Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm just going to read the motion. It states:
That, pursuant to standing orders 110 and 111, the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development invite the Honourable Stéphane Dion and the Honourable John McCallum to appear before the Committee to discuss their Order in Council appointments before May 15th, the last day prescribed by the Standing Orders for the Committee to consider these appointments.
I got this information—as you all did—by the order in council from Foreign Affairs, and I got an email sent to me February 28, 2017. It reads:
...the Committee may consider an Order in Council appointment during a period not to exceed thirty sitting days following the tabling date in order to examine the qualifications and competence of the appointee to perform the duties of the post to which he or she has been appointed.
I also have copies of the orders in council in question that appointed them as, I believe, special advisers to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and not as full ambassadors.
I'm interested in moving this motion, obviously, and in having them appear before the committee because I'd like to know how they see their roles developing going forward. China is not normally a destination for politically connected ambassadors or special advisers, and there is no G7 country that has ever split an appointment with another G7 country. I'm interested in hearing from them how they see their roles and what they bring to the roles, particularly because of this reality that in the European context, it has never happened that we've split the roles in two. We don't do that with G7 countries.
There have also been media reports saying that there would be a second order in council appointing them as full ambassadors later on, so I'm wondering what they are doing in the interim. There have been other media reports saying that they are getting either diplomatic training or something called “other advisory capacities”.
I'm also interested in finding out how they use their qualifications and competence to fulfill their roles as special advisers, as opposed to ambassadors, I guess.
I've looked at other order in council appointments that Foreign Affairs has done for other ambassadors, and I haven't found anything similar to what has been done in the case of Mr. McCallum and Mr. Dion. I'm interested in understanding what their roles have been thus far, what kinds of qualifications they've brought to those roles, what exactly they received in terms of training, and how that set them up for the roles they're going to have in the future.
It's very simple. I'm just taking the opportunity. We have the chance to do it as a committee, and I think it would be very valuable to bring them before us to hear from them on how they see their roles and the qualifications they bring.
It's really just that simple.