INDU Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON INDUSTRY

COMITÉ PERMANENT DE L'INDUSTRIE

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Tuesday, October 26, 1999

• 1103

[Translation]

The Committee Clerk: We have a quorum. The first item on the agenda is the election of a chair.

[English]

Mrs. Chamberlain.

Mrs. Brenda Chamberlain (Guelph—Wellington, Lib.): I would like to nominate Susan Whelan, who is the choice of all of us. She has done a wonderful job in the past, and we would like to see her continue on.

Some hon. members: Hear, hear!

The Clerk: It has been moved by Mrs. Chamberlain that Susan Whelan do take the chair of this committee.

(Motion agreed to)

The Clerk: Thank you.

I invite you to take the chair.

Some hon. members: Hear, hear!

Mrs. Brenda Chamberlain: Bravo! Acceptance speech.

The Chair (Ms. Susan Whelan (Essex, Lib.)): I'm very pleased. I want to thank Madam Chamberlain for nominating me, and I want to thank everyone for their support.

We'll move right on with our agenda. Next is the election of the vice-chairs.

Mr. Werner Schmidt (Kelowna, Ref.): I'd like to nominate Charlie Penson.

The Chair: That's for 2(b)?

Mr. Werner Schmidt: Well, to be vice-chairman.

The Chair: Does it matter which order we go in?

A voice: No.

The Chair: Okay.

Madam Chamberlain.

Mrs. Brenda Chamberlain: I'd like to nominate my good friend Walt Lastewka, who was parliamentary secretary last year and did a fine job. We want him in as vice-chair.

An hon. member: Hear, hear!

Mrs. Brenda Chamberlain: But we want acceptance speeches from everybody.

The Chair: Is everyone in agreement with Walt Lastewka?

(Motion agreed to)

The Chair: Is everyone in agreement with Mr. Penson?

(Motion agreed to)

Some hon. members: Bravo!

The Chair: Mr. Lastewka, do you have any comments?

Mr. Walt Lastewka (St. Catharines, Lib.): I'm glad to be a part of the committee again and I'm glad to see some of our past members back and welcome the new members. That's it. Let's get on with the job.

The Chair: Mr. Penson.

Mr. Charlie Penson (Peace River, Ref.): I'm looking forward to working with the committee. I think we can work constructively; I certainly hope that will be the case. I'm looking forward to the next year.

The Chair: Great.

I want to welcome everyone here today. I look forward to this committee being very productive, as it has been in the past.

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I would like to move on to routine motions. For the first motion, on the subcommittee on agenda and procedure, I need a mover.

Mr. Walt Lastewka: Madam Chair, I move the motion on the subcommittee as written on the agenda.

The Chair: As a committee, we have two options here. We can just move the routine motions together, which would be 3(a) up to and including 3(g). Is everyone in agreement with that?

Mr. Werner Schmidt: All of that?

The Chair: Yes, it would be all the routine motions. They deal with the subcommittee, research, witnesses, in camera meetings, 48 hours, attendance, Order in Council appointments, witnesses, and evidence. They're all the routine motions we had last time.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: I'm wondering about 3(b), the 48-hour notice of motion. Do we have to have that?

The Chair: Well, we don't have to have that, but we have had it in the past, and it's been very beneficial to witnesses we've invited from long distances. When we set an agenda and we have witnesses in attendance, it's very unfortunate if you try to disrupt that agenda and don't allow them their opportunity to appear. This provides for a more orderly committee.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: I agree totally. My question really is whether it could be 24 hours, whether that would help us. That would still meet the concern we have about disrupting witnesses. I don't want to do that either.

The Chair: Well, the problem with 24 hours is that the notice then can be received at the end of the business day for the next day, and some people are gone from their office by the time it's received, so there is no notice then.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: I see.

The Chair: Mr. Lastewka.

Mr. Walt Lastewka: I just want to add to that. I know last session, when we had short notice and then decided to hear it and so forth, the regular members weren't there. Basically what happened is everybody went scrambling to get members, and it caused more problems than having to resolve the issue properly. Having that 48 hours gives people time to think about it and gets the members of the committee there.

The Chair: Okay, so Mr. Lastewka, you're moving 3(a) through to 3(g) then?

Mr. Walt Lastewka: Yes, I'll add that to my motion.

The Chair: Is there any other discussion?

Mr. Werner Schmidt: The only question I have is with regard to the subcommittee on agenda and procedure. There's no other request for a quorum here, is there? If the committee meeting is called and some parties are missing, the meeting can still proceed.

The Chair: A quorum would be a majority, which would be five for the steering committee. Am I correct on that?

The Clerk: It would be a majority of the members.

The Chair: There are nine members, so a majority would be five.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: Okay; that's fair.

(Motion agreed to)

The Chair: That being said, we should identify who will make up the subcommittee on agenda and procedure. The way it reads is the chair, the vice-chairs, and the parliamentary secretary. Then there would be one representative from the Bloc Québécois. Will that be Mr. Brien or Mr. Dubé? Do we know?

Mr. Serge Cardin (Sherbrooke, BQ): Mr. Brien.

The Chair: Okay. Then it will be Mr. Riis from the New Democrats and Mr. Jones from the Conservatives. Then we need two additional Liberals.

Mrs. Brenda Chamberlain: I nominate Ms. Jennings.

The Chair: Okay, and Mr. Murray?

Mr. Murray, is that okay?

Mr. Ian Murray (Lanark—Carleton, Lib.): It's fine with me.

The Chair: Mrs. Jennings and Mr. Murray? Okay.

That being said, I thought what we should do is have a steering committee meeting on Thursday at nine o'clock, if that's okay, to go over what items we're going to be having before the committee and what our agenda is going to be. Several things will be coming before the committee and several different pieces of legislation. I don't know if we want to discuss that here or just wait until Thursday at the steering committee meeting. Is everyone in agreement, we'll wait until Thursday at the meeting? Is that fine?

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Is there anything else? Okay. I want to thank you all for being here, and I look forward to.... Mr. Schmidt, other business. I'm sorry.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: Yes, this is sort of new business. With regard to the rotation of questioning, when that's going to happen, what's the rotation going to be, what order?

The Chair: The rotation of questioning? What we have done as a practice for the last two years on this committee has been opposition, government, opposition, government.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: What about time?

The Chair: It's been five minutes, five minutes. It has gone back and forth. It depends, obviously, on how much time we've allotted and whether we're having a roundtable discussion with several witnesses or whether we're having one individual witness. We try to judge it accordingly so that there's equal time for everyone to participate.

We haven't really had a problem that I can recall in the last year where anyone has not been able to ask a question they wanted to ask. Obviously that means that some people do ask one or two questions. Some have more questions than others.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: My past experience was very good on this committee. It was excellent. So if that procedure will continue, that will work very well. But I just want to make sure....

The Chair: That was the plan.

Mr. Charlie Penson: To clarify, are you talking about ten minutes, including the answer, or ten minutes for questions?

The Chair: It depends, but usually it has been five minutes, and then five minutes—

Mr. Charlie Penson: A five-minute question?

The Chair: No, five minutes including the question and the answer.

Mr. Charlie Penson: I have a problem with that.

The Chair: Well, it's very much like question period.

Mr. Charlie Penson: Yes, well I have a problem with that too. I come from the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, and we used a ten-minute format. I think Mr. Lastewka was on there at one period. I find that five minutes for question and answer is very limited. We found that a ten-minute timeframe was much better. It allowed you to even ask a couple of supplementals in there to clarify what the witness might be talking about. I would prefer that style, personally. I don't know how other members feel about it.

The Chair: The only problem with that, Mr. Penson, is that we have four opposition parties. That means there would be forty minutes, and forty minutes for the Liberals. That means eighty minutes for every witness.

Mr. Charlie Penson: Not necessarily. I'm suggesting that maybe we make a change in that format so that it sort of reflects the standing in the House of Commons a bit more.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: Like ten and five and five and ten.

Mr. Charlie Penson: Yes.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: Like the Liberals get ten, the official opposition gets ten, and then after that it goes five, five, five.

The Chair: Mr. Cardin.

[Translation]

Mr. Serge Cardin: I see that some people are not here. Wouldn't it be better for the steering committee to discuss this matter of time on Thursday?

[English]

The Chair: We could do that. We could have a discussion. I'm prepared, though, to continue to try the format we've had in the past, because it seemed to work well. If we're in the middle of a discussion, I don't cut people off. I mean, the reality is some people go seven minutes, some people go eight minutes. We do keep track of that and we try to make the time equal among the different parties, and we try to respect that.

When we get into second rounds, usually the Reform Party and the Bloc do have the opportunity to ask a second question, versus the NDP and the Conservatives. We do take that into consideration when we're trying to decide the time for questioning. So I invite participation from the different members who are here, but we will discuss that at the steering committee meeting. That would probably be a better place to do it, on Thursday.

Mr. Charlie Penson: Madam Chairman, I suggest that this is a new committee. I know there are a lot of members who have been on this committee from previous committees, but this is a new committee, and I suggest we can try something different from what we've tried before.

I also suggest that this meeting was called today to talk about these kinds of issues. I mean, other parties have had the opportunity to be here. Therefore, I don't have a problem with continuing this discussion. They know that they have spots on this committee. Why aren't they here?

The Chair: Mr. Penson, will all due respect, I should have advised the committee that Mr. Riis is ill and has sent his regrets to this meeting today. I do not know why Mr. Jones is not here.

That being said, we've never had a formal motion on questions and answers at this committee, and I would not like to see one, because we don't necessarily have the same group of witnesses. Sometimes we have individual witnesses, sometimes we have round tables. That invites different time periods. When we've had, for example, the bankers here as a group, we have gone to longer time periods, because the time set aside was an hour and a half for questions, so we started off with ten-minute rounds. Some people take the ten minutes, some people don't take the ten minutes. It depends on the timing.

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I'm more than happy to schedule three-hour meetings. If you want to talk about timing and the reality that committee work is supposed to be non-partisan, then we do try to allow equal opportunity.

Madam Jennings.

[Translation]

Ms. Marlene Jennings (Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, Lib.): I would prefer it if the steering committee could discuss this matter. However, I would like to point out, as the chair did, that this committee has always been flexible with respect to the questioning of witnesses. The amount of time allocated to the various parties depended on the kind of witnesses we were hearing from and their presentations. Sometimes we would have several witnesses representing different organizations, and they would share the time that had been allocated to them and would speak one after another.

Personally, I would like to stick with the same method. I have been sitting on this committee for more than two years, and unless someone says otherwise, I believe we can say that the committee has always worked smoothly, specifically thanks to this flexibility. Furthermore, Mr. Schmidt expressed the same viewpoint. If you think we should continue this discussion, I believe we should have the steering committee, which has representatives of each party, handle this matter, and ask it to come to a decision and to submit it to the full committee.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Hart.

Mr. Jim Hart (Okanagan—Coquihalla, Ref.): Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. Congratulations on your election. It's an honour to be joining this committee.

Some experience I have in other committees is that the official opposition, because of the status of holding official opposition, does have a constitutional responsibility. I know you're talking about equality of all members on the committee, but it would seem fair that the official opposition would at least open up the round of questioning with a ten-minute allocation to question the witnesses. I know this is the practice in the defence committee, and many other committees also have a similar practice that the official opposition, because of their status as the official opposition, does get that. I would support a motion to say that we would ask for that at this committee as well.

The Chair: Mr. Pickard.

Mr. Jerry Pickard (Chatham—Kent Essex, Lib.): Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I have had the opportunity to sit on many different committees, both as official opposition and as government. I think the more flexible a committee is in its ability to allow people to question and speak, the better the operation of the committee.

I really feel that if we're looking at committees as a good voice of non-partisan openness, members of the government side usually end up very shortchanged in any opportunity to ask questions. If we start going at ten minutes, ten minutes, ten minutes, ten minutes as the structure, and a witness gives a twenty-minute presentation or a ten-minute presentation, oftentimes you can be sitting on the government side as the second or third speaker and never get an opportunity in the hour and a half to raise a question.

I think we have to consider the rights of all members of Parliament in committees in their opportunities to ask questions.

I certainly understand the official opposition wanting to be the group who raises the first question. I have no problem with that. That has been the practice at most committees I've been on—as a matter of fact, all committees I've been on in the last twelve years. But the reality is that I think we have to be a little bit flexible, depending on the witness, depending on the time, depending on the issues we're dealing with. In that case, I certainly think that if we start to strike very hardlined rules, whether it's ten minutes for the official opposition and everybody else gets five, to me that doesn't set a situation where everybody on the committee is being treated equally or fairly.

I guess I would suggest that this argument or discussion would be much better placed at a time when we start to see problems, if there are problems in the committee. Why wouldn't it be a good idea, at least at this point in time, to be a bit flexible and come back and revisit this discussion two or three months hence? When we find there are problems in the operation, we should look at it more carefully.

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The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Pickard.

I have Mrs. Chamberlain, Mr. Cannis, and then Mr. Penson.

Mrs. Brenda Chamberlain: I would really like to back up Jerry because I think flexible is better, really. It will allow us to be able to have more questions. In any committee I've sat on in the last six years, really it is the Liberal members who often cannot ask their questions. The opposition would always start. Is that not correct, Madam Chair?

The Chair: Yes.

Mrs. Brenda Chamberlain: I would firmly endorse that procedure, but as far as time allocation, my preference would be to leave that flexible. If we don't like it as we go along, we can throw out the chair.

The Chair: Thank you for that vote of confidence, Madame Chamberlain.

Mrs. Brenda Chamberlain: Just kidding.

Mr. Jerry Pickard: It is a possibility.

The Chair: Mr. Cannis.

Mr. John Cannis (Scarborough Centre, Lib.): We'll just replace the chair that the chair sits on.

Madam Chair, thank you. As a new member of this committee, I was very much looking forward to it, because I had heard that it was an effective and efficient committee. I have a little understanding. If something isn't broken, don't fix it.

I understand you were working on a five-to-five procedure in the past, and I would agree that should we require it down the road, let's revisit this. But my understanding, and hearing from members currently and other members, is that your committee was working very efficiently. Maybe we should just continue in that direction and address that issue some months down the road.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Cannis.

Mr. Penson.

Mr. Charlie Penson: That's certainly a possibility. We would be prepared to consider that.

I do want to come back to a couple of points that were made earlier in reflection of what the make-up of the committee is and who has what amount of time to ask questions. We have to look at this in the light in which these committees are struck. Government has the most members on the committee. That's a reality. They have the most members in the House of Commons. The official opposition has the second largest number on the committee. That's a reality of the way things are in the House of Commons. We have to structure the committees to follow that format in order to recognize that government is represented and that the opposition parties have an opportunity to speak in relation to the number of members they have.

I think the time format I was suggesting has worked on other committees. I gather we're not going to consider it here. Maybe we want to revisit it. I'm happy to do that, to see how it works out.

I'm just saying that in my experience of some six years on the foreign affairs and international trade standing committee, a five-minute timeframe—and I hear the chairman saying she is willing to look at the flexibility aspect of that. That's fine, but the five-minute timeframe has not been adequate to deal with questions. In a second round of questioning in other committees, I have found that it's very limited with a question and answer in five minutes. It really doesn't give the official opposition—we can only speak from our point of view—a lot of time to explore an issue.

I guess we're happy to try it and see how it works, but we would like to revisit it if we feel it's not working.

The Chair: I appreciate that, Mr. Penson.

Mr. Lastewka.

Mr. Walt Lastewka: I appreciate where Mr. Penson is coming from. When you compare the foreign affairs and trade committee with the industry committee, first of all, they don't get as much legislation as this committee does, and we are always on a timeframe to get right at the issue. We're the first committee to get additional work from finance and trade. As a result, we have a timeframe to make things happen.

I didn't bring my book, but I think the area we need to be looking at as a total committee is the attendance on this committee. We were delayed a number of times because we didn't have a quorum or an opposition member present. I would be glad to go over those numbers with you, if you wish. I think that's the area where I'd like to make sure we improve, such that we do have all four opposition parties here in order to have good questioning.

I like the suggestion. Let's get at it, and if there are problems or there are things we need to discuss, we can bring them up at the steering committee.

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The Chair: Okay.

Mr. Hart, are we satisfied? Okay. For now we'll just proceed as we have in the past, and if there are issues, we'll bring them up. I would welcome participation by all the opposition parties.

It would be interesting if you did take a look at what the participation was last time. If there are going to be problems, that may be a good thing, because that may cause us to have to revisit it. But we didn't have those problems in the last year.

Mr. Charlie Penson: I say we start as a fresh committee and put those things behind us.

The Chair: Mr. Penson, we'll definitely start fresh.

Just before we break, I want to introduce to you our new clerk, Marie Carrière. Some of you may recognize Daniel Brassard, one of our researchers. Daniel has a new team with him as well. Maybe Daniel wants to introduce them and tell you what their background is.

Mr. Daniel Brassard (Committee Researcher): Gérald Lafrenière is from our law and government division. As was pointed out, we have quite a number of pieces of legislation coming up, some with a lot of legal implications, so we've reoriented a little bit in order to try to bring some more legal strength right at the onset. So Gérald will be joining us. His background is as a lawyer, and he's been working in our branch and working on other committees over a period of time.

Do you want to say more about some of your background, Gérald?

Mr. Gérald Lafrenière (Committee Researcher): Just to give a general background of the work I've been doing here, one of my areas of speciality is firearms law. I've done a lot of work with the justice committee on firearms reports. I've also done a lot of work in the last two years with the health committee on a study of natural health products and organ donations. Those are my major areas of work.

Mr. Daniel Brassard: We have a new senior economist joining us, who's unfortunately just in the process of recovering from a hip replacement, so he won't be joining us for another couple of weeks. So I'll be having other economists come in, but he has a long history of supporting committees in both chambers for the last 20-plus years. In the interim, other economists will be coming in to give us a hand in the next couple of weeks.

Because of my other functions and so on, I was fortunate to get Lynne Myers. She's been with the parliamentary research branch for I don't want to say how many years.

Ms. Lynne Myers (Committee Researcher): Thank you, Daniel.

Mr. Daniel Brassard: She brings a real background of experience on science policy, energy, and so on. So she'll be there filling in to help me. More than being full-time on this, she also is supporting another committee.

Do you want to say a little bit about yourself, Lynne?

Ms. Lynne Myers: Most of my research background here has been in the field of energy. I arrived with the energy crisis in the 1970s, so you can tell how long I've been here. I've also moved into the environment field and have followed the Canadian space program quite a lot. I used to work with what I think was your predecessor committee, on science and technology. I'm mostly here at the beginning now because of the legislation from the Canadian Space Agency that you're expecting to have shortly.

As Daniel says, I bring years of experience and great corporate memory, what memory there is. I look forward to working with you at least part of the time. Most of my time is spent working with the Senate energy and environment committee, which is generally a fairly active committee as well.

The Chair: I want to thank you all.

I want to thank everyone and welcome our new clerk and our research staff. I look forward to working with everyone.

As Lynne mentioned, we are going to be dealing with Canadian Space Agency legislation at some time in the future. There was a trip last spring in anticipation of this legislation, so some people have visited the Space Agency. A video was provided, which we can make available for committee members who may want to watch it and see what they're doing, to bring you up to speed before we get that referred to committee.

Mrs. Brenda Chamberlain: Are you going to get the video?

The Chair: Yes, we're going to see what's happened to it. They were in the process of completing a video when we were there. So we'll look into that.

Mr. Jerry Pickard: You're not sending us to the Space Agency?

The Chair: Not yet.

The meeting is adjourned.