Evidence of meeting #20 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 going.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Alexa McDonough NDP Halifax, NS
It's not part of the motion. It's really the context in which I was proposing this.
Conservative
Deepak Obhrai Conservative Calgary East, AB
But I'm addressing the point you just raised, and my concern is that this is the foreign affairs committee. When you do a joint committee, then you have ten other people going over this thing, and we will lose what we want to do. We want the answers, so that's why a joint committee meeting is something that I'm not in favour of.
Otherwise I don't see any problem, and we have to discuss the Afghanistan issue. Just today in the steering committee, Mr. Patry allocated those days.
So it's in the context of cooperation.
Liberal
Bernard Patry Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
I like your cooperation, Deepak.
I want to pinpoint that for me we're supportive because in a sense we are already doing this. In fact we're doing this study right now, and you're just asking to go deeper with Afghanistan.
Minister Verner is coming for the estimates. We could ask her questions tomorrow concerning this.
We have three slots already with the Minister of Defence and the other two meetings of two hours each, some time in November. We haven't decided who is going to come, because we don't know yet. We just decided this afternoon. Nothing stops us from having one minister and one NGO for an hour, but I don't know which NGO is directly involved, and the researcher needs to find out about this.
But I think it's already there for us. We have already accepted that we can study this and focus a bit on Afghanistan. But I don't want to do just a study on Afghanistan. It's an overall study, and we focus on Afghanistan. We have all the chances to do it, and we all agree on this.
Liberal
Bryon Wilfert Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
By taking out the part about the study of democratic development, it obviously indicates that we want to do a study on Afghanistan or—and I'm starting to hear a few things—we're going to use the existing time that we've set for updates on Afghanistan. Presumably, Mr. Chairman, the committee clerk would like to have a submission on the NGOs or others we would be having.
We need to have a very clear timeframe for what we're doing and what the objective is. If it's an update, is that what we're looking for? Are we looking to do a report?
At the same time, I wouldn't want to add anything to any slots that are open, because there aren't too many, if in fact the intention of the committee is to still do democratic development. If it is, I think we then have to be realistic, with a balanced approach in terms of how we're going to do that. If in fact we say that we want an update on the situation in Afghanistan, then we're simply going to use that time and put in the appropriate witnesses.
I would assume we would need to have a timeframe, Mr. Chairman, in terms of submissions to the clerk on who we're suggesting, and then I guess we'll go from there.
But I want to be clear that we're obviously doing two different things here.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Yes. I should say that we have a fairly comprehensive list and a very broad list of possible people who may come.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Yes. In fact, it will be fully passed around here this afternoon, so that everyone has a chance to see the witnesses who are on the list. We're going to try to make sure we get a fairly good cross-section.
We weren't going to pass around the list of witnesses until the motion was done.
Liberal
Bryon Wilfert Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
I appreciate that. I only wanted to clarify the aims and objectives we're trying to establish here. Are we coming out with a report or are we simply going to...?
God help us if we're going to do a report. We can't get through Haiti.
Conservative
Liberal
Bryon Wilfert Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
Hopefully, if it is to simply get the information, that's fine. I don't have a difficulty with it.
Liberal
Bernard Patry Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
I only want to point out to Bryon the fact that the first target for the two slots for the update on Afghanistan is really to understand what's going on there right now, from our soldiers, defence, foreign affairs, and probably CIDA. That's the first focus on this. But in that formula, we can have development and what's going on in development.
October 17th, 2006 / 5:30 p.m.
Liberal
Bryon Wilfert Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
Maybe you'd like Alexa and me to come as witnesses, since we were both there. We may not say the same thing, but we might.
Liberal
Liberal
Bloc
Vivian Barbot Bloc Papineau, QC
Mr. Patry said what I wanted to say, namely that we're interested in what's happening at this particular point in time.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
All right. Is there anyone else?
We'll call the question. Is it agreed to as amended?
We don't have to go through it. It's a friendly amendment, and we accept the amendment.
(Motion agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])
Conservative
Peter Van Loan Conservative York—Simcoe, ON
Mr. Chair, we are at the end of the meeting time, and I have another commitment.
Conservative
NDP
Alexa McDonough NDP Halifax, NS
We went partway there in the schedule of meetings that we adopted this afternoon, coming from the steering committee recommendations, which is that on the twenty-third, we've agreed to spend one hour hearing from John McKay on Bill C-293.
My intent in putting this motion forward is to reflect, I think, the important consensus. I know the parliamentary secretary, Deepak Obhrai, earlier referred to the fact that in matters of all-party consensus there is some real weight assigned to it and some real sense that we're serious about dealing with these matters. It's in that spirit that I am putting forward an urgent proposal that we really get on with dealing with Bill C-293.
I accept that this sense of urgency is reflected in the decision we made earlier to proceed, but I guess I'd like to propose a small amendment to expedite the matter. It may seem strange, but since I originally submitted this, we've actually taken a step in that direction. Can I make a friendly amendment to my own motion?
I think it's in the spirit of what we learned in the U.K. and in the Nordic countries. We have some real homework to do here to pull ourselves out of the embarrassment of being at—where are we?—0.34%. We know all of those countries are way ahead of where we are.
Anyway, I don't want to spend the time, so let me very briefly propose this.
