Foreign Affairs Committee on Feb. 11th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Rae.

Mr. Obhrai, are you ready for the question?

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Calgary East, AB]

I have just a quick comment back on Paul's thing and Rae's thing. We were talking about the road map, and I think we should go back to the subcommittee. All the motions I put forward were part of the road map that we had discussed yesterday and gave to the committee. It's all there now, right?

The difficulty with these things is that these two motions that Mr. Dewar has put forward are not urgent. We really need to focus, because the Sri Lankan thing is highly important. It's up to Mr. Dewar what he wants to do; he's put it forward. We can have a vote on that, but basically the argument that has been put forward here is to send it back to the steering committee. We'll come out with all the things here, including the Sri Lanka one. You have just indicated we have witnesses and the department. After that we have the steering committee and we can bring it out and move forward. We are fine with that.

I would say this is our argument. It's up to Mr. Dewar, and you can call the question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Mr. Dewar.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

It's nice of Mr. Obhrai to tell us to call the question. He's been on the other side of the equation more times than I have and in fact hasn't done that. I'm speaking about talking out the clock. I don't want to do that.

I want to underline the point--probably to Mr. Rae more than anyone--that we are not talking about rewriting the report here. We're talking about the work that was done in this committee. The difference was a matter of hours, particularly on the CSR report--which was a motion amended by the government, so I'm not sure why they would be against it. By the time we got it into the House, the House had risen for the summer. So in terms of opportunity for us to actually shine light on it, you know how these things work.

Basically what you're saying is that you don't want to have the work that this committee had done in the past Parliament in the House, Bob. That's what you're saying.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

No, Paul. It can be referred to. It can be dealt with.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Well, no, it cannot be brought up. It cannot be concurred. Let's be clear about this. If we can't bring a report into the House, then it doesn't mean much, other than it being a nice document hung out there.

The key thing for us is to be able to bring our work right into the House. Otherwise, let's be honest, it is a report that's out there and it's on the website, but beyond that, it's not able to be debated and it cannot be concurred in, because this Parliament has not adopted it. That's why we had the Afghanistan report resubmitted. That was my intention.

So this isn't about extra work. The work has been done.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

But we are resubmitting the Afghanistan—

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

No, the work has been done, but as for the opportunity to actually have it concurred in the House, you can't do it. Procedurally it can't be done unless we ask for it to be resubmitted, and that's all.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

But we have resubmitted the Afghanistan report.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

That's what I'm saying, and these other two reports cannot be referred to unless we do that again in the House. So it means they disappear. I don't know how else to put it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

I don't either, because—

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

We can't refer to them in the House. We can't concur—

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

What do you mean you can't refer to them?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

You can refer to the Muslim reports from three Parliaments ago.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Okay, should I be really blunt about it? We cannot do a concurrence for those other two reports in the House because they were from the last Parliament. With the Afghanistan report, because we're resubmitting, we can then concur in the House and debate.

Unless you're able to do that, Bob, it's a nice little bit of paper we wrote, but it's nothing that we can concur in in the House. Those three items were ones that we had done in this last Parliament, that this committee had worked on, that got to Parliament right at the end, and in the case of the Afghanistan report, it was tabled with permission of the committee after the House had done its business and gone. But the other two, we weren't able to actually concur in to have a full debate on it, because the House rose by the time that happened.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Procedurally, what would a full vote be on these two reports?

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

It means there could be a debate and a vote. I'm being very upfront. That's why I put them in there. It means there could be a debate on those two items. What it means is that if we don't resubmit....

All I'm doing here is saying this is the work we had done. Parliament recessed, and we weren't able to do that. So all it is a matter of doing, just like the Afghanistan report, is to allow it to be resubmitted, and it will be put through this committee and could be concurred to the House, so we could actually have it concurred in the House. That's the key piece here.

I'm in your hands on this, because the government's pretty clear about what it wants to do.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

We have the motion before us, and there's no one else to speak to it. Are you ready for the question on this motion?

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Can we just confer with the clerk for a moment?

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

There seems to be some confusion. Can I get clarification from the clerk about the sixth and seventh reports that I'm referring to? If they are not resubmitted and passed through this committee, they cannot be concurred in the House—is that correct?

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Angela Crandall]

Exactly. If they're not presented to the House as a report of this Parliament and this committee, then—

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Yes. So we will not be able to debate corporate social responsibility or Khadr. I just want to be clear about what we're doing here.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Are we ready for the question?

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

If we pass this motion, that doesn't mean that we are going to debate this question again in committee. Correct? Thank you.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

No, just vote and go.