Foreign Affairs Committee on July 15th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you, Mr. Oliphant.

As everyone is aware, four amendments are being discussed by members. Is it the wish of the committee to take up the first amendment, which relates to the number of meetings we'll have? Given the interventions of Mr. Oliphant and Mr. Bergeron, there appears to be some consensus there. Is it the will of the committee to deal with and vote on the first amendment?

[An hon. member]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Is there unanimous consent for that?

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

Mr. Chair, we're on the subamendment to the first amendment. Is that correct?

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

Okay. That's where we are, so there's no way around that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Yes, that's correct. It is the subamendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Yes.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Chair, there's been quite a lot going on, so can you tell me exactly what we're voting on?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Yes, absolutely.

Madam Clerk, would you read out the subamendment to the amendment, for the benefit of all the members, please.

[The Clerk]

Yes.

This is a subamendment by Monsieur Bergeron. It is to strike, after the semicolon, “that this study consists of no fewer than 5 meetings”, and replace it with “determine the number of meetings required to carry out this study”.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Would members like to put this to a recorded division?

[An hon. member]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Okay.

(Subamendment agreed to: yeas 11; nays 0)

(Amendment as amended agreed to)

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Should it be the will of the members—obviously we will hear from all of you—I would ask that, to the extent possible, you keep your comments restricted to the second amendment that was introduced by Mr. Oliphant. It has to do with the issue as to whether we have July 22nd, as in Ms. McPherson's motion.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Chair, I'm sorry to interrupt, but could we not just see if there's agreement on that? Do we need to have a discussion on that?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Is there anyone who would like to speak to that or would we want to go to a vote on that as well?

[The Clerk]

Mr. Bergeron would like to comment.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

I want to comment on Mr. Oliphant's motion, and I'd like to hear Ms. McPherson's thoughts because I can't recall her comments on this matter specifically.

I want to remind everyone of what happened to me, personally. As you may recall, back in January, I proposed that the committee request that Canada's ambassador to the United Nations appear. The committee agreed to do so as soon as possible, but here we are in July, and we have yet to hear from the ambassador to the United Nations.

All that to say, I'm a bit leery about the expression “as soon as possible”, because it doesn't always mean the meeting will be held soon. Would it be possible to say something a bit more specific than “as soon as possible”?

Given past experience, I get a bit worried when we talk about asking ministers to appear “as soon as possible”.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you, Mr. Bergeron.

Mr. Oliphant, the floor is yours.

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

It's sort of a comment but sort of a point of order, and I may be asking the clerk for help on this.

It would seem to me that this is a convention that we follow with ministers of the Crown, that committees request them to come as soon as possible and that she will schedule them.

All I can state from the government side is the complete willingness of the ministers to appear as soon as possible. There is no hesitation coming from either the Minister of Natural Resources or the Minister of Foreign Affairs whatsoever, but I just wanted the clerk to say whether there's other wording that has been used. My worry is that today is the 15th, and the 22nd is seven days away, and both ministers usually have international travel on their agendas. I am worried that it will look like we're not meeting a deadline if that deadline is put in. It seems to me that most committees use the convention of “as soon as possible”, but the clerk could perhaps advise us on that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Could we hear from the clerk on that specific issue as to what the convention is?

[The Clerk]

There's not a specific convention. I've seen it both ways. We could put the date and then say “based on availability”, if that's the understanding and the will of the committee. We could add that. It's as you wish, but I've seen both conventions where we do a hard date, and obviously sometimes that's impossible, and I've seen it as well as just generally “as soon as possible”.

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

If I could speak out of turn, I would say we would be happy if we had the date and “based on availability”. I just want to give human beings some chance to have some flexibility. We don't have any trouble with the date. We just need to know that there's availability that needs to be scheduled, so if that was agreeable to Mr. Bergeron, we could keep the date and add “based on the ministers' availability”.

We may find consensus on that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Now we'll go to Ms. McPherson.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Chair, I agree with what the clerk has suggested. The only thing I would add is something that indicates the urgency of this issue. The decision was made without consultation with other parliamentarians, with other parties. Obviously, the government did not feel they wanted to share this information with other parties. To bring this committee together to have this study was something that was done with the opposition parties, not with the government. For me, my worry is that, despite Mr. Oliphant's assertion that they would be made available, there is a very urgent situation at stake.

I also agree with Mr. Oliphant that we have wasted an enormous amount of time in this committee and have not been able to study Ukraine over the last several months because of the filibuster by the Conservatives. I do think this is an urgent issue. The reason we're meeting during the summer break, the reason we're doing this is that it is so urgent. Perhaps, in a spirit of being accommodating and also recognizing the urgency of this particular issue, we could just put down the date with availability.