Foreign Affairs Committee on Nov. 20th, 2007

[Gerald Schmitz, Committee Researcher]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

In your packages, I think you also have quite a long list of possible future witnesses on Afghanistan, in addition to those already heard. There's further information on the conference as an appendix to that. You can see it's almost a page of participants, and many of them are among the world's leading analysts on Afghanistan.

We should take advantage of the fact that they will be in Ottawa. I wasn't here for the steering committee, but I think that's what led to the decision to take in as much as possible of that.

The partial list of participants in fact is also appended to a document that I see you have in your package on possible additional witnesses.

I might just point out a third thing. I know we haven't gotten to the motions yet, but I know there's certainly interest, as well, in hearing from Canadian NGOs that are working in Afghanistan. As indicated in this list, all of the Canadian NGOs working in Afghanistan have coordinated themselves into--and it's put down here--something called the Afghanistan Reference Group. They already made a presentation on October 27 to the independent Manley panel and so on. They're coming out with a series of studies and so on.

The NGOs themselves have come up and created this coordinated network. There are spokespersons for that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Who are the spokespersons, and how many groups are we talking about?

[Gerald Schmitz]

I met him at a conference. He's the coordinator and the facilitator for the reference group. There may be—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

What is he--peace, operations? What does he do?

[Gerald Schmitz]

He's actually part of the Canadian Peacebuilding Coordinating Committee. The Afghanistan Reference Group is a mechanism to bring together all of the Canadian NGOs that are working on the ground in Afghanistan. As I say, they made a joint presentation to the Manley panel. They obviously would certainly be prepared to come and share their perspectives with the committee.

Given that we have time constraints, it might be one way of hearing a number of NGO views at one time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Can I intercede here for a second?

How many of you are serving on another committee as well? I wonder if Bernard is. Do you know? I don't think he is.

Are you, Paul?

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

It's for Bill C-6, the bills and voting.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Is that a Tuesday morning committee meeting?

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

We haven't heard yet. We haven't had notice. It's the procedure and House affairs committee. They haven't given us a schedule on that one.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

If you notice in what is summarized in the report here, we're also asking that we meet that day from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. The reason is we think they may close down for lunch hour at the Château, so it would be fruitless going from 11 a.m. to 12 noon and just hearing one person. That may be our time, but the whole morning would really be open. I think the whole day is open to us, if we want to stay. I know with scheduling and that we can't tell them who we want to hear. It's available.

Anyway, we have suggested that, for certain, we'd be there from nine to eleven, and we would encourage you to stay as long as you can that day.

Mr. Martin.

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

We're tying up the whole conference, in other words.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

You will be there for the conference.

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

As long as we're there, then we can pick and choose—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Yes, but I'll tell you what, this is what our committee spoke about, that we may be signed up but we want to make certain we have good representation from the committee. They're announcing us, and I don't want to have two from one side and one from another, and there's our foreign affairs committee. That's our committee date. We're expected to be there, especially during those hours.

Are we all in favour of that? I think it was unanimous at the steering committee.

(Motion agreed to) [See Minutes of Proceedings]

Done.

We also need a motion then for extensive travel for us to go off the Hill, and we'll all kind of hold hands and walk down to the Chateau Laurier.

A motion, first of all, from Mr. Dewar, seconded by Mr. Goldring.

It will be what someone used to call shank's pony--you're walking.

(Motion agreed to) [See Minutes of Proceedings]

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

There is one more here.

This, again, was passed, I think unanimously, but it was definitely passed by your steering committee: that the committee meet with representatives from the Canadian Food Security Policy Group on December 4, 2007.

This deals with Canada's role. I think Canadian Foodgrains Bank is part of that. There are also some issues with Africa. So the committee recommended that we look at that on that date.

(Motion agreed to) [See Minutes of Proceedings]

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Could I have a motion to adopt the report?

Monsieur Lebel, seconded by Mr. Martin.

(Motion agreed to) [See Minutes of Proceedings]

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

We'll now proceed into the next portion. As you know, when motions are brought forward, they can be brought out at any time. We're now bringing them out, in the order they were received, to the committee. All these motions are deemed to have stood the test of the 48-hour time.

First on the paper is a motion by Mr. Dewar:

That pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development (i) undertake an evaluation of Canada's mission in Afghanistan with particular focus on Canada's diplomatic and development capacity and (ii) examine opportunities by which Canada and the international community can effectively support the initiation of a renewed peace process at the local, regional and international levels, to provide a political solution for lasting peace in Afghanistan.

Mr. Dewar, would you like to speak to your motion?

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Yes, Chair.

I just wanted to turn it over to amendment by Madame Barbot, who had, I think, brought forward to the clerk what we'll call a friendly amendment. This was simply because there were two motions, one by the New Democratic Party and one by the Bloc, and it was a matter of putting the two together. Maybe I'll turn it over to Madame Barbot in terms of her proposal and her friendly amendment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Madam Barbot, would you like to speak to Mr. Dewar's motion?

[Vivian Barbot, Bloc, Papineau, QC]

In fact, what we are proposing completes and clarifies what Mr. Dewar was saying in his motion. We also incorporated Keith Martin's motion as far as CIDA is concerned.

Would you like me to read it? I don't know if everyone has read it as it is now worded.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Can I just interrupt, to make certain the committee is aware of what would happen then? If this friendly amendment were accepted and passed, would your motion then be struck down as well as Mr. Martin's and Mr. Wilfert's, so that we would have one motion left?

[Vivian Barbot, Bloc, Papineau, QC]

There would be one motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

All right, continue, Madame Barbot.

[Vivian Barbot, Bloc, Papineau, QC]

With this motion, we propose following up on the work that has already been done on Afghanistan and hearing testimony with the objective of writing a report afterwards. We want to report to the House of Commons on the mission in Afghanistan no later than December 14. That is on the second page.

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Calgary East, AB]

What is the motion?