International Trade Committee on June 9th, 2008

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Monsieur Cardin.

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Chair, remember what I said last week. I said that nothing would shock me more than if this agreement were concluded before we finished our report and made our recommendations to the government. I feel that the priority is the report on Colombia and our recommendations to the governments. That is the position I support.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

I'm sorry, which position would that be?

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

The priority is to finish the report on Colombia. That is what I heard, wasn't it?

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Okay.

Mr. Keddy.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I know the opposition would like to delay this and find a reason to not move forward with it. That was obvious last week. But in all honesty, it's always been a dual process. There have been two parallel processes all along. The negotiating team on Colombia were working parallel to our study on Colombia.

Our study on Colombia is to determine whether or not we're going to agree with the final outcome. Our study was never to determine the final outcome. We're not the trade negotiators for the Government of Canada. We're the international trade committee, and there is a different role there.

Our study on Colombia was to find out if we supported a free trade agreement with Colombia. So trying to hold EFTA hostage here is really, I think, disrespectful to the process. It's one agreement that has real reasons to move forward. EFTA has nothing to do with the agreement on Colombia, and it's not fair at all to link them.

Mr. Chairman, I think we should move ahead with our discussions on EFTA. We should bring them to a conclusion. If we're going to hold up Colombia and use that as hostage--and that's what the opposition is doing here--then that's doing this process a disservice.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Chair, I suggest we vote on this in terms of deciding what the agenda should be going forward. If you want to, we can continue debate, but in light of the bells ringing, my recommendation would be to come to some sort of conclusion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Well, I think it's a little late in the day to be changing meetings that are scheduled for tomorrow. We had 48 hours' notice. We sent the notice out on Thursday. There is a meeting at 11 o'clock tomorrow. You're welcome to attend. The subject is EFTA. We'll hear your comments then. That was the order of the meeting.

It looks now like Wednesday will be cancelled because of this business in the House, the apology. But we have given notice and--

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Can I just ask how the time was determined, Chair? Who determined the time?

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

I determined the time.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Based on what? We decided we'd meet on Monday to discuss the time and discuss how many meetings we needed--

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Well, we needed 48 hours' notice, and if we were going to meet on Tuesday--

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

If you unilaterally set meetings with 48-hour notices.... This is the first time we've met after that notice to discuss that. Unless you want us to call you privately in between and say, “Look, I don't agree with that. I think this is the best format for it”....

[An hon. member]

You said Tuesday.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Well, the notice was given on Thursday.

In any event, we'd better get to the vote. We can continue this discussion tomorrow. The meeting's been called.

This meeting is adjourned.