Foreign Affairs Committee on May 16th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

No, I understood Dr. Fry said that she is moving it. It had been put on notice.

Dr. Fry, let me just confirm with you. Are you actually moving the motion?

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

I am moving the motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Yes, she is moving it. It had been put on notice before. If you wish to elaborate, you still have the floor on that, Dr. Fry.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Thank you.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

One second. I'm sorry to interrupt. We have another point of order.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Mr. Chair, I see that we received three motions from Liberal members, and at first glance, they all look acceptable to me. I don't object to any of them, but it seems to me that the members are forcing the committee's proverbial hand regarding future business and scheduling. I have to tell you that makes me uneasy.

Usually, our practice is to meet, to share potential study topics and to discuss them. Now, we have three motions before us solely from the Liberal Party. We weren't told that we had to provide topic ideas for future studies. This makes me uneasy.

Unless we come to a friendly agreement on how to proceed going forward, Mr. Chair, I have to tell you that I will be forced to vote against all of these motions. The way Ms. Fry is foisting this on the committee is not in keeping with our usual procedure for determining future business.

I repeat, the three motions that the Liberal Party has put forward strike me as most relevant, but I don't think forcing the committee's hand on future business is the way to do things. In the circumstances, short of a friendly agreement, I fear we will wind up in a drawn-out debate that won't end well.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you for your comments, Mr. Bergeron.

That's not quite a point of order because members are free to move motions as they see fit, but it does go to how the committee will tackle its work plan in the future.

Your comments are duly noted, however. Thank you very much.

Dr. Fry, we'll bo back to you if you wish to elaborate briefly on the motion, and then we will open it up for discussion by members of the committee.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Chair, I wanted to say that this motion was sent to everyone on the committee on May 6 in both official languages, so this is not new. The committee should have had an opportunity to look at it. However, I moved it because we need to discuss this motion at some point in time, as it has been duly presented. If there is no time to do it today, I will listen to the Chair's ruling on this, but I wanted to present this motion because it is extremely important.

Chair, there are 121 million unintended pregnancies every single year. Sixty percent of these unintended pregnancies end in abortion and 45% of abortions are unsafe and result in 7 million women a year either being hospitalized or dying from unsafe abortions. Two hundred and fifty-seven million women in the world are unable to get contraception, and the complications of pregnancy and childbirth are the leading cause of death among girls 15 to 19, and we see among girls aged 15 to 24, high incidence of HIV.

The whole issue of the full spectrum of sexual and reproductive health and rights is almost an emergency. It's getting worse. COVID has made it worse. I think when we realize that only 55% of women and girls worldwide are able to take and make decisions about their own sexual and reproductive health and rights, I don't think we can let this get any worse than it is now.

I just wanted to lay that on the table, Chair, so that we can discuss this motion at a date that you deem appropriate, but I need to make sure that we take it seriously.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Dr. Fry, thank you very much. You are free to move it, and you moved it in a committee business session. It's completely in the hands of the committee as to how they wish to deal with it. We will make space if the committee agrees that it should be discussed. We still have some minutes in the allotted time, which was for half an hour of public committee business.

I have a speakers list right now that includes Mr. Chong, Madame Bendayan, Mr. Oliphant, Ms. McPherson and Mr. Genuis, as well.

I think it would be opportune given the time that we have to hear from those colleagues and to see where that takes us in the course of the time that we have allotted.

Mr. Chong, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I agree with what Mr. Bergeron said about Ms. Fry's motion. The committee's schedule until Parliament rises at the beginning of the summer has already been planned. I think the committee members should all discuss the committee's schedule. We should consider not only this motion, but also motions that deal with other issues affecting the country.

I agree with Mr. Bergeron on this. I think this motion relates to the business of the committee, that is, what we're going to be studying over the next number of months. I think it should be part of a much bigger discussion about other issues that are facing the country.

The second point I'd like to make with respect to the substance of the motion is that this motion clearly is in reference to the recently leaked potential decision by the Supreme Court of the United States of the America. Clearly, that's what this motion is in reference to.

It says, “given recent reports of international backsliding related to women's sexual and reproductive health rights”. Clearly that's a reference to the leaked decision that made the news both in the United States and in Canada. If we are going to be undertaking a comprehensive study on global access to abortion, and that's being triggered by this wording of “international backsliding”, then we should invite the ambassador of the United States to Canada to appear in front of our committee to talk about this, if this motion were to be adopted.

Personally, I think there are issues of much greater import than abortion when it concerns Canada-U.S. relations. Issues concerning trade and investment, a range of issues, I think should be a much higher priority in the bilateral relationship than the issue of abortion.

I don't think we should be calling a U.S. ambassador to committee to discus the matter of abortion as it relates to Canada-U.S. relations. On the substance of the issue, I don't think this is a matter that committee should be focused on. I think there are much higher priorities than the issue of abortion between the United States and Canada. But if the committee goes down the path of adopting this motion, which I don't think we should, then I will insist that the U.S. ambassador to Canada, Mr. David Cohen, appear in front of our committee to discuss the recent leaked potential decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, because that's what the motion is referring to.

Those are my two views on this. I think we should incorporate this discussion as part of a much bigger discussion about the future of this committee's business, rather than dealing with it as a one-off issue in the form of this motion.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Mr. Chong, thank you very much.

I have on the list at the moment, Madame Bendayan, Mr. Oliphant, Ms. McPherson, Mr. Genuis and Mr. Bergeron.

Madame Bendayan, please.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First, I'd like to respond to Mr. Bergeron's comments.

Ms. Fry's motion was sent out on May 6, and this part of the meeting was set aside to discuss committee business. It is entirely appropriate and within the rules to put forward motions. I don't see how this could have caught anyone by surprise. What's more, the motion doesn't specify when the study would be conducted. Obviously, it's up to the committee to decide when it could undertake the study, if the members find the motion to be relevant.

On the issue of relevance, I would like to address Mr. Chong's comments. Clearly he does not feel that women's sexual and reproductive health is of great importance, if I understand what he's just expressed.

There is no reference to the United States in this motion. I'm reading it very carefully for the fourth time now. We have heard testimony and it is, in fact, a fact that at the moment women are being sterilized in China. The Uighur population is facing forced sterilization. Italy is also heavily investing in anti-abortion organizations. This is not a subject unique to the United States.

If Mr. Chong wishes to politicize the issue by bringing in an ambassador as a threat, that's fine. I do not think that we should dismiss the importance of women's health internationally because of any suggestion that our relationship with the United States is much greater than this one issue. Of course it is, but so too is the responsibility of our committee to address important international issues. This is the committee of foreign affairs and international development. This is a matter of grave concern internationally, which absolutely must be addressed by our committee.

What I would hope is that we would at least be able to vote on this motion before the end of this session and leave it to the Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure to decide when exactly this study would be appropriate for discussion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you very much, Madam Bendayan.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Mr. Chair, I would like to clarify this motion. I think Mr. Chong may not have read it. If he had read it he would realize that it is not all about abortion. The data that shows the rise—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

I'm going to cut you off.

One moment, Dr. Fry. If it's a point of order, fine.

You're on the list to intervene. You can make that point in a couple of minutes once we've gone through the list, but it it's a point of order I'll take the point of order, but it doesn't seem to be.

Let me go—

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Mr. Chong set up a straw man here [Inaudible—Editor], with misinformation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

You can debate that with him in future interventions. That will be on the speakers list. Thank you.

I have Mr. Oliphant, Ms. McPherson, Mr. Genuis, Monsieur Bergeron and then Dr. Fry.

Colleagues, I have to leave you a little bit early. What I will do is after a couple of interventions I will go to Monsieur Bergeron to make that he has a chance to intervene. He has agreed to take the chair for the remainder of the meeting, but I would like to give him the chance to make his intervention.

Mr. Oliphant please, and then Ms. McPherson.

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

Thank you, Chair.

On the process part, I just want to affirm what you said. What we are doing is debating a motion. We're not setting an agenda. It is very appropriate that notice of motion was given. It didn't even need to be, because we're in a business meeting. I guess it's not on topic, so it did need to be.

We are debating that motion appropriately, but we are not saying that this is bumping other work that is currently on our agenda. This should still go to the Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure. They can look at all of the work that we're doing, set priorities and come back to us with an agenda.

What we're doing today is saying that overwhelmingly the majority of Canadians support women's reproductive rights in this country. We want to bring it to this committee to look at reproductive rights of women around the world, as is appropriate given the mandate of this committee.

I can't imagine we're going to get this work done unless we have a special two days of meetings or something, which is always possible, but I don't see that happening. What I see happening is our passing motions on work that we think is important. That tells Parliament what we think is important and therefore tells Canadians what we think is important. When we get to scheduling it, that will be another discussion that we will have, in which we will look at all of the priorities of the committee.

The last point I would make is that I don't know what was in Dr. Fry's mind on this. I'm not going to pretend that I always know what's in Dr. Fry's mind. What I do know is in Dr. Fry's mind is the well-being of people. I don't know whether it's related only to a leaked memo from the U.S. Supreme Court. Also, when I travel in the world as I did last week, I see threats to women's reproductive rights everywhere—not just in the United States.

I think that this is a big question that goes well beyond the American issue. I hope we can study it at some point. I'll be voting in favour of it, but also recognizing that it will go to an agenda discussion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you, Mr. Oliphant.

Mr. Bergeron, before I give you the floor, I'd like to thank you for agreeing to chair the rest of the meeting.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

You don't have to thank me, Mr. Chair. I am merely doing my duty as vice-chair. That's my job.

I would like Ms. Bendayan to know that I never claimed that we were caught off guard, far from it. That wasn't at all what I was saying. Ms. Bendayan will even be surprised to hear that Ms. Fry was very consistent and persistent on this issue. We discussed it for the first time back in December, when we began considering future business. We discussed it again in January. All that to say, I don't think Ms. Fry's motion has anything to do with the U.S. Supreme Court's rumoured decision. Ms. Fry has consistently maintained her position, asking the committee months ago to examine the issue. In no way was I implying that Ms. Fry's motion took us by surprise. It didn't. I was merely pointing out that this wasn't how the committee usually did things.

If a friendly agreement could be reached, and Ms. Fry were to agree to put her motion on hold, I would be entirely willing to revisit it later and support it. That is my formal pledge, because I believe that what she is proposing is worthy of our consideration.

My concerns have to do with the form of the motion, not the substance. My concerns don't have anything to do with notice of the motion not being given. On the contrary, Ms. Fry put her motion on notice months ago, so we were very much aware that she wanted the committee to examine the matter. However, I would like us to do things in a co‑operative fashion, as has always been the committee's habit. That is why I am respectfully asking her to hold off on having the committee consider her motion today. I am willing to discuss it before the end of the session, though, and let it be known that I will probably support the motion.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you, Mr. Bergeron.

Could you clarify something, please? Are you moving that debate on the motion be adjourned?

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

No, it wasn't a motion to adjourn debate. I was simply asking Ms. Fry if she would be so kind as to hold off on having the committee consider her motion today.

With that, Mr. Chair, I can take over now, if you like.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Yes, please. Thank you very much, Mr. Bergeron.

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Stéphane Bergeron]

We will now go to Ms. McPherson.