Evidence of meeting #1 for Foreign Affairs and International Development in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was patry.
3:30 p.m.
The Clerk of the Committee Mrs. Angela Crandall
Honourable members of the committee, I see we have a quorum.
We can now proceed to the election of the chair.
3:30 p.m.
Liberal
3:30 p.m.
The Clerk
Are there any other nominations for the position of chair?
It is moved by Mr. Patry that Mr. Kevin Sorenson be elected chair of the committee. Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the motion?
(Motion agreed to)
3:30 p.m.
The Clerk
We can now move on to the election of the first vice-chair.
3:30 p.m.
Bloc
Johanne Deschamps Bloc Laurentides—Labelle, QC
I move that Mr. Bernard Patry be elected first vice-chair.
3:30 p.m.
The Clerk
Are there any nominations for the vice-chair?
The motion is that Mr. Patry be nominated from the opposition as the first vice-chair.
(Motion agreed to)
I am now ready to receive motions for the election of the second vice-chair.
3:30 p.m.
The Clerk
Are there any other nominations?
The motion is that Madame Lalonde be the second vice-chair.
(Motion agreed to)
3:30 p.m.
The Clerk
I invite Mr. Sorenson to take the chair.
3:30 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
First of all, thank you. I want to thank each one of you for the confidence shown in me to be the chair. It was a pleasure for me to serve as the vice-chair in the last Parliament.
I want to say that I have appreciated Mr. Patry in this position in years gone by. I think he has always tried to work with as much consensus as possible, and we have always had a great working relationship.
Not every committee in a minority government works that way. Certainly it takes a great deal of patience sometimes, and each member must decide that they're going to make this thing work. We look forward to it.
We have a choice. My suggestion is that we proceed with the routine motions. I think each member has a copy of the motions. No, not yet?
3:30 p.m.
Bloc
Francine Lalonde Bloc La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC
We don't have a copy. Furthermore, we were not called to this meeting to adopt routine motions.
3:30 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
All right then, we can wait until next week.
As you know, the routine motions basically put the research officers in place, as well as a steering committee, so that it can begin fairly quickly to put witnesses in place. My reason for wanting to do that as soon as possible is that there are a number of witnesses who have already said they would like to come soon. If we were able to get the steering committee in place, we could start having meetings next week. It's still the committee's choice. We are here today to elect the chair and the vice-chairs.
Does anyone else have any comment? Do you want to wait for the routine motions until next week, or would you like to proceed?
Madame Lalonde.
3:30 p.m.
Bloc
Francine Lalonde Bloc La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC
I'd just like to say that because we're not adopting routine motions until next Tuesday, that's no reason not to discuss the agenda. That's the important question, particularly as the clerk is present. In any case, we're not planning to discuss the agenda this evening, or the subject that will lead off our work.
As far as I'm concerned, Mr. Chairman, this doesn't change anything. To be honest, Thursday afternoon is a bad time for me. If we could wrap up early this week, I can be here every other time, as required.
Thank you.
3:30 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
The very first motion, though, Madame Lalonde, is the motion to put in place the steering committee. And I think the way we have proceeded in the past is that this steering committee would put in place a lot of what would be before the committee. We cannot strike a steering committee until we have this routine motion passed.
Monsieur Patry.
3:30 p.m.
Liberal
Bernard Patry Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
It doesn't matter to me if we pass it today, but I would prefer that it be passed in the next week. But you could start 30 minutes earlier next week for your meetings, just to be sure that we could add something else after that in our slot.
There are two things I'd like you to do, if possible. The first one has to do with the fact that you mentioned that many of the witnesses who wanted to appear in front of the committee were not aware of this. The members would like to get a list of the people who want to appear in front of the committee, so that when we meet with the steering committee we can judge this and what we can do in the first few days.
The second thing is that for a lot of my colleagues, Thursday afternoon is a really bad day. Regarding Tuesdays and Thursday afternoons, if it's possible, I would like you to look at the possibility of our working on Wednesday afternoons in any other room—even the room on Wellington Street. Any other room would be much more suitable to members, including those from the west who want to catch flights on the Thursday evening, or something like that. For us it would be much more suitable to work on Tuesdays and on Wednesday afternoons.
If you could just look at this possibility now, it doesn't mean we're going to do it, but if you could just look at the possibility of doing this....
3:35 p.m.
Conservative
Bill Casey Conservative Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS
I agree with Mr. Patry about Wednesdays, instead of Thursdays.
3:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
I think the first order of business is to get through the routine motions; it's not to start deciding on what days we meet. Yes, I agree, Thursdays are very difficult, but they are also the days that are allocated to us.
I think the way we want to proceed, first of all.... We have no research officers until we pass the routine motions. We have a couple of folks here who are maybe in the room somewhere and are willing to serve, and we think we'll have them, and we hope we do, but until we pass the routine motions, we don't have routine. We cannot start explaining who the witnesses are who have requested coming here until we have our research officers at the table.
Madam McDonough.
3:35 p.m.
NDP
Alexa McDonough NDP Halifax, NS
It seems to me there's nothing to impede our dealing today with just those routine matters. I mean, there's nothing that's going to be different or that's going to change between now and the next meeting; it's just the straightforward, routine matters.
The second thing is that I'd like very much to support both Bernard and Francine, and Mr. Casey, on the question of exploring Wednesday as a possible meeting date. I know it's the ultimate nightmare to try to do that in the whole group, but if we could all agree that people are willing to consider it, I wonder if we could feed in—which is why we're going to do the routine business, right, because then we have the capacity to deal with these decisions—to people what would work, if people are open to Wednesday instead, and ask for the exploration of a possible venue to be carried out. Finding a meeting venue may prove to be the even bigger challenge.
I'd just like to suggest that we proceed in that way.
3:35 p.m.
Conservative
3:35 p.m.
Liberal
Bernard Patry Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Yes, about these routine motions, if you just read the titles—number one, number two, like that—I think you could get an agreement and finish them in three minutes. You don't need to read all of these motions. If you just go like this, these are routine motions and....
3:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
In fact other committees have said.... We would ask the clerk to explain any differences that may be in these routine motions from what the committee actually put in place last time. Some committees have had one member say, “I move that we pass motions one to thirteen”, if they're the same—and it takes 30 seconds.
3:35 p.m.
An hon. member
Are they the same?
3:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
I'm going to refer to the clerk and she can explain the routine motions. I know there's a difference, because in one of the routine motions that's always been handed out, witnesses are allowed to appear at 48 hours.... This committee in the last Parliament changed that to 24 hours. So that is one of the changes, but I'll refer to the clerk.