Foreign Affairs Committee on Dec. 7th, 2022

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

—just on the scheduling of witnesses, but I'm happy to hand the floor over to Mr. Oliphant if he would like to do that directly.

I think it would be important to make sure we schedule the witness deadline so that all members can submit their suggested witnesses, if there are any additional witnesses to be suggested to those already outlined by Mr. Bergeron for this particular motion, and also a deadline for the women's reproductive study, so that witnesses can be submitted as well by all parties for that study.

Given Mr. Bergeron's comment indicating that we would resume, in his view at least, from what I understand, the committee schedule immediately thereafter, I wonder, Mr. Chair, if you would like to comment on that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Would you like me to comment on it or Mr. Bergeron...?

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

No, I mean you, Mr. Chair. In terms of today, as you indicated at the beginning of the meeting, we are continuing the meeting that was held in December on women's reproductive rights, and we would therefore have to pick that back up after this study. Is that your understanding, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

That is my understanding, but as you will recall, it was agreed previously, and I repeated it today, that we have to have a subcommittee meeting next week as well.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Mr. Chair, on that point, you have mentioned the subcommittee twice now, but seeing as how—and I do not sit on the subcommittee, so perhaps that is why I seek clarification—we do not need the subcommittee to reconfirm that we are going back to the study that we are already engaged in, I am asking in this meeting, publicly, for you to confirm that we will go back to the study that we have not finished and indeed have not started in any substantive way.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

I certainly understand your concern. Allow me, for the purposes of your question, to go to the clerk so that she can tell us where things stand insofar as the rules and procedures are concerned.

Madam Clerk, could you answer the question of what becomes of that issue?

[The Clerk]

In order to resume witnesses who were appearing during meeting 43, which we are resuming right now.... The decision was made at the resumption of this meeting to go to the discussion pursuant to 106(4). That was the decision.

As of resuming, no decision has been made to resume the questioning of witnesses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Did that answer your question, Ms. Bendayan?

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

No.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

I'm a bit lost as well.

[The Clerk]

Ms. Bendayan, at the beginning of this meeting, a dilatory motion was passed to move on to the next item of business, which is the item for which this meeting was called under Standing Order 106(4).

The study that was in progress was therefore suspended, and the members of the committee must agree on when they will resume it to question the witnesses.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Mr. Chair, you've heard my view, as well as the view of Mr. Bergeron. I understand it is your prerogative to make that decision. I am asking you to confirm to the committee what your decision is.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

I don't have a decision. I want to ensure that I'm going about this properly, but barring anything that prevents us from doing so, yes.

It appears to me that the first meeting after this issue of Armenia and Azerbaijan, or the Lachin road, will go back to reproductive health, so that we can resume that study, which the majority of members have already indicated is considerably past due.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Mr. Oliphant, did you...? Ms. Bendayan said you might make some changes to ensure that there was a compromise with the Lachin road study.

Am I correct in that assumption?

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

It was a witness submission deadline.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Do you wish to do so?

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

I think, effectively, my amendment is withdrawn if we have unanimous consent. I think we're back to the main motion.

Ms. Bendayan's comments relate to other issues. I'm not sure we could amend that motion, but I think we have to entertain a motion after this motion about witness deadlines, both for this study and then for women's reproductive health. That would probably be the easiest way to do that. We'll decide what we're going to do and then we'll ask for witness deadlines for both this study and the next study. We'll get that done.

The problem is that today is Wednesday, and next week has only five days in it. That's the way weeks work. If we're trying to get two meetings in next week, plus the subcommittee, that means you have to schedule three meetings for next week. I'm not going to get into that.

I guess I should confirm that I have unanimous consent to withdraw my amendment. The intent of the committee is not to have three meetings on this one, but to do two meetings next week and one or two the following week, depending on how you are going to get the scheduling done. I think that's what we've agreed to.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Absolutely. We revert back to Mr. Bergeron's motion.

(Amendment withdrawn)

Would there be unanimous consent from the members that we submit witnesses for next week's hearings by the end of business on Friday? Is there unanimous consent?

Go ahead, Mr. Bergeron.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Mr. Chair, correct me if I'm wrong, but we probably need, as Mr. Oliphant said, to develop a list of witnesses for the women's reproductive health study in a fairly short timeframe.

With regard to the Lachin corridor, unless I am mistaken, the motion already contains a list of witnesses. Since we're only going to have two meetings, obviously, and we already had concerns about hearing all of these witnesses in just two meetings, can we agree to keep to the list of witnesses in the motion that we're discussing now?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

I'm sorry. Just for clarification, how many witnesses were in your motion, Mr. Bergeron?

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

There was the Ambassador of Armenia and the Chargé d'affaires of Azerbaijan, whom we will hear from later. In addition, there was the Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs, the representatives of the two communities in Canada—we can assume that there will be two—the representative of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and Mr. Stepanyan. So that's already five witnesses to be heard in two sessions.

So if we draw up lists of witnesses, we will simply multiply the number of witnesses without having time to receive them. So I suggest that we stick to the witnesses we have in front of us now, but set a deadline for submitting our list of witnesses for the women's reproductive health study.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Fair enough.

Insofar as the witnesses identified in Mr. Bergeron's motion are concerned, do we have unanimous consent that those would be the only witnesses for the purposes of the Lachin road study?

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Mr. Chair, I would like to ask Mr. Bergeron to clarify something.

Shouldn't the community representatives be named?

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

In the case of the Armenian community, it stands to reason that it will be the Congress of Canadian Armenians. I believe the Azeri community also has an organization. Mr. Sorbara will certainly be able to tell us which one it is, since the president of that organization lives in his riding.

I think we can agree that these two organizations represent the two communities, unless some have other organizations in mind; but I don't really see what other organizations could be invited, besides these two, to represent these two Canadian communities.