Foreign Affairs Committee on Oct. 24th, 2006

[John McKay]

I'm actually going to put myself in the hands of the committee in kind of a reverse order. Usually, a committee becomes convinced of a principle and then works toward drafting a bill. I don't think I need to convince the committee of the principles of this bill. One thing I know has been very true is that this committee enjoys a lot of support on all sides of the House and that it enjoys a lot of public support.

The second thing is that the bill requires royal recommendation. The government has made it explicitly clear that it will not be forthcoming in granting a royal recommendation, the consequence of which is that the bill requires some modifications, while keeping the bill in its essence and with its core purpose. I hope the clerk has circulated a proposed set of amendments to the bill, which I'm advised releases the bill from its obligation for royal recommendation. So in my view, I think we've dealt with that issue.

The issue then becomes letting members look at the new approach to the principles of the bill to see whether this in fact reflects what the committee opined on back in June of last year in the previous Parliament, which was adopted by the House unanimously.

The big scheme, if you will, is to eliminate the need for the petitioning process and to eliminate the committee--those were the two objections that caught the Speaker's attention. That part has now been eliminated.

We then shifted our emphasis away from NGOs to a larger concept of civil society, if you will, and we have required that the minister “shall” consult with civil society, not “may”, in order to fulfill the obligations of the bill. I hope this meets with committee approval.

We also took note of some of the speeches that were made during the two hours of debate, one of which was the promotion of human rights, which I think Madam McDonough and Madam St-Hilaire spoke to. We've explicitly put that in, and we tried to make it a more robust role, where the minister in effect will be obligated to take into consideration civil society's views.

That's the big picture. I'm in your hands, Chair, as to how you want to proceed from here.

I actually thought one of the ways to proceed, rather than going back and forth with questions and things of that nature, was to go at it like the clause-by-clause stage. I'd be very keen on hearing from members as to whether they think we capture the intention of the bill, and that the methodology we've chosen captures the essence of the bill as well.

I'm going to stop there, and I'm going to ask you, Chair, for some guidance with respect to how to proceed at this point.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

My feeling is that we will probably not proceed that way. We've just been handed this today. I know this takes a fair bit of study. You start deleting lines and adding this and adding that. I know we've all gone though clause-by-clause, and most times when you've gone through clause-by-clause, you want to do a little bit of a study before you get to it.

You've already given us a little bit of an idea of the principle on which you built this private member's bill. Let's just proceed with the questions, and if any member wants to go into a clause or ask what you mean by deleting this clause and adding that, then I guess they would have the opportunity to do that. Let's not just throw it open, but continue with the seven-minute rounds and give people the opportunity to speak.

Before we go into that, is that satisfactory?

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Could I just comment on that?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Go ahead, Mr. Menzies.

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

I appreciate Mr. McKay's help on this, but I go back to your first comment. We haven't seen any of these. What we were expecting here today, what we've prepared ourselves for, was the bill that was presented in the House. I think we need to deal with that. And to stop that dialogue, to interject proposed amendments that have to be, with all due respect, presented by one of the members of this committee....

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

I do appreciate Mr. McKay bringing this, because what this has allowed us to do is not wait until we see what amendments they bring forward. This has given us the opportunity to do it. So in due time, after hearing other witnesses, we will have the opportunity to go clause by clause. If somebody wants to deal with a certain clause in their seven-minute time period, that would be acceptable. They can do what they want with the seven minutes.

Mr. Patry.

[Bernard Patry, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

I disagree with Mr. Menzies. In fact, Mr. Menzies, if Mr. McKay is coming before us today, it's not to talk about the bill that was presented in the House, because we already have that bill. It is really to discuss the changes and how the changes will affect his bill. That was the reason for having him today. That was the discussion we had in this committee previously.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Yes, and that's basically what I've said. He has made some changes. He has given us the changes. He hasn't dealt specifically with every change he's made in his ten-minute preamble, but you will still have an opportunity to. He has told us that in order to get rid of the royal recommendation, or requirement, he has gotten rid of the petition process, as well as the committee process. So those are things that we may want to question him about.

We're going to go to the first round.

Mr. Patry, you have seven minutes.

[Bernard Patry, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. McKay, I just have one very quick question, and after that, I'll ask my colleagues if they have any questions. They can ask you about the changes.

I just want to know, in changing the modification as requested by the Speaker's ruling in the House of Commons, did you work with the Speaker's lawyer? How did it occur that you made these changes and will not be faced in the future with it coming back in the House of Commons with some other ruling by the Speaker?

[John McKay]

We met with the legislative drafter. He had the ruling in hand. We went through the objectionable parts of the bill. What you see is the result of those objectionable parts. The legislative drafter then took it to the Speaker's office and asked, in an informal way, if this would comply with the ruling of the Speaker, and we were assured that it would.

[Bernard Patry, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Do you have any other questions, colleagues?

If you don't have any questions, I'll use my seven minutes, Mr. Chair, just to try to ask him to go clause by clause.

How does it change the first clause?

[John McKay]

If you have the bill and the proposed first amendment in front of you, you'll see that in subclause 2.(1), lines 9 and 10, of the current bill, it says:

poverty reduction and in a manner consistent with Canadian values, Canadian foreign policy and international human rights standards.

Now it will read:

poverty reduction and in a manner consistent with Canadian values and Canadian foreign policy and that promotes international human rights standards.

That was a direct response to what we heard on the floor of the House. I understand this has been under discussion at this committee in the past. That was the first amendment.

The second amendment is on clause 3, adding after line 19, “civil society organization”. This definition means--and this is new--a not-for-profit or a charitable organization whose governing structure is independent. This expands the whole basis for consultation among those with whom the minister would consult. That would be the second point, the definition of civil society.

The next amendment would be to delete lines 20 and 22, because there is no longer a requirement for the committee.

Moving through the bill, we've expanded the notion of development assistance. We lifted this from what the minister has said in public pronouncements in the last little while. As you can see, we have been a little more precise in our definition of development assistance. It means:

funding that's transferred to developing countries and multilateral institutions by government agencies, and that is administered with the principal objective of promoting the economic development and welfare of developing countries that is concessional in character and that conveys a grant element of at least 25%.

This is right out of what the minister has been speaking about.

The next amendment would be adding after line 11 on page 2, “international human rights standards”. We would say:

“international human rights standards” means standards that are based on international human rights conventions to which Canada is a signatory.

I believe this was raised by Mr. Menzies in debate. I think it is a response to a concern that he raised.

We also expanded the definition of “minister” to read:

the Minister for Cooperation or any other minister designated by the governor in council as the minister for the purposes of this Act.

That is just a broader definition.

Then “non-governmental organization” is deleted, because we replaced it with “civil society organization”.

That takes us to clause 4. Then you get to, if you will, the guts of the change. In lines 29 to 31 on page 2 we replaced “the competent minister may consult with international agencies and Canadian non-governmental organizations” with:

the competent minister shall consult with international agencies and Canadian civil society organizations

Civil society is a larger concept than non-government organizations. This way we tie the minister into this bill and require her or him to show that they have consulted with civil society organizations.

The next change is to delete clauses 6, 7, and 8.

You also delete lines 17 and 18 on clause 9 because there's no longer a summary of an annual report submitted by the committee under section 8--

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Could you just go back there, Mr. McKay? You delete which clauses?

[John McKay]

We delete clauses 6, 7, and 8.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Committees, petitions?

[John McKay]

No, my apologies for that. I actually asked about that and they said you don't actually have to do this, but then they did it for others, so I apologize for any confusion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you. We're going to go to the next round.

Madame St-Hilaire.

[Caroline St-Hilaire, Bloc, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. McKay. I shall try to be brief. I only have four questions.

One of your amendments modifies clause 2 and I quote:

[...] reduction and in a manner that is consistent with Canadian values and Canadian foreign policy and that promotes human rights standards.

I do want a point of clarification. When you say « promote » because this is what you have changed, don't you think that you diminish the weight of that clause? To promote is not the same thing as to implement.

This is my first question.

[John McKay]

Let me see if I can deal with it. I thought by putting the word “promotion” in there that this in fact reflected the wishes of the committee and, if I recollect correctly, your speech in the House. Rather than weaken the clause, I thought it was actually strengthening the clause. I'm not clear how “promotion”--

[Caroline St-Hilaire, Bloc, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Initially, in your Bill, it was stated:

The purpose of this Act is to ensure that all Canadian development assistance abroad is provided with central focus on poverty reduction and in a manner consistent with Canadian values, Canadian foreign policy and international human rights standards.

[John McKay]

Yes.

[Caroline St-Hilaire, Bloc, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

You are now saying that the focus will be on the promotion rather than on the implementation of international standards. In our interpretation, it seems to somewhat diminish the strength of that clause.

[John McKay]

That's good advice, because we put it in to actually strengthen it. I'd be interested in hearing other members' views, but that was our intention.

[Caroline St-Hilaire, Bloc, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

It was my first question.

My second question -- and it might again be a problem with the translation or the french — relates to your second amendment to clause 3. In English you say “conveys” while in French you say “libéralité”. I know that you probably cannot explain to me what it means in French, but what do you mean exactly by “libéralité”?

[Bernard Patry, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

What lines are you referring to?