Evidence of meeting #26 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 report.
A video is available from Parliament.
6:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ali Ehsassi
Thank you.
Just for the benefit of all the members, the report was distributed on May 30, but as was pointed out by Mr. Genuis, it was never considered.
Can you provide us with an approximate date as to when that will be ready?
6:05 p.m.
NDP
Heather McPherson NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I appreciate everyone working together today to make sure that we can do the best we can within this committee. I do know that we have only limited time.
Before I start, though, I wanted to say that I think all of us, as foreign affairs representatives for our parties, would be very happy to know that there was a pledge of $1.21 billion today for the Global Fund. I know that all of us in this room have worked very hard to convince the government, and congratulations to the government for doing that, because that's very good news for saving lives around the world.
I wanted to bring forward the motion on the sanctions. I know that this is something we discussed. Mr. Genuis has referred to it. I know that we have a lot of work to be done.
This is something that I have brought forward. I don't need to read it into the record. I've read it into the record twice already. I would like to bring forward the motion on the sanctions study. Going forward, that would implicate the calendar for us to receive next Monday.
I would like to have a discussion and a vote on that, please.
6:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ali Ehsassi
Does anyone want to speak to this issue or are we okay to go straight to a vote?
6:05 p.m.
NDP
Heather McPherson NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
Mr. Chair, Mr. Bergeron has asked me to read it for us.
That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the committee conduct a follow-up study to the 2017 committee study on Canada's sanctions regime titled “A Coherent and Effective Approach to Canada's Sanctions Regimes: Sergei Magnitsky and Beyond”; that the committee review the government's implementation of the recommendations in the 2017 report; that the committee review the need for new recommendations, if any, resulting from Canada's response to the situation in Ukraine and other situations since 2017; that the committee hold no fewer than four meetings; that the committee report its findings to the House; and that pursuant to Standing Order 109, the government table a comprehensive response to the report.
6:05 p.m.
Liberal
Rachel Bendayan Liberal Outremont, QC
Mr. Chair, I may just want to make a comment.
For my part, I tend to support Ms. McPherson's motion, but given that the Senate is doing a legislative review of the sanctions regimes, I wonder if we may vote on this motion, certainly, but also benefit from the work that might be done before us. Given the situation in Ukraine— again, the need for arms today, now, on the ground—I'm just hoping that in your infinite wisdom, Mr. Chair, and in your scheduling, we might consider those options in terms of the calendar.
6:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ali Ehsassi
Thank you for that suggestion. It's a very good suggestion given all the issues that we are trying to shoehorn into a tight schedule.
My apologies, I missed it: How many meetings did you want to devote to this motion?
6:05 p.m.
A voice
No fewer than....
6:05 p.m.
Liberal
Rachel Bendayan Liberal Outremont, QC
Again, Mr. Chair, I would say that I would prefer fewer meetings.
If it's the will of the committee, I understand that as well, but I think the fact of having no fewer than four meetings means that this will end up getting punted late into the session. The option of having fewer meetings would allow us to do it sooner. I am not moving an amendment. I'm just putting that forward for the presenter.
6:05 p.m.
NDP
Heather McPherson NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
I would just suggest that perhaps the four meetings do not need to be one after the other. Is it possible that this is something where we could be a little flexible with our approach and perhaps do one or two of the meetings quite quickly in regard to Ukraine, and then do more of them at a later date?
6:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ali Ehsassi
I think it would be fair to say that not only is it possible, it's quite probable as well, Ms. McPherson.
Go ahead, Mr. Bergeron.
6:10 p.m.
Bloc
Stéphane Bergeron Bloc Montarville, QC
You will not be surprised to hear me say that I am loath to turn over the responsibilities of our committee and the House of Commons to the other unelected chamber of this Parliament.
That said, I think Ms. Bendayan made a point we should take into consideration nonetheless, and that is the fact that work is already being done on the issue of sanctions and the fact that, in the motion we just adopted a few minutes ago, we included a few words about sanctions. The last thing I want to do is to duplicate our work, given the fact that we have already made a commitment in the previous motion to look at the issue of sanctions. We are adding four meetings on the sanctions. I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but we don't have any more meetings available between now and Christmas. Therefore, the more we add, the less time we will have to discuss all the other issues that we find extremely worrisome, with Ukraine being at the top of the list.
I would not want us to lose sight of key aspects of considerations that I will refrain from labelling. The main thing is to talk about how we can concretely help Ukrainians deal with the situation they face. Of course, sanctions are part of the arsenal, no pun intended, that we can deploy to help Ukrainians. Ms. McPherson, I and others have concerns about the effectiveness of our sanctions regime, which we have let ourselves weaken through the turbine license. Again, I don't want us to lose sight of what is important by getting bogged down for a long time in what may seem like a side issue, especially since I feel that we would almost be doubling our work in this case, since we have already instructed our analysts to write something about sanctions.
So if we want to be minimally consistent, we will not instruct our analysts to start drafting something for us on sanctions, while proposing to have four meetings on the most specific issue of sanctions. Let's be minimally consistent. Are we asking our analysts to write something on sanctions, or do we want to hear from witnesses over four meetings on sanctions, and then instruct our analysts to work on the issue? I would like us to be somewhat consistent.
Speaking of consistency, I also want us to be consistent about the fact that we have a limited number of meetings between now and Christmas, and there are many topics we are all interested in, but we will not manage to address them. We are in the process of doing a post mortem on all these motions that we adopted and all these topics that we wanted to address, which we were not able to address because we ran out of time last spring. I feel like we are going in exactly the same direction: we will be very enthusiastic about a lot of things, but we won't get the job done because we are just not going to have enough time. We saw what happened to us last spring.
Let's not repeat that mistake and then tell ourselves next spring that we didn't get everything done that we planned to do this fall. Let's be consistent, please.
6:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ali Ehsassi
Again, Mr. Bergeron, all those points are well taken. I think Ms. McPherson recognized that this would be punted for some time, and she has accepted that the hearings would not be done consecutively. However, you have touched on quite a bit of a challenge. I must say I feel a lot of sympathy for the clerk and the analysts, who have to try to the best of their abilities to throw all of this into a schedule. Of course, we do not want to repeat the experience we previously had.
That having been said, Mr. Bergeron, you mentioned tools at our disposal. Are you introducing an amendment, or was that not what you were contemplating?
6:15 p.m.
Bloc
Stéphane Bergeron Bloc Montarville, QC
I am in a somewhat similar situation to when we talked about what is happening in Pakistan. I would have expected someone, like Ms. McPherson did earlier, to get me out of a jam by offering a compromise, whether it be two or three meetings.
6:15 p.m.
NDP
Heather McPherson NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
I could try it.
There's one thing I want to clarify. In the motion that we did approve, Mr. Genuis's motion, we did remove the (e) that referred to the sanctions study. That was removed in that initial one. I think it is reasonable, considering the importance of sanctions to what is happening in Ukraine. We know that if the sanction regimes are not robust, they are allowing Russia to continue the violence against Ukraine, so I do think sanctions are very important.
My recommendation is that we do one or perhaps two meetings before Christmas on sanctions, and that we complete the study with looking at sanctions of other areas after the holiday break.
So really, we would be looking at only those two meetings now, and then we would postpone two meetings to a later date. That would be a compromise that would allow....
6:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ali Ehsassi
Just looking at the schedule, I don't think that's much of a concession, Ms. McPherson, given the number of issues that we're dealing with here. But thank you for that.
6:15 p.m.
NDP
Heather McPherson NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
I went from two to one and four to two. That's not bad.