Foreign Affairs Committee on Dec. 3rd, 2013

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

It's just a comment on that, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Then I do have a couple of names: Mr. Allen, Mr. Garneau, and then Ms. May as well.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

I'll just comment in reinforcing the support for Mr. Obhrai's suggestion, because there are a lot of differences of opinion on this, and I think “active assistance”, as Mr. Garneau has pointed out.... I'm just a lowly accountant, not a lawyer, so with that in mind, I like counting beans. On the interpretation of “active assistance” in the context of what it meant in regard to the landmines, versus what it could mean here, I thought I understood in the testimony I heard that it wouldn't be applicable here, so I think that would be helpful.

Also, under the code of discipline, it was also my understanding that it expressly allowed us to take action, presumably against one of our forces members who knowingly did something under this treaty and violated the treaty. The code of discipline would allow them to do that, so from that standpoint I guess it would be good to have that fuller discussion on those specific topics. I would support Mr. Obhrai's suggestion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Mr. Garneau, please, and then Ms. May.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Mr. Chairman, I just want to say that I support Mr. Obhrai's suggestion of a breakout section for clause 11.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

Ms. May.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to Mr. Obhrai. I think this is clearly the most controversial section of the whole bill. It's the one where, if we could find a way to compromise and have the convention and the spirit of the convention better reflected in our domestic legislation, we'd all be extremely pleased. I want to thank Mr. Obhrai.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for giving me the opportunity to speak to it. I certainly will be happy to show up whenever you schedule a discussion on clause 11.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Okay.

Just from a procedural point of view, we need to withdraw...[Technical Difficulty—Editor]...if Mr. Garneau can withdraw his amendment, and then once we do that, I'm going to ask if we can stand clause 11 for the time being.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Yes, very good.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

So we need unanimous consent to withdraw Mr. Garneau's amendment from discussion right now. The next question is, do we—

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Stand all amendments, then, on clause 11?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

So we will withdraw Mr. Garneau's amendment for now.

(Amendment allowed to stand)

The next question is, can we stand clause 11 to come back and look at? All right?

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Yes. So we're going to be standing all the amendments on clause 11?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

That's correct. Okay?

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Okay?

(Clause 11 allowed to stand)

Thank you very much.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

While we're here, timelines...?

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Calgary East, AB]

Let's have a look and figure it out.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Will we come back to that?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

We're going to come back to that, definitely. Before we leave here, we're going to come back to that.

(On clauses 12 to 22)

What I have before us now are clauses 12 through 22.

Mr. Garneau?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

I just want to be 100% sure that we're standing amendment LIB-3.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

That's correct.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Thank you, sir.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Do we have any questions or discussion in terms of clauses 12 through 22?

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Chair, I would like some clarification on clause 15. There is language that I want some help with, where it says: A minister may delegate to any person, subject to any conditions that the minister considers appropriate, any powers, duties or functions conferred on the minister under this act.

My question has to do with its fairly general scope. We've seen in previous manifestations on this kind of legislation that it's much more defined. We've seen delegation of responsibilities in previous legislation that enacted treaties similar to this one that:

The Minister may designate one or more persons to exercise the powers, and perform the duties and functions, of the Minister under this Act or the Convention that are specified in the designation. That person or those persons may exercise those powers and shall perform those functions subject to such terms and conditions, if any, as are specified in the designation.

I'm giving you that, Mr. Chair, because I want to understand better the fact that what we have in Bill C-6 is very general in the scope of delegation of powers. When we're talking about a treaty as important as this one and we look back to previous treaties where we've had legislation to enact those treaties, the delegation responsibility is much more refined.

What I'm looking for here is to better understand why the delegation of authority is so general.