AGRI Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE AND AGRI-FOOD

COMITÉ PERMANENT DE L'AGRICULTURE ET DE L'AGROALIMENTAIRE

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Tuesday, October 2, 2001

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[Translation]

The Clerk of the Committee: Good afternoon, committee members. In accordance with Standing Orders 106(1) and 106(2), our first item of business is the election of a chairman.

[English]

I am ready to receive motions to that effect.

Mr. Howard Hilstrom (Selkirk—Interlake, Canadian Alliance): Madam Chairman, I'd like to nominate Charles Hubbard as the chair of this committee.

The Clerk: Do we have another nomination for the chair?

Mr. Rick Borotsik (Brandon—Souris, PC/DR): Madam Chairman, I would put forward Murray Calder's name for the chair of the agriculture committee.

The Clerk: Since we have two motions, I shall put the question on the first motion. It's been moved by—

Mr. Larry McCormick (Hastings—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, Lib.): On a point of order, I have a question. We had two people nominated, but the first person nominated there was a seconder. Is it necessary?

The Clerk: It's not necessary.

Mr. Larry McCormick: Thank you.

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The Clerk: So I shall put the question on the first motion. It's been moved by Mr.—

[Translation]

Mr. Marcel Gagnon (Champlain, BQ): I'm sorry, but could you repeat that? I didn't hear who was nominated.

The Clerk: Mr. Hilstrom moved that Mr. Charles Hubbard be elected Chairman of the committee. Mr. Borotsik has also moved that Mr. Calder by elected Chairman. Since there are two motions on the table, we will start by considering the first one.

[English]

The Clerk: So is it the pleasure of the committee to vote now?

[Translation]

Some hon. members: Yes.

[English]

The Clerk: It's been moved by Mr. Hilstrom that Mr. Charles Hubbard do take the chair of this committee as chairperson. Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the said motion?

(Motion agreed to)

The Clerk: I declare Mr. Charles Hubbard duly elected chair of this committee.

The Chair (Mr. Charles Hubbard (Miramichi, Lib.)): I guess we're back to where we were in June.

We now have the election of the two vice-chairs. Normally, the first vice-chair is from the official opposition. We would ask for a nomination for first vice-chair.

Mr. Calder.

Mr. Murray Calder (Dufferin—Peel—Wellington—Grey, Lib.): Mr. Chair, I would like to nominate Howard Hilstrom as the opposition vice-chair.

Mr. David Anderson (Cypress Hills—Grasslands, Canadian Alliance): Mr. Chairman, for second vice-chair I nominate Murray Calder.

The Chair: I think, David, according to what they gave me here, we should do this one after the other, if it's okay with you.

For the first vice-chair, then, are there no further nominations?

(Motion agreed to)

The Chair: I declare Howard elected as first vice-chair.

The second vice-chair is now open for nominations. The name of Murray Calder has been placed. Are there further nominations?

(Motion agreed to)

The Chair: I declare that Murray Calder is elected second vice-chair.

The first meeting is normally very brief and to the point, but I would like to bring to the attention of the committee, regarding the business we had last summer, that the clerk has done some work on future business with our committee visiting the west. I think it might be appropriate, if it the committee so desired, that the executive prepare a program for our next meeting.

There are a number of things that have come up here in discussions. One is how big the committee should be when it travels. With approximately 10 people travelling with the committee, and with the size of the committee, it means a big expense for all of us to travel. So we have to give some thought as to how big the group should be. I guess other committees sometimes travel with half the whole committee; approximately 10 people will travel, 10 members of Parliament.

The second thing we have to give some thought to is how many places we might want to stop at in each province. As you increase the number of places, the costs increase dramatically. We have a big problem not only with renting halls and making that kind of arrangement, but with the travel between places and the movement of equipment and the provision of translation.

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I would like to get some direction from the committee today. First, are you prepared to allow Mr. Calder, Mr. Hilstrom and I, along with the clerk, to prepare a proposal for you?

Tied in with this is the question of when we can go before the liaison committee to seek the financial resources to conduct our visits. With next week, of course, being a week at home, we want to make sure we're ready at the first opportunity, when the liaison committee meets, to prepare for them an account of what the details of our visit might be.

Rick, you have a question?

Mr. Rick Borotsik: I have a comment, Mr. Chairman. I know you weren't with us the last time we went out west on our swing. One of the advantages we had is that we leased or rented an aircraft, a Dash 8 I think it was. With the difficulties in the airline industry at the present time, I suspect there are quite a number of good deals that can be had with respect to that kind of travel arrangement. So I would just suggest that you look at that kind of an accommodation. It would certainly be, I believe, cheaper and more accommodating, given the areas we could fly into. It would, obviously, also necessitate airfields able to accommodate that in the places we would be visiting. I have no difficulty with you, Mr. Chairman, and the other two making some suggestions or recommendations to the committee. Certainly, I think you should look at that.

Also, you talked about the west. I don't know if this committee agreed to any hearings in Ontario or any other points outside just western Canada. Has that been agreed to by the committee or at least put on the table?

The Chair: It's my understanding we were to visit the country generally, but the first and the most pressing areas would be the west, Ontario, Quebec, and then we would go down east, to the Atlantic area. It's up to the committee, but I guess that was the overall idea we had as different groups appeared before us last spring and early summer.

We are agreed, then, in principle that the three of us along with the clerk will look at this? The clerk has done considerable work on this already. Your suggestion is certainly good, and she has already done a little bit of work.

Is there other business before we adjourn today?

Mr. Larry McCormick: Mr. Chair, for my information, though it's something I should know, what actually is the structure of the steering committee? I'm not referring to this meeting—I'm very happy that you three people and the clerk can do all that work—but the regular steering committee. What's the makeup of that committee?

The Chair: You've brought up a very good point, and it wasn't on the sheet I got of the directions for today. It might be best for us to look at that at the next meeting.

For this week, we do have something happening here, and in fact, I plan to go this afternoon. The Canadian Cervid Council are here in Ottawa this week. Those are the people involved with game farming, the elk, the deer, and so forth. It's my understanding that they're having a reception this afternoon between 5 and 7 o'clock, I think, at the parliamentary restaurant. The group have also asked to meet with the committee through a letter to our clerk. The only day that would be available for a brief meeting with them would be Thursday. Is it the wish of the committee to have a meeting on Thursday to offer these people an opportunity? They don't want to go back to where they're from. I guess their general office is in Ontario, but a lot of them, I suppose, are western people.

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Howard.

Mr. Howard Hilstrom: We in the Canadian Alliance would certainly be in favour of having them come in for a presentation of an hour, I suppose.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz (Yorkton—Melville, Canadian Alliance): Why would we make them pay expenses for an extra day if we can maybe meet them tomorrow? Maybe you've alreay made arrangements.

The Clerk: They have to stay in Ottawa anyway.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: So you've already talked to them and made arrangements.

The Clerk: Yes.

The Chair: So are we agreed on Thursday morning?

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Were we planning on having an agriculture committee meeting on Thursday at 9 o'clock anyway? Or was there going to be no room available?

The Clerk: It's room 209.

The Chair: Room 209.

The Clerk: I'll check.

The Chair: And hopefully it will be in the morning.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Let's have it on the agenda.

The Chair: There are also a couple of other things that keep coming up.

On Thursday, then, we'll try to have a meeting, if all goes well, at 9 o'clock. We'll look first at about an hour with the Canadian Cervid Council. We also will look at future business.

Apparently, there's a note here to the clerk that the committee should be holding a joint meeting with the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade to discuss World Food Day on Tuesday, October 16. I think, given what's happened this past month in the United States, food is becoming an ever more important part of the overall concerns people have. So we will discuss on Thursday the possibility of a joint meeting.

The Clerk: It's been the practice over the last four years that these two committees meet every year when we have World Food Day. I know that last week the foreign affairs committee adopted a motion to have a joint meeting with our committee on Tuesday, October 16, at 3.30 p.m.

Mr. Larry McCormick: That's good, and sometime in the future I'm sure we'll want to meet with the trade committee.

But I would hope that either on Thursday or at one of our next meetings following the recess we could have a few minutes for an informal discussion on future business of this committee, things that we want to talk about and where we want to go, besides the requests we're going to get from a lot of outside interests.

The Chair: If there are no other points now to consider, a motion to adjourn is in order.

Thank you for coming. Thank you for your support of my leadership as chairman, with Howard and Garry.