AANR Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON ABORIGINAL AFFAIRS, NORTHERN DEVELOPMENT AND NATURAL RESOURCES

COMITÉ PERMANENT DES AFFAIRES AUTOCHTONES, DU DÉVELOPPEMENT DU GRAND NORD ET DES RESSOURCES NATURELLES

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, October 4, 2001

• 0913

[English]

The Clerk of the Committee: Good morning. Pursuant to Standing Order 106(1), your first item of business is to elect a chair. I am ready to receive motions to that effect.

Mr. Reed Elley (Nanaimo—Cowichan, Canadian Alliance): I move that Ray Bonin be the chair of this committee.

The Clerk: Are there any other motions?

Mr. John Finlay (Oxford, Lib.): Do you need a seconder?

The Clerk: No.

It is moved that Ray Bonin do take the chair of this committee.

(Motion agreed to)

Some hon. members: Hear, hear!

The Chair (Mr. Ray Bonin (Nickel Belt, Lib.)): I'll have a few words to say after we proceed to the election of vice-chairs. I'm ready to accept nominations.

Mr. David Chatters (Athabasca, Canadian Alliance): Mr. Chairman, I'd like to nominate for vice-chair Nancy Karetak-Lindell, please.

Mr. Guy St-Julien (Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik, Lib.): I second it.

The Chair: We need two vice-chairs.

The Clerk: Yes, we do; one from the government and one from the official opposition.

The Chair: I will accept nominations for a second vice-chair.

[Translation]

Mr. Jean-Guy Carignan (Québec East, Lib.): I nominate Maurice Vellacott.

• 0915

[English]

Mr. John Finlay: I second it.

The Chair: Do we have any other nominations?

[Translation]

Mr. Guy St-Julien: I move that the nominations be closed.

[English]

The Chair: Candidacies closed.

[Translation]

Is everyone in favour of this motion?

[English]

(Motion agreed to)

The Chair: Thanks.

And thank you very much for your confidence in me. I accept the challenge.

Mr. John Godfrey (Don Valley West, Lib.): Tough race.

The Chair: Yes, well, it pays to lobby.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh.

The Chair: I'd like to explain the way in which I like to run a committee, but I'll also tell you that I do nothing without coming to the committee and getting your approval. That's what I've done in the past and I plan to continue that.

There may be times when you're going to say, “Ray, you're going too fast”. I don't believe in spending two hours here if we need 25 minutes. I don't believe in having meetings because it's Tuesday morning and we usually have a meeting on Tuesday morning. But if you'd like to have lots of meetings and you'd like them to last a long time, I'll spend Christmas here with you.

I try to run an efficient committee and you'll see that I don't play games. I don't play games with the opposition. I don't play games with my side. Once I hit the gavel, I'm at your service.

Mr. Gerald Keddy (South Shore, PC/DR): A chair doesn't have sides.

The Chair: How long have you been around?

So that's what I plan on doing. I send all correspondence I receive to the clerk and ask that everyone get a copy. I respond to the person who sent me the correspondence by saying your letter has been distributed to all members of the committee, and if one of them decides to bring up your issue, the committee will decide whether or not it will deal with it. Everything I receive, you will receive. If there's anything that I don't provide you, let me know.

I'm not going to pretend to you that I'm so neutral that I don't believe in my party's positions on issues. I'm a Liberal, and I support what we campaigned on. I'm going to be quite up front with you on that. But I can assure you that if at any time I am unfair to any member of this committee, it's not done consciously, and I want you to just interrupt and set us straight. That's the type of relationship I'd like to have. When we do this, we get the work done really fast, and everybody has an opportunity.

The way I like to proceed is when we have a witness you will decide.... If you agree, on Tuesday when we come back we will have a meeting on future business. What I'd like to do on Wednesday is to have two one-hour sessions, with the department giving us a presentation on the two upcoming bills. So it will be whatever time we decide—say, 9 to 10 or 10 to 11 in the morning. We have two bills coming. That's if you want that. If not....

Mr. John Godfrey: What is the meeting time of the committee?

The Chair: The committee will decide that, and we should do that today. Let's talk about that right now.

Yes, Mr. Elley.

Mr. Reed Elley: Mr. Chairman, the two bills you're referring to, are they Bill C-33 and the yet-unnumbered governance act?

The Chair: No, the other one is Bill C-27, nuclear waste.

Mr. Reed Elley: The nuclear waste one, oh, yes. Because we're a combined committee I just pay no attention to natural resources.

Mr. David Chatters: You will, Reed.

The Chair: Does anyone have any reason to think that we will need more than an hour from the department on each of these bills? We can call them back if we need to.

Keep in mind that if at any time you need more time, you're going to decide what we do. This is your committee.

[Translation]

Mr. St-Julien, followed by Mr. Finlay.

Mr. Guy St-Julien: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

One item of business we wanted to discuss is the scheduling of our upcoming meetings, whether we should hold them on Tuesdays or Thursdays. Since members have a number of years of experience with this, I think we can agree at this time precisely when we want to meet.

• 0920

The Chair: Fine, let's decide on which days we shall normally hold our meetings.

[English]

Mr. Finlay, Mr. Keddy, and Mr. Vellacott.

Mr. John Finlay: Excuse me, Mr. Chair. I thought committees were assigned a slot of time. There are only so many rooms and so many hours. I heard you suggest that we meet Tuesday and again Wednesday.

The Chair: My response to that is this committee is responsible for anything they want to do. If you want your committee on Sunday morning, that's what you are going to get. If we don't have a room, we'll have a problem, but the first thing I want to know is when you want to meet.

Mr. Keddy.

Mr. Gerald Keddy: My question, Mr. Chair, is when you're talking about calling witnesses, you're not talking about calling general witnesses on the bills but strictly department witnesses.

The Chair: An hour on each bill.

Mr. Gerald Keddy: Yes.

The Chair: Mr. Vellacott.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott (Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, Canadian Alliance): On the remark that John had made, my understanding was that our allocation from the House is on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 11 o'clock to 1 o'clock. If we want to go with other dates, then of course we may run into complications on that. But I guess that's the wish of the committee.

The Chair: Good question.

Are you happy with Tuesdays and Thursdays, from 11 to 1?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

Some hon. members: No.

[Translation]

The Chair: Mr. Carignan.

Mr. Jean-Guy Carignan: I have no problem with these two days, but I would very much like us to meet from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. Personally, I feel that an 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. meeting breaks up the day. I would prefer to convene earlier in the day.

The deputy whip explained to me earlier that three other committees have agreed on their start times and that it would be difficult to get them to budge. Is there any possibility of that?

The Chair: Mr. Carignan would prefer it if we sat from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. If the committee has no objections, I can see if there is a room available for us at that time of day.

Mr. St-Julien.

Mr. Guy St-Julien: Our committee should have priority consideration, and should be assigned a room from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. We mustn't forget that ours is a dual mandate, that is we have responsibility for aboriginal affairs and northern development and for natural resources. Often witnesses are unable to attend meetings scheduled from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sometimes, the minister can't make it either. I think this is a good suggestion that would allow the committee to run more smoothly. The House should assign a room to us. It's high time that we get some preferential treatment, because we're always getting the short end of the stick. If we proceed in alphabetical order, the Aboriginal Affairs committee is tops on the list.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Keddy and then Mr. Godfrey.

Mr. Gerald Keddy: I would prefer 11 to 1. I think it gives our witnesses time to get here, to prepare their statements in the morning. We're not asking them to come in at 9 in the morning. And if we're videoconferencing, that allows for some time change. I think it's a more flexible time for most people.

The Chair: Mr. Godfrey.

Mr. John Godfrey: Since we seem to be down to between two slots, I suggest that you take a straw poll between those who prefer 9 to 11 and those who prefer 11 to 1.

The Chair: All right.

Those who prefer 11 to 1.

Five.

Those who prefer 9 to 11.

Three.

So it's 11 to 1.

An hon. member: Four.

The Chair: Okay, four.

It will be 11 to 1.

Mr. John Godfrey: Excuse me. You have to cast your.... Tie voting—

The Chair: That's not the way we proceed. When we call a vote, we pay attention and we vote. I'm not interested in having a vote where, if it doesn't go our way, we say, well, I forgot to vote.

That wasn't your intention.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: No, I understand that. Some weren't quite clear. I don't know if Gerald had caught on to what was going on here.

Anyhow, you're the chair, but I would ask for respectful...so that we're all clear and aware of what is going on. If that means a restatement from time to time, then....

I'm not trying to play any games here. I just thought we had a draw and you would have to cast the deciding vote.

The Chair: I had no intention of suggesting that you were playing games. I don't want to do that.

Our meetings will be from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays. At any time, any member of the committee can put in a notice of motion saying we want it at another time. You will decide.

[Translation]

Mr. Jean-Guy Carignan: Mr. Chairman, I missed something. You explained the outcome of the vote. I thought it was a 5-5 split.

The Chair: Some members abstained from voting, even though they had the opportunity to do so.

Mr. Guy St-Julien: Then the proposal was defeated.

Mr. Jean-Guy Carignan: It was. It comes down to a matter of fairness. It all happened rather quickly.

• 0925

The Chair: If it's a problem, it was a 5-5 tie vote and I decided that we would sit from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Mr. Guy St-Julien: No, the vote was 5-4, Mr. Chairman. You can count.

The Chair: Even if it was 5-5, I have a vote.

[English]

There will be times where you may get frustrated because I try to move on, but if I do, you let me know.

Do you wish to have a future business meeting on Tuesday, at 11 o'clock, when we come back?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

The Chair: If we want witnesses on these bills, we have to get going early. Would you agree to have a special meeting with the departments on Wednesday, one hour for each bill?

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: At what time do you propose?

The Chair: I don't have a time but together we can find that.

John.

Mr. John Finlay: I just wanted to remind everybody we did have a briefing on Bill C-27 with Minister Goodale. Now, we can do it again, or maybe do something new; I'm not sure.

The Chair: Is the committee satisfied with the briefing? Most of you were here. Are you satisfied?

Mr. John Finlay: I think we were.

The Chair: If it's only a few of us we can get a briefing separately.

Are you satisfied with the briefing you got on Bill C-27?

Mr. David Chatters: I would ask for some other witnesses but I don't necessarily need the minister back.

The Chair: Okay.

Do you agree that we not invite the department on Bill C-27?

Mr. John Godfrey: I forget which one Bill C-27 is.

The Chair: It's the nuclear waste.

Mr. John Godfrey: Fine.

The Chair: Okay.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: I think we're suggesting that, rather than Mr. Goodale come, just the other bureaucrat people come. That's what he was suggesting.

The Chair: No, my call is for the department, not for the minister.

Mr. David Chatters: We've heard what they had to say, and nothing has changed since then.

The Chair: If at a later time you want a briefing from the department, you let us know...and by majority vote.

Mr. David Chatters: I would reserve the right, perhaps, to listen to some other witnesses and then perhaps call the department in at the end to clarify something.

Mr. Gerald Keddy: That's a very good idea.

The Chair: Okay.

Then do you wish to meet on a Wednesday, when we come back, for one hour on Bill C-33, the Nunavut agreement?

Mr. David Chatters: As long as it's the afternoon.

The Chair: Yes, it definitely will be the afternoon, probably at 3:30.

Mr. Gerald Keddy: You'll send notices to our offices?

The Chair: Definitely.

So we'll attempt to organize a special meeting, beyond the regular. It will be Wednesday at 3:30, for one hour, with the department on the Nunavut agreement.

The reason I'm pushing that one is that if you decide you want witnesses, we have to start calling them. I hope we don't want to just put things back and then by December 7 have a week to do three months of work. That's the way it works in Ottawa.

So our first week is organized.

Anything else?

Mr. Elley.

Mr. Reed Elley: Mr. Chair, I presume at some point we'll be putting together a steering committee that will help us decide in a little more fuller way on our future business.

The Chair: Definitely. That will be decided on Tuesday, when we come back. I'll make a suggestion—we did this in this committee before, and it worked really well—that we have a steering committee of the whole. We take five minutes before a meeting. Instead of coming back to meeting after meeting, everybody's inside.

As I say, you're going to decide everything we do, but that's a suggestion I'll make. You have time to think about it.

[Translation]

Mr. St-Julien.

Mr. Guy St-Julien: Could we possibly get a list of all committee meetings? In the past, we've been shunted around. Anything more and we would have been meeting... We need to find a permanent home for the committee. Maybe we could try and get the aboriginal affairs room. That would work well for us. This room is fine as well, but we continue to get moved around. Soon, we'll be meeting in a hotel room.

The Chair: Mr. St-Julien raises a valid point. I have chaired this committee before and it's true that we were always assigned to whatever room was available. Other committees were served coffee and the like, while it was always a big thing for us to get coffee served. I didn't appreciate being treated that way at the time. I will try to see to it that our committee is treated fairly.

Mr. Carignan.

Mr. Jean-Guy Carignan: Mr. Chairman, I know that you speak French fluently. I also know that we have good interpretation services at our disposal. However, could you possibly resort to the use of French more often in your directives?

• 0930

The Chair: I won't get into that, because I could never be fair enough for either side. I'm a Francophone and French is my first language. I will try to accommodate you to the best of my ability, but I don't wish to get into debates of this nature. I should have said it in both French and English. Forty per cent of my constituency's residents are Francophones. Such debates are commonplace back home. As I said, I will try to accommodate you as best I can.

Mr. Jean-Guy Carignan: I didn't go that far, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: No. Fine then.

[English]

Nancy Karetak-Lindell.

Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell (Nunavut, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have the names of a couple of people who have requested to appear as witnesses on the Nunavut water bill, Bill C-33, and I'm wondering when I can submit those names. They'll need some time to prepare for travel. They're coming from different parts of Nunavut. I'd like to know when we can submit names and when we will have an idea of when they can appear. One of them is going to be in Ottawa on October 15 and 16, and it would save a lot of travelling time for this group of people if we could also see them around that time. If we can't, then they'll come back. But I just thought I'd throw that your way.

The Chair: We will deal with that on Tuesday after we return.

Mr. John Finlay: But that's the date we return, Mr. Chair. That's too late.

The Chair: Is that October 15 already?

Mr. John Finlay: Yes.

The Chair: We have to do budgets and to decide if they're going to come here or we're going to do videoconferencing. It's not automatic that everybody who wants to come here gets an airline ticket. You people will decide that.

Are they expecting expenses if they are here that day?

Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell: I believe they're here for other meetings. It depends on whether we ask them to stay over some extra days to accommodate this schedule. I can't speak for them. I know they are here on October 15 and 16.

The Chair: On this issue, Mr. Keddy, Mr. Vellacott, and Mr. Elley.

Mr. Gerald Keddy: Mr. Chair, on the day we first meet to decide future business, would we be able to get a list? Because this is a split committee, it causes some serious problems for timing. We sometimes end up with both aboriginal affairs and natural resource legislation, which is a very tough split. I'd like to put on the record that I don't like this split committee to begin with. I think we should have two committees. But since we do, could we have a list? That would give us a better idea of what we could possibly put down for future business in natural resources or aboriginal affairs and see if it's going to conflict with something else we're doing that's already on the government's list, because that has to be a priority.

The Chair: So would you like us to designate in principle Tuesdays for one committee and Thursdays for the other?

Mr. Gerald Keddy: I think it's not a bad idea. I just don't know if we can. I'm more interested in how we can do future business if we have an aboriginal affairs issue on the table and we want to travel to look at logging practices in Washington state.

The Chair: Those are things we'll be able to discuss when we come back.

But I'd like to know what your feeling is on a witness who will be in Ottawa. If there are no expenses, would you like to give leave to the chair to make the decision?

Mr. Gerald Keddy: Accommodate them if you can.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: If she would define for us who these people are and their relevance to this particular thing, then we can proceed with that. But I'd like to know who they are and what kind of testimony they'd be bringing to the subject.

The Chair: Could you respond to that.

Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell: It's the mayor of Iqaluit. Last summer they went through an incident where, because of the lack of legislation for the Nunavut Water Board, a licence was issued to the City of Iqaluit. But because there was no legislation, people were questioning the validity of the licence. There were a lot of circumstances involved, but as a city they got caught in an unknown area because of the lack of legislation.

• 0935

So they would be able to give a firsthand account of why we need this legislation and what happens if there are certain things not covered by legislation. The City of Iqaluit could give almost a personal experience of what they went through with the legislation void.

The Chair: And this person will be in Ottawa on Tuesday when we come back? Is that the date, or Wednesday?

Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell: They're here on October 15 and 16.

Mr. John Finlay: That's a Monday and Tuesday.

The Chair: So you give leave to the chair to invite this witness?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

The Chair: Is there another that will be in town?

Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell: It depends on the schedule.

The Chair: Okay.

Do you give leave to the chair, if there is another one—only on this one—to make a decision?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

The Chair: Mr. Elley.

Mr. Reed Elley: Mr. Chair, perhaps we could have flexibility here so that if we need to see them on the Wednesday, because Tuesday is not good for either them or us, that we could keep them over and pay for their expenses.

The Chair: Everybody agrees with this?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

The Chair: Mr. Chatters.

Mr. David Chatters: Am I correct in assuming that you will deal with the Nunavut water bill first rather than...?

The Chair: No, you will decide that on the Tuesday we meet.

Mr. David Chatters: That's good. We'll talk about it then.

The Chair: Everything I do will come through you.

[Translation]

Mr. St-Julien.

Mr. Guy St-Julien: That means we should submit our list of recommended topics of discussions by Monday. You'll get the list and...

The Chair: The members will discuss the proposals on Tuesday and make their decisions. On Tuesday, we will lay down our agenda until Christmas, at the very least, but this agenda will not be inflexible by any means.

Mr. Guy St-Julien: Nevertheless, we can submit our list.

The Chair: Yes, to the clerk.

Mr. Guy St-Julien: To the clerk?

The Chair: That's right.

[English]

Mr. Godfrey.

Mr. John Godfrey: In order to expedite our work on Tuesday when we get back, perhaps we could ask you as chair to get in touch with both departments to revisit the prospective legislation they're going to bring. We had a sense of that in the spring. Priorities may have changed. Perhaps you can do a little spadework so that when we come back, you can say, look, my understanding is, for example, the governance bill is now probably going to be in the spring as opposed to the fall, when we thought it might be.

Perhaps you can give us a bit of a sense from the department. Or maybe that's for the parliamentary.... One parliamentary secretary is here. Is the other one? No.

Can you work with them to give us a heads-up so that we can organize our thoughts better?

The Chair: Would you like the ministers to appear for 20 minutes to deal with this? It's their bill.

Mr. John Godfrey: I don't care how we do it. It may be just as efficient to get a.... They don't have to be here physically. It would just be to get a sense from them of what they think the timing is of things through the House, their priorities. That allows us to be a little more rational.

The Chair: That's a good point. I will undertake to do that.

Any other points? Any other issues?

Mr. Vellacott.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: As we begin to think our way into this meeting where we plan agenda, on October 16 or whatever, do you have any indications of when the governance bill might be coming forward?

The Chair: No, I don't, but I will get information on that.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: And you could present it to us on that day.

The Chair: I will share it with you.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: Whatever you know at that point.

The Chair: If the minister doesn't want me to share something, it would be preferable that he doesn't tell me, because I will share with you the information I have.

Mr. Maurice Vellacott: Fair enough.

Mr. David Chatters: The minister already indicated to this committee that the bill would not be coming before the committee until after the witnesses and after the hearings. That was made very clear to us some time ago.

The Chair: So we're not looking at it before Christmas.

Mr. David Chatters: Oh, no; next Christmas.

The Chair: Okay.

Anything else?

Thank you very much.