Evidence of meeting #55 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 agreed.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Deepak Obhrai Conservative Calgary East, AB
Mr. Chair, if I understand correctly, what we had asked was the other way around. We had asked for the DFAIT officials to come and tell us what steps they had taken to meet the Auditor General's report. That was the--
Liberal
Bernard Patry Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
That's what is written: “to apprise the Committee of any action that has been taken...”.
Conservative
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
All right. So do we have consensus on that?
(Motion agreed to) [See Minutes of Proceedings]
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
The third one is that the committee invite Carlos Zorrilla to appear before the committee at an informal meeting on May 15, 2007, from 11:00 to 11:30. This is an informal meeting. He is a.... I don't want to tell you what he is.
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
The fourth one:
That the committee refer a request for a meeting from Rights and Democracy with Ms. Suciwati and Mr. Hamid, Indonesian human rights defenders, on May 29, 2007, to the Subcommittee on International Human Rights.
We're recommending that they go to the subcommittee. It's human rights, so they can deal with it.
(Motion agreed to)
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Fifth:
That the committee invite Ernie Regehr and the Honourable Doug Roche to appear before the committee on the issue of disarmament on the same date as the appearance of Paul Meyer, Canada's Ambassador for Disarmament.
Now, we have a little bit more information on that today to share with the committee—don't we, Angela?
The Clerk
Yes. The ambassador has said that he is able to come before the committee on May 31.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
That timing works out perfectly.
So are we clear there?
(Motion agreed to)
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Then the sixth one:
That the committee postpone its study of the report by the Subcommittee on International Human Rights on human rights in China until May 31, 2007.
(Motion agreed to)
Bloc
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
No, we can't have coffee.
This is the part of committee business, unfortunately, that a chair does not like doing, but again, here is the problem: We have postponed a committee report on China to the 31st, and now it has been leaked, or parts of it have been leaked. It's quoted in The Globe and Mail today. They quote one member from the subcommittee.
Again, as I look around this table, most of you have a great deal of parliamentary experience, and you know that when reporters phone you on a report that has not been tabled we have no comment. We don't talk about the recommendations. We don't talk about the direction in which this report is going. We don't talk about what the government's response may be to this report. We don't talk about anything, because it's still not public.
Perhaps I'm not speaking to the group that I should be. Maybe I should be speaking to the subcommittee. But it is not right; it is not ethically right to start leaking these reports. I know people love to talk to reporters and they like to see their name in the paper, but in all fairness, until every individual of the committee has the opportunity to respond to this report, I would ask that you not speak to reporters. All right? So that's on the record.
Mr. Wilfert, then Mr. Goldring.
Liberal
Bryon Wilfert Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
I would concur, Mr. Chairman, that it's an embargoed report, it's confidential, and there should be no discussion whatsoever. Beyond that, I think we need to be very clear that, at any time, this obviously causes problems for all of us. It has already caused problems, because certain people now want to know more since it's out there.
Conservative
Conservative
Peter Goldring Conservative Edmonton East, AB
If it can be determined who.... The report really isn't that clear. It mentions one person, and if that one person wants to acknowledge it, that's fine, but the report also says “MPs”, plural. If it was plural, then it was more than one.
At what point do you carry this forward? You have rules. You have breach of parliamentary privilege. You have things set in place. There's a reason to have the confidentiality, and this goes to the heart of the other reports we might be asking for, and information on prisoners and other things. If we intend to try to keep confidence in a committee and we don't have the rules and we don't reinforce the rules, then we have nothing.
Is this something that should be brought up as a point of parliamentary privilege to determine?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
That's a good question.
I guess why I'm trying to chastise each one of us is so that, hopefully, each party will take the message back to their people.
We had a case in subcommittee of an in camera meeting where there was a press release given on the in camera meeting.
