Foreign Affairs Committee on April 15th, 2010

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Yes, but Mr. Latulippe--

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much. That's all the time we have.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

--if they don't agree on where to go with the substance, we're sunk.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thanks, Mr. Dewar.

We're going to wrap it up now.

Mr. Latulippe, thank you very much for taking the time to be here today.

I'm going to suspend the meeting for a couple of minutes so that you are able to clear the room. Then we'll come back with committee business.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Members, there are only a couple of things that we need to address today. Madame Lalonde has a motion before us. We'll talk about that in one second. The other thing we need to do is discuss what we're going to be doing next week in terms of future business.

We'll start with Madame Lalonde's motion, because that will probably tie in to what we're looking at doing over the next few meetings. Then we can have some discussion.

Madame Lalonde, please read the motion. Then we can have some discussion.

[Francine Lalonde, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Chairman, in view of the evidence we have heard in the past few weeks and of the answer the Minister of Foreign Affairs gave a number of us when we asked questions on Rights and Democracy, that we should invite members and make recommendations, I move the following:

That the Foreign Affairs and International Development Committee prepare a report with recommendations concerning the situation at the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development (Rights and Democracy), after hearing from all pertinent witnesses, and that this report be presented in the House.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

I'll start taking names to talk to this motion.

Mr. Dewar.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Chair, I support the motion, and I would hope that the government would help us get there and that we don't get into any filibustering. I say that very sincerely. In light of what we heard in the House yesterday and previously, the minister himself has asked us to do that. If you look at what our role is here, it's to have oversight to this institute. That's embedded in the mandate of the institute.

Hopefully, Chair, this is something we would do as quickly as possible and we work together on. We might disagree on what some of those recommendations might be, but that's fine. Let's put our best ideas down, let's get this done, and let's get it sent to the House as soon as possible.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

I have Mr. Lunney, Mr. Obhrai, and Dr. Patry.

Mr. Lunney.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

With all due respect, we have a situation here that has been rather acrimonious, to say the least, at times. There are certainly differences of opinion.

We have a lot of important work we're trying to get to at committee. I for one was looking forward to having a discussion on important affairs regarding the Arctic.

We need to discuss how many meetings we want to have to prepare such a report. I suspect it may not be as easy as Mr. Dewar would like. If he wants to write the report himself, he may have his opportunity.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

On a point of order, I'd said that the committee--

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Frankly, Mr. Dewar, I have the floor. I have to listen to you, as painful as that is for me sometimes.

We have important work on the Arctic that I was hoping we'd get to. The G8 summit is coming. We have the issue of maternal and child health. We wanted to have some hearing time on that.

If the committee wants to spend the next however much time of our tenure discussing the report, which in Mr. Dewar's imagination will be one meeting, it certainly doesn't work in my mind. If that's the way you want to go, I want to be on the record from my perspective that we're committing an awful lot of time on this matter that should be directed to other issues, as far as I'm concerned.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

Mr. Obhrai, and then Dr. Patry.

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Calgary East, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As you know, as the Minister of Foreign Affairs has stated and as you have stated, we really don't have an issue if the committee wants to study this. I don't mean “study”; I mean we can do a report and put forward recommendations. I don't think it's going to be an issue. This was a question we asked well before we started the hearing. At that time, it was stated that we didn't want to, but if the committee so desired, we could do it.

The question I have will be very blunt. I do not agree with Mr. Dewar that it's going to be one meeting for the report. I can tell you that. I know Mr. Dewar and I've worked with him for many years. He tends to bring in things that will automatically extend everything, because he will of course have his NDP agenda.

We don't have a problem, but I think we should discuss the issue of how many days of hearings we're going to have. My recommendation is that we have four days for the hearings. If we finish early, that's fine. If we don't finish early, then we may need more time.

But I can tell you here that if you think we're going to do this report with a rubber stamp, that's not going to be...a problem. However, there is no difficulty on our part to write a report and send forward recommendations.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Dr. Patry.

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

I don't want to repeat everything that's been said.

However, as Ms. Lalonde said, Mr. Cannon said, in an answer in the House of Commons during question period, that he was anxiously awaiting the recommendations of our Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development. Mr. Cannon himself said that. The Conservative government is waiting for answers and recommendations on the operation of Rights and Democracy.

I think we have to go ahead. We'll have to determine the number of meetings that will be necessary, probably a maximum of two or three. We can set dates. The steering committee can look at that, Mr. Chairman. We will look at it with you, and we will determine the amount of time we have to take to develop those recommendations.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

I've listened to everybody. Here's what I'm going to suggest. I'm going to suggest that when we meet on Tuesday, we give some drafting instructions to our researchers. There should be some communication about that in terms of what we hope to accomplish with the report.

I'm going to suggest that we have a steering committee on the following Thursday for at least an hour to discuss some of the future business that we need to determine. It will also give the researchers a chance to work on the draft and on the report, which we can look at on the following Tuesday. We can determine with the steering committee, before we come back to the full committee, the number of meetings and what the schedule is going to look like. It's going to take a few meetings to have the report drafted and to have some discussion on what it will finally look like.

I think we're pretty much on the same page. My suggestion once again would be to give directions in terms of drafting to the researchers on Tuesday.

I'm not going to be here. Dr. Patry, you're going to sit in the chair. I'm at the millennium summit for the morning. I'll be back in the afternoon.

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Calgary East, AB]

You're giving instructions on this for Tuesday, which means Tuesday is open. Mr. Rae put forward a motion to study the situation in Ethiopia with the forthcoming election. We feel it is a very important issue. With the approval of the committee on Tuesday, we can start a hearing on the Ethiopian issue.

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

We have Bill C-300 also. We cannot start everything.

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Calgary East, AB]

Well, you other guys, I'm here to say we feel the motion from your foreign affairs critic on Ethiopia is quite an important issue that needs to be discussed because the elections are coming up in Ethiopia. We can start looking at the government coming and making a presentation on Tuesday.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Okay.

Madame Deschamps.

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

I listened to Mr. Obhrai's concerns. I have a concern with regard to the agenda that we've already established, which includes, in particular, Ms. Oda's appearance. I don't know whether a date has been set for the Minister for International Cooperation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

No, we don't. We tried three times to have a steering committee meeting over the last break. None of those dates worked, which is why I'm proposing we have one next Thursday so we can get this started.

I'm still going to suggest we meet on Tuesday to give directions to the researchers to start putting something together, that we have a steering committee the first hour on Thursday, and then we come back to the full committee on Thursday with what that would look like over the next little while.

Paul.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

I agree with that, and we should put off the Ethiopian item until we have a chance at the steering committee to deal with that.

Finally, if we're wrapping up, has this motion been passed?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

No, I'll have the formal vote in one second.