Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm sorry. I didn't have my earpiece in for the entire time of that, and my French is not always at its best on Monday after a red-eye flight, but I think I got the gist of it so I will just proceed for a couple more minutes.
I don't have that much more to say other than just to wrap up some of these thoughts around some of the distinction that's envisioned by the subamendment and trying to understand it and respond to the issues that it raises.
With respect to the issue of part two of the subamendment, the difference between “study” and “studies”, I'm saying that I view this part of the subamendment as being constructive in the sense that it directs our attention towards the subcommittee to prescribe the manner in which the foregoing work or the studies of the committee would proceed. Then we can go from there.
This is why the very first time this was discussed, within the first hour of this being discussed, I know we had put forward a motion to just refer the entire matter to the subcommittee. Again, we could have done it. It would have made much more sense to have the subcommittee define an agenda going forward. Instead, a situation was created because other members of the committee insisted that, no, we can't adjourn the meeting, we can't adjourn debate and we can't do anything else until this matter is dealt with, which I don't think made sense and created a situation that is not really consistent with the professed desire of any members of the committee. However, we continue to move forward with some of these other proposals and they continue to not proceed.
I think that's important, but the idea envisioned through the subamendment of the subcommittee process moving forward is, I think, again worthwhile.
In terms of some of the word substitution the subamendment involves, it effectively replaces the word “prescribing” with “specifying.” I looked the words up to get specific clarity around trying to understand what the difference was, because sometimes you have a subamendment or an amendment that changes words and you wonder if something different is being meant by those words. Clearly, this is an important committee. It's important to make sure that the words we're using are precise, or at least that when we are adopting measures with respect to a particular wording we understand what the wording is and what the meaning of those words are.
The word being removed, “prescribing”, means to lay down in writing or otherwise as a rule or a course of action to be followed, appoint, ordain or enjoin—at least from Dictionary.com. Mr. Oliphant probably has opinions on whether that's the optimal linguistic source or not, but that's the one I used this morning. It's proposed to replace it with “specifying”, which is to mention or name specifically or definitely to state in detail.
In this sense, I'm not sure why the preference was made for the word “specifying” as opposed to “prescribing.” “Prescribing” seems more appropriate in that it's more definitive to the practice of a committee to lay down, to say this is what we're going to do. “Specify” has the nature of explaining in more detail, but not defining. Although it's not a hill to die on, I do think the word “prescribing” is more precise in the original formulation as opposed to the word that was put forward in the subamendment.
Then, also, in the second part of the amendment, it is replacing the word “proceed” with “undertaken”, “proceed” being to move or go forward or onward especially after stopping, and “undertaken” being to take upon oneself as a task performance. Again, it does seem to me looking at the change in language there from “proceed” to “undertaken” that both words could be appropriate. At least the implication is that “proceed” means after stopping might be appropriate, especially given, I think, the challenges we've had, but really either way “proceed” or “undertaken.”
In general I'm trying to sort through the subamendment and ask if there are some things that make sense. Are there some things where words are being substituted where it's not entirely clear to me why? Sure. Are there other issues that are raised in terms of changing this?
I think the biggest substantive difference is this question of “makes a decision on” versus the “completion” of studies. We've made the case precisely because of the importance of the work we're doing and what constitutes good operating procedures for a committee to be able to finish one thing before going to another, or at least finish a package of things before going to another.
I would make the case that, with what we're doing, the idea of finishing or at least making a definitive decision and carrying out that decision with respect to the existing work of the committee is a better way for us to proceed than the other, of simply making a decision about.
I hope I've suggested in this intervention that we are looking to work collaboratively to establish a path forward here. We believe that committees have a mandate to try to work in a consensus way to whatever extent possible and that there's a need for us to do that. There's a value in us doing that, instead of people just dropping in and saying they want to upend the committee's agenda and do something different because there's a political imperative that's pushing them to do so.
We want to get back to the work of studying the horrific Russian invasion of Ukraine. We want to get back to completing the committee's work on vaccine equity and completing the work on Taiwan as well as proceeding with the legislation. That's what we've said all along. That's why we've moved motions to proceed to other matters, and that's why we've moved motions to adjourn debate. It's just, at the end of the day, pretty rich for folks to say, “We want the committee to get to other things too,” but then to vote against those motions that are precisely about doing that and that say this is what we're going to do now.
Mr. Chair, in the spirit of that, I will move that the committee proceed to consideration of next steps on the study on Ukraine.