Foreign Affairs Committee on March 21st, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you, Mr. Bergeron.

Madam Clerk, do you have any reaction to what we've heard so far? These are questions primarily on the integration of potentially one or two additional witnesses, but nothing in terms of opposition.

What position does that put you and the analysts in, given the feedback that we've received?

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Erica Pereira]

If members are in agreement to add these additional witnesses and are willing to let the analysts look at the work plan to see where they might slot them in, we can certainly do that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Does that correspond to the position of members?

I see some heads nodding.

Are you still looking for your notes, Mr. Bergeron?

Are you okay with the work plans as presented?

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Unfortunately, I wasn't quite listening, as I should've been. I was talking to an assistant.

I don't want to make you repeat it all, but can you tell me quickly what was said, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Are you all right with approving the work plans, taking into account the additional comments made by members?

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

If members' additional comments are taken into account, of course, I have no problem with that.

If I may, I'd like to comment quickly on the Taiwan work plan.

For the third meeting, Ting‑Shen Lin is appearing in the second panel, but I was wondering whether that was the best panel to put him in. I don't have any objections per se. I was simply wondering whether it might be better to reverse [Technical difficulty—Editor].

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Pardon me, Mr. Bergeron, but the sound has cut out.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Can you hear me now?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Now, we can hear you, yes.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Did you miss everything I said?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

No, you cut out for only a couple of seconds.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

I was wondering whether, out of consideration, we shouldn't switch the two panels, so that Mr. Wen‑yi Chen, the representative from the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Canada, appears first.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Chair, with respect to the vaccine equity study, I support the general shape of it, but I might want to send a follow-up note to the clerk on a couple of witnesses as a suggestion here and there. The general direction of it is good, thanks.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Any objection to what Monsieur Bergeron suggested?

This is helpful. Thank you, colleagues.

We're in good shape in terms of moving this forward. It's primarily in the interest of keeping our studies on the rails, and allowing the analysts and the clerk to do the work to set up the meetings.

This takes us to a final point of housekeeping, a motion that Mr. Genuis wishes to present.

Please go ahead.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Shall I read the motion? What's the best process here?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

It's brief enough, and we still have a few minutes before one o'clock, so you can read it.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Colleagues, I'm proposing the following motion:

All written responses that have been or will be sent by witnesses to the committee arising from questions asked during public hearings, since the beginning of the 44th Parliament and going forward, shall be published on the committee’s website, unless the committee has agreed or agrees in a particular case that particular responses given shall not be made public.

The rationale for this is that very often we ask for a written follow-up from witnesses on specific issues. My understanding from the clerk is that those are already deemed public documents. They're distributed to members, but not published anywhere, which means we and anyone we might send them to would have access to them. However, if somebody doesn't know us, or isn't in touch with our office, and is simply following the proceedings of the committee, and they want to find the written follow-up promised in a particular case, they have a harder time doing so. In the interest of transparency, just as our minutes and conversations are public, the written follow-ups would be automatically published on the website, as well.

We had some discussion via email about the exception, as referred to in the motion, where the committee deems that something shouldn't be made public. My suggestion would be that if the chair identifies some reason that a particular written submission should not be made public, he would delay its publication and bring the issue to the committee so that they could confirm or question the chair's decision in that case.

That would seem to me a reasonable procedure for the case where, for whatever reason, a written follow-up was something we didn't want to publish. As a default, especially when we're dealing with government officials, if there's an issue of a written follow-up, it makes sense for it to be easily accessible.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Mr. Genuis, thank you very much for presenting the text of the motion, and the additional commentary.

Is there any discussion or opposition to Mr. Genuis' motion?

(Motion agreed to)

With that, we stand adjourned until our next session.

Thank you very much, colleagues.