Foreign Affairs Committee on May 16th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

My understanding is that we have until 5:50. It's going to be a half-hour bell, plus a 10-minute vote, plus 10 minutes of confirmation, so we will be more or less at 5:50, which would be our full two-hour allotment. There's no UC, so what is the default conclusion if—

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Mr. Chair, I have a point of order. If the committee is agreeable, I would suggest that we adjourn, which would allow us to continue our regular meeting on Thursday—on Taiwan—which I believe is what we have scheduled. Is that not correct?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

That is correct.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

I say this because if we suspend, the meeting with respect to Taiwan will be cancelled, I assume—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

It will be superseded in the short term.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

In lieu of that meeting, we will have a meeting on this motion that we are currently presently debating. My suggestion is that we adjourn so that we can actually get back to the Taiwan issue.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

We have to make sure that we are procedurally on solid ground because we did not get UC to continue, which really technically means that we are suspended after the time of Mr. Oliphant's having—

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Yes, that's true, unless you seek agreement from the committee to adjourn, in which case we could do the Taiwan meeting on Thursday.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

There does not seem to be unanimous agreement, so we are suspended until we are advised by email.

Thank you colleagues.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Mr. Genuis, it's back to you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

On another note, I understand that there is some competition for House resources this evening and there's a risk to the Afghanistan committee, so I would propose, and I'd like to move, Mr. Chair, that we adjourn this meeting so as to allow resources to be available for the Afghanistan committee.

I would note that if we don't do that, then there is a question of whether the Afghan interpreters who have come to be heard will be heard. I don't know all the machinations behind the scenes, but my understanding is that if we don't adjourn, this has the potential of overriding the Afghanistan committee and missing the opportunity to hear from those Afghan interpreters.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you, Mr. Genuis. Let me seek some procedural advice because we have a motion on the floor that was brought by you that we adjourn the debate while the Ukraine study is going on. This is now an additional motion to adjourn, but to adjourn immediately.

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

It's to adjourn the meeting, and this motion is—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

A dilatory motion.

So you're moving that. It's in order.

We have a dilatory motion to adjourn that's in order. There's no debate allowed.

(Motion negatived: nays 7; yeas 3)

Let me check briefly. Is it six o'clock sharp, or are we going to be advised when to suspend?

It's back to you for four minutes, Mr. Genuis.

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

I'll cede the floor for now, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Mr. Oliphant.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Thank you.

I want to clarify a few things about this. My sense during the early part of the previous member's remarks was that there had been a strategy meeting at high levels of the Conservative party to find every way not to have this come to a vote. I'm disappointed in that because I think it's very clear that we should bring this to a vote quickly, because if we don't, it will stop other pieces of work from happening.

I want to be really clear that despite what Mr. Genuis said, there is no priority attached to this motion. It is a motion to study. He has already revealed in a public meeting other motions that have been brought by Liberals, which I believe are confidential, so I won't reveal them. There are other motions that have been suggested for discussion, which I would also like to make sure that we have time at some point to discuss, because there are several important issues going on in the world right now. This is one of them. This is a critical issue, and we want this discussed by committee.

However, we also respect the process of a committee to set its own agenda, so once we get these motions passed, we'll be able to look at them all. As Mr. Bergeron said earlier, we want a good and fair process to look at everything we have on the table that's been moved. Therefore, we can pick what we want to do most urgently as we continue.

This motion is putting a stake in the ground and signalling that women's rights, including women's reproductive rights, are important to this committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Mr. Oliphant, I apologize. I'll stop you there at the end of that sentence and suspend for half an hour. I'm told that we have to do that for resource reasons. We will then give you back the floor in that same speaking order that we had.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

I sense there is an appetite for a vote.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Is there an emerging consensus that the committee is....

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

We had moved to adjourn with precisely that objective in mind.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

If debate has collapsed, we can have the vote so we can adjourn.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

I'm not sure that debate has collapsed.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

I thought we were still on the conditional non-dilatory motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

We are.