Evidence of meeting #30 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was documents.
A recording is available from Parliament.
The Clerk
Just to clarify, this is a vote to resume debate on the motion that we'd run out of time to discuss the other day.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Vance Badawey
(Motion agreed to: yeas 11; nays 0)
Wonderful. Unanimous. I'm very impressed. Great job.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Vance Badawey
Bringing people together. Sunny ways are back.
With that, Mr. Clerk, just so that we have clarity, can you do us all a favour and read out the motion, please?
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Vance Badawey
Absolutely.
Minister Monsef, I will take this opportunity to thank you for your time today. Unfortunately, one speaker didn't get to speak to you. That was Ms. Hutchings. She dropped off the bottom. She was the next and last speaker before you were going to depart.
I do want to express, on behalf of the members of the committee, our sincere appreciation for attending today. We thought it was a good back-and-forth, with great questions and great answers. Once again, I thank you for that.
Liberal
Maryam Monsef Liberal Peterborough—Kawartha, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Gudie is the best rural lens you'll ever find. I think we all missed out.
Thank you, colleagues. Be safe.
The Clerk of the Committee Mr. Michael MacPherson
Sure:
That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(1)(a), an order of this committee do issue for a copy of all relevant documents relating to the agreement signed with ITC holdings regarding the Lake Erie Connector, including, but not limited to, the agreement itself, all correspondence between ITC Holdings and the CIB, any appendices, terms of a repayment schedule, the Bank’s evaluation of the project and any other relevant documents in an unredacted form within 20 days of the adoption of this order.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Vance Badawey
Thank you, Mr. Clerk.
Do we have questions or comments?
Mr. Fillmore, you had your hand up first. Go ahead.
Liberal
Andy Fillmore Liberal Halifax, NS
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I'll just start by saying it's really unfortunate, and it's fairly plain to me, and I think to any impartial observer, what this motion is really about. It's to foment a lack of confidence in the Canada Infrastructure Bank just at the very moment when Canadians need it most and most need to have investment in their communities.
I think I spoke from my heart at the last meeting about my disappointment that we find ourselves in this position. We're all sent here to represent our communities and to do the best we can for them. The reason that we have all been sent here is being sacrificed in favour of what I think is some less than admirable political point-scoring.
I want to resume a part of the discussion that we did get in to at the last meeting, and that is about the length of time in Ms. Kusie's motion. This could run into thousands and thousands of pages of documents to be produced and to do this is just 20 days.... Earlier, we had an amendment to increase it to 60 days. That failed. I think Mr. Bachrach attempted to stretch it to 30 days, and that failed.
I hope the opposition will at least agree to amend the deadline. I would like to meet somewhere in the middle, but to at least agree to amend the deadline to provide the Infrastructure Bank with 45 days. With that goal, I would like, if I could, to read it with a proposed amendment to the motion—“within 45 days”— included. It is as follows:
That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(1)(a), an order of this committee do issue for a copy of all relevant documents relating to the agreement signed with ITC holdings regarding the Lake Erie Connector, including, but not limited to, the agreement itself, all correspondence between ITC Holdings and the CIB, any appendices, terms of a repayment schedule, the Bank’s evaluation of the project and any other relevant documents in an unredacted form within 45 days of the adoption of this order.
Thank you, Chair.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Vance Badawey
Thank you, Mr. Fillmore.
We do have an amendment. For those members with their hands up, I'll ask if your questions are pertaining to the amendment.
No? I see that Mr. Scheer's hand went down.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Vance Badawey
Just a minute, Mr. Bachrach.
Mr. El-Khoury, is your question to the amendment or to the main motion?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Vance Badawey
Thank you.
Ms. Jaczek, I'm sure yours was for the amendment as well.
Mr. El-Khoury, I'm going to come to you next.
Mr. Bachrach, go ahead.
NDP
Taylor Bachrach NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Mr. Chair, because the original motion is fairly lengthy and has a lot of different clauses, and Mr. Fillmore's amendment, as I understand it, is a bit of a rewording of the original motion, I'm just wondering if in simple terms it essentially reflects the spirit of Mr. Scheer's motion, with the timeline extended to 45 days.
Maybe Mr. Fillmore can just describe what he's trying to do here.
Liberal
Andy Fillmore Liberal Halifax, NS
Yes. Thank you, Chair.
I appreciate the question for clarification from Mr. Bachrach. It is intended to reflect in fact the exact intention of Ms. Kusie's motion, not Mr. Scheer's. It simply amends the timeline to 45 days so that we can be fair in the demands we're placing on the CIB to provide an intense amount of documentation—and also, by the way, translated documentation.
Thank you.
NDP
Taylor Bachrach NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Mr. Chair, while I have the floor, could I just respond, speaking to the amendment now that I understand it?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Vance Badawey
Yes, Mr. Bachrach, you can get in the queue. We do have members here. Nice try, though.
I'm going to go to Mr. El-Khoury, and then I have Ms. Jaczek, Mr. Scheer and then Mr. Bachrach, and I'll get you in the queue.
Mr. El-Khoury, you have the floor.
Liberal
Fayçal El-Khoury Liberal Laval—Les Îles, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to talk about the motion. The committee and the opposition parties have worked hard to ensure that the government and the committee always fulfill their official languages obligations, which require that all documents be submitted in both English and French.
Some people who participated in the previous debate spoke about the possibility of receiving documents in English and having the documents translated by our staff. That really isn't fair or equitable, given our workload. It's almost impossible for our staff to accomplish this task.
Moreover, we don't know how many pages these documents contain or how long it would take to produce a satisfactory translation in compliance with the official languages. In my opinion, even 45 days may not be enough time. I propose 60 days.
Thank you.
Liberal
