Okay. Thank you very much.
This is great. I can speak to the motion without other members speaking at the same time, maybe. We'll see what other practices of the committee are evolving in light of the change in leadership.
Notwithstanding some points of disagreement, I do want to congratulate you, Mr. Chair, on the position that you have ascended to.
Returning to debate on the question of the committee's forward agenda, the circumstances that have led us to debate the committee's foregoing agenda are that we are in the midst of three different studies on clearly pressing global issues. In the midst of a study on the horrific ongoing further invasion of Ukraine; in the midst of a study on vaccine equity, on COVAX and intellectual property issues related to that and other issues around health systems in the developing world; and in the midst of a study on Taiwan and potential security threats to Taiwan, a member of the government decided to go outside the normal process for setting the agenda of the committee. That member chose to try to move a substantive motion, effectively resetting the agenda of the committee to move that substantive motion at committee.
Members on our side did our best to be reasonable and to say, look, instead of trying to insert another item of business in the midst of these three ongoing studies, it would make more sense for us to refer this matter to the subcommittee on agenda and procedure. As members know, the subcommittee on agenda and procedure is specifically set up for the purposes of reviewing the agenda of the committee. It has a mandate to operate in a collaborative manner.
The usual way that this committee sets its agenda is that questions of the way a debate is unfolding and questions of the committee's agenda are discussed among parties in the context of the committee on agenda and procedure. The committee on agenda and procedure considers those matters, reviews those matters, and therefore proceeds with a recommendation that is generally adopted by all members.
That is a very effective way to proceed. It prevents the need for lengthy debates about agenda on the floor of the committee, and it presents a kind of perverse majoritarianism. You could imagine a situation in which a majority of members of the committee sets the entire agenda of the committee and decides all of the studies that happen at that committee. That has generally not been the way this committee has worked. It's made more sense for us to bring ideas to the subcommittee on agenda and procedure and then to be able to define an agenda that is respectful of the different issues that different parties are raising. Certainly, there are many important issues.
This was how we set our initial agenda. It was to say that we would focus on these three urgent issues—the situation in Ukraine, threats to Taiwan and COVAX. I think the ability to have all parties engaged in that process led to a consensus around an agenda that would be substantive and non-partisan and avoid the kind of politicized aspects that happen sometimes at other committees but that generally we wanted to avoid at the foreign affairs committee. We wanted to see this as being an effective multi-party forum for proposing collaborative work on important global issues that Canada has to respond to.
In the midst of that, we had a motion that was put forward on abortion. I think it's in a context where we see many motions on abortion being put forward at many different committees. Different aspects of that motion implied that—