TRGO Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORT AND GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS

LE COMITÉ PERMANENT DES TRANSPORTS ET DES OPÉRATIONS GOUVERNEMENTALES

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Tuesday, February 27, 2001

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[English]

The Chair (Mr. Ovid Jackson (Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, Lib.)): Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to start on time, so we'll commence the meeting. I think we have quorum.

This morning we're going to discuss future business. At the outset I want to say that everything is open unless, for the most part, when we're discussing personal priorities, we might have something special. Since many of us are new, my own opinion is that in camera meetings are probably a good idea so that we'll be allowed to speak freely. For a morning such as this, I would recommend in camera, but it's up to the committee how they wish to do it. The only time we would meet in camera is when we're discussing future business. It allows us to speak freely and to express our ideas without having to be clammed up because we think maybe somebody is listening.

But that's only my opinion. I'm only the chair. I don't have all the votes, so I think we should probably try it and see how it goes.

What I did is I spoke to the clerks and they've said they've spoken to our side. The parliamentary secretaries have spoken to the opposition members—the Bloc—to see exactly what kind of work plan we should come up with.

We have approximately 10 weeks until the end of June, or to the end of our session, I should say. What I try to do is to look at the legislation that is coming up and to see that we meet every Tuesday and Thursday, because I think we have a lot of little things to do in terms of the legislation. There's room, I think, in June to do one study.

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So if the clerk would distribute a calendar and some ideas about the work plan to members, I'll give you guys maybe 10 minutes to look at it.

Jay.

Mr. Jay Hill (Prince George—Peace River, Canadian Alliance): I've got something I'd like to bring up right away.

The Chair: You could add it on to the work plan, if you don't mind, in an orderly way.

Mr. Jay Hill: No, no, no. I'm not dealing with future business, except to the extent that it's Thursday, two days from now.

The Chair: Oh, I see.

Mr. Jay Hill: I'm wondering how it happened that we didn't even meet to discuss future business yet. To my understanding at least, we've got a meeting scheduled for Thursday to review Bill S-2, which in and of itself isn't out of the ordinary. Obviously that bill has been referred to this committee, but to my knowledge, we didn't meet to discuss timing for that. We have yet to receive—unless I'm the only one who hasn't got it—a briefing book, so that we can do an adequate job of taking a look at that.

The Chair: Is that a problem, Jay? We could defer it. I think maybe the staff here went ahead. Nobody had a decision on that. They just looked towards what was going on. We could have it next week, if you like. That's not a problem.

Mr. Jay Hill: I was just thinking about more time to.... I hope the department will be providing us with the necessary briefing materials and briefing book.

The Chair: I got the same information you got.

Mr. Jay Hill: Okay.

The Chair: Jay, we could defer that to next week, because I don't think any of us has the briefing book.

Mr. St. Denis.

Mr. Brent St. Denis (Algoma—Manitoulin, Lib.): With respect to Jay's concerns about Thursday, I appreciate that Thursday is probably pretty tight, especially if we don't have any briefing books. Now, what is the status of the briefing book from the...?

The Chair: They say they should be coming out today.

Mr. Brent St. Denis: If you had it today, how would you feel about Thursday, Jay?

The Chair: When we're talking about future business, we'll put it on.

Mr. Brent St. Denis: Okay. Sorry.

The Chair: Mr. Lebel.

[Translation]

Mr. Ghislain Lebel (Chambly, BQ): Mr. Chairman, if I understand correctly, we are discussing the future business of the committee. So we cannot suggest other topics we might feel strongly about. I see that we are filling up the agenda for March, April, May and June, except for the end of May and the beginning of June, where it says: “To be determined”. It seems to me that the Transport Committee should examine Air Canada's monopoly or quasi- monopoly, as well as the Montreal Airport development plan, the transportation plan of the greater Montreal region, Quebec's highway infrastructure, and railways. We might discuss railways a bit more when we discuss the amalgamation of railway lines, but we will be devoting very little time to shipping. You are presenting us with a work plan for almost all of our hearings from now until the summer, a program we have not had the opportunity to discuss here.

[English]

The Chair: We're working out the schedule today. That is just tentative, nothing is concrete. It's up to the committee to do it. I just asked the clerks to give us some kind of idea. We're all new to this.

The CTC is coming with a lot of reports, apparently, in June. Some of these matters might trigger it as well, so we need further information. But this is the work of the committee. It's just a matter of having a global look at what we're going to do. The clerks just put these in there. They're not cast in stone. It's up to us today to figure out what we want to do. I just said to them.... Because I'm an old teacher, I like to have a schedule ahead of me of exactly what's going on, so we know and can budget our time. We could decide we want to meet maybe only on Tuesdays and Thursdays, or one week on Thursdays, or something like that, because you have committee work or whatever it is.

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From what I see, we have a reasonable amount of small legislative-type initiatives that are going to be coming to us. So we need to deal with them if we're going to be expeditious. They are important for all of us for removing red tape. For instance, we have the marine bill coming to us. I think that's a very important piece of legislation that's warranted and so on. So this is the committee's work and we have no idea what we're going to do until we decide this morning.

Jay.

Mr. Jay Hill: At the one and only meeting the Standing Committee on Transport had last fall before the election, I raised two issues. I'm pleased to see that they're both under the possible study areas, Mr. Chairman. The first is calling Mr. Milton before the committee and grilling him a bit about where he's taking Canada's basically one and only airline. The second is CAR 308. I see it's on the list under airport emergency services, which is a huge issue for the non-NAS airports, about 100 airports across the country, largely in the rural areas.

Those are the two priorities I identified last fall, Mr. Chairman. As I said, the work of the committee obviously was postponed or put off because of the election. But there still are priorities I see that have to be addressed. As well, my colleague, Mr. Burton, has one other issue that isn't on the list that he'd like to put on the table.

The Chair: If I may say, if you want to add those to the work plan, then what the committee will do is discuss them. Then you could rank them, if you like, and pass them back up to the clerk. Then we're going to try to figure out how we can fit them all in and how we're going to make them work.

Yes.

[Translation]

Mr. Ghislain Lebel: If I understand my colleague's comment correctly, he was referring to point 1 of the plan, is that it? It's already there.

[English]

Mr. Jay Hill: Yes, it is.

Mr. Ghislain Lebel: I support it.

The Chair: Andy.

Mr. Andy Burton (Skeena, Canadian Alliance): Mr. Chairman, I'd like to suggest under the non-legislative studies that a review of general government contract procedures take place. I'm a critic for the Department of Public Works. It has been four years since a review was done and I don't believe any action was taken.

The Chair: Where do you want us to put it?

Mr. Andy Burton: I would suggest anywhere, Mr. Chairman, where it may appear to be a logical place. You suggested non-legislative studies. Wherever it would fit would be fine with me. I think it's very appropriate that a review does take place.

The Chair: Do you want to run that by us again so we'll be able to write it down?

Mr. Andy Burton: A review, Mr. Chairman, of government contracting and tendering procedures. The last review was done in 1997 and basically was not followed up due to the election at that time. We believe it's time for another review. So I respectfully suggest that this committee take that on.

The Chair: Jay.

Mr. Jay Hill: I will just speak briefly in support of that. One of the complaints Parliament gets quite frequently—I'm sure it's not just opposition members of Parliament—concerns allegations. I think it behooves this committee to take a look as to whether we can authenticate or dispel those persistent rumours about the contracting procedures, especially with the Department of Public Works.

It's one thing to be very open and straightforward about sole-sourcing when that takes place, but when the various departments put out an RFP, a request for proposal, and the private sector goes to an inordinate amount of work and expense and trouble to bid, only to find out in hindsight that the bid is fixed, shall I say, or certainly suspiciously appears to be fixed, I think there is a real need, as my colleague, Mr. Burton, has indicated, for us to take a really good, hard look at the way in which government is contracting and tendering hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts on an annual basis. So I think a study of that type by this committee is very appropriate and somewhat overdue, as Andy has indicated.

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The Chair: Welcome, Bev. Do you have some comments?

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais (Churchill, NDP): I think one area we need to look at—and it's become even more crucial with changes in the U.S. approach to truck drivers'—

The Chair: Hours of operation?

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: —yes—is to have some discussion about the safety of the trucks, because it is a real issue out there now. People see that impact coming in Canada, and we were already not faring very well on larger truck safety as it was. So that's one area, but I certainly support the issue of the contracting proposals as well.

The Chair: Anything else? Mr. Szabo.

Mr. Paul Szabo (Mississauga South, Lib.): Mr. Chairman, what happened to the proposal that we discussed at the last meeting to have Transport Canada officials before us today and Government Operations and Treasury Board people in on Thursday?

The Chair: Maybe we can get the clerk to explain it. We have some officials coming on Thursday, but we have decided that today we'd have the work plan, and that would include officials coming to see us.

Mr. Paul Szabo: But that seems to be backwards. I've never been on the transport committee before. I think that was the point, that there were only a couple of people who had ever been on this committee before, and before we even made any reasoned suggestions about what this committee should be doing it would be a good idea to talk to the Transport Canada officials and to Government Operations and Treasury Board so that we could understand what the government was planning to do and maybe have them answer some of our questions. I appreciate that we all got a briefing binder, but it begs some questions that I thought were useful to sort out in advance.

Unfortunately, I'm not prepared to make any personal suggestions about studies we might do, etc., because quite frankly I'm not aware of the departmental plans and undertakings of the past. There's an information gap right now for me, and I'm sorry we haven't had an opportunity to arrange these briefing sessions.

The Chair: Maybe I'll get John to explain some of what happened here.

Mr. John Christopher (Committee Researcher): At the last meeting, you're quite right, we did talk about having the department before us.

If you look at the draft work plan for March 13, after the recess, what we have scheduled in here is the minister—if he can appear—along with department officials, in order for them to go through the departmental initiatives for the upcoming session and to give us some background on what the department is looking for in the next six to eight months. That was to give the committee members an overall overview of what Transport Canada was doing and what it was thinking about.

The briefing session on Bill S-2 was just put in there tentatively because the legislation was referred to us. It's going to be left up to the committee as to whether they want the briefing on Bill S-2 first or the briefing from the department first. It's entirely up to the committee.

Mr. Paul Szabo: I wasn't aware that we had asked for the minister to come. I think the request was for departmental officials to help us get an idea of a little bit of the background on some of the information that was in the briefing book. In fact, I spoke with the minister about it, and I know the parliamentary secretary did as well. He thought that was a good idea but that his appearance would be basically only as the minister responsible for one of the departments reporting here.

I also undertook at that last meeting to arrange with my own minister, the Minister of Public Works and Government Services, to ensure that Government Operations people were going to be here, including people from Treasury Board and from Public Works and Government Services. They indicated to me that they were prepared and certainly happy to do that on that notice.

I appreciate that the minister is going to come here in about four weeks, and it seems like a good thing to have the minister come before the committee, but I don't understand why Transport Canada officials or an official like the deputy minister or somebody in key areas might not come and help answer some basic questions. That was the issue.

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Now we have colleagues who are suggesting studies and the like. I'm not exactly sure what some of the acronyms are that they've used, and I suspect there may be some other committee members here who are not familiar with the terminology. I'm not sure what the priority is, but I certainly would like to have an opportunity to identify things that were carried forward or might be carried forward from the prior Parliament and to maybe understand what developments have occurred or what decisions were taken since the last Parliament, or in the last Parliament, and that may impact the kind of work we would like to do.

I'm sorry to raise it like this. It would be much easier just to sit here and say nothing, but I wanted you to know that I'm very supportive of this committee being able to do some very good work on behalf of Parliament and the ministries that we shadow here.

The Chair: I think part of what occurred here is that the officials feel that, in some departments, bureaucrats can't answer some of the questions. If we start with the minister and work down to the deputy minister and everybody else, then we get the full picture. But whatever happens here is the work of the committee. Since we have a lot of new members, if the committee feels it wants to hear all the departments in order to try to get a general feel, we could schedule that right away and that would be our first work.

You have some information here, and members have said to us what their priorities are. You could sleep on it or what have you, because you didn't get enough time to look at it—all I did was get it all down on paper—and then we would reformat it to see how we could accommodate everybody, if that's all right with the committee.

Mr. Jay Hill: Mr. Chairman, I have a couple of comments. One is that, last fall, when I was appointed as the official opposition's transportation critic, I availed myself of a service that, as far as I'm aware, is available to all members of Parliament—namely, to go over to the department to get a full briefing. I was there for, I think, three to three and a half hours. I was brought up to speed on exactly what Mr. Szabo is indicating, which is all of the issues that are pertinent to the department and all the current things it is working on. As an individual MP, I had a chance to question at great length about the various pieces of legislation and to try to get up to speed on things.

I would certainly encourage all of my colleagues on the committee to avail themselves of that. In the interests of time, of course, I have absolutely no opposition to having the officials appear here. But as I say, I think it's a service provided by the department. Individual MPs, if they're going to sit on the committee, might want to avail themselves of that service.

A further suggestion that I might make, Mr. Chairman—and I think you have a good idea—is that we perhaps go away and digest what it is we want to individually prioritize. Within a day, or perhaps by the next meeting if the officials from the departments can appear on Thursday to provide the briefing that Mr. Szabo is looking for, or perhaps prior to Thursday or when we come in Thursday, each one of us could make a commitment to you to bring our prioritized list. We can go through the list that's been provided, add if there are some other projects that we think are of importance once we sleep on it, and then prioritize them. We can then discuss them and try to sort things out and reach some consensus about how we're going to approach this.

It has been my experience, in all committees that I've sat on, that there's always more than enough work for the few days that we meet. It's very difficult for all of us to agree on what the number one priority is, or two or three or whatever, and how we're going to slot time to address those concerns.

The Chair: Brent.

Mr. Brent St. Denis: I think the point that Jay makes about departmental officials being available to assist members, even on short notice, is a good point. I know it applies to Transport Canada, and I'm sure it applies to Public Works and Treasury Board, although Alex is not here today.

If on balance there is also a desire, as Paul suggests, to have briefings here in a more official setting, I would ask if there's any interest or agreement among colleagues to have a session in the afternoon on March 13. Leaving Thursday aside for the moment, I gather March 13 must be the first Tuesday after we come back from the break. It has been set aside for some transport briefings in this setting. We're getting up and running.

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We could spend a month just being briefed here at meetings. When you consider all the departments we have some responsibility for, would there be interest in having a morning and an afternoon session—possibly afternoon could be for public works?

In the interests of efficiency.... I gather there's not much interest in doing Bill S-2 on Thursday even if there is a briefing book available today. Hopefully we can get to Bill S-2 shortly after the break, as is indicated here.

The Chair: Am I hearing some agreement here that we will reconvene on Thursday? Members will have a look at the priorities and bring them up to the clerk, so we could see where they are. Then we'll have a look at how we fit them into the schedule, based on all the information we have.

We can have the officials here on Thursday, and we'll try to get all the departments here sometime or other so that members can have a feel for how each department operates.

Jay.

Mr. Jay Hill: I certainly would agree with that. I wonder if we couldn't, according to the draft work plan, just switch one and thirteen. Whether the minister appears or not—obviously his schedule might not allow him to appear on such short notice anyway.

I think Paul brings up a valid point. I'm not sure whether at this point in time, when the committee is just getting going and members are getting familiar with the issues, it would be particularly advantageous to have the minister appear. Obviously he's more than welcome to appear any time he wants. But perhaps we could look at switching the briefing by the department officials on Bill S-2 with the briefing by the department just on their general legislative initiatives, and, as you suggest, Mr. Chairman, have them, if they can, appear Thursday. They're slated to appear anyway specifically on Bill S-2, so it would be whether the additional officials are available on such short notice to come on Thursday.

Then perhaps we could have a meeting, either morning or afternoon, as the parliamentary secretary suggests, with the officials from the public works department as well.

The Chair: Serge.

[Translation]

Mr. Serge Marcil (Beauharnois—Salaberry, Lib.): Mr. Chairman, it seems to me that in a new Parliament, at the beginning of the committee's work, it would be appropriate if the Minister of Transportation, the Minister responsible for Public Works, and the President of Treasury Board came to talk to us about their major orientations for the next few years. It seems to me that if we begin studying bills and other topics right away without having heard the various ministers on the directions they intend to take, it's a little like working backwards. If we invited the Minister of Transport, we could also speak to him about our concerns.

My colleague from Chambly was referring to the greater Montreal transportation plan, which has an impact on interprovincial transportation. We could discuss that then and see whether it is included in the concerns of the Department of Transport of Canada. We could do the same thing with Public Works.

I am new in Ottawa, in the House of Commons, and I don't know how many new members there are around the table, but it seems to me it would be important to hear the ministers one after the other so that they could give us a broad overview of their plans. We could then, afterwards, prepare our work plan and begin studying bills that will already have been tabled, which might be becoming urgent. It seems to me that it would be logical to proceed in that way.

[English]

The Chair: Thanks.

Basically, the committee always likes to think that it's the author and master of its own destiny, and doesn't necessarily want to take instruction from ministers. We are new, and what's important is that we know how the departments function. I think we're talking about whether or not we have the minister appear, and it's pointing in the direction that maybe the ministers should appear for all the departments as well. I personally would favour that, so that we get the full picture, we know what they're saying, what's coming from them.

As well, they may be able to answer questions that the bureaucrats cannot. They're the politicians; the bureaucrats have a different slant. Personally, I think if we're having departments, if possible, we should have the minister and then the bureaucrats. That would be my view.

Mr. Szabo.

Mr. Paul Szabo: Mr. Chairman, one of the areas that I know will be of interest to all members, no matter what parliament we're talking about, is the estimates. It concerns me that, historically, the estimates are referred to committee and if they are not dealt with or reported back are deemed to have been reported back as presented.

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The estimates represent a very important opportunity for members to have some input and to look into the affairs of each of the departments. I find it extremely difficult to take the so-called telephone book, the estimates, and understand the numbers. There are very few words in the estimates. That is one of the reasons why I'm so strong on having not necessarily the minister but the officials explain to us the priority areas of a department's operations, whether it be the departments of transport or government operations, so that we can alert ourselves.

As we work through our stuff and the estimates come to us, we're going to be better prepared to address them. I hope the committee intends to review the estimates and will specifically slot into its work plan the time they need. Those are boilerplate things. I'd hate to think that this committee would simply just receive estimates and not make a concerted effort to do the job that's necessary—to review them properly—given the significant spending envelope that both Transport Canada and Government Operations have.

The Chair: Bev, I see you have your hand up.

Thanks, Mr. Szabo, we appreciate your input.

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: Whatever we do, Mr. Chair, whether it be the chicken before the egg or the egg before the chicken, I personally don't care; I just want us to get on and get doing the business rather than wasting numerous meetings, and then scrambling week after week as we did with the airline situation. It would be nice if we could just make a decision, get on with the business of getting things done, rather than be discussing Bill S-2 in the next Parliament.

Thank you.

Mr. Jay Hill: Well said.

The Chair: Jay.

Mr. Jay Hill: One of my concerns in looking at this draft work plan.... I don't know whether it's of concern to the other members. It seems to me from the draft that the agenda of this committee is already basically set by the ministry, not by us. I think the priorities for the people of Canada and for some of the members on the committee at least might not be Bill S-2 and Bill S-3. I agree with my colleague. I'd like to get it done. I said that in the House when I spoke to it. It's ridiculous that it's been going on for years. We need to deal with it.

When you think about the number of issues that all of us would like to see the committee address, and especially now that this committee is a combined committee, there is no possible way that we're going to do everything. We cannot cover all of those issues plus the ministry's agenda of dealing with Bill S-2, Bill S-3, Bill S-5—and whatever else they have here—while meeting for a couple of hours twice a week between now and June.

The Chair: As regards the role of any committee, the work of the House and the bills will pre-empt everything else that we do. That's just the way committees work.

These bills don't have to take a lot of time. A lot of them are just housekeeping. They're not major bills. Some of these things are taking away red tape, are ensuring people's lives, and things like that. Those bills could be expedited very quickly. There's no reason for a lot of wrangling in them.

From what I see, this insurance bill that's coming up—the marine liabilities bill—is something that is just more or less a housekeeping type of bill. I think that if we work at the bills we had before—we don't have any major bills that are going to take us a lot of time—we could expedite them and get on with some of the other work that we're doing.

Tony.

Mr. Tony Tirabassi (Niagara Centre, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

As a newcomer to this committee, hearing the debate and getting a feel for the paperwork and how it has been presented, I think if we're going to get off the mark we have to marry the two. We have to find a way to get on with some briefings in key areas. I can't help but think that there are some issues that have to be addressed forthwith. We have to get on with it.

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That's going to require both proper briefing by the department officials, and, as Mr. Hill has pointed out, some initiative on our part to get the proper briefing so that we can ramp up. I've requested a briefing session or some information, and that will be forthcoming within the next week.

It's going to take some time for the orientation and briefings, but nonetheless we still have to set an agenda. I applaud the intent of this draft work plan—we do have to get on with some issues—but we have to go from February right through until June. I think maybe that's looking too far ahead.

We should set some time aside to say, “These are the issues we have to deal with. Can we have some give and take here so that we can get off the mark?” Then for the rest of it, we can set some time aside in the near future to prioritize. So we have to do a bit of everything, I guess.

The Chair: What I'm hearing is that we'll convene on March 13, we'll have the department officials here, and then we'll have another business meeting to make some decisions on priorities. The staff and clerk here have heard your needs, and they probably have some answers as to how we can deal with some of those needs as well, based on the fact that information is due, and how we can best fit it in and get our legislative agenda done as well.

Andy.

Mr. Andy Burton: Mr. Chairman, I understand and appreciate that the main thrust of this committee is transport, but I wonder if a subcommittee to review contracting for Public Works and Government Services might be in order.

I firmly believe that government contracting is something we have to take a very hard look at. The public of Canada deserves it. If it appears this committee is going to be overloaded with other issues, possibly a subcommittee might be an appropriate way of dealing with it. I'm just mentioning it as a suggestion or food for thought.

The Chair: Subcommittees call for extra time and sometimes budget expenditures. Again, I say that the committee is the author of its own work plan. I think many of us have two committees, and once we start splitting off into subcommittees, we might get into problems.

We're starting out now with the committee of the whole because all members are new. I personally feel it's better if everybody's included. Once you start compartmentalizing things, committee members don't ramp up as quickly, don't know what's going on, and might not agree with what the subcommittee says. But we're the authors of that. If we want to go in that direction, maybe we'll talk about it under other business.

Serge, you're next on deck.

[Translation]

Mr. Serge Marcil: Mr. Chairman, I would like a few clarifications in order to familiarize myself with the procedure of the committee.

First, according to what I have read, when we talk about the Committee on Transport and Government Operations, the term “Government Operations” includes the Department of Public Works, Treasury Board, the Privy Council, the Senate, and so on and so forth. Is that correct? That is very broad. That is a committee that is concerned with almost all the broad sectors of the Canadian government and so has an enormous amount of work to do.

Secondly, are public servants accountable to the Transport Committee or is it the Minister who is accountable to the Transport Committee? This question is very important because I remember that in the Quebec National Assembly, we had tabled a bill to force the executives of government organizations to be accountable to the Parliamentary committee, to the National Assembly. I don't know if the same thing applies here. If the ministers are the ones who are accountable before the Transport and Government Operations Committee, that changes everything...

[English]

The Chair: This committee has a reasonable number of wide powers. We could subpoena people to have them here, and officials are supposed to answer our questions. They are accountable to us.

[Translation]

Mr. Serge Marcil: Fine. And we can give ourselves mandates to take initiatives, carry out investigations, and so on.

[English]

The Chair: If that's the way we want to go, yes, possibly.

[Translation]

Mr. Serge Marcil: Is the scope of our work limited? As the order of reference always comes from the House, is it the House that orders a committee to meet to study a bill or... No? It is strictly on our own initiative?

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[English]

The Chair: The committee must study a bill. When you are elected as a government, you have a program. The bill goes to the House and then the bill comes to committee. The committee examines it, goes through it clause-by-clause, changes it if necessary by bringing in witnesses, and then sends the bill back to the House. That's a job we must do. A big part of our job is handling bills, if we have any. If we don't have any from Treasury Board, or we may not have any from the public works department, then we can go on with some other work.

[Translation]

Mr. Serge Marcil: I would like to ask the following question: Does a standing committee meet pursuant to orders from the House? That is the question I am asking. No?

[English]

The Chair: Do you want to say that again, Serge?

[Translation]

Mr. Serge Marcil: Does the Standing Committee on Transport and Government Operations, or any other committee, meet pursuant to orders from the House or does it do so on its own initiative?

[English]

The Chair: I had better get the clerk to go ahead.

Mr. Jacques Lahaie (Procedural Clerk): No, the committee decides—

[Translation]

Mr. Serge Marcil: It decides itself.

Mr. Jacques Lahaie: ... on its calendar. That is the reason for today's meeting: planning our work. The committee is master of its agenda.

Mr. Serge Marcil: It is master of its agenda, except when a bill is referred to a committee for clause-by-clause study.

Mr. Jacques Lahaie: Yes, that's quite correct.

Mr. Serge Marcil: So, here, there is no code of procedure. There is one for the House of Commons, but there is no procedural code for standing committees.

Mr. Jacques Lahaie: The same Standing Orders apply here.

Mr. Serge Marcil: The House of Commons' Standing Orders apply here.

Mr. Jacques Lahaie: They apply here, yes, save for a few exceptions concerning motions. But generally speaking, the House Standing Orders apply here in their entirety. The committee makes decisions concerning its business, its calendar, and when it receives an order of reference from the House, such as one concerning a bill—it could also be a special study, but that is rarer—the committee must discharge it.

Mr. Serge Marcil: I come back to my first question. Are public servants or departments accountable before standing committees?

Mr. Jacques Lahaie: Yes, they are.

Mr. Serge Marcil: So, we could call anyone to appear before the committee.

Mr. Jacques Lahaie: Yes.

[English]

The Chair: Brent.

Mr. Brent St. Denis: Just two quick points.

First, I wanted to make a pitch on the possible study areas. I believe they are all important, including those items that have been added, but if there was a first choice for me, it would be on bus regulation. As those who were around before may know, it was previously in the Motor Vehicle Transport Act, but it was removed in the last Parliament because of concerns in the industry. There were some good questions from both sides, so a request was made to the committee in the last Parliament to have a look at the issue of bus regulation/deregulation. But with the election and so on and so forth, and for other reasons and airline issues, it didn't get dealt with.

I just would encourage members to consider the bus regulation issue as an important one to get behind us. There's a real mosaic emerging in the bus industry in Canada now, with some provinces with regulations and others with no regulations, so it's a question that needs to be addressed.

Second, I think I'm just a little lost right at the moment. Are we doing anything Thursday, Mr. Chair?

The Chair: This Thursday? No.

Mr. Brent St. Denis: I talked to a staffer here, and if it is the will of the committee, I think it could be arranged to have a number of Transport Canada officials here to begin that process—

The Chair: —this Thursday.

Mr. Brent St. Denis: If the committee were interested, yes.

The Chair: Is that okay?

Mr. Brent St. Denis: The briefing portion.

The Chair: All right.

Mr. Jay Hill: My concern was just that if it's specific to Bill S-2, we're not up to speed.

In light of the number of new committee members that we have, if the department officials could accommodate the committee, I think it would be remiss on our part just to say we're not going to meet Thursday.

Mr. Brent St. Denis: If there's agreement, we can keep the 11 a.m. slot on our calendars if we can just make a deal that every effort will be made to have appropriate officials here only for the purposes of a general, overall briefing—what this acronym is, what that means, definitions and so on—for Thursday, rather than lose a valuable day in the committee calendar.

The Chair: Is that agreed?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

Mr. Brent St. Denis: As a last question, is there agreement that we will get to Bill S-2 soon after we come back so that we can get it behind us?

Mr. Paul Szabo: Whenever the House refers it to us.

The Chair: It is referred.

Mr. Paul Szabo: It is referred?

An hon. member: It was done Friday.

The Chair: Yes.

Mr. Paul Szabo: Let's do it.

Mr. Brent St. Denis: Okay. That's good.

The Chair: So they're asking for that.

Is there concurrence that you want a subcommittee? I don't want the staff to go out and do a lot of research for the moneys and the days and how we can do that if it's not the wish of the committee to have a subcommittee.

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In our work plan, we're going to reconsider this and come back with priorities. Right after the officials we can have a business meeting to get a work plan. We had some new stuff added so that you people could digest it and prioritize it. I'll talk to the staff to see how everybody can be accommodated, if possible.

Do we want a subcommittee, knowing that we're going to meet Tuesdays and Thursdays and that we're on two or three other committees? If we do, as a group, then let me know now so I can ask the staff what it would mean, how we would meet, and where the money would come from. We have to ask for moneys as well, I think.

Jay.

Mr. Jay Hill: This isn't speaking specifically on that issue. I would just make a comment, Mr. Chairman, before you get to the discussion about the need for a subcommittee, maybe in light of the questions Serge was posing. The way I understand it is, yes, the committee has to deal with legislation referred to us from the House. There's no question about that. But the committee does have the authority to prioritize. Obviously, without being too cynical, it's Mr. St. Denis' job to make sure that the minister's agenda gets looked after by this committee. So I'm sure he'll try to convince you to prioritize the government's legislation so that we handle it first, and such things as the airlines or trucking regulations or whatever else get put further down the agenda.

Far be it from me, of course, to suggest that arms would be twisted, and that the government has the majority on the committee, and therefore its agenda would rank supreme, but that's been my experience.

The Chair: Let's not prejudge. We'll try to see how we can work things out.

Bev.

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: I'd like to thank Jay for that fairly accurate review of the situation.

Actually, I think subcommittees are tough at the best of times, let alone when there are so many new members with so much to learn. I remember what I went through in the last Parliament, getting up to date on everything to do with transport. I think a subcommittee actually does new members a disservice, because they have less opportunity to get the whole scope of the issue.

Personally, I think this committee worked well last time on transport issues. There was no question that we didn't agree on a lot of issues. But we worked well as a committee, and I think we got through a lot of work. I think we can do the same thing this time.

The Chair: Thanks, Bev.

Andy.

Mr. Andy Burton: Mr. Chairman, I'm not trying to load more work or more meetings on anybody—we all have enough meetings to go to—but my concern is that I think a review of the contracting procedure is in order. If I can get some assurances that it'll have some priority with this group, I'd be happy with that. I'd be more than satisfied.

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: Shouldn't the clerks actually get us information on some of the things we're talking about?

The Chair: We're going to try to do that, yes.

Mr. Andy Burton: Could I get that assurance, Mr. Chairman?

The Chair: I'll get to you in a minute. I have a number of other people first, starting with Mr. Szabo and Mr. Proulx.

Paul.

Mr. Paul Szabo: You asked the question, should we set up a subcommittee. For what purpose, Mr. Chairman?

The Chair: No, we've had a suggestion here.

Mr. Paul Szabo: Yes, I understand that. But you asked if we should set up a subcommittee.

The Chair: No, I'm saying to the committee that if a subcommittee is going to be set up, we need a budget and we need to know how we're going to handle that. If it's the general intent of this committee to do that, we should let the officials know so that they can come up with a proposal.

Mr. Paul Szabo: In fairness, Mr. Chairman, I don't think we've come up with a work plan or even decided to study that. Asking whether we need a subcommittee to do something we haven't decided to do yet seems to be in reverse order as well. Maybe we'll just leave that alone until we deal with the one issue.

The Chair: Thanks, Paul.

Marcel.

Mr. Marcel Proulx (Hull—Aylmer, Lib.): Mr. Chairman, thank you.

Let me say that I'm disappointed, because I understood that this meeting was for a briefing by Transport Canada officials, and the next meeting would be a briefing from Public Works and the Treasury Board. I must have misunderstood. We're now looking at a briefing from Transport Canada officials this coming Thursday, right?

The Chair: Right.

Mr. Marcel Proulx: If you can put it together, that is. Is there any possibility of starting an hour earlier, starting at 10 a.m. on Thursday, and hopefully having Transport Canada, Public Works and Treasury Board? Otherwise, when are we going to have a briefing? Or perhaps we could do it Thursday afternoon.

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I think it's of utmost importance for all of us new guys and girls to be briefed from scratch so that we know what the heck we're looking at and what we're talking about.

The Chair: It's a good idea. The only problem with these rooms is that they do serve for other meetings. We've said that our hours of operation are from eleven to one.

Mr. Marcel Proulx: Yes, I know that, but as an exception, could we have a briefing for those who can attend? Could we sit from ten to one on Thursday?

The Chair: We have a couple of other days we can use for briefings, the clerk tells me, so you will get your briefings at regular intervals. We will fit them into our schedule, all the departments.

Mr. Marcel Proulx: So I take it the next meeting will be for Transport Canada, and the one after that, the one when we come back from recess on March 13, will be for Treasury Board and Public Works.

The Chair: Yes.

Mr. Marcel Proulx: We're going to be pushed back again. We've lost one day, today, as far as briefings are concerned, from what our understanding was. So now we're going to push it back. We're not going to get moving until March 15, right?

The Chair: It's up to the committee. It's the committee's work.

Mr. Marcel Proulx: It seems that the officials of the committee rule in this place, because some of us were under the impression that we were having a briefing this morning. Officials decided otherwise. So I'm asking, when can we have our other briefings? That's the question, Mr. Chair.

The Chair: Monsieur Lebel.

[Translation]

Mr. Ghislain Lebel: Concerning the joint committee, Mr. Chairman, I wanted to know...

Somewhat like Serge, I don't know how things work, but I see that you have filled up the calendar until the month of June. When will we be debating government operations? That is also an important part of our mandate. Transportation is not the only aspect of our mandate. You seem to be setting it aside completely. I don't see very much about it, except for Mr. Burton's suggestion that we examine the matter of calls for tender and awarding of contracts. As for the rest, it seems to deal exclusively with transportation.

So, there is an important aspect of our mandate that is missing, which makes your proposal to create a subcommittee, if necessary, for those who might be interested in government operations, very relevant. Perhaps there is no other solution than to strike a subcommittee, if we don't want to deal with this head- on in committee.

A voice: ... in May.

Mr. Ghislain Lebel: Yes, but they already...

[English]

The Chair: Ghislain, if you look at number 24 on, you'll see some work having to do with government operations. All we did here.... This thing is not cast in stone.

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: Just think; it's gone.

The Chair: Okay. All we did was put...the officials put the stuff that's on there.

We will make our own work plan, and this is just what was on the books. Being an old teacher—if anybody's to be blamed, it's me—I said that I wanted to make sure that we had work to do and that they should slot it in so we could see what it would look like.

[Translation]

Mr. Ghislain Lebel: Yes, but I have not finished, Mr. Chairman. They answered that there are four points at the end, but that is at the end of the month of May, almost during the summer break. I think that is a bit late to discuss government operations.

[English]

The Chair: Forget the paper. Bev did the right thing. The committee will decide. On March 13 we will have another session like this, but you'll need that paper because you're supposed to set your priorities, bring it back, and tell us what your priorities are, so we'll know.

Mr. Jay Hill: Did you rip up the right one?

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: Yes, I did.

The Chair: Okay. So what we've done collectively is that we've put all this stuff we have on paper. we'll look at it and decide what we think is important, we'll prioritize things, and then we'll try to accommodate everybody the best we can. Is that fair?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

The Chair: I think we're just about ready to conclude.

Could you just tell them where we're at here? We're meeting on Thursday. We'll try to have the officials here.

Mr. Marcel Proulx: Which ones?

The Chair: Transport.

Mr. Jay Hill: At 10?

The Chair: No, at the regular time. We're not going to change the time around.

Mr. Jay Hill: I have a point of order on that, Mr. Chairman. Maybe I missed out on something. When did we decide that all our meetings would be at 11? Was that part of...?

The Chair: Yes. That was part of the motion.

Mr. Jay Hill: Was that part of that generic motion you moved at the end, so we could get to the vote?

The Chair: Yes. We had two options, Jay, and most members felt this option was better than the other one in terms of getting a room.

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Mr. Jay Hill: Yes, well, it's the morning instead of the afternoon, but I don't understand why we couldn't meet at 10 a.m. Is there some problem?

Mr. Paul Szabo: Could we ask if there's a room available?

The Chair: Just a second. I'll get the clerk to explain.

Mr. Jacques Lahaie: There might be a problem with meeting outside our allotted slot, because each committee has a time-allotted slot. With the number of committee rooms available, we try as much as possible to meet within that slot. Otherwise, we can get bumped by another committee that has priority if we're sitting outside the allotted slot allocated to a specific committee. Sometimes it works, but sometimes it doesn't, so it's difficult.

Mr. Jay Hill: No, I understand that. It makes perfect sense. There is a shortage of committee rooms.

The Chair: So we'll meet on Thursday at 11 a.m., and we'll have Transport Canada officials here.

Mr. Marcel Proulx: Can we at least try on Thursday? I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, but we're all adults and we're all willing. Can we try to find a room for 10 o'clock?

The Chair: Marcel, the problem—

Mr. Marcel Proulx: It's for the one day, for the one shot so that we can have an extra hour.

The Chair: The problem is and always will be that each one of us has a schedule. And as the clerk said, you need interpretation, you need translation-

Mr. Marcel Proulx: So?

The Chair: —and all the other committees have times that are slotted. Once you start fiddling around with that time, people have other obligations, but—

Mr. Marcel Proulx: Okay.

The Chair: Mr. St. Denis.

Mr. Brent St. Denis: I'll be brief.

This round of discussion was over Andy's question about subcommittees, and I just want to support what Bev was saying. Even though I'm the transport PS, I've undertaken to be here at meetings that deal with government operations stuff, and I think my colleagues would do the same. If we all stay engaged as a group on transport and/or government operations things, we'll probably end up getting more done, with better debate in the long run. So I'm arguing about breaking up into subcommittees, basically.

Finally, kudos to you, Mr. Chairman. If we didn't have something to start with, we wouldn't have been able to have a discussion at all, so that was good.

The Chair: Okay, the clerk will tell you where we are so far, so that everybody's clear before you leave, before I adjourn this meeting until Thursday at 11 a.m.

Mr. Jacques Lahaie: This Thursday, we have department officials from Transport Canada. On March 13, after the recess, we'll try to get a briefing by officials from Public Works. Then, on Thursday, March 15, the committee will get a briefing from Treasury Board officials.

The chairman mentioned that, after March 13, after we've heard the public works department briefing, we'll have another meeting on future business and decide on other topics, other subjects that you will provide to the committee.

The Chair: Come prepared to make some decisions on the work plan on March 13.

Mr. Marcel Proulx: Mr. Chair, I had understood that the future business would be re-discussed after we'd had our three briefings.

The Chair: Okay, is that the wish of everybody here? Yes? And that would be when? You're saying that would be after we've heard all of the departmental officials, meaning each department, Treasury Board—

Mr. Marcel Proulx: Yes, what's good for one or two is good for the three of them.

The Chair: Fair enough.

Mr. Jacques Lahaie: It could be held right after the Treasury Board meeting on the 15th, or you could call another special meeting on the 20th and have a separate one. I don't know if you wish to tie in the two.

The Chair: Why don't we do it right after the one on the 15th, unless they take a lot of time, in which case we'll then move it up.

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: In the interim, Mr. Chair, knowing there are some concerns and some issues that members do want to see discussed, is it possible to make sure everybody has that information so that they can make a conscientious decision when we do discuss future business? Is it possible to get some of that information from the department so that we have a chance to go through it over the recess so that we're not delaying discussing some of these issues?

The Chair: We'll ask the departmental officials on Thursday to provide the information you require.

Mr. St. Denis.

Mr. Brent St. Denis: As long as we don't forget Bill S-2 in all of this, Mr. Chair, that's all. We've pushed Bill S-2 further down.

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The Chair: I thought we said we were going to slot Bill S-2 for March 20.

Yes, Serge.

[Translation]

Mr. Serge Marcil: So, there are two things. If I understood correctly, you asked us at the beginning of the hearing to send you a written list of the topics we would like to see put on the agenda. This could subsequently become part of a work plan.

[English]

The Chair: Just add it to the list. What will happen then is that we will prioritize them, one, two, three or four. The one that gets the most “ones” is number one, and so on. We'll then figure out how we could accommodate a number of them. Obviously, we can't do them all.

[Translation]

Mr. Serge Marcil: Very well. The second thing is simply a comment. I just understood today that officials are more important than the executive at a standing committee. I find that quite strange.

[English]

The Chair: Okay, that's an opinion.

We're adjourned until Thursday at 11 a.m.