FAIT Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE

COMITÉ PERMANENT DES AFFAIRES ÉTRANGÈRES ET DU COMMERCE INTERNATIONAL

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, October 21, 1999

• 0934

[English]

The Clerk of the Committee: Good morning, members. This is the first meeting of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade. Your first item of business is to elect a chair, pursuant to Standing Orders 106(1) and (2).

[Translation]

I am prepared to entertain motions to that effect.

[English]

I'm ready to receive motions to that effect.

Monsieur Patry.

[Translation]

Mr. Bernard Patry (Pierrefonds—Dollard, Lib.): I move that Mr. Graham be elected Chairman.

[English]

The Clerk: Is there a seconder?

Mr. André Bachand (Richmond—Arthabaska, PC): With pleasure.

The Clerk: It is proposed by Monsieur Patry, seconded by Monsieur Bachand, that Bill Graham do take the chair of this committee. Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt this motion?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

The Clerk: I declare Bill Graham duly elected chair of the committee and I invite him to take the chair.

Some hon. members: Hear, hear!

The Chairman (Mr. Bill Graham (Toronto Centre—Rosedale, Lib.)): I was nervous. My first official duty is to welcome Mr. Stinson.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

• 0935

The Chairman: He told me on the way in that he is not a big committee man.

Mr. Darrel Stinson (Okanagan—Shuswap, Ref.): No. I thought Bob had more of a whip on you than that.

The Chairman: The next job is to elect the two vice-chairs.

[Translation]

Mr. Ted McWhinney (Vancouver Quadra, Lib.): Mr. Chairman, I move that Ms. Beaumier be elected Vice-Chair.

[English]

The Chairman: Very well. Do we have a seconder for the nomination of Madame Beaumier?

Mr. Ted McWhinney: She has consented...there's implied consent, which I regard as sufficient.

The Chairman: Very well.

Mr. Stinson.

Mr. Darrel Stinson: I'd like to nominate Deepak Obhrai.

The Chairman: Okay, but maybe we could get the first vice-chair and then we can move to a seconder. Is there a seconder for Madame Beaumier?

Yes, Mr. Mifflin.

Is it the pleasure of the committee that Madame Beaumier be vice-chair?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

The Chairman: Nominations for a second vice-chair?

Mr. Stinson.

Mr. Darrel Stinson: Deepak Obhrai.

The Chairman: Mr. Obhrai's name is in nomination. The seconder is Mr. Morrison.

Those in favour of Mr. Obhrai?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

The Chairman: We give our congratulations to both.

Colleagues, the next things we have to turn to are the usual petite cuisine things. Before we do that, I'd just like to welcome Madame Beaumier and Madame Marleau.

Does everybody have a copy of the agenda?

[Translation]

Does everyone have a copy of the agenda?

[English]

The first thing is to elect members to the steering committee. If I can just call your attention to the first resolution for the steering committee, you will notice that an additional member from the Liberal Party has been put in. The reason for that is that it was desired to make room for both parliamentary secretaries, and one of the problems we have in this committee is that when we meet as a steering committee we quite often don't have either the trade parliamentary secretary or the other there. I think it's in the interests of the committee to have both parliamentary secretaries there.

If the opposition parties feel there should be some additional opposition person there, I'm sure one would accommodate that, but I think the important thing is to make sure we have both of the parliamentary secretaries there.

Mr. Speller, sir.

Mr. Bob Speller (Haldimand—Norfolk—Brant, Lib.): That's right. We're just going on how we worked it last time, and essentially there wasn't much of a structure. We never had votes. If you remember, Bob, at the steering committees we just all agreed, and it was just important to have both parliamentary secretaries there at the time. That's how it worked last time. It's no different.

The Chairman: I'm just trying to move the business along.

Mr. Bob Mills (Red Deer, Ref.): I don't think that's going to cause problems.

The Chairman: If it's a problem, we can always revisit it. Is everyone in favour of the first motion, then?

(Motion agreed to)

The Chairman: Then there is the usual motion on research staff.

Mr. Bachand.

Mr. André Bachand: I move the usual motion.

The Chairman: Thank you.

(Motion agreed to)

The Chairman: For our new members, we have both Gerry and Jim here. I think we're very lucky. Gerry Schmitz and Jim Lee are extraordinarily active and very good and are very supportive of the committee.

• 0940

Some hon. members: Hear, hear!

The Chairman: We're very lucky to have them.

A voice: Janice is there.

The Chairman: We'll get to le greffier at the end. We're saving the best for the last, the dessert for the end.

Next is motion 3, meeting in the absence of quorum. Is that agreed?

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian (Brampton Centre, Lib.): Could I ask you a question on this?

The Chairman: Yes.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: The last line says “three (3) members are present, including a member of the Opposition”. Does that mean a member of the official opposition or just of an opposition party?

The Chairman: It was any member of the opposition.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: It's any member of the opposition.

The Chairman: You'll recall that we had problems sometimes getting a quorum when we were just hearing evidence and wanted to get some evidence in. Particularly when we're travelling, when we split into two parts and travel across the country, it has sometimes been difficult to get more than three people in the room. So if we could adopt that, that would be helpful.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: I move that we adopt the motion.

(Motion agreed to)

The Chairman: Next is the usual motion in respect of witnesses.

Mr. Bob Mills: That's a change, Mr. Chairman. We've been allowing 10 minutes for the first questioner from each party, and then we've gone to five minutes after that. I just feel that those first questioners need the 10 minutes in order to develop their questions.

The Chairman: That's the motion we adopted last time, but our practice has always been as you describe it, Mr. Mills, where we give 10 minutes. So the practice deviated from the motion. If you like, we could make the motion conform to the practice.

Mr. Bob Mills: Yes, I would like that.

The Chairman: May I just revisit this for a second? It seems to me that the rule was 10 minutes for ministers when we had them before us, but we kept it five minutes for ordinary witnesses.

Mr. Bob Mills: No, I think it's the reverse. So that you would get more questions to the minister, I think you've gone to five minutes, and when we had other witnesses, it has been 10 minutes.

The Chairman: Okay. We can live with 10 minutes.

But I'll tell you the problem we had, and this is from the members on the Liberal side. If I use the practice of going down the opposition, with four opposition parties it's 40 minutes before you get to anybody from the other side. So what I tried to do after a while was I adopted the practice of the defence committee, which was to go to two opposition, then one Liberal, then two opposition, then one Liberal, and then back and forth. So maybe we could use that practice again. With the 10-minute thing, if you just get a block of 40 minutes—

Mr. Bob Mills: In the fisheries committee they do alternate between the opposition and the government.

The Chairman: Right from the beginning.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: That's a good one.

Mr. Bob Mills: That's not the issue. The issue is the 10 minutes. You could look at the practice of the fisheries committee.

The Chairman: Yes, sure.

Mr. Ted McWhinney: If there is a 10-minute rule, could you, Mr. Chairman, since you have an excellent grace in these matters, apply the 10 minutes precisely? I do find that in many committees 10 minutes becomes 17 minutes. Somebody thinks of an additional question. So do you think we could even have a large clock with alarm bells ringing?

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

The Chairman: It's not quite like the Supreme Court of the United States where a trap door actually opens and all the lawyers fall through.

But we got quite good. We try to keep it to the 10 minutes. But we'll certainly move back and forth. It's 10 minutes.

Mr. Bernard Patry: Mr. Chair, are we going to alternate, as Mr. Mills just mentioned? We'll go to the Reform, then the Liberals, then the Bloc, then the Liberals, if we give the 10 minutes. If we have a one-hour meeting, we're going to end up with just one Liberal member asking questions.

The Chairman: No. Mr. Mills suggested we look at the fisheries committee's formula, and Mr. Bachand is objecting because he's always at the end. So he has a reason for it.

Mr. Bernard Patry: We're after Mr. Bachand.

The Chairman: No, but to be fair, I remember from the last committee that Mr. Bachand quite often got the end of the questioning. However, that's why I propose—and I'm going to try this, and this is very much at the discretion of the chair and we can revisit it. I'm going to try doing what the defence committee does, which is not quite the fisheries committee and not what we did at the beginning, which is to go two opposition, then one Liberal, then two opposition, then one Liberal. That way it won't be quite as...because if we go back and forth every time.... Then we'll go back and forth. We'll go two, one, two, one, and then back and forth. I think that's a nice balance.

• 0945

[Translation]

Mr. André Bachand: Mr. Chairman, the system previously in place reflected considerable open-mindedness on the part of the government party toward the opposition and it worked very well. Our proceedings always ran smoothly when we allotted speaking time to the four opposition parties and to the government party. I see no point in amending this formula. Again, the opposition parties would come out on the losing end. Ours was the only committee to operate in this fashion and I don't believe we encountered any problems whatsoever.

I disagree with Mr. Mills. In the past, Mr. Chairman, you allotted five minutes, not ten, to each opposition party, before recognizing the government party. Then you continued with this rotation.

The Chairman: As I recall, I allotted you five minutes as a general rule, and ten minutes when the minister testified.

Mr. André Bachand: If we were to agree to this for the first round of questions, would the same hold for the second round?

The Chairman: No, I would allot members only five minutes.

Mr. André Bachand: Then the last two opposition parties would also come out on the losing end of this arrangement.

The Chairman: I'm prepared to allot five minutes during the second round.

Mr. André Bachand: On a rotating basis?

The Chairman: Yes.

Mr. André Bachand: Why not go with the previous system where parties had five minutes? That seemed to work very well.

The Chairman: While you may think it did, government party members raised numerous objections. I recall that on two or three occasions, toward the end of our proceedings, I adopted the very same system as the Standing Committee on National Defence.

Mr. André Bachand: Mr. Chairman, on several occasions, you requested our permission to make slight changes to the way we did business, and opposition parties never raised the slightest objections. However, we did come up with a way of protecting minority party members.

Should we go with ten minutes, or limit it to five minutes? If we go with ten minutes, the government party may not necessarily be pleased about using up 40 minutes. Nor, understandably, will the opposition parties, of which ours is one, be pleased about having to wait 40 minutes. I prefer the old system where parties were allotted five minutes, rather than ten.

The Chairman: Mr. Bachand would like us to reconsider this item. Who is in favour of allotting parties ten minutes?

[English]

Those in favour of 10 minutes for the first round and five minutes for the second.... Let's just start with that, and then we'll worry about the alternatives.

Those in favour of five minutes. It looks as though five minutes is.... We'll leave it the way it is.

Madame Lalonde.

[Translation]

Ms. Francine Lalonde (Mercier, BQ): I would prefer to see the four opposition parties allotted five minutes, followed by time for the Liberal members. We're talking about an equal amount of time, since 10 minutes times two equals 20 minutes. Then the committee could hear from a government member. If four opposition party members were each allotted five minutes, followed by Liberal members, in terms of time, everyone would have an equal opportunity to speak.

[English]

Mr. Bob Mills: On the fisheries committee, as you probably know, the official opposition goes 10, the Bloc goes five, then the Liberals go 10, and then it rotates five, back and forth like that.

[Translation]

Ms. Francine Lalonde: That doesn't work, though. I don't think it works with the Fisheries Committee.

[English]

The Chairman: We've never operated like that. I don't see, Mr. Mills, why one party would get more than another. I think in this committee we've always worked with the same amount of time each. I would be more comfortable if we all had the same time. It's a question of whether we alternate back halfway through or not.

We'll keep our traditional system of going down to the opposition, but if the Liberal members feel their voices are not getting through properly, I think in the interests of making the committee work.... You can't ask people to just sit there for an hour with never a right to do anything. We'll have to revisit it if it doesn't work. I agree, 20 minutes is not that bad, if we keep it at 20 minutes.

• 0950

Mr. Patry.

Mr. Bernard Patry: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think your resolution is very well drafted. The way we were working last year we had five minutes for the opposition, then we went to the ministerial party, then to the Reform, the Liberals, the Bloc, the Liberals, and that's it, it was fair. It was agreeable. It has worked very well in the past few years, and I think that's what your resolution states. I think it's fair. Just keep that resolution.

The Chairman: My practice was, though, as you'll recall.... If I could go to ministers, when we had ministers before the committee, because they're only here for an hour and a half, I thought it was 10 minutes. If we do 10 minutes for ministers, I'm going to try the business of two opposition, then one Liberal, then two opposition. They're only there for an hour and a half, and to make everybody sit there for 40 minutes is crazy. It just won't work. On the 10-minute rule, I'll alternate halfway through, but on the five-minute rule, we'll go all the way down.

Mr. Bob Mills: We should also advise the ministers that they have 10 minutes, because we do have one ministers who goes for three-quarters of an hour. I would too if I were the minister, so there can't be any questions.

Ms. Colleen Beaumier (Brampton West—Mississauga, Lib.): I think when they do go on it could save a lot of questions if people were listening to what the minister was saying. They wouldn't ask and re-ask the question.

Mr. Bob Mills: If he answers in writing, we'll read it and then we can ask our questions.

The Chairman: Agreed?

(Motion agreed to)

The Chairman: Number five is witness expenses. It's the normal motion.

(Motion agreed to)

The Chairman: Working luncheons. This is called the sandwich motion.

(Motion agreed to)

Ms. Jean Augustine (Etobicoke—Lakeshore, Lib.): No sandwiches.

The Chairman: Radishes and celery for Madame Lalonde and Madame Augustine and sandwiches for the rest.

Visiting delegations. For new members to the committee, what we've always done is.... We do get a fair number of visiting delegations who request as a courtesy that we see them, and we feel it's our obligation. Sometimes we learn a great deal from these visits, sometimes not, but it's a part of the committee's role. We can't all be here all the time—it's just too time-consuming—so we break ourselves into two. We call ourselves the A and the B groups. That way we know. The other advantage is that for high-level delegations, if we have a prime minister or a foreign minister, we sometimes join with the Senate committee. That way we can make sure there are enough members in the room. If we could adopt this too, that would be helpful.

(Motion agreed to)

The Chairman: The next two resolutions relate to our two subcommittees. Human rights and international development is the first one. It's the usual resolution. Any comments?

(Motion agreed to)

The Chairman: And the subcommittee on international trade, trade disputes and investment.

(Motion agreed to)

The Chairman: Number 10 is to bring the evidence from the last session.... Normally because of the prorogation we have to adopt a special resolution to bring that evidence in.

(Motion agreed to)

The Chairman: Let me now speak to that, since it's perhaps appropriate. You will all get the draft report of the subcommittee on the free trade agreement of the Americas on your desks today. As you probably know, there is a meeting of the ministers of international trade in Toronto in the first week of November. There are recommendations in that report that would be helpful for Mr. Pettigrew to have in his hands—am I correct, Mr. Speller?—before the ministerial meeting, particularly those that deal with civil society.

• 0955

So what I propose is that we meet on Tuesday, the subcommittee on international trade and the full committee. You appreciate that if we wanted to get this through in the normal procedure, it would go through the subcommittee and they would discuss it and adopt it, and then it would come up to us and we would discuss it and adopt it. But if we all meet together, we can get the whole thing through at once.

What I would suggest is that the members send to the meeting whoever from their trade committee is interested in the issue. Everybody doesn't have to be here, but the whole committee will have to adopt it. So I propose that we have both the subcommittee and the main committee adopt the report at the same time.

I'm going to propose that on Tuesday we meet to deal with that report, and I hope we can get through it expeditiously. I don't believe there are a great deal of controversial things in it.

Mr. Speller may want to speak to it. Unfortunately the chair of the subcommittee, Madam Bulte, is sick today, so she can't be here.

Is there anything you wanted to speak to on that report?

Mr. Bob Speller: No. I just want to thank the researcher who, over the break, put it all together and came forward with a report very similar to the WTO report we had, but dealing with the FTAA.

We'll be able to discuss it. I can't see much that's controversial in it. We should be able to get it out of the way next week.

The Chairman: Okay, very good then.

[Translation]

Ms. Debien.

Ms. Maud Debien (Laval East, BQ): Will we be receiving a copy of this report today?

The Chairman: Yes, in both French and English.

Ms. Francine Lalonde: Is our next meeting scheduled for Tuesday morning?

The Chairman: Yes, at 9:30 a.m.

The next motion seeks authorization for the committee to purchase gifts. We host foreign delegations fairly often and present them with small gifts. Is everyone in agreement with this motion?

(Motion agreed to)

The Chairman: Item 12 concerns notices of motion.

Ms. Lalonde.

Ms. Francine Lalonde: Mr. Chairman, would it be possible to require 24 hours' notice as a general rule? It's very likely that a number of urgent matters will be brought to the committee's attention and I think 24 hours would give all parties enough time to prepare themselves properly. If we agree on 48 hours' notice, we might miss the boat altogether and decisions might be made before the committee has time to consider matters. I think 24 hours is an acceptable compromise, one that gives the government party enough time to prepare itself and the opposition parties the opportunity to intervene in a timely manner.

[English]

Mr. Bob Mills: We'd accept that motion.

[Translation]

The Chairman: The clerk has informed me that the purpose of requiring 48 hours' notice was not necessarily to give members time to prepare, but rather to allow enough time to arrange a meeting, send out notices of meeting to committee members and so forth. It's more a question of logistics. That's why the motion stipulates that this rule will be observed provided there is the unanimous consent of all parties. If we wanted to, we could convene a meeting in ten minutes' time. We want to avoid holding meetings in the absence of, for example, Mr. Robinson or another opposition or government member. MPs from the four opposition parties are the ones who benefit most from having 48 hours' notice because it's rather difficult to guarantee that a representative of each of these parties will be on hand for a meeting. It's difficult to get members together for a meeting on Mondays and Fridays. However, if we have 48 hours' notice, then anything is possible.

Ms. Debien.

Ms. Maud Debien: Mr. Chairman, we're dealing with two different things. This delay applies to notices of motion, whereas Ms. Lalonde is referring to an entirely different matter. It is my understanding that when a member tables a motion, we will have 48 hours to convene the committee in order to consider that motion.

• 1000

Ms. Lalonde was alluding to an emergency situation resulting from a disaster somewhere in the world, a situation where we would have to meet as a committee and take a stand or issue an opinion. That's when, as Ms. Lalonde is suggesting, the committee should be required to meet within 24 hours' notice, not 48. We're talking about two different things. A notice of motion is a routine motion, part of the committee's normal operating procedures. We would like Ms. Lalonde's motion to be adopted and to be included in our report, with the understanding that it would apply only in emergency situations.

The Chairman: You're proposing that we amend the motion by adding “except in emergency situations, where 24 hours' notice would be sufficient”.

Ms. Maud Debien: That's one possible way of wording it.

The Chairman: Perhaps we should move a separate motion.

Ms. Maud Debien: I believe that's what we did...

The Chairman: I'm sorry.

[English]

Mr. Morrison.

Mr. Lee Morrison (Cypress Hills—Grasslands, Lib.): You run into a problem when you talk about emergencies, because then you're going to get into a big fight defining emergencies.

The Chairman: Yes; who defines it?

Mr. Lee Morrison: I think 48 hours does tend to be a bit obstructive. I would support Madam Lalonde's suggestion of 24 hours. I think it's a reasonable compromise between zero and 48.

[Translation]

Mr. Bernard Patry: Must these 24 hours correspond to a working day? Would it be possible to table a notice of motion on a Saturday? Does this provision apply only to those days on which the House is sitting?

The Chairman: This provision applies to motions moved by committee members. If you want the committee to consider your motion on Tuesday, then you should give notice by Saturday at the latest. The motion now under consideration would allow a member to give notice of motion on Tuesday morning at 9:30 a.m. and the committee to consider the motion on Tuesday morning. I don't see a problem with that.

Are there any further comments? Twenty-four hours' notice would give us ample time to notify all committee members and to avoid possible pitfalls.

[English]

As long as we have 24 hours' notice, nobody's going to get sandbagged.

In emergency cases, as you know, we can always do what we want to do if all parties agree. If somebody says this is an emergency and everyone agrees it's an emergency, we can do it right away. There's never any problem with that.

Then could we have a meeting of the steering committee on Tuesday afternoon? It will be Deepak. I guess I'll check with Deepak and see.

[Translation]

No doubt you're also a member, Ms. Lalonde.

[English]

We'll consider what we're going to do.

Mr. Ted McWhinney: There's only the one meeting this week then?

The Chairman: We'll see whether we get through that report.

Members, I'd like to welcome Mr. McWhinney back to the committee. I was going to welcome Mr. Mifflin and Madam Marleau. It's nice to have two ministers here to give extra weight to our committee.

Mr. Ted McWhinney: Watch your words.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

The Chairman: We'd better be careful of what we say here.

We certainly welcome Madam Lalonde, who will be a great addition, I know, and Monsieur Marceau. Mr. Obhrai is a familiar member of the committee; he'll be back. Mr. Mills is still with us. This is good.

All members, thank you very much for once again electing me chair, and I look forward to the meeting on Tuesday.

We're adjourned.