Foreign Affairs Committee on May 16th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

The committee will now resume.

Mr. Genuis, the floor is yours.

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

Mr. Chair, given that there's some interest in supporting the amendment, I will cede the floor and hear what others have to say. We'll go from there.

Thanks.

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

I guess my question would be this. This is negotiating in public, but if we could, I'll agree to the amendment that takes out the minimum number of weeks and allow that to go into scheduling later with the subcommittee. Would we have unanimous support to simply move on the motion, get it done and send it into our scheduling routine? That would be the goal.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Yes, Mr. Genuis.

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

If we're just chatting informally, I believe we do want to propose just one more amendment with respect to talking about the need to complete the previous work of the committee first.

I'm happy to say let's allow debate to collapse on the amendment and let's vote on the amendment. I'm hopefully getting some feedback in terms of consultations there, but we should be able to then just propose one more amendment. If it doesn't have support, okay. If it does have support, okay. We'll go from there.

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

Mr. Chair, we're acting in a slightly committee-of-the-whole fashion right now, which sometimes works, but we have not moved into that. I think it would be helpful if we knew what amendment was going to be proposed, even though that is a little unusual. I don't want to go down a rabbit hole where I don't know where I'm going.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

The clerk reminds me that, much like the issue we faced at the beginning, you cannot have two different amendments before the committee. We will have to vote on this amendment, and then we will proceed to another amendment, should that be the case.

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

Thank you for that.

It would not be unusual, though, for a member to give an indication of what he or she may be proposing as an amendment in the context of a debate. That could be done. It's not proposing the amendment. It is suggesting what the proposed amendment might possibly be, which would just give us some indication.

However, I would like to work in good faith. We are not wedded to the five meetings. It could be three. It could be two. It could be nine. It depends on what the subcommittee on agenda comes up with. We're very willing to leave it to that. We're also very willing to leave the scheduling of this this work to after we've done the important work that we're already doing.

We do want to finish the study on vaccines. We do want to finish the statement on Ukraine. We do have two pieces of legislation that are coming before the committee. We recognize that. We're not dumb. We know that we have work to do. But we would like this motion passed so that next fall, or whenever we finish with the agenda as it is laid out, we could deal with it. We're not trying to bump any work. What we're trying to do is indicate that this is work that we would like to do in the fall.

I'm looking around at our team. Are we okay to trust them?

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

You might not like the amendment. I'm not guaranteeing that you'll like the amendment.

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

Oh, I'm sure we won't.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

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

We might as well vote on the thing we agree on, and then we can—

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

Well, frankly, Mr. Chair, we want a long study. We would like a study of five or six weeks, a minimum of five weeks. That's what we would like. However, in good faith we're offering to not do that in order to try to reach a compromise so that we can get out of this filibuster. That's what we're doing. But if we're going to be into a filibuster anyway, we'll keep the five weeks.

That's just what it is. That's what human beings do.

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

Accepting the amendment doesn't mean less than five meetings, as you pointed out. It means that the matter will be considered by the subcommittee on agenda and procedure at the appropriate time.

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

Mr. Chair, I would hate to cast aspersions on the mover of that amendment, because that seemed to be what they were suggesting.

You can see why we lose faith. Now we hear that it wasn't even important, that we had an amendment that is now no longer important.

We didn't move that amendment—

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

I think it's very important. We're having this back and forth, if the chair allows.

The point I made was that, fundamentally, it's not about the numbers. It's about the fact that the parameters of the study should be set by the subcommittee on agenda and procedure. That is the proper forum. That's the role of that committee.

Further, in my view, the focus of the committee right now should be on the invasion of Ukraine and completing our existing work, as well as on the legislation we had from the House. That is a total of five items. There are two pieces of legislation and three studies, which is quite a large amount of work.

Those continue to be my points, and I think I have been consistent on them. I don't want the member to presume he's going to like everything I'm going to say afterwards, but let's try to proceed. Let's adopt the amendment and go from there.

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

Mr. Chair, I would suggest, with all due respect, that I have read or written a couple hundred motions at committee. Many of them, in fact, most of them, do stipulate a minimum number of meetings. It is not the work of the subcommittee to put that in. Writers of motions do it every day, in all 25 or 26 standing committees of the House of Commons. It is normal procedure to put in a number of meetings.

It's the work of the subcommittee on agenda and procedure to deal with that and honour the work of the committee members, who have tried to do their best, and come up with a schedule and get back to us. If they can't schedule five meetings, and they come back to the committee saying that they can only fit in three because there is other important work, we will listen to that.

We are willing, on the reasonable government side, to say we will let that amendment pass, but we are hoping the official opposition will be reasonable in their suggestions following that understanding on the points we have been making over the last number of meetings.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Let's move to a vote on the amendment to delete the words “that the committee hold no fewer than five (5) meetings”.

(Amendment agreed to: yeas 11; nays 0)

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Go ahead, Mr. Genuis.

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

I'm seeking the floor to move my amendment.

The amendment is, in the place where the original line “that the committee hold no fewer than five (5) meetings” was, we add the following line:

and that this study not take place until after the completion of the committee's studies on Ukraine, vaccine equity and Taiwan as well as studies on legislation sent from the House of Commons; and further that it not take place until the subcommittee on agenda and procedure submits a report prescribing the manner in which the study is to proceed.

I'm happy to read it again.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Yes, could you?

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

It reads:

and that this study not take place until after the completion of the committee's studies on Ukraine, vaccine equity and Taiwan as well as studies on legislation sent from the House of Commons; and further that it not take place until the subcommittee on agenda and procedure submits a report prescribing the manner in which the study is to proceed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Go ahead, Ms. Bendayan.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Mr. Chair, I'm not sure I quite understand the part of the amendment about the report from the subcommittee being submitted. That is not something I'm personally familiar with, so perhaps the member could clarify what he is looking for in that report.

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

I'd be happy to do that.

The subcommittee at some point will meet and it will discuss what happens next. The way I would envision this happening is that we complete what are essentially five items before the committee: three studies and two pieces of legislation.

Once that is done, the subcommittee will meet. We'll say that we have this motion and we have other possible issues. They will discuss, as the subcommittee does, and then they will submit a report to us as the main committee. That report will be adopted and it will say that we will do this and then this in this order for this many meetings. That's how we'll proceed.

That's how we got the current agenda. The studies we're working on were discussed at the subcommittee. A report came out of the subcommittee. We're simply saying that this proposed study will happen in a manner prescribed by the subcommittee on agenda and procedure and that will be after a report has come from the subcommittee to the main committee prescribing the manner in which it is to proceed. That will take place following the completion of the committee's work on the issues we're currently studying, as well as legislation.

That's our proposal.