Afghanistan Committee on Oct. 21st, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Mr. Wilfert.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Chairman, I was going to put a subamendment on the floor.

I'm not quite sure I follow Mr. Hawn's rationale, given the fact that it's spelling out names of individuals. We are often asked for witnesses, and the fact that Mr. Hawn indicates that in Mr. Bachand's motion you can ask for any witnesses you like...all Mr. Dewar is doing, in my view, is simply spelling out some specific names, to which in my subamendment, Mr. Chairman, if in order, I would like to add the names of David Mulroney, Michel Gauthier, Colleen Swords, General David Fraser, Minister Peter MacKay, and Minister Gordon O'Connor.

The purpose of this, of course, is that we would be asking for these names before the committee. The fact is that Mr. Hawn is right in the sense that you can ask for anyone you like. I think, though, it's important that we put on the table who it is we would like to see, because it will help to define where we hope to be going with this amendment in terms of the process.

Again, Mr. Bachand has indicated there's no time limit, so it may be wrapped up in two sessions or four sessions. But as Minister MacKay indicated in the House of Commons, the House committees, of course, are masters of their own fate, as we know. Therefore, I would be looking forward to the government members supporting the motion, the amendment, and the subamendment on the basis that we all want to get to the bottom of the truth, and I think there would be no difficulty--of course, subject to availability--for these witnesses to come forward.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Could you go over your subamendment one more time, slowly?

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Chairman, my subamendment is to add David Mulroney, Michel Gauthier, Colleen Swords, General David Fraser, Minister Peter MacKay, and Minister Gordon O'Connor. I did have General Richard Hillier down, but I noticed that Mr. Dewar had already added him.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

I don't know if Mr. Dewar did add Hillier.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

He did, yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Okay, we have some more people who want to comment.

Mr. Abbott.

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

Mr. Chairman, maybe we should be proposing a sub-sub-subamendment, because what you do by proposing this amendment is to constrain the motion. The motion, as is, is broad. The motion, as is, would allow the most suitable people to come to this committee and to bring testimony. If we do a sub-sub-subamendment, and heaven forbid we happen to leave one person off who turns out to be very valuable, what then?

The kind of list the members are proposing is exactly the kind of thing that goes on in a steering committee. A steering committee sits down in camera, goes over a list of potential witnesses, comes back to the committee of the whole, here, and presents that list. It does not constrain in any way. For example, if there was a subsequent executive meeting, there could be the proposal for 1, 2, 3, 10, or 25 more names. Again, that list could come back to this committee.

My point is that the motion, as such, is acceptable to the government and is a workable motion by which decisions can be made by the executive committee as to who the most suitable witnesses would be. If we were going to be proposing a sub-sub-subamendment, in it's own right, it's really quite facetious. But let me propose the sub-sub-subamendment of Anne McLellan, Art Eggleton, Bill Graham, Minister Pratt, and all the Liberal ministers of justice. Then we have a motion that totally constrains this committee. Until we have worked out the testimony of this shopping list of people, the committee will not have been able to complete the work that is envisioned under this very valuable motion.

Therefore, if my colleagues on the other side are really set on going with all of these amendments and all of these names, I would ask them to explain to me what value they are going to have by going with amendments, subamendments, and sub-sub-subamendments? What value is going to be received? How is this motion going to become stronger?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

I appreciate that.

Mr. Hawn, did you have a comment at this point?

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

I would add some more names to that: every commander of Joint Task Force Afghanistan, the NATO commanders. This could go on and on forever.

Frankly, Mr. Chair, I think this is silly. I agree totally with my colleague's comments. I agree totally with the motion as proposed. I think it's sufficiently broad that what happens in the subcommittee and with respect to calling witnesses is the committee's prerogative, and it just makes the thing a little bit silly.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Okay. We have Mr. Wilfert, and then Mr. Dewar.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

There may be a possible solution, but Mr. Chairman, I never heard of it being silly putting forth specific witnesses to deal with a specific issue. It's quite normal and quite legitimate.

I'm surprised that my friends on the other side aren't concerned there's no time limit. Maybe we should restrict it to four hours, or something of that nature, and say within those confines we're going to have x number of witnesses, these are the ones we have put forward, and we're going to wrap it up--so that we don't go on and on. A timeframe may or may not be helpful.

Originally Mr. Dewar's motion did have a two-hour meeting. If I said we do two sessions and within those two sessions this is what we need to do, it puts us under the gun and makes sure that at the end of the day we deliver what we're looking for.

Nobody's proposing sub-sub-subamendments. What we're asking for up front is this. Here are the witnesses who we believe should be here with regard to the motion that was originally put forth by Mr. Bachand. I don't see any contradiction in that and I don't see that there's any difficulty.

If, at some point, Mr. Chairman, you're interested, or if Mr. Dewar and Mr. Bachand are amenable to restricting the number of meetings so that we can in fact confine it to two sessions, or whatever you want, I'm quite happy to look at that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Before we go on we have Mr. Dewar, then Madame Lalonde, and then Mr. Hawn.

In the past what's happened is we've dealt with the motion; the motion has been decided on. We've asked all parties for their lists of witnesses. That's fed into the system. The steering committee gets together, and when you see the list of witnesses, you talk about the issues that could arise to limit the number of meetings or whatever we need. I think we need all of that before we can decide how many meetings it's going to take. That's usually the job of the steering committee, so I think we're going down the wrong track here just a little bit.

Mr. Dewar.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I want to perhaps move things along. This is simply a question. I think the clerk might concur. When we have an amendment before us, if it's accepted by the mover, we can move to that question. If the mover accepts the amendment, then we can move on to vote on that and get moving.

The reason I deferred to Mr. Bachand's motion, although I had priority on the list, was that he had certain concerns about it, so I said it was fine and he could put his first. I didn't want to lose the specificity of mine, which was to have certain people come forward. I'm just giving you the rationale for my putting an amendment forward.

But in terms of procedure, if the mover of the motion accepts the amendment, i.e., friendly, I think that can then be adopted with whatever other amendments they want to accept. Then the question is there and we can move on to voting on the motion.

I just wanted to clarify that in terms of process if Mr. Bachand accepts the amendment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Can you just give me a second while I confer with the clerk?

It's my understanding that if you have an amendment and a subamendment, you deal with the subamendment and then the amendment. You work your way back.

Mr. Dewar's question is, if the mover of the motion accepts the amendment, do we then have to act on that, or do we still have to deal with the subamendment?

I guess I'll have to ask Mr. Bachand what his thoughts are, but if dealing with a friendly amendment, I'm not sure.... It's something that gets outside of the procedural business. Usually it's the subamendment, then the amendment, and then the amended motion. That's what my experience has been: to work from the bottom up.

Go ahead, Mr. Wilfert.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

If I may speak to this, as a former chair of the FCM I had to deal with tons of these over the years. In fact, I think the term came from FCM years ago; that is, if the mover is prepared to accept a friendly amendment and it's not contrary to the basic thrust of the motion, then there's no vote other than on the motion as amended by the individual.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

I'm seeing consensus in the motion that was presented. I think that's important. If we get away from that.... I like to work on consensus, as you know.

Madame Lalonde, go ahead.

[Francine Lalonde, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Chair, I like working by consensus too. But I think that Mr. Abbott was right to say that, in its present form, the motion limits the number of people to those already mentioned. Using any way to consensus that you like, the words: “...including the following people...“ should be added. Then we could put others on the list.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

But the motion Mr. Bachand brought forward, Madame Lalonde, does not have a limiting factor in it. The limiting factor is in Mr. Dewar's motion that he's not presenting as of yet.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Sorry, Madam.

I want to be very clear here, Chair.

The amendment that I had was to include certain people. It doesn't in any way limit--

[A voice]

[Inaudible--Editor]

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

No, of course not.

I want to go back to its acceptance as a friendly amendment. If we can clarify that, then we can move on to voting on the amendment or subamendment to be included, and then we can get to voting on the motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

The indication I had from the expert here is that this is not the way it would have to go. It would have to go with the subamendment, then move back up the list. But if you choose to withdraw a subamendment or an amendment, that changes--

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

The question goes to Mr. Bachand, so through you to Mr. Bachand--

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

We're going to get to that.