Evidence of meeting #82 for International Trade in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was war.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:35 p.m.
NDP
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
Of course.
Mr. Cannings has indicated he wants to speak to it as part of the debate.
Mr. Cannings, are you speaking directly to Mr. Seeback's motion?
12:35 p.m.
NDP
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
I am.
This suddenly appeared. What I mentioned to Mr. Seeback is that this is something I would have to take back to other members in my caucus to discuss. It touches on various other files, such as foreign affairs and defence.
I think that if we did support this eventually, it would have to be amended somewhat. If you're forcing a vote right now, I can't support it in this situation. I think this would cause delays. It's all very well to say we can do this in clause-by-clause, but we would have to bring back a lot of the witnesses we heard from to discuss this very matter. I think it would add delays to passing this bill.
I would like to say that the main reason is that I would need to talk to other members of my caucus before being able to support, or not, this motion.
If we're voting now, I will vote against it.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Again, Madam Chair, I'll be very brief.
On the question of delays, we have put forward a motion that is very much on the matter that is being debated. It proposes giving the committee powers to consider more amendments. I would suggest to members that if they're unsure how they feel about those amendments, they should support this motion allowing more scope for those amendments. Then, if they don't like those subsequent amendments, they can come forward to vote against them.
This motion does not compel the committee to adopt certain future amendments. It simply gives the committee power to consider a broader range of amendments. Members can do consultation as they like, but in terms of this delaying things, this leads to no delays. This allows the consideration of additional amendments on an issue that I would assume all members of Parliament would be well versed on. That is the urgency of delivering munitions to Ukraine that will allow it to achieve victory. This is not a prescriptive motion; it gives the committee more room to manoeuvre in the future.
In that sense, I don't think it's complicated. I think it's very reasonable. It aligns with what is at least the stated position of most members of Parliament.
That will probably be the last thing I say on this. I don't see why it should be difficult to support this fairly quickly.
12:35 p.m.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
I'd like to note, with regard to what was just said, that the word used is “support”, not “evaluate”. The motion is quite binding, and “support” doesn't mean “evaluate”.
Having said that, I would also like to speak with the colleagues of my party and my team. Could we simply make an amicable request to our friends to postpone the vote to a future meeting?
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
I'll go to Mr. Sidhu, and then I'm going back to Mr. Seeback.
Mr. Sidhu.
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
Maninder Sidhu Liberal Brampton East, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
We've heard from multiple parties that this is intended to delay Bill C-57, the support that Ukraine and the ambassador asked for. I think it's important to put that on the record. I think it's clear where our party stands, and we should vote today.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
Kyle Seeback Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
I'm going to apologize to my colleagues for the shortened delivery of this motion. It took some time to get it done.
I'm going to suggest two things. One is that we vote on this motion today.
Two is that I will consult with my colleagues from the Bloc and the NDP about a potential motion that they could support, which I could bring at a later date. I hope that satisfies them, but I think we should proceed with this today, and then I'll come back to them and see if we can find something that others could agree to.
I'd like to proceed to the vote.
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
To our witnesses, you are free to leave at any time, or you can remain on until we go into committee business, if you like. We are going to deal with....
Thank you, Mr. Trew.
I apologize to the witnesses, but the committee is doing important work. Sometimes it goes in a different direction, but it's all going to the same place.
I'm going to read this out, so we make sure that it's clearly understood. It reads:
That the committee recommend to the House that it be granted the power during its consideration of Bill C-57, An Act to implement the 2023 Free Trade Agreement between Canada and Ukraine, to expand the scope of the study of the bill in order to support expanded munitions production in Canada and increasing munitions exports to Ukraine and support the development of weapons and munitions manufacturing capabilities in Ukraine by Canadian industry.
Mr. Seeback has asked for a recorded vote.
(Motion negatived: nays 7; yeas 4)
Thank you very much.
We will now go into committee business. We will need to suspend for approximately 10 minutes, because we have translators who are doing it remotely and they require a 10-minute adjournment, possibly.
We will suspend for a few minutes.
[Proceedings continue in camera]