Transport Committee on Feb. 1st, 2024

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

Given that we did get, I think, three different versions of the amendment, and that we just got the correct one a minute ago, I would ask that we suspend for a few minutes so that we can consider the actual text that we just received, compare it against the original and come back to discuss this more fully—given that we didn't have it until just before you brought the hammer back down.

I would request a short suspension so that we can discuss this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Okay, Mr. Strahl. Are we talking five or 10 minutes? Does that work for you?

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

Yes, tops.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Sounds good.

The meeting will suspend for five to 10 minutes, at which time we will resume to continue discussion on the amendment proposed by Mr. Bittle.

This meeting is now suspended.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

I call this meeting back to order.

I will turn the floor over to Mr. Strahl for any comments or questions regarding the amendment put forward by Mr. Bittle.

Mr. Strahl.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to Mr. Bittle for his amendment.

I think we are close to having agreement here on how to proceed and we can address the sanitization of the version in the actual meetings, if we do agree to this.

I would say, however, that we would like to see specific reference to an invitation to the CEO and officials from the Canada Infrastructure Bank. I note that Mr. Bittle's version does invite the minister, which we are happy with, and his officials, but it did specifically delete the references to Canada Infrastructure Bank's CEO and officials.

I would actually propose a subamendment to Mr. Bittle's amendment, which would read as follows: Given that, the Canada Infrastructure Bank (CIB) spent nearly $900,000 in consulting fees on the Lake Erie Connector project; that the Standing Committee on Transportation, Infrastructure and Communities undertake a study of the Canada Infrastructure Bank's involvement in the Lake Erie Connector project; that the committee hold three meetings to hear from witnesses on the topic; and that the committee invite the Minister of Infrastructure and Infrastructure Canada officials, as well as the CEO and officials from the Canada Infrastructure Bank to appear as part of the study.

Of course, that would simply be an invitation. It simply adds them back in to indicate that this committee would like to hear from the CEO and officials. I think it finds a common ground. We're not prescriptive on hours and minimum meetings, etc. We've even taken out the fact that this committee recommended that the CIB be abolished, so we just have a pretty straightforward motion.

I hope the committee will agree that we can add back in the CEO and officials from the CIB.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you, Mr. Strahl.

I'm going to pass it over to Mr. Bittle.

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

I want to propose that we're fine with it. That can be on consent if the committee is amenable to that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

I'm looking around and I'm seeing nodding heads approving, so it looks like that is amenable.

(Subamendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Are there any other questions or comments?

Mr. Barsalou-Duval.

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

Others may have noticed this too, but there still seems to be an issue with the sound. Sometimes we can hear two Mr. Strahls.

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

[Technical difficulty—Editor] That was 10.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

That's the way I sound to my wife sometimes.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Colleagues, we're going to suspend for a couple of minutes just to get that figured out so we don't risk injuring our interpreters.

The meeting will be suspended for a couple of minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

I call this meeting back to order.

Once again, we're trying our best to work out the audiovisual issues we're having here in Parliament. Hopefully, those have been rectified.

We left off with Mr. Bittle saying that he was okay with the changes proposed by Mr. Strahl. I think we're all in agreement with those changes. Now we have a revised motion as amended by Mr. Bittle and slightly modified by Mr. Strahl.

Colleagues, do we all know what the revised version looks and sounds like? We're good to go? Okay.

Seeing no further discussion, I'll turn it over to you, Madam Clerk.

(Motion as amended agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Yes, Mr. Bittle.

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

I move that we adjourn the meeting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you, Mr. Bittle.

I'll go to the clerk.

(Motion negatived: nays 6; yeas 5)

I'll turn the floor over to Mr. Strahl, followed by Mr. Bachrach.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I don't know what to do. I don't know why the French interpretation keeps coming in and showing up on my screen here as being— I think that's your problem with the echo.

I'll try to move this motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Let me confer here, colleagues, to see what we can do to help move this forward.

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

Would a longer suspension be helpful, maybe until noon?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Mr. Strahl, just to confirm, do you have a speaker on in the room you're in right now, or is it only coming through your headset?

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

No. I can see when I'm speaking—everyone who's not online won't see this—the West Block 125 French kicks in and is active.

Right now it's doing it again, where I am speaking but it is [Technical difficulty—Editor].

I don't know why it is happening that way, but that seems to be when it is an issue.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Colleagues, we do have to protect the health of our interpreters. As much as I would like to power through this, and it doesn't sound great for us if we can't power through it, to protect their health, we're being advised to suspend and give our audiovisual team here another opportunity to try to rectify the problem.

Mr. Strahl, they're going to contact you directly to see if they can fix that. We'll resume once we believe that we have fixed it. If we haven't fixed it, we may have to consider perhaps adjourning for the day.

This meeting will be suspended until such time as we fix the audiovisual issue.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

I'll call this meeting back to order once again.

We hope we've rectified the sound issue once and for all.

Mr. Strahl, you had the floor. You will be followed by Mr. Bachrach and Mr. Muys.

Go ahead, Mr. Strahl.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the technical staff for their hard work to keep the committee moving.

I submitted a notice of motion on Friday, February 2. I hope members have a copy of it. I intend to move that motion now.

The motion states:

That, given that the Port of Montreal, a major hub for stolen vehicles to be shipped out of Canada, only has five Canada Border Service Agents to inspect the 580,000 containers that leave the port each year, according to the Le Journal de Montréal, with one law enforcement agent saying, “CBSA has no resources to check the containers, they check less than one per cent of containers,”

The committee report to the House its concern with these reports and calls on the Government to immediately address these resource shortages, as the CBSA falls under the Federal Government’s mandate.

This motion comes, obviously, out of a Journal de Montréal report. It talks about the involvement of the Port of Montreal, which falls under the mandate of this committee through the Minister of Transport.

I would note also that we're hearing reports, or we've had individuals confirm, that vehicles stolen in the greater Toronto area are often put in railway cars and shipped to the port of Montreal, where they make their way out of the country on ships.

This is clearly something that this committee should express its concern with, when we see a 300% increase in stolen vehicles in the GTA and 100% increase in Montreal. This is clearly part of the system. The port is a part of the federal government's responsibility. It's an asset that the federal government is responsible for, and it's being used by organized crime to ship Canadian stolen vehicles abroad.

Clearly, there's a resource issue there if we're talking about 1% of containers being examined. We need to take a whole-of-government approach on this. That includes tightening up the ports and expressing our concern with the lack of resources at the Port of Montreal.

I'm hoping that we can have a discussion about that. I think it would be helpful to express that to the House to let them know that we are monitoring the situation and that we are concerned with the rising problem of auto theft and the port of Montreal being a conduit for vehicles leaving the country after they've been stolen.

I think this falls well within our mandate. It's something that we should discuss, and we should advise the House of our concern.

I'm happy to start the discussion. I hope we can vote in favour of this today.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.