Transport Committee on May 2nd, 2023

[The Clerk]

It can adopt a motion and present it by a report to the main committee. The motion will need to be adopted by the main committee. Usually it's a report by the main committee and the discussion happens here, by the committee. This is presently what [Technical difficulty—Editor].

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

I'll turn the floor over to you, Mr. Badawey.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Bachrach is correct, partially, in terms of the discussion at the subcommittee. However, as the clerk has stated, anything that happens at subcommittee has to be ratified at committee, period. That was my whole point of bringing it to the subcommittee. It's so we don't burn meetings.

Now that this motion was brought forward, and in fairness to all parties around this table including the presenters of the motion, it gives us all the opportunity to look at our list that we submitted to the clerk and revisit those lists to see who we would otherwise summon to this meeting.

The motion that I brought up earlier goes to Mr. Bachrach's point, which I think is valid. We just passed a motion, by you, sir, that limits us to four meetings. When are we going to have that discussion, in fairness to all the parties, to divvy up the time within those four meetings for the people that we all may want to summon?

We asked 11 witnesses to come out. Only one came out. We would like to revisit that and possibly summon one of those 10 to come out. That's fair. You may want to do the same. The Bloc may want to do the same. The fairness here is to go into a subcommittee meeting and, within that four-meeting time slot, give everyone the opportunity to put a list forward to summon. If we pass this motion now, we won't have that opportunity.

That's all we're asking for. It's to simply go into business planning in subcommittee. I'm looking at the list right now and I see names on here that I would love to summon to come out. Patrick Brown, the mayor of Brampton, didn't even respond. I would love to be able to summon someone like that.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

I think he would be a wonderful witness.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

My point is that all we're asking for with this motion is to have the same opportunity to populate those four meetings with some of our witnesses we may want to summon. Why can't we have that opportunity? If we pass this and we have to come back to this at the next meeting, we're probably going to burn another meeting. I don't want to do that. I want to get to work here.

With that said, while the Conservatives sit on the other side and laugh at this whole process, we're taking it seriously.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Can we hear the laughter across on that side? Mr. Chair, it's actually comical.

We were talking earlier on about respect. It's unfortunate.

Did you want the floor, Mr. Strahl?

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Eventually.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Okay, then put your hand up.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

I'm already on the list.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Perfect.

That's what we're asking for, Mr. Chair.

Again it's unfortunate that this committee can't look at respecting all the parties so that they have the same opportunity that's being proposed in this motion. It's that simple. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you, Mr. Badawey.

Now, lo and behold, Mr. Strahl has the floor.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Thank you very much. Isn't that convenient.

Mr. Chair, this motion has been on notice for several days. Dr. Lewis gave notice in advance of even moving the motion to the clerk and the chair that she was upset and was considering doing this based on what was happening with the invitations. The Liberal Party has had ample time to consider an amendment to this motion as the Bloc did.

Mr. Badawey keeps saying that the Bloc hasn't had time. They've done it. They've given us their list of three individuals they believe should be added to the summons list. That will be accepted at the appropriate time.

I do note that we are five minutes from the end of this meeting. Mr. Chair, I don't know if this will affect your future planning, but the expectation is that this will be the business of the committee until it is disposed of. I can inform you as a courtesy that this will be the first item of business at the Thursday meeting. We are not prepared to just let this continue to go on. We have a motion that could have been dealt with an hour ago, which the parties on this side of the table were all prepared to do.

We can talk out the clock here, as has apparently been the agenda from the Liberal side, but it will be brought forward again on Thursday, where we will continue to debate this until such time as we have a final vote. Perhaps they will be prepared with their list at that time. That's fine.

We will not proceed with normal committee business with a motion on the floor. The expectation will be that we will either move this motion again or that we will deal with it on Thursday at 11 o'clock.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you, Mr. Strahl.

I have Ms. O'Connell, followed by Mr. Bachrach, followed by Mr. Barsalou-Duval, followed by Mr. Badawey.

Ms. O'Connell, the floor is yours.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We just heard it. We just heard the not-so-veiled threats by the Conservatives that they want to hold up the work of this committee until they get their way on this motion.

Until they get what they want, they won't let this committee move forward on anything else. It's out there on the record. It's what we've been saying.

How many times did we say we wanted the witnesses to remain, to ask them questions? We all came prepared with questions for the witnesses. They sat here for nearly two hours. The members opposite could have moved this motion at the end of the meeting.

To summarize, we moved amendments to move this debate to the subcommittee, which would then report back to this committee with recommendations dealing with all of this. I spoke to that amendment, talking about how we could get satisfaction through working through these details in terms of the number of witnesses and the proportionality for parties. I said then that, if we move this to the subcommittee, we get the concerns addressed that we have and we can move on with witnesses, but no, the Conservatives didn't accept that. It's “our way or no way”. That's not how committee works. That's not how Parliament works.

Dr. Lewis talked about the residents who sent her here. Guess what, residents sent us here too, and we have every bit of a right to speak and say we want additional witnesses for this study. The suggestion was made that the witnesses being proposed in the amendments being proposed to this motion were on the original list. We have no idea of knowing that.

Mr. Badawey rightly pointed out that there is a difference in every committee. I've sat on a lot of committees. In every committee, every party submits their witness lists. Sometimes witnesses aren't available. Sometimes they don't want to appear. The clerk moves on in booking and scheduling those lists and tries to keep it as proportional as possible.

What we have here is a very different process, because this is now demanding that witnesses appear and when they appear. In doing so, it's not the normal process. Therefore, every party needs that proportionality to be able to submit their same demands for the list. Mr. Badawey pointed out Patrick Brown. He'd be an excellent witness for this study. I really hope he's available.

The fact, again, that we don't actually understand whose witnesses were proposed previously versus whose they're now demanding appear.... We don't know that proportionality, because it's an entirely different process the committee utilizes, and that's why it requires a separate motion.

If this were the normal course of business of how committees invite witnesses, we wouldn't be spending two hours debating a motion. There was every opportunity to do this at the subcommittee, to work out these details and make sure everybody was comfortable, but again the Conservatives' “my way or no way” has prevailed. We had to let witnesses go who were here and ready to testify, which is what I thought they wanted for Canadians.

Mr. Chair, in lieu of all of that, I'm going to once again try to attempt, on our side, to move forward. I'm going to move an amendment and then I'll speak to the amendment after.

I move that:

Prior to the adoption of the motion and the associated summons being issued, the subcommittee be convened to discuss the scheduling of meetings, the construction of panels for the study, and to report back to the committee with the results of the conversation. And to add Mr. Patrick Brown, mayor of Brampton, to the list of summons.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mrs. O'Connell.

We'll now start a new list to address the amendment put forward.

We'll start off with you, Mr. Badawey.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

To go to that motion, Mr. Chair, again, I go back to the point I've been making all meeting. With the lists the Conservatives have put forward, the amendment that Mr. Barsalou-Duval has put forward, the fact Mr. Bachrach may be going to put something forward, whether it be today or in future meetings, and of course our desire, who queues up within that four-meeting time frame? Who queues up? What gets preference? We have only four meetings. We have only so much time, six per meeting. Who queues up?

That's my point. We need a meeting to identify, within those four meetings, as per Mr. Bachrach's motion, who in fact would fit into those time slots. Again, it's about fairness. We have a list here from the Conservatives. That's great. Now we have a list from Mr. Barsalou-Duval. Okay. That takes the time slots from those meetings. Of course, we're going to come forward with a list. Who queues up? Who's the priority? This is why we are requesting a business planning session, a subcommittee meeting. Whether it's in camera or not is not my concern. The bottom line, however, is that we have to establish fairness in terms of who's going to be brought forward and, with that, who's going to have priority in queuing up. There are only so many minutes and hours in a meeting. Who's going to occupy those meetings out of the names that are going to be brought forward by all the parties?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Okay. It is 1:02, so if there's no objection, I'm going to adjourn the meeting. We'll see you all back here on Thursday.

Thank you, everyone.