Foreign Affairs Committee on Jan. 31st, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you, Mr. Bergeron.

Dr. Fry.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

To clarify, did Ms. McPherson put a motion on the floor with regard to vaccines, or did she not?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Not yet.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Mr. Bergeron is therefore putting a motion on the floor with regard to Haiti. Is that true?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

We can certainly entertain that. I'm making a recommendation, and it's in your hands, but if we can dispense with Mr. Oliphant's amendment, we then have capacity to either add that to the work plan or—

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

All right. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

—for the committee to provide additional direction to have the chair organize briefings.

Is there any other discussion on Mr. Oliphant's amendment?

Mr. Bergeron, you do not agree that it should be a two-hour meeting. If necessary, we will put this to a vote.

Is there any other discussion on Mr. Oliphant's amendment?

Seeing none, are you ready to pass it on division?

Is there any additional opposition to Mr. Oliphant's amendment besides Monsieur Bergeron?

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Mr. Chair, can you just clarify exactly what it is we are looking at?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

It is the change regarding the appearance of Ambassador Rae to reduce the period of testimony to two hours, and to remove the dates of January 17 and 28.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Mr. Chair, I request a roll call vote.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

We have a request for a recorded vote.

(Amendment agreed to: yeas 10; nays 1 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

We are back to the main motion as amended.

Colleagues, you indicated that we may have the flexibility to go a bit past one o'clock, maybe 1:15 or 1:30 max.

We now have the option of adding additional items to that report, or passing that report, and then introducing an additional motion off the floor.

I think there is interest in receiving briefings on Haiti and Ethiopia. Would anybody want to put forward an amendment to the report? I suppose we have to do it as an amendment to the report because we haven't passed it yet. It would have to be in the form of other amendments that were put forward to receive briefings in the shortest possible order on either of those or others, as colleagues see fit.

Is anyone prepared to move a motion to that effect?

Ms. McPherson.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would now like to submit an amendment to the committee report: “That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) the foreign affairs and international development committee undertake a study on the situation of vaccine equity and that the committee hold a minimum of four meetings on this study to talk about COVAX, the impact of intellectual property rights on global access to COVID-19 vaccines and that the findings are collected and reported to the House; and that, pursuant to Standing Order 108(9) the committee requests the government table a comprehensive response to the report.”

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you very much, Ms. McPherson.

There's an amendment on the floor.

We now invite debate on the amendment.

Mr. Oliphant.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

I would just say that I'm in favour of the amendment.

It does present scheduling issues, and I hope that we would entrust the chair and the clerk with working those out as we're getting a lot of things now on the table. However, I'm in favour of it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you very much, Mr. Oliphant.

Dr. Fry.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Thank you.

I want to speak in favour of this because I think we have so many urgent things on our table, including Ukraine and Taiwan.

I do think that unless we get vaccines to the world, we're never going to get rid of omicron or any further variants. We know that the longer this virus is allowed to stay without becoming endemic, it is actually mutating at a rapid rate.

I would like to say that Ms. McPherson's amendment is also urgent, quite urgent, actually.

I'm in favour.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you very much, Dr. Fry.

Is there any other discussion on Ms. McPherson's amendment?

(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Members have adopted Ms. McPherson's amendment unanimously.

Congratulations, Ms. McPherson.

Just before I give the floor to Mr. Bergeron, colleagues, keep in mind that we need to have a quick discussion with our clerk and analysts on witness lists and witness deadlines for the work that's been put forward so they can start planning the substance that's now in front of us.

Mr. Bergeron, you have the floor.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Mr. Chair, I would like to formally ask our analysts and our clerk to consider, in light of the calendar of the next few weeks, whether at least one briefing on the situation in Haiti and another on the situation in Ethiopia could be arranged. The committee can then decide what to do as it sees fit for the future.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you very much, Mr. Bergeron.

At this point, is this just a request to the analysts regarding the schedule or do you wish to make a motion in that regard?

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Unless there is a consensus to have our analysts and our clerk do it, I will table a formal motion if need be, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Let's first check with the clerk and analysts briefly to see, in terms of logistics, if receiving in relatively short order briefings on Haiti and Ethiopia would be possible given the guidance that's already before the committee on Ukraine. If so, we will make sure that this is reflected in a motion as well.

[The Clerk]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think the committee would certainly have the capacity to do that.

There are four meetings that have been asked for on Ukraine and four meetings on Taiwan. At this point with COVAX, there are a few more. Keeping in mind that there will be gaps in the schedule when we organize those hearings, we have 14 meetings until April, so I feel that filling those gaps in the schedule with one-meeting briefings would definitely be doable.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Given that it is doable, we will then proceed, with the agreement of Mr. Bergeron, with a motion to that effect and invite discussion on Mr. Bergeron's amendment.

Mr. Oliphant.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

I was going to speak in support of it being a motion, so it's clearly in our record of proceedings as a motion as well as that we agree to requesting those.

Because the Minister of Foreign Affairs just held a ministerial meeting on Haiti last week with the Minister of International Development, we could very specifically ask for an update on what transpired at that ministerial meeting, which I think is quite important. With Ethiopia it's ongoing and changing but I am very much in favour of our having briefings on both of them and having a full meeting. I would say we would need two hours on each of them. That might then propel us to ask for more meetings because they're complex situations. We'll start with briefings.

I'm in favour.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you very much, Mr. Oliphant.

Ms. Bendayan, you have the floor.