Evidence of meeting #1 for Foreign Affairs and International Development in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Sven Spengemann Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
The only question would then be whether there might be issues on which you really would want both ministers to be present together. If that's the case, how do we tackle those?
February 20th, 2020 / 4:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Michael Levitt
The officials would be able to address any questions that had a scope beyond one minister or the other. We have MP Alleslev's motion. We can deal with this now or it's been put on the table and we can deal with it next week through the subcommittee and then bring it back in. I think we've had a good discussion around it. What's the will of the committee?
MP Alleslev.
Conservative
Leona Alleslev Conservative Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON
The only reason I ask if we could is that I know that because foreign affairs is a really big deal at the moment, we have a foreign affairs minister who is extremely busy. We're looking at a March 13 deadline and we're sitting for only two weeks between now and March 13, so in the interests of time, I wonder if it would be possible to deal with this today.
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
I was just wondering if Ms. Alleslev could read out the wording of her motion again.
Conservative
Leona Alleslev Conservative Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON
It reads:
That the Committee invite the Minister of Foreign Affairs to appear in person before the committee for a two hour televised meeting no later than Friday, March 13, 2020, and that the minister be given 10 minutes for his opening statement and that the remaining time be allotted for questions and comments from Members of the committee.
Liberal
Rob Oliphant Liberal Don Valley West, ON
For clarity and for the minister to be prepared, perhaps it could say to discuss matters “including but not limited to the Supplementary Estimates (b) 2019-20”. Would you agree with that?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Michael Levitt
We've heard the discussion around the table. MP Alleslev made the point that the reason she's suggesting we not wait and use the usual previous practice—which we're hoping will be the practice—on this one is that there's a time sensitivity to this. I think we all accept that. Can I call the question?
All those in favour of the motion put forward by MP Alleslev, as amended?
(Motion as amended agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])
Conservative
Leona Alleslev Conservative Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON
Thank you very much.
In the interests of time and the will of the committee, I will hold my other motions and send them in for further discussion at a later date.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Michael Levitt
Thank you very much. I appreciate that.
Is there any other business around the table?
MP Oliphant, go ahead, please.
Liberal
Rob Oliphant Liberal Don Valley West, ON
On that matter, would it be helpful, if we have a whole bunch of ideas for studies—and I'm sure everyone has ideas about studies—for us to suggest that they be received.... They can be received anytime with 48 hours' notice and so on, but everybody could get some motions in so the agenda committee could meet and have a discussion for the first couple of studies. I suspect there are going to be 10 different studies and then the agenda committee could work on them.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Michael Levitt
Thank you. That actually was our practice in the previous Parliament. We would have members send ideas for studies to the clerk, who would then distribute them in both languages with enough time that they could then be discussed again in the subcommittee. Then obviously back in the room here we'd bring a report from the subcommittee, which generally went pretty well.
With that in mind, I think it's a good suggestion if we could ask members—and I'm sure members from all parties have been thinking about ideas—to submit them maybe by end of day tomorrow.
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Michael Levitt
If we could submit them by end of day Monday, we will then take them into account and schedule a subcommittee meeting maybe a little bit later in the week to give everybody a chance to review them and discuss them on Wednesday or Thursday. I want to make sure that people's schedules are okay and clear. We will have the clerk reach out to find appropriate times that work for everyone. I know that Mondays are not good generally for those additional meetings. People have a heavy burden on Mondays, so we'll try to accommodate later in the week.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Michael Levitt
All right. Okay, it's being sensitive to members' needs.
Let's do that. With that in mind, please submit your study ideas in both languages to Erica by Monday afternoon, and then we'll have a very good meeting in the subcommittee, and then bring all that hard work back in here. With that, I want to thank members. We've had a good first session, and seeing no additional business, I shall....
Oh, there's one point from MP Spengemann.
Liberal
Sven Spengemann Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
Just before you do that, I wonder if we could, first of all, give a very warm welcome to our clerk and our table officers. If they choose, maybe they would like to say a few words about what their interests are and what their background is, just so that we can get to know each other a bit.
Allison Goody Committee Researcher
Hello. My name is Allison Goody. I'm one of your analysts from the Library of Parliament. I first started working for this committee in 2009 and I worked with the chair and Ms. Alleslev in the last Parliament. I'm looking forward to working with all of you. I should say that I also work for the Special Committee on Canada-China Relations.
Nadia Faucher Committee Researcher
Good afternoon. I'm Nadia Faucher. This is my first year with the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, but I have worked on the Senate committees on foreign affairs and health. I have more than 15 years' experience in international development and international affairs.
I also support the work of the ParlAmericas Association. We may be called upon to travel in some cases.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Michael Levitt
I can tell you, from experience over the last four and a half years, that we've always had exceptional table officers helping us, analysts and, of course, our clerk. That's really been represented in the quality of the reports that we've all worked on together. So again, I thank you for all....
Oh, sorry, Erica. I was thinking you had led off.
Please.
