Foreign Affairs Committee on July 15th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Yes, Mr. Bezan.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Mr. Chair, I would ask for your ruling on this, because I do agree with Mr. Chong that these are two substantive changes. Mr. Oliphant is trying to strike a portion of the motion and to amend it [Technical difficulty—Editor] is counterproductive. I believe it would be considered a substantive change, which would make it out of order in what Mr. Oliphant is trying to do in his amendment.

My advice as a former chair would be that you would have to either withdraw Mr. Oliphant's amendment or vote on it and defeat it, so that then a proper change can be made to the motion as to a timeline, rather than the concept of being able to bring in additional witnesses.

If we support the amendment by Mr. Oliphant, then you have made the decision not to call additional witnesses, and any motions coming forward in this committee meeting would be ruled out of order, because you just took a decision not to call additional witnesses.

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

On that point of order, Mr. Chair, if I have unanimous consent, I am happy to withdraw that amendment, which would be the appropriate order to do things. I would be happy to entertain any other amendments that someone wanted to make with respect to the motion.

I will withdraw that, and let's now actually deal with that phrase to see if we can improve it—

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

Sure.

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

—and reach consensus on it.

If I have unanimous consent, I'll withdraw it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Do we have unanimous consent to withdraw Mr. Oliphant's fourth amendment?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

(Amendment withdrawn)

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

Mr. Chair, I have an amendment that I think everybody will agree to, I hope.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Mr. Chong, you are up next, so the floor is yours.

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

Thank you.

I propose that we simply strike the final four words of the motion. That's my amendment. We strike the words “by July 19, 2022”.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you, Mr. Chong.

Did you want to speak to that issue, Ms. McPherson?

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

No, I did not. That was one of the comments I was going to make. Why don't we just make this simple?

I am a bit concerned, because we have 15 minutes left and I would hate for us to not resolve this before the end of today's meeting. To expedite our decision-making, I am fully in support of Mr. Chong's amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

If members agree, we will put Mr. Chong's amendment to a vote.

(Amendment agreed to: yeas 11; nays 0 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

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

Mr. Chair, I ask that you call the vote on the motion as amended.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

That makes eminent sense.

Perhaps members can vote on the motion proposed by Ms. McPherson as amended.

(Motion as amended agreed to: yeas 11; nays 0 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Thank you very much.

I think that completes everything that we met to discuss. There are no other issues to discuss, unless members have anything else they would like to bring up. No? Okay.

Thank you very much to each and every one of you. It's good to see there was a lot of compromise and lots of good votes here, and that we managed to get it done before 12 o'clock, when the time for our meeting is up.

This meeting stands—

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

Mr. Chair, I have a quick question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Yes, Mr. Chong.

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

Mr. Chair, what's your thinking around these meetings? Is it to have a panel in the morning, or a two-hour meeting in the morning and a two-hour meeting in the afternoon in one day? Are you planning on doing one meeting a day? It depends on witnesses and when they're available, but what's your thinking on this?

Also, what is the availability of House administration resources to do all of this in the next week and in the coming weeks?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

I can't speak to House resources as of yet. I don't believe it's going to pose a challenge.

Of course, there is the issue of the availability of witnesses, which is certainly beyond our control. However, I would like to hear from members as to what their preferences would be from a procedural standpoint so we can proceed in a manner that is agreeable to most members.

Did anyone want to speak to that issue and what their preference is?

Go ahead, Mr. Bergeron.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

My only preference, Mr. Chair, is that we discuss it in advance, to make sure everyone is available since it is the summer. It would be an awful shame to have to miss one of the meetings because I was away.

I simply ask for your understanding and consideration, Mr. Chair. Before you schedule a meeting, I would appreciate it if we could try to come to some agreement on which times work best.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Absolutely. We will certainly endeavour to do so.

Go ahead, Ms. McPherson.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Chair, I just want to add to what Mr. Bergeron said. This is urgent and speed is required here. I recognize that we all have other things on our agendas and schedules, but this is a very urgent issue. That's why we're having this emergency meeting. I would like us to reflect that in the timing of our hearings.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you, Ms. McPherson. The spirit of this being an emergency meeting is very well understood, I believe, by all members.

Next is Mr. Oliphant.

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

I am once again in agreement with Monsieur Bergeron. I think it would be helpful for the clerk and the chair, as much as possible, to survey members of the committee to make sure we have as many members as possible available. However, I also agree with Ms. McPherson in that we recognize the urgency of this.

We leave it to the chair and the clerk to do their best at scheduling a herd of cats. Good luck.