AGRI Committee Meeting

     Honourable members of the committee, I see a quorum.

    I must inform members that the clerk of the committee can only receive motions for the election of the chair. The clerk cannot entertain any other motions. He cannot hear points of order nor take part in debate.

    We can now proceed to the election of the chair. Pursuant to Standing Order 106(2), the chair must be a member of the government party.

    I'm ready to receive motions for the chair.

    I nominate Mr. Bev Shipley.

    Are there any further motions?

    Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the motion?

    Some hon. members: Agreed.

    (Motion agreed to)

    I declare the motion carried and Mr. Bev Shipley duly elected chair of the committee.

    Before inviting Mr. Shipley to take the chair, if the committee wishes, we will now proceed to the election of the vice-chairs.

    Pursuant to Standing Order 106(2), the first vice-chair must be a member of the official opposition.

    I am now ready to receive nominations for the first vice-chair.

    Ms. Raynault, you have the floor.

    I nominate Ms. Ruth Ellen Brosseau.

    Are there any other motions?

    Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the motion?

    Some hon. members: Agreed.

    (Motion agreed to)

    The Clerk: I declare the motion carried and Madame Brosseau duly elected first vice-chair of the committee.

     Pursuant to Standing Order 106(2), the second vice-chair must be a member of an opposition party other than the official opposition.

    I am now ready to receive motions for the position of second vice-chair position.

    There is only one possibility.

    I'll propose Mr. Eyking.

    Wayne Easter is on his way in.

    All right. I'll move quickly.

    Voices: Oh, oh!

    You'd better be quick.

    Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the motion?

    Some hon. members: Agreed.

    (Motion agreed to)

    The Clerk: I declare the motion carried and Mr. Eyking duly elected second vice-chair of the committee.

    I now invite Mr. Shipley to take the chair.

    First of all, thank you very much for having me back as chair. I was hoping that over the period of six months I hadn't made people so mad that I might not get re-elected.

    I want to welcome and congratulate Madame Brosseau on taking on the position of vice-chair. I look forward very much to working with you as we move forward.

    We have a number of new members.

     Mr. Garrison, welcome to the committee.

    Mr. Miller, you're filling in, I believe. You're not new to the committee, as we know. Anyway, welcome back.

    There are a couple of things and then we'll break.

    First of all, we have the CETA report, which I believe Jean Michel has ready to distribute. We'll have that distributed if that's agreeable to the committee. We had agreed to do that as soon as we came back. He will distribute it to members. We'll look at that draft report at our next meeting. Prior to that, we'll take a look at where we may be going in terms of a schedule.

    If there isn't anything else other than what Jean Michel is going to say....

    There is only one thing. It's the speaking order, because it was based on 12 members, not 10. It's up to you.

    We may or may not want to deal with this today. I would suggest that we can confirm this.

     I'll distribute this to members in terms of the speaking order because of the change in composition of the committee, which now has 10 people on it. I'll have the clerk distribute this. It talks about first having New Democrats, Conservatives, and Liberals, and then a second round of Conservatives, New Democrats, Conservatives, New Democrats, Conservatives, New Democrats, Conservatives, and Conservatives. Based on the numbers of each committee, members should have a full opportunity to question the witnesses. If time permits, further rounds will be at the discretion of the chair. That part is similar to what we had before.

    I haven't had a chance to look at this, honestly, and I think in all fairness that if we have it shot out to every member, it can be part of the things we deal with first in new business when we come back.

    Are there any questions?

    Mr. Chair, now that we've reduced the number of members on our committee, don't you think it fair—I don't know how many questions you have here—that Liberals have at least another shot down at the bottom somewhere?

    As I mentioned, I'll have the clerk send this out. We'll have that discussion next time, at the first meeting, in terms of not only the rounds but also where we're going.

    If that's it, the meeting is adjourned.