:
Thank you to those of you who are here on time. I appreciate your punctuality. We will begin.
First I should explain that the agenda today has been somewhat modified since our last meeting. We were going to hear today from officials of the Department of Natural Resources. Unfortunately the key witness we wanted is unable to attend today due to a medical situation, so they are going to appear on Thursday of this week. That leaves us, then, the committee business of our budget to travel to Fort McMurray, the committee budget, and notices of motion from Mr. Cullen.
I'd like to begin with a discussion of the budget to travel to Fort McMurray. I think it's been circulated to all of you, and maybe I'll just let the clerk explain that a little more.
The budget, as broken down in the back of the document, has been done based on formulas that are essentially management-approved numbers. You obviously budget more than you'll actually need for the trip. For instance, the ticketing fee is a standard $1,000. We may use the full amount; we may not use the full amount. Another example is the amount for the charter flight. The committee had to budget the price for the entire charter flight, because we have to pay for all the seats that won't be used, but the committee will get back each member's points. Essentially we will redeem that from Members' Travel Services, and so that number will go down significantly once we make the claim to Members' Travel.
:
If Mr. Harris can't attend, I wonder if the committee would agree that we could have the other NDP member, Mr. Bevington, come in lieu of him. On the other point,
[Translation]
We discussed this matter today as well, Ms. DeBellefeuille.
[English]
I took the opportunity to speak again to our whip and I think the position of our whip is that we will send no more members than the members on the government side. But apart from that, I don't think our whip is terribly concerned. I gather that in terms of the process, we'll go from here to Liaison Committee and then to the House leaders. I've flagged it for our House leader, but the feedback I'm getting indicates that they're not too excited, as long as the numbers are going to be about the same on the government side and the official opposition side.
:
Fine, and we're not having any votes along the way, so I don't have any objection to that.
Mr. Allen, you're seconding that motion?
Okay, we have a motion that essentially Mr. Bevington will travel to Fort McMurray, ostensibly in the place of Mr. Harris.
(Motion agreed to)
The Chair: Fine, it's unanimous.
Welcome to Fort McMurray, Mr. Bevington.
:
We haven't approved the budget yet. That was a sidebar motion.
We still have a motion on the floor to approve the budget. I think maybe we could defer it for a few minutes while the clerk checks with logistics to see whether or not a helicopter or two could be fitted into the plans. That may take a few minutes. If it's all right with the committee, perhaps we could defer this motion for a few minutes and go to the next one while we figure that out. Is that agreeable to everyone?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
The Chair: The next item on the agenda is the committee budget overall, and I understand it's being distributed as I speak. While it's being distributed, perhaps we could get a general overview from the clerk as to how it was put together.
Essentially, this budget is for the study of the oil sands and will allow us to cover the costs of witnesses, because I anticipated that we'd be hearing a lot of witnesses from western Canada. As you'll see, I budgeted for ten witnesses from Calgary and Edmonton and four from unspecified locations. That doesn't tie us to inviting the witnesses from those particular areas; it simply allows us to have a budget for this particular study, so when witnesses make requests to be reimbursed we don't have to go into the operating budget of the committee. I made it so that we're still under the $40,000 ceiling in order that the chair would not have to appear before liaison, because that's under the mandate; the committee is allowed to approve a budget up to $40,000. If we exceed that budget in this study, the chair will have to go and defend however much more we need before liaison, but for the time being this would cover us for a good part of the study, if not the entire study.
:
No, I want to discuss it, because it is relevant to this very point.
Many of the early respondents are people who are paying their own way, coincidentally, and in fairness to other witnesses who are going to be subsidized, I think we'll just leave it at that, in terms of who is asking to be reimbursed and who isn't. But I think it is fair to say, if you look at the list, that some of the early witnesses were either people from Ottawa and didn't require expenses, or people who were not going to file a claim. That's until we get this passed.
I don't know if it's the same issue, but the sequencing of the witnesses so far seems to be heavily loaded to those who are going to speak to the economic issues. I think I have support within the committee as well, on this side, that maybe early on we should also get some witnesses who will speak to the environmental issues and some of the social issues. We should try to balance it a little more at the front end so we don't have a whole slate of people speaking to the economic issues and then go to Fort McMurray and hear everything about the environment and the social aspects. This way we would be somewhat briefed up on the range of issues, as much as we can, before we go to Fort McMurray.
:
It was my impression that the testimony would be more on the sustainable development side rather than the economic side, Mr. Cullen. We also have BIOCAP appearing, and we have the Pembina Institute appearing earlier on.
Having said that, I take your point as notice, and I'll allow the clerk to speak to it as well
But we have a further revision to the schedule as distributed. The minister is unable to attend on November 7 and will have to appear on the November 9. November 7, which is before we go to Fort McMurray, could be totally dedicated to sustainable development and the environmental side of the issue.
:
Is it the wish of the committee to include others on the social side? Can I get a general sense from the committee? I'm getting some nodding heads, so it seems that we are in general agreement. Very well.
One name has been suggested, the mayor of Fort McMurray, but there are several others. We have also already contacted the chiefs of two native bands in the area, at Fort Chipewyan and Fort McKay, which are very close. We could show those to the committee members, ask if there are any more suggestions, and then get them in by Thursday so that we can make sure the space is covered. We could perhaps do that on November 7 as well, and it might be wise to at least see one of these before we go to Fort McMurray.
Could I ask you then to redouble your efforts to get them to the clerk before the Thursday meeting? We can then decide on which of the probably half a dozen suggestions we will try to accommodate.
I guess that was part of the discussion on the budget.
:
I would like to thank you, Mr. Chairman as well as my committee colleagues.
I will start by presenting my motion to reinstate the wind power production incentive.
[English]
In this committee I think we're pretty familiar with these programs, Mr. Chairman. The two that I'll speak to today were dismantled, frozen, or put into limbo by this government.
The wind power production incentive program was designed to encourage the use and development of wind power projects in Canada, something I think is very important.
[Translation]
In light of the fact that wind energy is developing quickly in Canada and that it will be one of the main part of our efforts to diversify our sources of energy over the next 20 years, this is not the time to freeze or cancel such an important program.
The Liberal Party and the Liberal government recognize this fact. That is why, in the 2005 budget, we made a commitment to expand the wind power production incentive by quadrupling the previous program and promising $200 million over five years.
The private sector is very receptive to this and the comments from industry regarding the program have always been very positive.
[English]
Mr. Chair, the recent report of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development stated that the wind power production incentive has stimulated investment. The commissioner goes on to say that there was broad-based support for the program from provincial governments, companies, and utilities. Further, and thanks in part to this program, the Canadian wind energy industry has shown impressive growth with an annual average increase of more than 30% for the last five years. A recent report shows that wind energy firms are optimistic about future growth.
With the proper support and development, wind energy could easily meet 20% of Canada's total electricity needs, based on an initial target of 10,000 megawatts, by 2010. Experience in other countries such as Denmark and Spain is clearly demonstrating that wind energy can make substantive and significant contributions to total electricity supply.
The decision by the , Mr. Chairman, to freeze further funding for this program is imperilling this important industry and is imperilling many jobs and investment. For example, every one megawatt of installed wind energy capacity in Canada generates $1.5 million in investment and creates 2.5 direct and 8 indirect person-years of employment. If 5% of Canada's electricity was generated by wind energy by 2015, such development would produce $19.5 billion in investment and create 32,500 direct and 104,000 indirect person-years of employment.
Therefore, given that this program was being utilized and was effective, and given that we all recognize that wind energy is an important component in Canada's future power supply, we must, in my judgment, immediately reinstate this program. With the support of the committee, I would ask that the do so immediately.
[Translation]
Shall I present the second motion, Mr. Chairman, or would it be better to discuss the first one first?
:
Mr. Chair, it's not out of order by much. Members know that when giving a notice to the Journals Branch, for instance, preambles aren't generally accepted. I examined the motion as written and determined that the debatable part would be the final sentence of each substantive motion. In the EnerGuide motion, it would be: “that the committee, in the interest of sound public policy”. That would be the motion. In the other one it would be: “that the committee call upon the government and the Minister of Natural Resources to immediately reinstate the full funding of the EnerGuide program.” Those would be the motions.
If the committee's intention would be to report these motions, if adopted, back to the House, then I would suggest that the initial part preceding the motion part be set off from the bottom motion and included as part of a report. As a stand-alone motion, I don't think it can stand, because of Beauchesne's and the precedents that have been accepted.
I want to maybe agree with the part Mr. Cullen said in his previous statement, to the effect that we take the assumption that most members of the committee are fully aware of and familiar with this issue.
I think I would like to apply that reasoning to the motion itself, the wording of it, where it's called a reckless decision. Quite frankly, I'm not as familiar with the wind energy system as perhaps Mr. Cullen is, and I would say that I'm probably not alone on this committee. Before I would vote on a motion like this, which makes assumptions about the program in the motion, I would like to be a little more aware and more educated about wind energy so that I could intelligently debate the motion.
At the end of the day I may agree with the member that maybe it is a reckless decision. At the end of the day I may not agree with him. But I would not be prepared to accept the wording of this motion based on, maybe, the singular knowledge of Mr. Cullen. I think that while everyone probably has an idea about wind energy and its benefits or deficits, there are some of us who know a whole lot more about it than the others.
If you look at what the motion's asking of the government, it's a fairly substantial motion. I don't think it should be arbitrarily debated without having the full resources of knowledge of the industry a little more distributed throughout the committee. I'd be happy to debate it, but I'd like to have the benefit of hearing some experts here to tell us a little bit more about the industry before we decide arbitrarily whether it's a reckless decision or not.
This discussion, presumably, has happened extensively in Parliament, because the member voted for the budget implementation measures and the other actions that removed this funding. At that time he must have had confidence and have had a full debate and full questioning and all the benefit through his caucus and through Parliament, to know about these things prior to removing the budget.
It seems to me we're at a little bit of an impasse. But let's say this motion went through or a motion resembling this. It goes through and it's reported to the House and then you have that debate. You have that full debate in the House of Commons; it continues the process. It seems to me that we're at a little bit of an impasse, and perhaps the wording here isn't the best advisable wording for a motion or a report of a committee. But if we go through the process and the member challenges the chair and if the opposition votes against the government and the challenge wins, then that motion goes through.
The alternative would be to have unanimous consent and give the member a few minutes to rewrite the motion in a manner that might be more acceptable, then that it be presented at this very meeting of the committee. In that sense, it might be a better way to move forward.
:
I was going to say that in fairness, if there's a compromise we can work on, I'm happy to take out a couple of the more animated words. But the motions have been with the committee for about seven or eight days now and we had no indication that they might be out of order. We've had witnesses on both these programs and we've had ample time to do the research.
If there's a compromise in the wind, I'm happy to take out some of the more colourful language and do it that way. For example, on the wind power, we could say that the committee recognizes the Conservatives “have frozen the popular and effective wind power production incentive program. From the result of this decision, the industry has been thrown into disarray, putting jobs and future investment at risk. The committee calls upon the government and the minister to immediately reinstate full funding for this program.”
It seems to me every motion I've dealt with in the past had somewhat of a preamble. To say that the motion would only have the last sentence doesn't give anybody any context. I would accept, perhaps, that some of the language is a bit colourful. Do you think we could do it that way?
:
Mr. Chairman, I think that when Mr. Cullen drafted this motion, there were two things. One was that at the last meeting of the committee, we had the Commissioner of the Environment's report in which she stated that officials from Treasury Board and from the department should come before the committee to answer questions with respect to some of the substantive programs. You recall that we had a bit of a discussion; there were no motions passed, but it was very clear there was a consensus that officials should be here.
I think that Mr. Cullen was presuming, when the motion was drafted--and I don't mean to presume that I can infer what he had in mind.... I would have drafted this motion against the deputy who would be coming in, and I would have used the motion as a guide for questioning, and not only as a guide for myself but as a guide for members of the committee, about the EnerGuide program and about the wind power programs.
The fact is that this whole process has been truncated. The drafting--if I'm correct in the inference I've drawn--and even the process of extracting information and validating the inferences I'm drawing from the motion have been truncated by the fact that we don't have officials here.
Now, surely we can understand that there is an issue with respect to the two programs, which was raised by the Commissioner of the Environment. It would seem to me you have one of two choices: one, you refer this back to Mr. Cullen to redraft it, against the fact that at the next meeting we're going to have officials here; or two, you can redraft it right now, and we can have a consensus with respect to the two substantive programs, very simply, that we ask the appropriate officials to reinstate the programs. That can go for debate at the House, but I would suggest that it will be debate in the absence of questions that can be answered by officials. The committee will have to determine whether it wants to delay this particular proceeding.
My suggestion would be that we make an effort at redrafting it very quickly and then poll the committee to see whether they're satisfied that there's enough information to discuss it. It's always up to members of the committee to defer if there isn't enough information, or if there are inappropriate inferences and so on, and to table the motions. That can all be done, but nothing can happen unless we make a decision based on accurate assumptions.
I think my assumptions are correct, and I hope Mr. Cullen agrees that this debate would have been very focused had we had officials. We don't have the officials. Thus, Mr. Harris is saying, look, I can't extract any information; I can't accept those inferences as correct unless I have officials here.
So I think just to be practical, pragmatic, and fair in terms of process--because this is going to be a long committee--let's be clear in terms of the processes we're putting in place. In the absence of the officials, let Mr. Cullen see if he can redraft it. If we're satisfied, let's discuss it. If we're not satisfied that either the drafting or the information that we have can be brought to bear on the issue, it can be tabled or it can be deferred. There are a number of motions that can be had. If we don't do something, we're going to be at an impasse, and I don't suggest that's healthy for the committee.
So my suggestion would be to let Mr. Cullen take a crack at some redrafting here. We can decide whether it's appropriate to go on. If it isn't, then we have some motions to table it, and we have the officials in, and we have at it at the next meeting, which will be Thursday, Mr. Chair. So let's not bend ourselves too far out of shape on this one.
:
I am inclined to agree with Mr. Tonks. I think it is important that we move forward with our work. If we are constantly postponing things, we will never make any decisions.
Although I am new to this committee, I have worked on committees for a number of years for the party. I think the idea of re-wording the motion a little is quite acceptable. Of course, if I had drafted it, I would have worded it differently, but each one of us could say that. However, we are here together at this table to try to reach some agreement.
However, I do not really agree with Mr. Harris when he says that we need to get more explanations and information before making such an important decision. I may be naive, Mr. Chairman, but I thought that everyone at this table was a specialist in energy matters and natural resources. It seems to me that people must have been chosen, among all the members of Parliament, because they knew what they were talking about on this issue. I am sure that Mr. Harris knows a great deal more than he is suggesting.
In addition, when we get a motion of this type several days ahead, we have an opportunity to ask questions of our assistants and researchers in our own parties in order to get a clear idea on the issues before we come to the meeting.
I do not think we should postpone things on the pretext that we do not have enough information on the subject.
We too agree that this motion is important, and it could very well go ahead at this meeting. I think clearly the issue that you brought up, that there wasn't notification back to the person who made the motion about the inappropriate language, would mitigate somewhat your decision to call it out of order. I would say we should move ahead with this, allow Mr. Cullen to redraft the motion, and get a vote on it here.
:
Thank you again, Mr. Chair.
I guess you learn something every day. I rather thought that the motion itself was simply what the government was being asked to do. I read—and frankly still do, perhaps naively--the motion as being the last sentence, what the committee is actually asking to do, and the wording that proceeds that as preamble, contextual framework, call it what you may.
But I don't find the last sentence argumentative or inappropriate. I thought that was the motion.
Through you, Mr. Chair, you're exactly right, Mr. St. Amand. The last sentence is the motion. The problem with the motion is that it's in the same paragraph as the preamble. That's what makes it out of order. By having it in one body, it makes it as if it's a stand-alone motion. The only thing you would have to do is separate the motion from the preamble, and that would be fine. That's the only issue.
:
Then why don't we do that?
I'd like to come back to Mr. Harris's point and the parliamentary secretary's point. We refer to reviewing the funding for this program; the government has been doing that for many months, so I wouldn't bring a motion to committee to ask the committee to ask the government to do something it is already doing.
This motion calls for the government to reinstate full funding for the program. I'm not prepared to go with that wording, but I would be prepared to split out the motion from the preamble. If the committee finds some of the wording too colourful on the wind power production incentive program, take out from the preamble, “the Minister of Natural Resources had frozen the popular, effective wind power program. As a result of this decision the industry has been thrown into...”, and then split off the motion from the preamble. I'm quite happy to do that.
It's the same with the EnerGuide program. I didn't give my remarks on the EnerGuide program, but to talk about the need for officials--we've had officials here speaking specifically on this particular program on a couple of occasions. I spoke to Mr. Paradis about perhaps bringing the Treasury Board and Finance Canada officials here. He tells me that they're not able to do that, or won't do that; I'm not sure. Frankly, we have enough information to deal with this motion, but I'd be prepared to make that compromise--to take out a couple of colourful wordings and to split off the motion from the preamble.
On the EnerGuide program, would it be in order to take out the words, “for political reasons” and just say “the minister has terminated this effective and efficient program”, and then separate out the motion?
:
Fine. It's clear, then, that it would be a resolution of the committee.
Before we go any further, though, in this vein, a point that was made in the early part of the meeting has to be made again. It is that the motions, as they have been presented, have been ruled out of order. The alternative is to resubmit the motion, with notice, at the next meeting of the committee. An alternative to that is to seek unanimous consent of the committee to waive notice. Then you could make amendments now, and we could deal with it at this meeting.
I just want everyone to be clear on where we stand.
Madame DeBellefeuille is next.
:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'm not really up to speed yet on committee procedure. If I understood what the clerk said correctly, if Mr. Cullen had left two spaces after his preamble, we could have accepted his motion, because then the preamble would have been separate.
So we are using reasons having to do with the layout of the text and typographical considerations in order to disallow a motion or rule it out of order. I think that if the people at this table wanted to act in good faith, we could agree to say that the important thing is to call for the reinstatement of the EnerGuide Program or the WPPI Program.
I would like the clerk to provide me with some information about procedure should I decide to table a motion. If a member of Parliament gives you a motion almost 7 days ahead of time, is it not up to you to find out immediately whether or not the motion is in order, so that the member can amend it or find out more about the situation?
:
Absolutely, Mr. Chairman.
The problem is that Mr. Cullen had submitted his notice at a meeting and the motion was distributed to committee members. Since the motion had already been submitted to the committee, there was nothing to be done until it was dealt with by the committee.
If Mr. Cullen — and this applies to any other member as well — had come to see me before submitting his notice, I could have mentioned the aspects of the motion that might give rise to problems. Since the motion had been distributed to the committee, my position was somewhat unclear. There could have been political implications. I did not know what the intentions were. Since committee members already had the motion, it was not really up to me to tell the mover of the motion that it should be changed, and then redistributed. Do you see what I mean?
:
Having listened to the back-and-forth in the argument, I think Mr. Cullen's presentation was actually fairly reasonable when he said to just let him reword it, take out what he termed “colourful” and get it into the form of a proper motion. He's not going to win the votes from this side of the House at this point, but then it will be in a proper form and it will be dealt with. It won't end up bogging down the committee in the future or cause relations problems, etc. Mr. Cullen will get what was more of a technical oversight had he split the sentences, and we won't do it.
I can't speak for all of the government members, but I know some of us would be willing to do that. I think it would also satisfy the opposition's requirements. Unless there's a member willing to object, we could then move to unanimous consent to let Mr. Cullen revise it in a way that's acceptable, which sounds like it shouldn't be a problem, from what I've heard him say. We can then go through the vote and the resolution, and if it has the majority of the committee, it can pass today.
:
So that has to be incorporated into the wording, “and report it to the House”.
Can I just read, then, how I propose the revised motions? The motion to reinstate the wind power production incentive program would read:
That the committee recognizes that the Conservative government and the Minister of Natural Resources have frozen the popular and effective wind power production incentive program. As a result of this decision, the industry has been thrown into disarray, putting jobs and future investment at risk.
We'd then separate out a new paragraph:
The committee calls upon the government and the Minister of Natural Resources to immediately reinstate full funding for this program, and report this to the House.
On the EnerGuide program—
:
With great respect to my colleague, if I was going to do this, I would word the motion thusly: “That the appropriate officials and Ministers of Natural Resources and the Environment be directed to reassess the EnerGuide program and the wind power production program, with a view to reinstating the programs, and that this motion be forwarded on to the House for its information.”
It's a dynamic process. It's one we would monitor, with officials coming before us here. We would validate or we would debate the validation of the assumptions, and that would be the end of it, Mr. Chairman.
I respect my colleague very much. He has been around here longer than I have. But where I come from, we would have had the officials here. I think that's where we're very much at a loss here, because we would have had the opportunity to have staff clarify a lot of those assumptions.
If we want to do something about this, I can see that there's going to be an impasse and I can see that my side, our side, whatever side, isn't going to be satisfied with the approach that I take. Well, quite frankly, that's the democratic process.
So if it is in order, I would move that motion in place of Mr. Cullen's motion, and members can have the opportunity to vote against that or not. But that's what I would do.
Is that in order?
:
Yes, technically I think that's where we are. We are essentially giving notice again. We'll be a little short of the 48 hours, so I think we'll stay with the unanimous consent of the committee to rewrite the motions presented. That way we don't have to give 48 hours' notice.
Oh, it's 24 hours? Okay, fine. You will just resubmit them, after seeking advice of the clerk, I would hope, and then we won't have any problem on Thursday.
Essentially, the day is concluded. The motions have been called out of order. We'll have new motions presented to the committee on Thursday, with 24 hours' notice, and after discussion with the clerk.
Can I take you back to the first motion of the day, which was Mr. Cullen's suggestion that we add helicopters to our trip to Fort McMurray. The clerk has sought quotes, and remarkably, we have several. I think it's worth a minute or two of the committee's time. Maybe some of the more experienced members can let us know if they think we're going to get away with this.
What is it going to cost to fly the party around Fort McMurray for an hour or so?
:
Okay. Our original budget request for this trip was how much?
It's $24,000, and this would take it to about $35,000 all in. Frankly, I don't think that's unreasonable, and I think it really does add to our understanding of the situation. I'm open for debate. What do you think, guys? Should we push for it and try to get that by the...?
Mr. Harris. You're not going anyway, so you'd be an unbiased observer.
We get these pressures, I know. But overall, in the whole thing, you have 308 parliamentarians who are making decisions on over $200 billion of expenditures a year, and a lot of those things are very important for the long run. If we're flying a cabinet minister to Toronto today, it's going to cost $40,000 to send them there and back.
I won't be there either, so I don't have the conflict, but you're looking at a dozen members of Parliament who will I think have their understanding of those vicinities, and the scope of it, and the size of it.... If you're interested in the environmental issues, both positively and negatively, I think it's important that you go up. If you look at the cost on the whole scheme of the thing, the cost to bring you up there plus for these highly paid administration people who are here, that's the big cost. On top of that, the additional money I think is probably value for money.
I was amazed when I saw it by helicopter. They chose where they brought me; I was Minister of Fisheries at the time and it was on environmental things. But to fly over what looks like an environmental wasteland, a disaster, where everything is black, and the Athabasca River is running through that and you can see absolutely right through it to see what.... They've done a really fantastic job environmentally on those things. I wouldn't have imagined without seeing it from a helicopter that was possible, that it was humanly possible.
So I would encourage you to let the chairman take the hit on the financing part of it.
I have to say something on this. We padded the budget originally to take care of unforeseen circumstances. It won't be quite this high, but I have to agree with Mr. Thibault, having been there several times, that you just don't get the same impact from the ground, and you're not able to get around. This is over 50 square miles, so you're simply not able to do that on a bus.
I also think that if it was just to view the operations of Syncrude or of Suncor, or of any one plant, a bus ride would suffice. But I think it seems to be the growing consensus of the committee that you want to look at a whole lot more than that. You want to look at the economic, environmental, and social ramifications of this, and that would be, in my view, clearly better understood from a bird's eye view, so to speak.
Do we have any further comment? Mr. Trost.