Foreign Affairs Committee on Dec. 7th, 2022

[The Clerk]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

You have Ms. McPherson on the list, and then Mr. Aboultaif, Mr. Bergeron and Dr. Fry.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Go ahead, Ms. McPherson.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Just very quickly and briefly, I'd like to point out that the NDP retreat is today, and nobody considered that while they were scheduling the meetings.

Thank you.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

That's a good point.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

That's a good point, Ms. McPherson, but as you know, as I've indicated, I was not aware of it. I don't believe anyone was aware of it. Our apologies for that and also our thanks that you've taken time out of that.

Now we'll go to—

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

I have a point of order. Just in defence of the chair on that, it's a Standing Order 106(4) discussion, and there were five days and six members, including Ms. McPherson, who signed the 106(4).

You had only five days and you had to give 48 hours' notice. I don't think you had the choice with respect to a caucus meeting that was happening that you didn't know about. I just think we need to defend the chair a bit on that.

Under the Standing Orders, we have a five-day limit. He had to do it and he had to give 48 hours' notice. It's kind of difficult. Also, the clerk had to get the right information, because we had a suspended meeting, which has never happened in living memory.

That's just to give a bit of credit to our chair, not that he needs someone helping him.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you, Mr. Oliphant.

We'll now go to Mr. Aboultaif.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Thanks again, Mr. Chair.

I'm still not clear on our witnesses. Can the clerk assist us—or at least assist me—in understanding what the timelines are to call further witnesses? How can we wrap this up quickly, in a way that.... I mean, we're looking at sort of an urgent meeting next week on an irregular schedule, and we're struggling to find the ground here as to where we're moving on this. In addition, of course, now we see that Mr. Oliphant is still complaining about or at least supporting Dr. Fry on the witnesses and the call for more witnesses to make sure that the study is well worth the time and the urgency.

Again, from the clerk and from you, Mr. Chair, if you can explain this part to me, I think it will be very important.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Mr. Aboultaif, thank you very much for your question and your concern, but I have to say that it is up to the members—it's not up to the clerk—to determine how it's going to work with witnesses. That is a decision that all of the members present today have to make, but there has been some toing and froing.

Mr. Bergeron has indicated that he would like us to go only with the witnesses who were identified in the motion, whereas others are saying, “we don't feel comfortable with that”, because there might be a paucity, especially given the fact that one of those witnesses was our Minister of Foreign Affairs. It really is up to the members to make that determination, and I have every confidence that we can get there.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

If I may, what is the road map in this specific case now? Again, we're still in a muddy situation here.

What's the road map?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

We're in a muddy situation because there is disagreement between the members. Ultimately, we should listen to both sides. Now we can all decide which one of those considerations is more valid, and whether we should go only with the witnesses who were identified in the motion or, alternatively, set a date to submit more witnesses.

That's the decision before us.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

I'd like one more clarification. If the original motion by Mr. Bergeron was voted on and already passed, that means we agreed to his witness list and there's no room for other parties or such to be doing so.

I know Mr. Oliphant is shaking his head on this, but I want that clarification, please.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Absolutely.

Mr. Hoback, is your hand up?

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Yes, it is.

What Ziad is saying is very true. If we've already passed the motion, why are we having this debate? If it's an amendment that they want to make to the motion, what they have to go through is proposing an amendment to go from the suggested witnesses to something other than that.

I would ask Mr. Bergeron to guide us, though, with regard to the witnesses he has picked out. What does he think is the appropriate amount of time we should have them in front of the committee, so that they don't get shortchanged if we end up adding more witnesses to the list?

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Mr. Chair, I believe my name is next on the speakers' list.

I was just about to intervene to point out that I was to be next, after Mr. Aboultaif, on the list of speakers. I wanted to make a point of order, which was not a point of order, as Mr. Oliphant did.

I would point out, by the way, that Mr. Oliphant did not need to come to the chair's rescue, since Ms. McPherson in no way blamed anyone. She merely pointed out an empirically verifiable fact: if it is possible to hold this meeting today during the pre-session caucus of one party, it is certainly possible to hold a meeting during the pre-session caucus of another party. It was just an observation on her part. No one was blaming the chair. I don't see why Mr. Oliphant needed to come to the defence of the chair when there was no attack.

That said, I want to make it clear that I personally am not adamant that my witness list be retained. I just want to make it clear to my colleagues that it will be difficult enough to hear all of the witnesses mentioned in the motion in two meetings. If the list of witnesses is extended, I regret to say that we will not be able to keep to just two meetings.

The Liberals seem to want to pursue two irreconcilable goals, to keep this study to two meetings at most and to expand the witness list. Now, I regret this, but it is not feasible. It is one of two things: either we stick to this witness list and have only two meetings, or we expand the witness list—I do not see a problem with that—and we will have to have three meetings, not just two.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you, Mr. Bergeron.

Let me also clarify for all of the members that Mr. Bergeron's motion has yet to be passed. I only say this to correct what Mr. Hoback said.

We now go to Mr. Oliphant.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

My hand is up.

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

Speaking on the motion, first of all, I don't see the list of suggested witnesses in the motion as exhaustive. I think it's inclusive, but not exhaustive, so there can be other witnesses added.

Mr. Bergeron has said that this is meant to be a study on a reported humanitarian crisis. I saw this motion only when others did, today, before this meeting. I would like to talk to the International Committee of the Red Cross, or the Red Crescent. I would like to talk to the UN. I would like to talk to authorities who have an understanding of what the humanitarian situation is, what the blockade is about and what its effects are. Is it a political issue that we are hearing about from people outside of Nagorno-Karabakh? Is it a humanitarian crisis?

I think there needs to be at least one witness who is from a humanitarian agency and who knows the humanitarian situation in the area as opposed to giving us a political understanding of what's going on. If we're really going to do this separately from the geopolitical, we should do it from a humanitarian crisis aid perspective. This means getting the usual group of witnesses to tell us what is going on, and that could be the World Food Programme.

I don't have an answer as to who they should be at this very second, because that's what we do. We do some research on this to find out who would be the best witnesses to help the committee understand the crisis that Mr. Bergeron has importantly brought to us. You bring the crisis to us, but now I think it's also respectful to make sure that everyone on the committee does their work so we can look at what witnesses should come.

With that point being made.... I think Mr. Hoback is correct that there is not an amendment on the floor. Mine was withdrawn, so I would simply add to this amendment that there be a deadline of Friday January 20 at noon for additional witnesses from all members of the committee.

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

On a point of order, Mr. Oliphant said “add to this amendment”. This isn't a subamendment. This is a new amendment.

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

I'm sorry. I meant add it to the motion.

We had agreement that my amendment was withdrawn. We have consensus—not voted on—that we were moving toward two meetings on this particular issue. We're going to try to get them done Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of next week.

The amendment is simply that additional witnesses be submitted to the clerk by Friday at noon. That gives us tomorrow to do it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you, Mr. Oliphant.

Is there agreement with what has been proposed?

(Amendment agreed to)

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

My hand has been up, Chair, for quite a while. Maybe you can't see it very well, but it has been up for quite a while.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Go ahead, Dr. Fry.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Thank you.

I'm not going to repeat what Rob said, because that's what I was going to say. I want to point out, just generically, that when we consider being in one place at a time to attend a meeting, those of us—i.e. Randy, Sarai and I—who come from British Columbia need to travel the day before we come to Ottawa. For almost the whole day, when you add the three-hour time difference and the five-hour plane ride, we're not available. You are automatically shutting us out of a meeting, even if we wish to come, because we can't do it virtually on the plane.

I wanted to point that out to remind you that there is a part of the country that is west of the Ontario border.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you, Dr. Fry.

We now go to Mr. Hoback.