as Mr. Sidhu mentioned, should come second. However, those of us who have been here for a while know that if you have a meeting on Tuesday, it's normal course that Thursdays would have been the following meeting.

I'll leave it at that.