Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on March 23rd, 2021

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

I think that there are many other cases, such as Uganda, Myanmar—

[The Clerk]

Mr. Chair, if I may say so, I think the issue is that Ms. Vandenbeld is no longer using her headset. Regardless of what language she speaks, there won't be any interpretation.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

I apologize. I wasn't expecting to speak, so I took it off.

I'll very quickly recap. I don't want to keep everybody.

I really think right now we have a very particular committee—

Is it still not working?

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

I think that you need to connect your microphone.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

My apologies.

We are a very particular committee. When we have a one-off meeting and we shed light on something that's happening in a particular country, it has a massive impact in that country. What we've done on Cameroon and some of the other countries has actually had an impact on what their congress has done.

There are a lot of places in the world right now where there are no international eyes. With COVID-19 everyone has turned inward. We have a unique role as a committee. I had proposed Uganda at one point. I think we should go back to Myanmar, because when we did that study the coup hadn't happened there yet.

I think we have a very particular niche as a committee in that we can shed light where no one else is doing that. We have so few meetings left and so many countries in the world in crisis at the moment....

It's not that what you're raising, Heather, isn't important, but it may not be the number one priority.

I'd rather focus on, for want of a better word, our core issues.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

I see Iqra's hand up, and then I see Alexis's hand up. I don't want to keep going for 20 minutes.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

I have a point of order, Chair. Very quickly, did we not have extra time allocated to do committee business? Was that not included in today's schedule?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

I tried to build in five minutes. I ended up with only two minutes at the end, and I've gone over. Now we're at 8:38. We only had time to get consensus to work through the title and move the report. That's what I wanted to do.

I think we have to move this to our next meeting, members.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Yes, please, Mr. Chair. I'm completely late for another engagement I had committed to.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Okay.

We'll move to Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Chair, I want to add something.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Yes. You have the floor for 30 seconds.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

We can pass the motion and do the study later. We don't need to do it right afterwards. At that point, it will be—

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

I don't hear consensus right now.

No, there's no consensus.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

I think we're going to adjourn at this time.

Thank you very much everyone.