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.