Foreign Affairs Committee on Dec. 7th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

We'll now resume meeting number 43 of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format pursuant to the House order of June 23, 2022. Several members, as you can see, are present in the room, and others are joining us remotely using the Zoom application.

I'd like to make a few comments for the benefit of all members.

Please wait until I recognize you by name before you speak. For those participating by video conference, click on the microphone icon to activate your mike and please mute yourself when you are not speaking. Interpretation for those on Zoom is at the bottom of your screen, and you have a choice of either floor, English or French audio.

For those in the room, you can use your earpiece and select the desired channel. I remind everyone that all comments should be addressed through the chair.

As you will all recall, the committee suspended its meeting on Wednesday, December 7, 2022, while debate on a motion was ongoing. Therefore, we are resuming this meeting and the following motion is still on the floor.

The motion read:

That the committee report to the House that because Nord Stream 1 is no longer supplying gas to Europe due to a blast that created a 50-metre hole in the pipeline, because the granting of a waiver for the export of Gazprom turbines sends the wrong message to Russia about Western support for sanctions, and because the Government of Ukraine and Canadians have requested the waiver be revoked, the committee calls on the Government of Canada to revoke the waiver to Russian sanctions granted for the export of Gazprom turbines by January 5, 2023.

Moreover, as you are all aware, I reconvened the meeting today because six members of our committee put forth a request to discuss the committee's undertaking of a study of the current situation in the Lachin corridor of Nagorno-Karabakh.

While the committee has a few options with respect to how to proceed, please note that a committee may consider only one motion at a time. As I just mentioned, the committee is currently seized with the motion I just read, therefore we need to make a decision on the motion before moving on to other business.

Therefore, I'd like to hear—briefly, if possible—from the members on these points I just raised.

Please note that if no consensus is reached, I will let the members resume debate on the motion that I just mentioned earlier, since the chair cannot bring debate to an end while there are members present who still wish to participate.

Yes, Mr. Genuis.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As members are aware, we did significant work on the Gazprom issue throughout the fall. I'm very pleased to see, following that work and what was an important contribution by this committee as well as the express view of a majority of it over time, that the government made a decision to revoke the sanctions waiver.

I had the floor speaking at that time. If I still have the floor, I would propose the following dilatory motion:

That the committee proceed to the discussion of the matter raised by the letter sent last week pursuant to Standing Order 106(4).

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you very much, Mr. Genuis.

We will now proceed to that discussion pursuant to Standing Order 106(4), as requested by the six members.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Mr. Chair, that's a dilatory motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Is there unanimous consent?

I hear no opposition to that, so it's unanimous.

(Motion agreed to)

We will now, thanks to Mr. Genuis, move to a discussion on the matter pursuant to Standing Order 106(4) that was submitted by six members.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Ariane Gagné-Frégeau]

Mr. Chair, Mr. Bergeron has his hand up.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Okay.

Mr. Bergeron, go ahead, please.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Mr. Chair, I would like to submit the following motion to committee members. We can discuss it and it can be amended as members wish. I move:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the committee undertakes to hold a maximum of three meetings to study the present situation of the blockade of the Lachin corridor, de facto isolating the Nagorno-Karabakh region; that the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada, the Ambassador of Armenia, the Chargé d'affaires a.i. of Azerbaijan, representatives of the two communities in Canada, the permanent representative of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic to the United States and Canada, and Gegham Stepanyan, the Nagorno-Karabakh human rights defender, be invited to testify by Friday, February 3, 2023; that the testimony and materials gathered by the committee at these meetings be taken into consideration in the study of the security of the Azerbaijan-Armenia borders.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you very much, Mr. Bergeron.

We now go to Mr. Oliphant.

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

I'm generally supportive of this, but my concern is that members called for a special meeting today, when we had already agreed to have two meetings on the subject of the Nagorno-Karabakh situation. Today we are spending some time doing that.

It would seem to me that this is an unusual request that came in from six members. I'm always happy to have them explain that. We had agreed that we would have a meeting and that our first meeting back after January 31 would be on this issue.

We had agreed to do two meetings on the general situation. I would like to move an amendment—because we have a lot of pressing work on our agenda, which we've already agreed to undertake as a committee—that we add one extra meeting to the original two meetings. We would have a total of three meetings, recognizing that we have already had one meeting.

I would prefer to use the words “the Lachin road” because the word “corridor” does not have any legal standing. I find that the motion is already laden with the idea that we know what is happening there. I'll let that go and simply move an amendment that instead of a total of three meetings, we add one meeting to our existing study of the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, with a focus on the Lachin road.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you, Mr. Oliphant.

Is there anyone else who would like to speak to this amendment?

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

On a point of order, is that being distributed? I don't know if I understood it. If others did, that's great.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Yes. I will just explain to Mr. Genuis that we heard from Mr. Bergeron. Mr. Oliphant simply reminded all the members that we had previously agreed that our first session upon our return would be devoted to Armenia-Azerbaijan. We will be hearing from the Armenian ambassador and the Azerbaijani chargé d'affaires.

Mr. Oliphant's amendment is that we proceed with what we had previously agreed to and perhaps add one session devoted to the Lachin road. Mr. Oliphant is saying that he thinks it should be referred to not as “the corridor” but as “the road”.

Mr. Bergeron.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

You seem to me to be awfully well informed about the details of Mr. Oliphant's proposed amendment. Like Mr. Genuis, I was not sure I understood the meaning of the amendment. Following your clarification...

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

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, I take great umbrage with respect to that. I have not discussed this amendment with anyone, including the chair. An assumption of that implies something that is somehow nefarious. I would like that withdrawn, please.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

We revert to Mr. Bergeron.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Mr. Oliphant seems to be particularly prickly after the holidays. Perhaps he would need further appointments to correct this. I had no malicious intent.

Be that as it may, I'll get back to the point I wanted to make.

The problem with Mr. Oliphant's proposal is that we are facing an emergency that translates into a humanitarian situation on the ground, one that is deteriorating by the hour. I do not think we can wait until the House returns to consider this issue. Six committee members expressed the wish that we deal with this matter expeditiously and avoid interfering too much with our regular work, which is to resume when the House sits again. I thought that would find favour with our Liberal colleagues.

Personally, I do not wish to delay any other study, whether it be the one that was already planned on the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict or the one on women's reproductive health.

To this end, we wish to meet more quickly, on the one hand, because the emergency requires it, and on the other hand, precisely to avoid encroaching on the regular work of the committee, so as to ensure that we can quickly resume the work planned by committee members.

I thought this proposal would appeal to our Liberal colleagues, but I have to say I am a little surprised at what I am hearing this afternoon.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you, Mr. Bergeron.

We will now go to Ms. McPherson.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to take just a moment to wish everyone on the committee a happy new year. We haven't seen each other in person yet, but happy new year to all of you.

From my perspective, I'm looking forward to this spring session being much more productive than the foreign affairs committee was prior to that. My thinking with regard to this particular study is that it is urgent. It is perhaps an opportunity for this committee to restart.

We were not able to complete our work in the previous session because of filibustering, disagreements and bickering within the committee, and I would like to stop that behaviour. I don't think that does any good for this committee. It doesn't do any good considering the amount of work we need to do as the foreign affairs committee.

I look forward to adding this meeting so that we can discuss this, put this important issue in front of this committee and get this work done, perhaps to restart this committee to some degree, and so we can continue with the other important pieces we have not completed, including the report on Pakistan and the report on Ukraine.

Frankly, we also need to have a working committee because of what is happening in the world right now. We still have a devastating, illegal war happening in Ukraine. We still have conflicts happening around the world. In fact, I am going to read a motion very quickly into the record, because I think that as a foreign affairs committee we also need to be looking at what is happening in Iran.

I will read it in, but before I do that, I will say that I support this work and I support moving forward as urgently as we can. I would hope that all committee members will treat this as a bit of a reset for this committee, so that we can do the job Canadians have sent us to Ottawa to do.

Very quickly, I will read this motion into the record:

That the committee hold three meetings to study the current situation in Iran, including examining

(i) the federal government's refusal for listing the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, IRGC, as a terrorist entity,

(ii) the connections between people or assets in Canada and the IRGC, and

(iii) paths forward to support Iranian human rights activists, artists, journalists and other political refugees;

that the committee invite the Minister of Foreign Affairs to testify, as well as additional witnesses submitted by members of the committee; that the committee report its findings back to the House and that, pursuant to Standing Order 109, the government table a comprehensive responsive to the report.

I will send this out to everyone in both official languages, but I wanted to make sure it was read into the record. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you very much, Ms. McPherson.

I would like to add in response to your remarks that we had also agreed that before the parliamentary calendar resumes we would have a subcommittee meeting. That is precisely because of some of the issues Ms. McPherson alluded to.

I will now go to Dr. Fry.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Thank you very much, Chair.

I would like to support Rob Oliphant's amendment.

Why is this an urgent issue? What will Canada do, and what will our hearings do, other than what France and the United States have done? They are both members of the Minsk agreements through OSCE. They have both intervened, and the EU has now moved forward to ensure that some things are going. Azerbaijan and Armenia are really wanting to work through this process right now.

I just don't see how in the next three weeks Canada is going to suddenly deal with this, when the people who actually have authority for dealing with it, which is the Minsk group—notably France and the United States, as well as Russia, which has also met with the two groups.... If you recall, in September Russia stepped in and said it would participate in bringing about some kind of agreement.

I think things are moving forward in the only way they can. Our committee's meeting and discussing this isn't going to suddenly fast-forward change. I just think we can wait, as we said before, and listen to what the subcommittee says about where we go next when we start back up again.

That's all I have to say, actually. I agree with Rob's amendment. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you very much, Dr. Fry.

We now go to Ms. Bendayan.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

In response to Mr. Bergeron, I will say that I am very interested in the proposal that we meet next week, before the House begins sitting again. Given that we have already scheduled a first meeting on this subject on January 31, I have no problem with adding further meetings next week.

It is clear that the issue we are discussing at the moment, the Lachin corridor, is extremely important, and I fully agree that we need to look at this as soon as possible.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Mr. Bergeron, the floor is yours.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Mr. Chair, I will be brief. I just want to react to what Ms. Fry just told us.

I am not so naïve as to believe that the work of this committee will result in a rapid unblocking of the Lachin corridor, since the people occupying it clearly have no intention of withdrawing quickly.

At the international level, there is a principle called the responsibility to protect. This principle was introduced internationally by a Liberal Prime Minister, Mr. Paul Martin, and was supported by the entire international community, in 2005. I don't think we have the right to sit back and do nothing on the pretext that no matter what we do, it won't change the situation.

I recognize that simply making a statement is likely to be merely symbolic. It would be similar to what was done in the Tibet case: it was a symbolic statement, but it was very important nonetheless.

I believe, quite respectfully, that we need to address this issue and that we have a moral obligation to do so, because a humanitarian crisis is developing.

I am taking the liberty of speaking publicly about a private discussion I had by email with Mr. Oliphant.

We have a moral responsibility to allow members of the committee to have access to the most up‑to‑date and accurate information, regarding what is really going on. We must not simply accept information that is passed on by whoever wants to pass it on to us. Given the information that is being conveyed to the members of this committee and the responsibility we have in terms of the values that we stand for, we have an obligation to meet.

I reiterate that the objective is not to add meetings simply to delay the work of the committee. My colleagues know that I am not in that frame of mind at all: I do not want to delay the work of the committee. On the contrary, I want us to be able to start the session and keep to the program we have set ourselves as closely as possible. I welcome Ms. Bendayan's intervention to this effect. I think it is important that we meet next week. The urgency of the situation requires it, and we must respect our work agenda.