Foreign Affairs Committee on June 16th, 2011

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Miriam Burke]

Members of the committee, I see a quorum.

Good morning. We can now proceed to the election of the chair.

Pursuant to Standing Order 106(2), the chair must be a member of the government party.

I am ready to receive motions for the chair.

[Gary Schellenberger, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

I would nominate Dean Allison for chair, please.

[The Clerk]

It's moved by Mr. Schellenberger that Mr. Allison be elected as chair of the committee.

Are there any further motions?

Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the motion?

(Motion agreed to)

I declare the motion carried and Mr. Allison duly elected chair of the committee.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear!

[The Clerk]

Before inviting the chair to take the chair, if the committee wishes we'll now proceed to the election of vice-chairs.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

I would like to propose that Hélène Laverdière be the vice-chair for our committee.

[The Clerk]

It has been moved by Mr. Dewar that Madame Laverdière be elected first vice-chair of the committee.

Are there any further motions?

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Is this for first vice-chair?

[The Clerk]

Yes.

Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the motion?

(Motion agreed to)

[The Clerk]

I declare the motion carried and Madame Laverdière duly elected first vice-chair of the committee.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear!

[The Clerk]

Pursuant to Standing Order 106(2), the second vice-chair must be a member of an opposition party other than the official opposition.

I am now prepared to receive a motion for second vice-chair.

Mr. Dechert.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

I'd like to propose Dominic LeBlanc as second vice-chair.

[The Clerk]

It has been moved by Mr. Dechert that Mr. LeBlanc be elected as second vice-chair of the committee.

Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the motion?

(Motion agreed to)

I declare the motion carried and Monsieur LeBlanc duly elected second vice-chair of the committee.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear!

[The Clerk]

I now invite Mr. Allison to take the chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

What we'll do now is look at our routine motions. I know you have a list before you, so I'm going to start with the first page of the principal routine motions. If we could look at those and start moving through them, that would be great. There are other routine motions that were adopted by the 40th Parliament and we'll have a look at them after we've done the principal routine motions.

Why don't we start with the first one: that the committee retain, as needed and at the discretion of the chair, the services of one or more analysts from the Library of Parliament to assist it in its work.

May I have someone move that, please? Okay, Mr. Dechert.

Is there any discussion?

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

I would like to mention a small detail. In French, I think it should read "de la présidence", rather than "de la présidente".

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Okay. If there are no more comments, I'll put the question.

(Motion agreed to)

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

We'll move forward.

The second motion is that a subcommittee on agenda and procedure be established and composed of the chair, two vice-chairs, and a parliamentary secretary.

Mr. Dechert.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Mr. Chair, I'd like to propose an amendment to the wording to say that the subcommittee on agenda and procedure be composed of five members, including the chair, two vice-chairs, and the two parliamentary secretaries.

There's a parliamentary secretary for foreign affairs and a parliamentary secretary for international cooperation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

That's the amendment on the floor. Is there any discussion?

Go ahead, Paul.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

It's a departure from past practice. One concern we might have is in terms of what the business is of the steering committee, and to have certainly a representative from each party. I was going to move an amendment following Mr. Dechert's intervention that instead of having the vice-chairs, to have representatives of the parties there. It would be the choice of the parties that are represented on the committee. It seems to be a little top-heavy for a steering committee. The idea of the steering committee is to be focused.

I also note there is concern around the business of committees being independent from the other operations. If we go back to the 1980s and the McGrath committee, the recommendations questioned whether parliamentary secretaries should be on committees for reasons that are quite obvious. Committees need to be independent from cabinet, etc. There needs to be a voice that is clearly independent, notwithstanding obviously that government members will bring forward the government agenda.

I'm not sure what the rationale is for having a top-heavy steering committee. I don't think it would be helpful in terms of the committee. I think it raises concerns around the independence of the committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Is there any response to that?

Mr. Dechert.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Mr. Chair, it's our submission that given that there are two somewhat related but in many ways different areas of subject matter for this committee, one being the broader foreign affairs field and the other being the international cooperation field, there may be studies and other matters the committee will deal with that would flow from either of those two departments in the government. For that reason, we think it would be beneficial for the committee to have one or the other of the two parliamentary secretaries there, depending on what's being proposed for the committee to study.

Also, we believe it fairly reflects the results of the most recent election.