Foreign Affairs Committee on Jan. 31st, 2022

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

I'm sorry to interrupt, Mr. Chair. If we did vote against this particular amendment, the decision of the chair to move forward on, for example, having Ambassador Rae join us would still be something we would be looking at, but also, in addition to that, we would be able to bring forward the opportunity to look at Ukraine in the future.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

That's correct, but first of all, the chair did not make any decisions in terms of what we discussed. The chair with the clerk had forwarded a subcommittee report that embodies what the subcommittee discussed on the 23rd, which is the appearance of Ambassador Rae.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Sorry.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

If Madame Bendayan's amendment passes—that's if the committee is interested—that would have to be re-moved at some future time, but all other items, once we're through the amendment of Madame Bendayan, would then also be up for discussion as the committee chooses to prioritize and to introduce.

Really, the discussion point at the moment is the amendment that was put forward by Madame Bendayan.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

I have a comment on that, if that's all right.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Please go ahead, Ms. McPherson.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

I'm sorry to continuously interrupt you. Apparently, I'm very excited about this today.

There's one thing that I wanted to flag with regard to Ukraine. Of course, it is the most pressing issue that we are facing, or one of the most pressing issues that we are facing. It's very important. It is why, in the very first meeting on December 13, I also brought forward a motion. I want to make sure that we have the opportunity to read it into the record. It reads:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the Committee hold at least two meetings on the situation in Ukraine and invite witnesses, including officials from Global Affairs Canada and the Ukrainian Canadian Congress.

The reason I wanted to read that in—my thinking is with regard to what is happening in Ukraine and the aggression we are seeing from Russia—is that it is an extremely fluid situation. It is changing extremely rapidly. My worry is that if we undertake a one-time study right now, at the beginning of our sitting days within this committee, we will not have the opportunity to be continually updated on this important issue.

We know there will be a take-note debate in the House of Commons today, so there will be an opportunity for all parliamentarians to debate this. We know that right now the defence committee is looking at this issue, and that's very important. I would say that many committees within our parliamentary structure have an obligation to look at what is happening in Ukraine with the aggression from Russia. This is an extremely important issue for many reasons.

What I would rather see this committee do is have updates from officials and people who can give us more information as the issues evolve. I'd like to propose—I don't know if this needs to be a new amendment to the amendment to the subcommittee report—that we, even as early as Wednesday, bring in officials from Global Affairs Canada. We could conceivably bring in people from the Ukrainian Canadian Congress to give us a briefing of where we are right now. We could then plan to have follow-up meetings as we go forward. We would be able to do other studies in between those.

We have an awful lot of work to do. Vaccine equity is one that I'm pushing very hard for. This is something that affects people in every country in the world and it is urgent, but we also have what's happening in Taiwan, which I think is very closely related to what we're seeing in Ukraine. There are a lot of other pieces of work that need to happen in this committee.

Perhaps a solution to that would be to make sure that we, as the foreign affairs committee, are looking at the situation in Ukraine, but, realizing that because it is so fluid and evolving so quickly, we need to be a little more flexible on how we undertake that study.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you very much, Ms. McPherson.

Before going into the procedure of what you're suggesting and then going through the rest of the speakers list, the committee in the last Parliament and prior to that always took the view that it was doing multiple things. Some things evolve quickly and the requests for ministerial or departmental briefings are certainly at the committee's disposal to either add to its current or future work plan, or to incorporate them into motions, as you're suggesting.

If you have some language that you want to propose that complements Madame Bendayan's original motion and achieves what you're trying to do, and you'll draw the [Technical difficulty—Editor] amendment, I invite you to do that, because that seems to be where you're going with it.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Do we have the text from the amendment that has been brought forward?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

I believe the text of Madame Bendayan's motion has been distributed or is going to be imminently distributed. I am just checking with the clerk to make sure that members have that in front of them in both official languages.

[The Clerk]

I did just send an email around, but for members' reference, it's in the list of motions that we have on notice. It's number 10.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Ms. McPherson, I will offer you the opportunity to introduce a subamendment to achieve—

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

I don't have the wording ready for me, but I could try to bring something forward if that's helpful.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Sure. The gist of it seemed to be that the committee should be open to receiving—

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Mr. Chair, I have a point of order just to help everybody here. The clerk has just sent everyone an email containing two PDF documents. Ms. Bendayan's amendment is number 10 in those attached PDFs.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thanks, Mr. Chong, for clarifying. I think that was communicated in writing as well.

Ms. McPherson, if you'd like to take a look and introduce a subamendment if you think that's going to take us where you'd like to go, please do so.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

I would ask that the analysts who are so much stronger at being able to frame this to say something like, instead of, that the committee hold a minimum of four meetings on this study, including two meetings to hear from witnesses and two meetings to hear from officials, acknowledging the fluid nature of this particular conflict or this escalation, that the committee meet on the next available time to get a briefing from Global Affairs Canada.

I named the UCC and that would my preference, but I would be open to an amendment on that. We could include, at the earliest possible time, a briefing on the situation in Russia and on Ukraine and the ability to reconvene the study or to ask for further briefings as the situation develops.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you very much, Madame McPherson.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

That was as clunky as could be. I apologize.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

It's giving us some direction.

I'm going to turn briefly to the analysts or clerk to see if they can quickly tweak that to match where committees in the past have gone with respect to briefings being incorporated into main motions, but then maybe also offer members the opportunity to discuss that subamendment and see if there's a consensus emerging around that.

Madam Clerk or either of the analysts, I think we're getting somewhere in terms of the direction that's proposed by Ms. McPherson. From your perspective in terms of organizing those kinds of meetings and one of them, as Ms. McPherson said, should be done in the shortest possible order, is there anything we should add to that language?

[The Clerk]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll take a first stab at it and then I might turn it over to Allison or BJ afterwards.

What I would suggest is that in the amendment it has “including two meetings to hear from witnesses”. There, I would put a comma and say, “including the Ukrainian Canadian Congress”, and at the end of the motion, that one of the latter briefing meetings be held in camera and the other in public, and that the first of these briefings take place on Thursday, February 3, 2022, which is the next meeting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

That has significant direction in it and detail.

Ms. McPherson, did you want to add anything to that? Are you okay with what has been proposed? If so, then we would invite debate on your subamendment.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

The only thing I would suggest is that perhaps we do not need to have the in camera. I would remove the in camera in my subamendment. I don't think there would be a possibility that we would need that to be the case for this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Okay. Thank you very much.

The subamendment is now on the floor, with guidance given by the clerk as well and the analysts. I invite debate on the subamendment.

I have a speakers list from the previous round. Is anybody on that speakers list—

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Mr. Chair, I have a point of order again. I'm sorry to keep interrupting, but I want to make sure that everybody is on the same page.

As I understand it, Ms. McPherson's subamendment is also amending the amendment in a way that would add Ukraine to the appearance of Ambassador Rae, to the report, rather than replace Ambassador Rae with the hearings on Ukraine.

Am I correct?