Debates of March 23rd, 2001

[Peter MacKay, Progressive Conservative, Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would ask the Chair to seek unanimous consent, given the grave and extremely urgent implications of information that is now in the public sphere, that the Prime Minister be asked to appear before the House of Commons to make a public statement answering to the allegations that are before the public.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Does the hon. member for Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough have consent?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

The House resumed from March 22 consideration of the motion that Bill C-12, an act to amend the Judges Act and to amend another act in consequence, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Judges Act

[The Deputy Speaker]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Deputy Speaker]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Deputy Speaker]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Deputy Speaker]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And more than five members having risen:

[The Deputy Speaker]

Pursuant to Standing Order 45 the division stands deferred until Monday, March 26, at the ordinary hour of daily adjournment.

The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-4, an act to establish a foundation to fund sustainable development technology, as reported (with amendment) from the committee.

Canada Foundation For Sustainable Development Technology Act

[The Deputy Speaker]

This is the ruling concerning the groups at report stage of Bill C-4, an act to establish a foundation to fund sustainable development technology.

There are 12 motions on the notice paper relating to the report stage of Bill C-4.

As I mentioned in my statement of March 21, the Chair does not intend to provide justification for the selection of amendments, or reasons for the non-selection of amendments, except where this is deemed necessary or appropriate.

Since this is the first report stage ruling since my statement, I feel that it would be appropriate to briefly outline my approach to this bill.

The Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, Northern Development and Natural Resources considered this bill at clause by clause on March 15. This was prior to the statement that I made in the House outlining the guidelines that I will be following for the selection of motions at report stage. Since members could not have known about the new application of these guidelines at that time, I intend to be more generous in exercising my discretionary powers of selection.

Therefore motions which could have been proposed in committee stage but were not will be entertained on this occasion. However, in keeping with the note to Standing Order 76.1(5), motions which were defeated in committee will not be entertained once again at report stage. Consequently five of the motions submitted by the hon. member for South Shore at report stage, namely Motions Nos. 2, 5, 7, 11 and 12, will not be selected for debate because they were defeated in committee.

Seven motions will be selected for debate in three separate groups. The voting patterns for the motions within each group are available at the Table. The Chair will remind the House of each pattern at the time of voting.

Youth Criminal Justice Act

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. An agreement could not be reached under the provisions of Standing Orders 78(1) and 78(2) with respect to the second reading of Bill C-7, an act in respect of criminal justice for young persons and to amend and repeal other acts.

Therefore, under the provisions of Standing Order 78(3), I give notice that a minister of the crown will propose at the next sitting a motion to allot a specific number of days or hours for the consideration and disposal of proceedings at the said stage.

[Darrel Stinson, Canadian Alliance, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Could you clarify what the government House leader just said? Did he just put closure on the House?

[The Deputy Speaker]

I believe the member would like to get into a debate. To put it very briefly, it was a time allocation motion, yes.

The House resumed consideration of Bill C-4, an act to establish a foundation to fund sustainable development technology, as reported (with amendment) from the committee.

Canada Foundation For Sustainable Development Technology Act

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

moved:

Motion No. 1

That Bill C-4, in Clause 2, be amended by replacing lines 26 to 29 on page 1 and lines 1 and 2 on page 2 with the following: b ) meets any criteria of eligibility established under section 18.1; and”

Motion No. 6

That Bill C-4 be amended by adding after line 15 on page 11 the following new clause:

“18.1 The Foundation, the Governor in Council and a provincial minister responsible for the environment may, by unanimous consent, establish criteria of eligibility to be met by the eligible recipients who carry on or will carry on eligible projects primarily in the province of that minister.”

[Rick Borotsik, Progressive Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

moved:

Motion No. 10

That Bill C-4, in Clause 30, be amended by replacing lines 41 and 42 on page 16 with the following: c ) a detailed statement of eligible projects for which funding was provided and of the extent to which those projects may lead to measurable gains in respect to air quality and sustainable development;”

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of my colleague, the member for South Shore, who has been very instrumental in the clause by clause consideration of this piece of legislation, Bill C-4, in committee. The member for Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, and I on his behalf, put forward an amendment that did not go to the committee. I thank the Speaker for his ruling that the amendment should, and well could be, placed on the floor.

As I indicated earlier this morning to the Minister of Natural Resources, there are some good amendments that come forward from the opposition side, and this is one of those amendments.

As the member for South Shore has indicated, there should be a detailed statement of eligible projects for which funding was provided. This speaks to the issue of the funding that has been put forward in the legislation. It has a tendency not to allow projects to have a closed portion of the funding. Also, there is a section which speaks to access to information where there should be transparency.

We have talked quite frequently in the House about the openness and transparency of the government. Certainly the foundation being proposed under the legislation should also fall under the rules where there should be openness. Public money will be expended and certainly those funds should be identified by the projects themselves and come back so that members of parliament recognize exactly how the funds are expended.

I put Motion No. 10 forward on behalf of my colleague. I suspect the government will look very seriously at passing the amendment.

[Dave Chatters, Canadian Alliance, Athabasca, AB]

Mr. Speaker, on the first group of motions, Motions Nos. 1 and 10, we would support Motion No. 10 and reject Motion No. 1. Motion No. 1 in the name of the Bloc member just adds further confusion and vagueness to the whole bill.

The intent of the bill and what it hopes to achieve are certainly honourable, and our party wanted very much to support the bill. However when we look at the bill and analyse it, it is so vague that it appears deliberately designed to allow huge discretion in not only the criteria of the projects, but also the people who receive funding to undertake the projects.

The criteria that apply to those people is wide open. There does not seem to be any kind of criteria. As the auditor general noted in his last report to the House, there are serious deficiencies in the quality of government appointments to some of the boards and a lack of expertise. The bill is very vague and loose on who might qualify as a member of the foundation, a member of the board or the chair of the board.

The bill needs tightening up and cleaning up. One example of that need is the fact that the minister and the government have amended the bill four or five times in committee and now in the report stage. That is quite extraordinary. The minister presents a bill to the House and then, before the bill even finishes the process, sees flaws and amends the bill in a number of areas. It is very loosely worded.

I will return to Motion No. 1. I have huge problems with the idea of the Bloc including the provincial environment minister in establishing criteria for the project or group to be funded. We would have a piece of legislation with different criteria in all 10 provinces. I cannot see how that could possibly work. If there is one thing we need here it is more clarity and consistency, not less.

However I think Motion No. 10 is perfectly valid. In an effort to tighten up the bill, at least to some degree, we in the Progressive Conservative Party ask that the eligibility criteria be included. Then we could all assess it here in the House, have a look at it and make amendments and recommendations on how the criteria could be better applied. I think that is a perfectly valid suggestion. We certainly will support Motion No. 10.

I will speak further on the other groups as we get to them.