Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources
Issue No. 70 - Evidence - May 14, 2019
OTTAWA, Tuesday, May 14, 2019
The Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources, to which was referred Bill C-69, An Act to enact the Impact Assessment Act and the Canadian Energy Regulator Act, to amend the Navigation Protection Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, met this day at 5:01 p.m. to give clause-by-clause consideration to the bill.
Senator Rosa Galvez (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Good evening. Welcome to this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources. My name is Rosa Galvez, a senator from Quebec. I’m the chair of this committee.
I will now ask senators around the table to introduce themselves, starting on my right with a senator from New Brunswick.
Senator Richards: Dave Richards from New Brunswick.
[Translation]
Senator Seidman: Judith Seidman from Montreal, Quebec.
Senator Mockler: Percy Mockler from New Brunswick.
[English]
Senator Cordy: Jane Cordy from Nova Scotia.
Senator Mitchell: Grant Mitchell, Alberta, Treaty 6 territory.
Senator Patterson: Dennis Patterson, Nunavut territory.
Senator McCallum: Mary Jane McCallum, Treaty 10 territory, Manitoba region.
Senator McCoy: Elaine McCoy, Alberta.
Senator LaBoucane-Benson: Patti LaBoucane-Benson, Treaty 6 territory, Alberta.
Senator Tkachuk: Senator David Tkachuk, Saskatchewan.
[Translation]
Senator Carignan: Claude Carignan from Quebec.
Senator Massicotte: Paul J. Massicotte from Quebec.
[English]
Senator MacDonald: Michael MacDonald, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.
Senator Simons: Paula Simons, Alberta, Treaty 6 territory.
Senator Woo: Yuen Pau Woo, British Columbia.
The Chair: I want to take this opportunity to thank the analyst of the library, Mr. Jesse Good and the clerks of the committee, Maxime Fortin and Shaila Anwar.
Tonight we continue our study of Bill C-69, An Act to enact the Impact Assessment Act and the Canadian Energy Regulator Act, to amend the Navigation Protection Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.
Colleagues, as you know, we have had a couple of sessions discussing amendments. I think you will all agree that there are some arguments that have come up over and over. There are some others in which the groups don’t necessarily agree.
After long reflection, the leaders have agreed to form a subcommittee, which was an idea from some months ago.
Personally, I’m very happy with this idea. This subcommittee, composed of some senators, will look into the arguments for and against some of the amendments and will come to us with their report telling us where the commonalities are and the subjects that are still at issue.
That will allow us to accelerate this process of discussing the substance or the principles around amendments. Come Thursday, we will start with clause by clause.
That’s the news I wanted to tell you. We have a vote at 5:30. We can take questions if you want. Otherwise, the meeting will be adjourned to allow us to go for a vote, and we will be adjourned until Thursday.
There are no questions?
Senator McCallum: Who are the members of the this committee?
The Chair: My understanding is that the critic of the bill will be there, Senator Tkachuk. From the ISG group, Senator Woo will be there, too.
Senator Tkachuk: And we have had a discussion.
The Chair: You have had a discussion.
Senator Tkachuk: We have an agreement on the philosophy of what’s going to carry us forward.
That will help the impasse. We don’t really have an impasse, it just takes us a long time. Hopefully, we can move it along and bring it back on Thursday with a package.
The Chair: Just a second, we have a list here.
Senator Simons: Will Senator Wetston be part of that discussion?
The Chair: Definitely. He will be somebody that the group will consult with.
Senator Simons: Will there be any representatives from people who are neither ISG nor — I don’t quite understand how this works.
Senator Mitchell: I’ll be there as the sponsor. There’s nothing that’s going to be decided there that the committee can, in any way, shape or form, be forced to accept. That’s not the case. It’s not precluding anything, but it will organize the issues in a way that, we hope, will make it much easier to deal with in an efficient way. Either we do that effectively or we don’t. You’ll know on Thursday morning when we come back.
I don’t know how much detail you want to get into and we have to agree as a group how we will do it. However, I would say there are amendments that aren’t in conflict that will be quite easy to deal with. There are those where there is conflict, some subsets of conflict in the sense but the subset might be 17 and 17.1. So we make a determination about how that might be accommodated. There are those we won’t agree, so we have to make a determination about how we would get through those. It’s all doable with good faith, and I think good faith is there.
The Chair: With that, I thank you very much. With your permission, I will adjourn the meeting.
(The committee adjourned.)