Evidence of meeting #21 for Foreign Affairs and International Development in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A video is available from Parliament.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It's a pleasure to follow my colleague. I think it's important to speak here about the procedural context around this committee. Many members of other parties have made comments on it. I, in particular, reflect on the comments that Mr. Oliphant made and the comments made by Ms. McPherson on a “point of order”.
Let's be very clear about the way this subamendment fits into the context of the committee's effort to discuss and define its foregoing business.
We had a motion put forward that sought to upend the normal process of committee, to use a majority to compel that a particular study take place in a particular way with the implication being that it take place at a particular time. We had some discussion about that at the beginning. My colleague Mr. Chong put forward some reasonable substantive amendments trying to wordsmith a little bit to say let's—
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
Hedy Fry Liberal Vancouver Centre, BC
Yes, I am just suggesting that nowhere in the motion under discussion, which has been amended and is being subamended, does it ask for this to happen now. It is just suggesting that we do the study. The committee will decide when it wishes to do that study. It is just asking for a certain number of days of meetings within which to study.
There has been no suggestion anywhere in that motion that we upend anything, that we bypass anything and that it happen immediately. Nowhere is the word “immediately” there. Nowhere is it saying that we should leave other studies that we are in the middle of doing, nowhere is it said.
That is not, Mr. Chair, information that's correct. It's disinformation.
Thank you.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
For once I do find myself agreeing with a few of the members across the way. As much as members may violently disagree with the things I say, it is not a violation of the rules of the House for me to have my opinion.
Ms. Fry essentially raised a point of order about the fact that she did not agree with something I was saying and I—
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
Hedy Fry Liberal Vancouver Centre, BC
You heard me; the whole committee heard me. I did not suggest that I was disagreeing with Mr. Genuis' opinions. I am asking him to be very clear that he provide the concise information about what the motion said. The motion did not ask for anyone to upend any studies that are ongoing at the moment. It just asks for it to be done as a motion to be studied in the future. It does not upend anything.
I am correcting Mr. Genuis. It is one thing for him to have an opinion, but it's another thing for him to not speak fact.
Thank you.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ali Ehsassi
It's a point of debate.
Thank you, Dr. Fry.
Mr. Genuis, please resume.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I think your ruling that that was a point of debate was, indeed, a very wise ruling, and I commend you for your sage wisdom. I prefer you as chair to Mr. Oliphant's pretensions at chairing the meeting.
Respectfully, to Ms. Fry's point, I do not accept that what I said was factually inaccurate, although even if it had been, it still would not be a matter of order or procedure. It would still be a matter of debate. Even when other members make errors in their comments—it never happens to me, of course—it is part of the cut and thrust of debate for people to get themselves on the speakers list and to offer substantive corrections, perhaps backed up by evidence, to support their conclusions.
However, given that Ms. Fry has made her points, I think it is important to respond to them and say the following. When her motion came before the committee, it was upending the normal process. It has long been that the committee sets an agenda through collaboration and discussion among parties, with the general implication that committees proceed in setting their agenda on something of a consensus basis. You have different parties that put forward different studies. Each party identifies its priorities and you try to set an agenda that reflects those priorities. You complete a tranche of studies. At the end of that tranche of studies, you define the next set of work that follows.
What we had instead was, in the middle of.... At the time, there were three ongoing pieces of business, and now there are five. We had a motion put forward to have a different study on something else. I think the clear implication is that we should proceed to it within an expedited time frame.
In fact, at the time, we had moved to adjourn debate. We said to Ms. Fry's point, which was that we don't have to discuss this and you don't mean to get to the study now.... If you don't mean to get to the study now, what in the world is wrong with adjourning debate on it so that we can consider it as part of our next tranche of studies once the work that is being done on the existing study is completed? That was precisely the point that was made when this matter was first under consideration.
If you look at the time that we've been discussing this particular motion, it's been a constant feature that Conservative members have moved motions to adjourn debate and moved motions to proceed to other matters or return to the matters that are currently before the committee. We have also moved motions to refer this particular motion to the subcommittee. In every single case, our friends in the Liberal-NDP caucus have—should I have said “caucuses”? I don't know. Maybe I'm ahead of the times. Every time, the Liberal and NDP caucuses voted against those motions to adjourn debate, to proceed to other business and to allow other things to take place.
In a sense, we adjourned debate at one point in time. We had an informal in camera meeting that took place in the midst of this by unanimous consent. We also had an election of a chair that took place in the midst of this.
I have exhorted members privately and publicly to say that when you adjourn debate on something, it doesn't mean it's over. It doesn't mean we're not going to do it. It doesn't mean we're not going to talk about it further. It means we're setting aside the debate on that subject matter to be able to continue on with something else. Our position has consistently been, let's complete the work before the committee and let's have informal discussions among members at the subcommittee. Let's hash this out. We don't have to hash it out on the floor of the committee. Those conversations can happen while the committee hears witnesses, completes statements, completes reports and completes the work that's in front of us.
It's impossible for people to say that they are the ones who want to get on to other things, and yet continuously be the ones voting against our efforts to adjourn debate and move on precisely to those other things.
What was clear with the manner in which this was brought forward was that there was no interest in efforts to form reasonable accommodations and consensus to set a forward-going agenda. It was just about trying to overrule the consensus norms of committee and to insert a majoritarian norm in place of that.
What we said was let's be specific about adjourning debate until the committee completed its existing studies. That motion was ruled in order by the previous chair. We were debating that motion. That chair left Parliament to pursue other opportunities. We have a new chair, who retroactively ruled the previous motion that we had been debating out of order, and now we're on a subamendment to an amendment.
The amendment seeks to put into the motion precisely what some members, including Mr. Oliphant, have said they want to do. Mr. Oliphant has said that he is supportive of having the Taiwan study moved to the Canada-China committee—I think that's what he said—but that we would complete the work on Ukraine, vaccine equity and private member's bills, and have some discussions about the parameters of the motion of how a study would take place.
That is more or less exactly the amendment that we put forward. It is the profession of Dr. Fry and of parliamentary secretary Oliphant that, “Okay, we're not trying to prescribe a timeline and we're not trying to upend the agenda of the committee. No.” What they're trying to do is simply put a stake in the ground—I think those were the words used—with respect to this motion, but we can come back to it and work on it at another time.
A simple way of demonstrating the genuineness of what you have professed to want to do would be to adopt the amendment that the Conservatives have put forward. It says precisely that. It says precisely that, yes, we would complete the existing work of the committee. After that, we would have consideration by the subcommittee of options, including this study. If the committee were to adopt the motion, it would be understood that the study would proceed, but it would proceed in a manner prescribed by the subcommittee. That would give the subcommittee the opportunity to address some of the concerns around exactly what the contours of the study would be, as well as to come to some determinations about things like the meetings and so forth.
We are trying to say, first of all, that we should adjourn debate to get back to the work that we should have been doing all this time. Secondly, insofar as continuous efforts to adjourn debate or proceed to other matters at the last sitting and this one were rejected by the NDP-Liberal group, let us try to put forward an amendment that will put into text of the motion the commitment that was verbally expressed by members anyway.
It becomes a bit suspicious when the same people who said this is their intention that they're not planning on upending the committee's agenda then come back to the point of saying well, actually, they're not going to support specific language in the motion that would have attended directly to that issue.
It raises the obvious question. What are we doing that has made the government not willing to support the amendment or the adjournment motion? It's basically the fact that the government and the NDP have made a political decision to refuse to allow adjournment, because they want to hold this committee hostage to demand that their particular agenda of upending the existing business of the committee happens. They are not going to let the committee do anything in the meantime. Again, if they wanted the committee to get on to other matters we could adjourn debate and they could bring this back at any time.
Sometimes I think there is a misunderstanding about adjourning debate. It's not defeating a motion; it's not sinking it forever. If we adjourn debate at 4:30 and then we hear a witness from 4:30 to 5:15, then someone can restart debate on the matter that was adjourned 45 minutes later, provided that something has happened in-between. It's not in any way a concession or an end, but simply to say, let's set this matter aside and proceed with other things.
I think that would be the healthy and natural way to proceed, but we've had a “no” to the amendment and a “no” to adjournment, and a “no” to our repeated suggestions that we proceed to other matters.
It just becomes hard to really take the things that, with all due respect, Dr. Fry and others have said about whether they are or aren't planning on upending the matter.... To refer to the comments that other colleagues have made earlier today in this debate, first of alI I do very much think it is important to establish the importance of the studies that we are talking about, because our proposals on proceeding to other matters and our proposals on adjourning debate speak precisely to what we believe the priorities of this committee should be.
We believe the priorities of this committee should be the war in Europe, the further invasion of Ukraine, which we're seeing have catastrophic implications for Ukraine, but that also raise massive questions and potential implications for global security. Tonight the House is doing a take-note debate on the global food crisis. A big part of that is, of course, driven by this invasion.
I believe what we're seeing from the Putin regime is in a sense a repeat of tactics that Stalin used, that is the use of starvation as a weapon of war in an attempt to erase and deny Ukrainian identity.
In this case, the victims of this tactic of trying to use starvation as a political tool, the victims of this, will be far beyond Ukraine. The victims will be those in many countries around the world that rely on the supply of food that comes from Ukraine.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
This speaks to the need to complete—
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
Rob Oliphant Liberal Don Valley West, ON
I think we have gone once again far off the subamendment. Most of the discussion has been on the amendment, not on the subamendment. Now we are extensively into discussing Ukraine, and that is really not relevant to the debate on the subamendment, which simply makes a difference between the end of the study and the decision regarding the study.
Ukraine is not at debate in here; it is not at issue. The issue is about a study about Ukraine, which is an entirely different thing.
I would ask the chair to rule on relevance.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Marilyn Gladu
Thank you, Mr. Oliphant. You raise a good point, Ukraine is not at debate here.
Mr. Genuis, I'd ask that you ensure that you do keep your debate restricted to the subamendment before us. Thank you.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Mr. Chair, normally I don't appreciate being interrupted, but in full flight, Mr. Oliphant did give me an opportunity to take a sip of water, which I was grateful for.
I recall the 2015 promises of the Liberal Party that parliamentary secretaries would no longer run the business of committees. What a time that was in back in 2015, so long ago and so much hope and idealism that—
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
Rob Oliphant Liberal Don Valley West, ON
The issue of the participation of the parliamentary secretaries, which has been approved by the House of Commons, is not at debate in this subamendment.
I think again the chair could ask the member to move to relevant discussion about the subamendment.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Marilyn Gladu
Understood, Mr. Oliphant.
Mr. Genuis, once more I'm asking you to remain focused on the subamendment that we've been debating.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I think Mr. Oliphant has made my point for me again, so I see no need to develop it further. I thank him for assisting me in that way.
I've never disputed that he has a right to be here. I never thought parliamentary secretaries couldn't come and participate in committees. I will say, with respect, to the subamendment in particular, that the subamendment has two parts. The first part seeks to remove the words “after the completion of the committee's studies on” and replace them with the words “the committee makes a decision on the studies before it on”.
As a matter of negotiation, if there's a will for us to try to come to terms and come to an understanding about a path forward, I think Conservatives would certainly be willing to engage in dialogue around those modifications. However, I do not believe they are ideal. I think the language of completion is preferable to the language of “make a decision on” because the language of completion is clearly stronger in expressing its commitment to actually doing the work and completing the work and reporting that work to the House before then proceeding on to something else.
It is our conviction that if this committee is to in fact join many, many other committees in studying the abortion issue—because Liberals have continuously brought that issue to many, many, many committees throughout Parliament—then, as per the language in the original amendment that is removed by the subamendment, our preference would be that we complete the committee's studies on those issues.
Why then is it important for us to not just make decisions about but to complete the work on these issues? Well, it's because these issues are extremely important and also time-sensitive. There are many issues that are important that either could be studied by other committees or are being studied by other committees or are questions of ongoing importance, but we had in particular chosen to begin and seek to complete studies on Ukraine, vaccine equity and Taiwan, out of the conviction that those issues were, I think, emergent issues. They were not issues that have been studied, in the present context at least, before, and therefore it was important for us to engage with them.
My comments about the take-note debate happening tonight in the House are to underline the critical importance of this committee completing its study on Ukraine, because the process of completing the study on Ukraine, which is what the text of the subamendment proposes to remove, should help us to get to important conclusions about how we can confront this global food crisis that is driven by, in part at least, the use of starvation as a weapon by the Putin regime. There are many issues. If you listen to the debate in the House of Commons, there are so many issues that are tied back to the invasion of Ukraine, in terms of their ultimate cause, and again, this speaks to why the completion—not just the making of a decision about, but the completion—of the study on Ukraine is so important. The point that my colleague was making—I think very well despite being regularly interrupted—was that the economic challenges that Canadians are facing around affordability and around gas prices are also often attributed by the government to the invasion of Ukraine.
So this is obviously part of the case that needs to be made in defence of saying, hey, the completion of the work on Ukraine as well as the other matters before us, is extremely critical. If we think about the various issues at stake in that debate, for Ukrainians, these are of course their lives and the basic security and the defence of their country. There are also the ripple effects: the food crisis; the questions around energy policy that this raises for Canada, for Europe and for other countries; and the questions around gas prices and inflation. All of these things, it is often argued in the House, have some relationship to the very acute crisis caused by the decision of the Putin regime to further invade Ukraine.
This is why I would say respectfully that it is just not enough for the committee to say, broadly speaking, “Well, we're going to make a decision about”. Making a decision about something.... Pardon me: I should say “making a decision on”, but it's the same thing. For the committee, making a decision on the studies before it does not require the completion of those matters.
I will say this as well. Insofar as Dr. Fry, Parliamentary Secretary Oliphant and others have said—and I referenced their comments earlier—that they're not trying to upend the committee and they're interested in completing the work that is before the committee, it is not reasonable for them to then say, “Well, we actually don't want the language of completion to be in the amendment.”
Mr. Chair, I think another important point to make about the work of this committee and other committees as a matter of process is that the question of how committees do their work and whether they seek the completion of studies before moving on to something else, or whether they seek to make decisions about it and move a whole bunch of pieces around at the same time, is I think very important for us to consider in terms of setting the stage for our work as we go forward.
When a committee is considering matters, it is of course sometimes natural for the committee to have more than one matter going on before it. There may be a number of crisis situations that require acute attention. There may be different parties that want different kinds of studies, so the way of building consensus is to say that we're going to move forward with a group of studies at a particular time. That also creates some potential challenges, in that when you have a number of different studies that are operating at the same time, it's a question of remembering and sustaining the work on that particular issue as, inevitably, a particular study takes longer if it's spaced out. Sometimes you have changes in committee membership and people coming and going in the middle of that study.
It has increasingly become my belief, just in looking at what leads to effective committee work, that you should finish one study or at least a particular group of studies and then move on to the next group of studies. This idea of working through one project to completion, of actually being able to set priorities as a committee and working through one project to completion and then moving on to the next project, is just good effective committee work, because otherwise you get situations where there are changes in committee membership, with people trying to remember—“oh yeah, we had this hearing on this eight months ago”—and connecting it with what a witness said today, and how do we draw conclusions, putting together...? Of course, we all have notes and we all have records that we can look at, but it's certainly much more natural for committees to be able to work through a particular issue in a period of time, to generate recommendations that come out of it and to then be able to move forward on that basis.
That is why our original amendment, which is now being altered by the subamendment, spoke specifically to the issue of not just “making decisions about” or “setting agendas on” but completion of that work.
I think, under most circumstances, most members would agree that to already have five agenda items before the committee, three studies that are under way and two private members' bills with studies not yet done.... Of course we have an obligation to get to them, because they have been referred to the committee by the House. The fact that we should work through the completion of those matters before proceeding to other matters is quite important.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
Rob Oliphant Liberal Don Valley West, ON
I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.
I just want to have a ruling from the chair with respect to the private member's bill and the public bill from the Senate of Canada, the other place. They have been received by the committee. Does the committee have to deal with them or can we simply allow that time to lapse and have them deemed considered by the committee with no testimony, no evidence and no opportunity for their sponsors in the House to be heard at committee?
It was raised as though it's an obligation of our committee to hear them, but I think they may be deemed having been heard and be returned to the House without any consideration by this committee.
It's a point of order, because looking at our future business, I'm just wondering about that. We may not have to deal with them.
I may be wrong on that. One is a Senate bill, and one is a House of Commons private member's bill—a public bill and a private member's bill. The rules on that may be different from House legislation, which comes from the government. I may be wrong on that.