Foreign Affairs Committee on Nov. 29th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Lehmeier.

I note that other groups have come out and suggested that there could be not so much military operations, but military personnel who could take over and change the focuses from being strictly military into other areas of development, helping to administer certain aid groups. There are all different ideas as to what we can be doing and how we should be doing it.

We thank all of you for being here today.

We will now suspend and give you folks the opportunity to take exit, if you choose.

We will move in one minute into committee business. I know that today we're going to look at Mr. Wilfert's motion.

Thank you again.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

I call this committee back to order.

We want to meet in the last ten minutes for committee business.

At the start of committee business, I was informed that the minister may be able to attend on December 11, but it looks like that is not going to happen.

[The Clerk]

No, we said December 4 this morning. It's December 11.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

The minister has confirmed for December 11, I see. The Minister of Foreign Affairs. We'll have the two together, perhaps.

We'll get back to you in the next day or two. We're just still—

[The Clerk]

My error.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

We won't pass on whose error it is.

Anyway, you will be getting e-mails as to those times specifically. So it looks like something has been confirmed here.

Mr. Wilfert has given proper notice on his motion; you've seen it on the paper for some time now. His motion reads:

That the committee invite the responsible minister and appropriate senior officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Development concerning the status of the proposal to close up to 19 additional consulates, to appear before committee in order to examine the rationale, the cost, and the implications of such a decision as well as the current government strategy that is being applied when making the decision to close Canadian consulates.

I'll ask Mr. Wilfert if he would like to speak to his motion.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Chairman, in light of the comments of the deputy minister the other day, I think it's appropriate to understand what the strategy of this government is with regard to closures, or even openings. What is the big picture?

As they were closing consulates earlier this year, they are proposing to open five in China. There must be a rationale. We need to know what that is. What are our cost implications for these things? I think it's appropriate that we have an idea of what the strategy is in the larger context.

So that's the purpose of the motion.

And so that I can deal with my friend across the way before I get into the ands and ors, hopefully, we can get the minister and/or the deputy minister or appropriate officials to come, rather than not. I'm sure the honourable gentleman across the way will tell me that the minister's schedule is already booked and that we've already dealt with this, but in fact we have not dealt with it.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Wilfert. Of course we always appreciate your comments. We're also impressed by your ability to know exactly what our parliamentary secretary is going to say—

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

I'm one of the few MPs.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

—so I appreciate that.

Mr. Obhrai, since he made reference to you in his preamble, would you have any comments in regard to this motion?

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Calgary East, AB]

Absolutely. I won't let him down, no way. I don't know why he makes me work so hard.

Anyway, Mr. Chair, this motion is very speculative. This motion does not have any basis. There is no strategy of the Government of Canada. On every occasion, when we look at the services that are provided, it is taken into account where Canada would effectively be represented overseas. We don't create strategies by saying that we're going to shut somebody down or we're going to open somebody. It happens on a periodic review basis.

The funny part is that when they were in the government, they did the same thing. They took periodic reviews. They closed one, opened one here--they did it all--but with the purpose and with the idea of having effective representations overseas, not reducing service. Therefore, what he's looking for--consolidations of missions on the basis of some comprehensive secret plan of the Government of Canada to do this--does not exist. There is none of that whatsoever.

We can't support this motion because basically, to tell him frankly, there is absolutely no plan of consolidation or anything in the current state of affairs. It is an ongoing exercise that will continue taking place throughout the history of this government and throughout your history.

So I would say, Mr. Chairman, that this is something to which I will answer and the minister will answer, everybody will answer, the same answer: there is no plan. There is no such thing as a hidden agenda to do it. It's just a plain, simple consolidation that's taken place.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

I'm going to get to some of the others who haven't spoken to this yet, and we'll come to Mr. Wilfert.

Actually, we'll just jump over to Mr. Chan and we'll go back and forth a bit here.

[Raymond Chan, Liberal, Richmond, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I don't know whether it's a hidden agenda or not. I think it's quite open that they're doing it, except that we don't understand why. I think that the justification probably is not coming from the departmental level. I've been a junior minister for Asia Pacific and I understand Japan really well. From all I know, from the departmental briefing that I got over the years, particularly in Japan the Kansai area is very different from Tokyo. There are two different groups of mentality, two groups of business people there who—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Just one second.

On a point of order, Mr. Obhrai.

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Calgary East, AB]

What my friend is talking about is something that has already happened. The motion is not passed in—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

That's not a point of order.

Continue, Mr. Chan.

[Raymond Chan, Liberal, Richmond, BC]

The ambassador of the time and deputy minister of the time insisted that the Kansai region is so important for Canada that they asked for additional support. So this time, when they closed the Kansai consulate general's office in Osaka, it's very disturbing.

This is why we need this. I will support my colleague's motion to get both the minister and the senior officials to come to be accountable for this very difficult decision that is so badly received by both the Japanese government and the Canadian community.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you.

Mr. Goldring.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

I would like to suggest that any hidden agenda was rather by the Liberals previously in their absence internationally, particularly on the issues in the Caribbean area. There is much more interest shown of late by our Prime Minister towards looking at renewing relationships throughout the Caribbean area. In other words, this consolidation, if you want to describe it as a consolidation, is in the interest of taking these resources and assets and putting them...and initiating the resources and assets in areas that can do better, that can provide greater international work for our Canadian government and for trade and other efforts.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

We have a couple more on the speakers list.

We have Mr. Wilfert, Mr. Obhrai, Mr. Kramp, and Madame Barbot.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

I would move to the question. I'm not surprised that there's no plan and no rationale. I'm just surprised that the parliamentary secretary admitted there was no plan or rationale.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

I think what he admitted was that there was no strategy to an overall closing of consulates. They're looking at it one by one.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

I'm sure the minister can come to tell us.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

All right.

Mr. Obhrai, did you have a comment? We're not going to cut short the debate here. Go ahead, Mr. Obhrai.

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Calgary East, AB]

Yes, I do. I have to speak. Let me speak. Madame Barbot wants to speak too, you know. You guys just don't like hearing the truth, that's the problem.

First of all, in reference to Mr. Chan, he's talking about something that has already taken place--the closure or consolidation of consulates in Japan. He wants to go back to what has already happened. That is not the intent of this motion. I'm referring to him when he was talking about Japan. That argument put forward has gone past, is not valid in reference to this motion.

Now we come down here, and we talk about 19. I am saying that there is no plan, there is no such kind of strategy sitting behind closing 19. It's just that every government has a right, at any given time, to do what it will do, as I said in my argument.

The third point here, as we discussed, is that we can't have ministers coming up every time and any time somebody wants, which is what he is trying to do at this time. When the minister is here on December 11, you will have five minutes of your own, and you can always jump in with this question.