Evidence of meeting #22 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 amendment.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Rob Oliphant Liberal Don Valley West, ON
On a point of order, there is an amendment to strike that, but I'm willing to entertain a change to the amendment I made. We will still get to the point where we get to set a date for more witnesses.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ali Ehsassi
We're getting there. We're making great progress, thanks to everyone.
I should say, as we've been advised, that in terms of committee resources, this committee can only meet until 12 o'clock. If all members could bear that in mind as well, that would be hugely helpful.
Let's go to a vote on Mr. Oliphant's third amendment.
(Amendment agreed to: yeas 10; nays 1 [See Minutes of Proceedings])
Now we will go to Mr. Oliphant's fourth amendment. I thought I saw Mr. Genuis's hand up but maybe I was mistaken.
We will now go to Mr. Oliphant.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
It's an understandable mistake, Mr. Chair, given how often my hand is up.
Liberal
Rob Oliphant Liberal Don Valley West, ON
As I said, I am willing to entertain a subamendment to this. I can't make it myself because I made the amendment, but I think we are open to more witnesses. The thing is—maybe it's my personal thing; I don't know whether it's the party thing—I'd like to hear what we're going to hear from that cadre of witnesses, which probably will take the two meetings that we have right now, and then I'd like to make sure that we.... It can be an ongoing list. I don't want to close the list of witnesses either to the one we decided on today nor even to one maybe on July 19. I think it may be premature to close the list of witnesses.
We want to very clearly indicate that the committee may call more witnesses as required or wanted. If we want a date on it, I can live with July 19, but I just think we want to make sure that we hear from the government, the ambassadors and the Ukrainian Canadian Congress and then decide. We may decide that we have enough information, or we may decide that we want to do a different study after this.
There's been enough concern about the sanctions Ms. McPherson has raised that we may want to have a set of meetings on the effectiveness of sanctions in general. We may have to do a legislative or statutory review of the sanctioned regimes. We may want to have hearings about oil and gas dependency and the kinds of things that Mr. Chong has raised. We might want to do all of that. I'm not presupposing we don't want to do that, but let's hear about this. Let's deal with the issue of the permit that was issued to allow a refurbished turbine to return to Germany and get that out there.
At the end of that, I think we'll know more. That's what hearings are for. Then we'll make a decision on that. If you want it on July 19, I can live with it, but I just think it's premature because we just don't know what we want to do yet.
Conservative
Michael Chong Conservative Wellington—Halton Hills, ON
Before I make my intervention, Mr. Chair, on a point of order, what is the amendment in front of us?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ali Ehsassi
We'll go to the clerk on the specific wording of the amendment.
We're discussing that at this point. Mr. Oliphant is considering the possibility of a subamendment but, of course, technically speaking—
Conservative
Liberal
Conservative
Liberal
Rob Oliphant Liberal Don Valley West, ON
Mr. Chair, I can respond to the point of order, not speaking out of turn, that the amendment is to strike that last clause, after the last semicolon, “that committee members submit lists of additional witnesses by July 19th, 2022”.
I would be proposing, if someone was willing to move a motion, that the committee entertain receiving lists of future additional witnesses at a later point. All I would suggest is that we don't tie it down. We're absolutely willing to have future witnesses, additional witnesses. We just think that it may be premature to say July 19.
Conservative
Michael Chong Conservative Wellington—Halton Hills, ON
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, on that point of order.
I support neither the amendment nor a potential subamendment along the lines of what Mr. Oliphant has suggested.
I would support voting down this amendment completely and then going back and proposing another amendment, if this amendment is voted down, that would keep Madam McPherson's original wording with maybe a change of the date to July 26, which would give members an additional week to submit witnesses.
That's what I believe we should do here as a committee. We should vote down both the amendments, because all members of this committee should be able to send witnesses to the clerk and to you, Mr. Chair, through the clerk, for consideration for this hearing. That's what we discussed. That's what Madam McPherson has suggested. We were discussing—
Liberal
Rob Oliphant Liberal Don Valley West, ON
On a point of order, Mr. Chair, to negate that phrase does not take away the power of the committee to do that.
Conservative
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
It's a point of debate, Mr. Oliphant.
Liberal
Rob Oliphant Liberal Don Valley West, ON
It is a point of order with respect to the standing orders of a committee. With respect to the standing orders of the committee—
Conservative
Liberal
Rob Oliphant Liberal Don Valley West, ON
Well, the chair will decide that, thank you.
Just because you take that phrase out does not say we can't. I'm not making a motion to say we can't have future witnesses. That's not in the motion. It's just taking out that phrase. Under the standing orders of the committee, we are allowed to have witnesses any day we want. That's absolutely possible for a committee to do. I'm not saying we can't do it. I'm just saying we're not going to do it at this point. I just want to clarify that.
Conservative
