Foreign Affairs Committee on Feb. 10th, 2009

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Just for the record, we have never said that. We might disagree with what the government is doing in Afghanistan in certain areas. We have never said that we would not be involved.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

All right.

Continue, Mr. Obhrai.

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Calgary East, AB]

We'll have a look at Hansard, but that's not according to the debates that we sat through in the House of Commons.

The point remains that after Parliament has made a decision.... And one of the strongest decisions was to set up this committee on Afghanistan, which is televised, so that the Canadian public can understand what is happening. That was the key element of that recommendation that was passed, and that is the key element of this thing.

The foreign affairs critic of the Liberal Party said that the public does not have it. They have it; he is wrong. He is on that committee, and it is a televised committee giving an up-to-date account of what is happening in the cabinet committee, because that was what was requested, that the cabinet committee report to that committee.

So Mr. Chair, things have moved forward already, and as things move forward this whole report is, in my view, totally redundant and a waste of time. Even if they say they want to have a government response out of this, the government has already responded to the issue. You may want to go back and flog a dead horse, as I said. What will the government say? The government will say that Parliament passed this.

Mr. Chair, what we are saying is that this report has already been tabled twice—and I will repeat that word, twice—in the House. It's available. Therefore, this a totally irrelevant report, and I want to make that clear, while we continue with the major work that has been done by this special committee on Afghanistan.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Obhrai.

All right, we have the speaking order here.

There are a number of arguments for tabling and not for tabling the report. One of the arguments is that we have a number of new members on the committee who would sign on to a report without being part of the drafting of that report. The other is that it's still an ongoing issue.

Looking at both sides, it might be something that our committee can take a great deal of pride in, that the first issue we dealt with on coming back was the filing of this Afghanistan report, recognizing the importance of the mission there.

Mr. Patry.

[Bernard Patry, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

First of all, this report was adopted unanimously by the standing committee. I just want to warn my colleagues and Mr. Obhrai that they had voted in favour of tabling it.

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Calgary East, AB]

I didn't know about the motion.

[Bernard Patry, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

You didn't know about it, but you should have known. After 15 or 16 years, you should know what you're doing—

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Calgary East, AB]

On a point of order, I made the same arguments in that report as well, but you didn't listen, as you will not listen now.

[Bernard Patry, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

But I just want to make the point that there is no redundant report at all. Some reports are used by people. Yes, we did a report years back after 9/11, and you were on the committee that I was chairing at that time concerning Canadian relations with the Muslim world...and it is still up to date with some of its motions.

The other day you were chairing a farewell lunch for the ambassador from Morocco, and he talked to me about this. This was tabled in July. We didn't have the election before the fall. That means the department had all that time it needed to come back with some of the answers or responses from the government. The only thing we want is a response. If the response is no longer up to date, we're just going to respond that it's not up to date, and it's up to them to respond to that.

To me, a report needs to get an answer from the government. It's as simple as that. Now, if some of the members aren't sure they can agree with it because they were not here in the last Parliament, they just need to abstain. But for me, we're not going to discuss.... The report was already done. We took so many months just to come out with a report. At that time...just go through it and that's it, and we'll ask for a vote on it. We are ready to ask for the vote on the report.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Okay, we have Mr. Dewar, please.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

This is simple. We're just talking about the work that had been done by this committee. Bring it forward so that it can be tabled.

Sadly, by the time we finished and wrapped up our report, Parliament was not sitting. I know the parliamentary secretary knows that. And so it is just a matter of due process; it's very simple. I have no idea what he's talking about in reference to having submitted it twice. This report was only done once, and then we tried to submit it, but the House was not sitting.

So this is not complicated; it's very simple. It just honours the work that this committee has done.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you.

Mr. Goldring.

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Calgary East, AB]

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

You've already made the point, Mr. Obhrai. In the filing of it twice you make reference to the interim report and the final report.

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Calgary East, AB]

He said he did not understand why it was filed when Parliament wasn't sitting. I want to correct him to say this committee passed the resolution to have you table it, and you tabled it. Therefore this issue that it was not tabled in Parliament is wrong.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

I don't think anyone has said it wasn't tabled. It has been tabled.

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Calgary East, AB]

It has been tabled.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Mr. Goldring.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

I certainly would agree that...I have difficulty understanding why people who have not had input into the crafting of this report want to have it reissued.

I also have a concern here about how many times you can keep reissuing or sending in the same report. Is it not like repeating a three-month-old press release? Do you not lose some of your impact by doing it this way? Do you not water down the importance of it? If you're looking for media attention, would the media itself not question this and have to turn back the clock to see if they had received this report at some time in the past and that it's really a duplicate of their efforts? In other words, does that not water down the impact of it, by reissuing and repeating exactly the same report? I suppose the media, if that's the intention of it, are more geared up to having something that's factual, that's up to date.

Also, has there not been a response to this report?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

There hasn't. I think that's the issue here. Just the way it was done, you remember we went so late--

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

If it was sent in once, I certainly think that is enough. Otherwise, you're watering down the whole process.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

The clerk tells me the only way to get that government response to that report is to resubmit the report.

Mr. Abbott.

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

I suppose there are a couple of things. I would presume Mr. Rae is looking for this to be tabled to create some public awareness of the report, some publicity.

Mr. Patry, you're indicating that is not the case?

[Bernard Patry, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

It is to get an answer from the government.

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

I have two difficulties. Being one of the newbies on this committee, I'm taking a looking at the contingent of members on the government side. It's difficult for me, and I would expect for my colleagues, to be signing off on something we were not involved in, in any way.

I think if there is honest reflection--and I'm not suggesting there would be anything but honest reflection by my colleagues on the other side--I think there would have to be agreement that there certainly has been an awful lot of additional water under the bridge since this report was constructed.

In terms of adequate use or proper use of the resources that are available, because committees by definition are masters of their destiny, we could tie up the Department of Foreign Affairs with any number of things, should we choose to. I can't imagine that any of the responsible members of this committee would want to do that.

First, I can't imagine myself being part of the submitting, because I don't know anything about it. I can't say, yes, I think we should be going ahead with this report.

Second, in submitting the report, which is fundamentally based on yesterday's news—they've even taken it out of the bottom of the birdcage by now—the difficulty is that we then are going to be tasking the minister's office and the department with a response to a report that is probably outdated, in my best guess, because I don't know what's in the report. We'd end up tying up the bureaucrats, along with the people in the minister's office. I'm not really sure there's any real value to that.

I'm not really clear— I'm looking for one of my colleagues who are pushing for the tabling of this report to give me a solid, rational reason for doing so. What value will be achieved by tabling the report?

If, as Mr. Patry says, retabling the report is not for the purpose of seeing something on page A-10 of The Globe and Mail, is not for publicity, then I need to try to understand what the value is in the minds of the members of this committee who were part of that process.

This is old news, and I don't understand why we're regurgitating it.