Foreign Affairs Committee on Dec. 7th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Additionally, Mr. Bergeron, you referenced the representative from Nagorno-Karabakh. Am I correct?

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Yes, absolutely. I was just responding to Ms. Bendayan's question about who would represent the two communities in Canada.

There is the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the representatives of the two communities in Canada, which are the ones we just discussed, the representative of Nagorno-Karabakh in the United States and Canada, and Mr. Stepanyan, the human rights defender in Nagorno-Karabakh.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you, Mr. Bergeron.

Yes, Dr. Fry.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

I just wanted to say this. There are a couple of other organizations that I could forward. We don't have to discuss them here. We can just forward them to you or the clerk if we have another list of witnesses. I have some other people who would be worth listening to.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Go ahead, Mr. Hoback.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Chair, I have a question for Mr. Bergeron. He's wanting three meetings, but he's given us only this limited number of witnesses. How is he seeing the meetings functioning with this small number of witnesses?

[The Clerk]

Mr. Bergeron has his hand up.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Go ahead, Mr. Bergeron.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

I don't know how to answer Mr. Hoback's question precisely. I don't usually organize committee meetings. I am just desperately trying to find common ground between us. We don't want to have more than two meetings, so we don't want to have an endless list of witnesses. That is the common ground. If we accept Dr. Fry's proposal and submit witness lists, I very respectfully believe that two meetings will not be enough.

So either our Liberal friends agree that we should limit the witness list, in which case we could limit ourselves to two meetings, or we expand the witness list without limiting ourselves to two meetings.

I'm desperately trying to square the circle, but give me a hand, cripes!

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you, Mr. Bergeron.

Going forward....

Yes, Mr. Aboultaif.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have a technical question. Do we have all the translation services available for these meetings if they are to take place next week, specifically for the one next week? I'd like that to be confirmed by either the clerk or maybe someone else.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Yes, the clerk can respond to that.

[The Clerk]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The process to find out about services is that I would need the time and day that you would like to meet for the actual three meetings, and I would ask the services if they have the capacity. I would know within a maximum of 24 hours.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Thanks for the clarification.

Now, I have one more thing. How are we going to move forward here, Mr. Chair? We have some submissions or some amendments to a motion that were withdrawn, and there were some other topics. I don't think I stand clear on where we are right now, based on from the beginning, when Mr. Bergeron suggested something with his motion, to where we are now with all the different discussions and topics. I'll be honest with you: I'm just lost here in where we're going and where we stand.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

I have to concede that I'm somewhat lost as well, because when I hear about the number of witnesses, I don't think that's a sufficient number of witnesses for the two sessions that would occur next week should this motion be adopted.

Am I correct in that, Madam Clerk?

[The Clerk]

One thing I can say is that the minister is one of the witnesses, and she appears alone, usually, so it would be one hour out of the four hours for the two meetings. Then it would all depend on how you want to divide your panel in light of the comment that was made earlier, which was to make sure that the two countries are appearing at different times. You can have one witness per panel. The number is up to you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Sure. It does seem that for four hours it would be a bit of a stretch to have the witnesses who are named. Would there be unanimous consent for every—

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Sir, can I have the floor? Can you please—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

I'm sorry. I didn't realize you had your hand up. I thought you had forgotten to take down your hand.

I apologize, Mr. Hoback. Please go ahead.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

I'm just getting back to Mr. Bergeron and the witness list. I agree with his witness list. I agree with his thought process that we don't want to water it down and end up getting only 10 or 15 minutes and not enough time to effectively question the witnesses. I don't necessarily mind what he's proposing in this situation, because it gives us more time to get in complete rounds and, for example, ask questions of the minister for an hour. We can get a complete round in with all the members for our questions and the answers from the minister.

Then, with the other witnesses, it gives us the chance to have a complete set of rounds where we all get a chance to ask questions. I can see where he's coming from, and I agree with him on that. It's up to you to figure out how to make it function, and I guess if the meeting ends early, it ends early. That's just the way it is.

The only other thing I wanted to mention, Mr. Chair, is that on next Thursday and Friday Conservative members won't be available. When you start looking at logistics for when you're going to hold this, it's going to have to be Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, because we have our own caucus meetings on Thursday and Friday of next week.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you for bringing that to our attention. We certainly wouldn't have known about that.

Dr. Fry, is your hand still up?

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

My hand is up again.

I wanted to suggest that traditionally.... I'm not trying to insult Mr. Bergeron, but I think some of us have a list of other people who would be delighted to come and who actually may be on the ground and on the spot and could present to us. All I'm suggesting is that we do what is traditional. That is, everyone sends in their list of witnesses; people decide on who those witnesses are and the clerk tries to get them—if she can—to fill the spots. I don't believe we need to say that we're not going to give it its due. What we need to get is a diversity of voices, not just the voices that we currently have on the table right now.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you, Dr. Fry.

We next go to Mr. Oliphant.

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

I'm supporting Dr. Fry. I think the committee puts itself in a very risky situation if our dominant witnesses are people who live in Canada and are not actually first-hand aware of what the situation is. I also think we put ourselves in a difficult position if we have two sets of opinions, as opposed to an expert who is neutral.

I think we need a number of witnesses who present a neutral position that is not shaded by the other topic, which is geopolitical. I think we can get opinions, but if we hear only opinions, then we're left in the situation of a he-said-she-said, which I don't think the committee should be doing. I think we need some real witnesses.

I can't speak to this—I haven't had a chance—but I will agree just in noting that our Liberal caucus is, I think, on Friday of next week, so we would not be able to do Thursday or Friday. On Thursday, I think we're available, but if you're not, we're not. We're down to Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and today is Wednesday. I do not know the minister's schedule—I'm never privy to that—but it is a break week from Parliament and often the Minister of Foreign Affairs is travelling. That's her job. I have no idea as to whether she would be available on those three limited days.

If we don't have a list that is a bit more robust, I think we could end up wasting our time. I really believe that we need to follow our standard procedures, as Dr. Fry said, where we don't just take witnesses coming from one source and where we have a number of witnesses and we make sure we have some expert, neutral, independent witnesses who can tell us what's actually happening on the ground, not what they read about on the Internet.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you, Mr. Oliphant.

We'll now go to the clerk.