THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Thursday, May 2, 2019
The Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, to which was referred Bill C-85, An Act to amend the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act and to make related amendments to other Acts, met this day at 10:30 a.m. to give clause-by-clause consideration to the bill; and, in camera, to study foreign relations and international trade generally — topic: situation in Venezuela (consideration of a draft report).
Senator A. Raynell Andreychuk (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Honourable senators, we are meeting today to continue our examination of Bill C-85, An Act to amend the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act and to make related amendments to other Acts.
Before I turn to our witnesses, I will ask senators to introduce themselves.
Senator Greene: Stephen Greene, Nova Scotia.
[Translation]
Senator Housakos: Leo Housakos from Quebec.
Senator Massicotte: Paul Massicotte from Quebec.
[English]
Senator Coyle: Mary Coyle, Nova Scotia.
Senator Bovey: Patricia Bovey, Manitoba.
Senator Dean: Tony Dean, Ontario.
Senator Boehm: Peter Boehm, Ontario.
The Chair: And I’m Raynell Andreychuk, from Saskatchewan.
Welcome to the committee. We have before us Mr. Alex Neve, Secretary General of Amnesty International Canada. He often comes often to our committee, and we welcome him back again. You understand our process, and we appreciate your input on many bills and subject matters that we have here.
Accompanying Mr. Neve today is Mr. Michael Lynk, Associate Professor of the Faculty of Law, Western University, and Ms. Sara AvMatt, from the Canadian Friends Service Committee of Quakers. Welcome to the committee.
The floor is yours. I presume you’ve figured out how you’re going to proceed in your allotted time. It’s Mr. Lynk that is going to start? Thank you.
Michael Lynk, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Western University, as an individual: To the Honourable Senator Andreychuk and to all the honourable members of the committee, thank you for your invitation to the three of us to be able to appear before the committee to give our views with respect to Bill C-85.
As the chair mentioned, my name is Michael Lynk. I am an Associate Professor of Law at Western University in London, Ontario. Since May of 2016, I have served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory, occupied since 1967.
As an aside before we go on, this is the first time I have visited this historic building. I should tell you each fall I spend several weeks in my constitutional law class informing and educating first-year law students on constitutional law, particularly with respect to the creation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the role this particular building played in those complex negotiations.
I also want to acknowledge several other organizations, some of whom are here today as observers, who are in support with respect to our views on Bill C-85, and these organizations include the United Church of Canada, the Mennonite Central Committee, Independent Jewish Voices and KAIROS.
From our respective vantage point, Bill C-85, the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, has a number of commendable features, including chapters in the agreement on gender, corporate responsibility, labour rights and environmental protection. However, we have two very serious concerns with this legislation.
First, the revised CIFTA provides no human rights provision that would commit both parties to upholding all contemporary standards of human rights and humanitarian law. This is particularly pertinent given the long-standing record of systemic human rights violations during Israel’s almost 52-year-old occupation of the Palestinian territory. Canada is no stranger to negotiating human rights provisions in its free trade agreements. Indeed, Canada’s 2008 free trade agreement with Colombia contains just such an admirable human rights provision. As well, the 2000 Association Agreement between the European Union and Israel contains a human rights agreement, which the EU uses to monitor the deteriorating human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territory.
Our second concern goes to the present language of the revised CIFTA, which continues to extend all of the benefits of the free trade agreement to the illegally annexed East Jerusalem and to the 240 or so illegal Israeli settlements and the industrial parks, farms and other enterprises in the occupied West Bank. Allowing the benefits of the agreement to extend to the settlements is contrary, first of all, to international law; second, to Canadian law; third, to stated Canadian foreign policy; and fourth, to the recent directions of all UN members set forth by the UN Security Council and the UN Human Rights Council to distinguish between Israel and its occupation of the Palestinian territory.
How can Canada say it regards the Israeli settlements as illegal under international law, which it does, and how can Canada say it believes in a rules-based international order, which it does, and yet sign a new free trade agreement with Israel that extends all of the benefits of the agreement to the Israeli settlements that are at the heart of the human rights violations in the occupied territory? To rectify this, all Canada would have to say is that the CIFTA only applies to Israel’s recognized pre-1967 international borders, which would put us on the right side of international law and Canadian law.
Thank you.
Alex Neve, Secretary General, Amnesty International Canada: Thank you very much for this opportunity to be before you, senators. I’d like to begin by noting what a humbling honour it is to be sharing these human rights concerns with you as we gather in unceded Algonquin territory.
I’m not before you today because Amnesty International has a position in favour of or in opposition to Canada having a free trade agreement with Israel, just as we take no position on Canada entering into a free trade deal with any country. I am here because we do insist that Canada’s trading relationship with any country, including Israel — be that through a bilateral deal, a multilateral arrangement or any other agreement — be entirely consistent with our international legal obligations, particularly those laid out in international human rights law and international humanitarian law.
That is why Amnesty has repeatedly, for many years, urged the Canadian government to adopt a policy ensuring that all trade deals with any country will be subject to an independent, comprehensive human rights impact assessment before the agreement is concluded and at occasional regular intervals thereafter. However, other than a deeply flawed and inadequate human rights review process attached to the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, no such human rights assessments are carried out, and no such assessments have been carried out with respect to the Canada-Israel agreement.
If such an assessment were to be conducted, it would readily illustrate a very serious human rights problem with this agreement, namely, that extending the scope of the deal to trade originating in illegal Israeli settlements within the occupied Palestinian territory amounts to benefiting from and facilitating violations of both international humanitarian law and international human rights law. That is why Amnesty International urgently calls on this committee to amend Bill C-85 such that it does not apply to any goods or services that are produced, in whole or in part, in the unlawful Israeli settlements, industrial parks, farms or other enterprises located in the OPT.
As you have heard from Special Rapporteur Lynk, the core concern is that Israeli settlements in the OPT are illegal under international humanitarian law, namely, the provisions of the Fourth Geneva convention forbidding an occupying power from transferring its own population into territory that it occupies. Israel’s policy of doing so expansively over the course of nearly 52 years of occupation amounts to war crimes. The Canadian government itself recognizes that those Israeli settlements in the OPT are unlawful.
But it’s not just a legal question. The human rights impact of more than a half-century of illegal settlements has been devastating, documented over and over in numerous Amnesty International reports. That has included the forcible displacement and transfer of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians from their homes and lands, the demolition of over 50,000 Palestinian homes and structures, and the appropriation of at least 100,000 hectares of Palestinian land for settlement use. Palestinians face massive restrictions on their freedom of movement, including as a result of “settler only” roads that divide their towns and villages. They are further subject to restricted access to and use of natural resources such as water, fertile land, stone quarries and minerals. All of that has resulted in extensive violations of a range of essential rights, including rights to an adequate standard of living, work, housing, health and education.
Illegal settlements are set up and maintained in a wider context whereby Israeli forces have imposed various forms of collective punishment on the Palestinian population, and grave human rights abuses associated with the hundreds of military checkpoints throughout the OPT have become commonplace. Amnesty International reports and urgent actions are replete with accounts of death and injuries of Palestinian civilians in the OPT, with little accountability by the Israeli military and police, and the regular detention of Palestinian children — all of which occurs against this backdrop of occupation and illegal settlements.
Senators, Amnesty International takes the step of calling for trade, investment or economic sanctions or boycotts in our human rights work only in rare and exceptional circumstances. We have done so in this situation. In 2017, as the Palestinian people marked 50 years of war crimes and human rights violations associated with the occupation, we took the very serious step of saying that it was time to ban the import of all goods and services produced in the illegal Israeli settlements, noting that this had become an essential means for putting an end to multimillion-dollar profits that have fuelled the expansion of the settlements and allowed grave human rights violations for decades.
All governments, including Canada, have a clear international obligation to ensure respect for international humanitarian and human rights law. They must take measures to ensure that they do not assist in any manner the continuation of breaches of international law that are inherent to illegal settlements. In fact, governments, including Canada, should be using all possible influence and means open to them to stop such violations.
That is why Amnesty International has called on the government to impose a ban on imports. That has not happened. At a minimum, however, it is certainly incumbent upon the Canadian government to ensure that these illegal settlements do not in any way benefit from the beneficial provisions of this free trade agreement. That is why the two amendments we have proposed are so essential.
Thank you.
Sara AvMatt, Canadian Friends Service Committee (Quakers): Thank you very much for your attention and for offering me this opportunity to speak. I never expected to find myself speaking in the Senate, but I do believe there are many other ordinary Canadians, like me, who believe that when international trade is being considered, human rights must also be considered.
In the fall of 2010, I participated in the World Council of Church’s Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel and saw for myself how the settlements, which are illegal under international law, are a source of human rights violations and an impediment to peace.
I would like to share one example. Our team heard that demolitions were taking place. One of the villages involved was Jiftlik in the Jordan Valley. Jiftlik is a herding community located between a main road and a parallel road that serves the settlement. On the day I visited with other accompaniment team members, we were told that soldiers had arrived at 6 a.m. the day before and bulldozed two of the people’s homes and three livestock shelters. I saw dead baby goats half-buried in the rubble. The soldiers had refused to give the people enough time to get the animals out.
The village had received demolition notices about two years previously and had entered into a process in Israeli civil court to appeal them. The case was ongoing, and the court had ordered a stay on the demolitions. The people attempted to show their court documents with the stay of demolition to the soldier in command, but he refused to look at them and ordered the bulldozers to go ahead. When the bulldozer was finished, he turned to the village representative and said, “Now you can have your court process.”
The most likely reason for the demolitions in Jiftlik? The settlement had recently expanded their vineyards across the road and planted grapevines on village land next to the animal shelters. Perhaps the irony will not be lost on you when I remind you that there is currently a case in Canadian courts regarding wine from the Jordan Valley settlements that is being sold in Canada under the label “product of Israel.”
I wish I could tell you that this is an isolated incident, but sadly that is far from the case. If time permitted, I could give you more examples, but I will close by sincerely asking you to recommend that Bill C-85 not go forward without including human rights and excluding goods produced in the settlements.
The Chair: Thank you. That’s the presentation on behalf of your group, I may say.
Senator Massicotte: Thank you to all three of you for being with us today. I think your message is clear and understood. We have a pretty good understanding of why you have that opinion, because it’s logical and generic to the world opinion in many respects.
Yesterday we asked the minister why we were treating the issue differently than, say, the European situation. I hope you got a copy of the transcript. Can I get your response to how the minister explained their action and reasoning and what your thoughts are on that?
Mr. Lynk: My understanding is that the essence of the position of Minister Carr and of Global Affairs is that the free trade agreement included a recognition of a customs union that had been signed in 1994 through the Paris Protocol between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization. That customs union, argues Israel and Canada, allows the expansive borders of Israel to include the West Bank and East Jerusalem, including the Israeli settlements.
I think that is a mistaken interpretation of the customs union. If you look at the Paris Protocol customs union of 1994, the purpose of that signing between Israel and the PLO was to extend benefits to allow the Palestinian economy to grow in the hope that it would wind up being the economic base of a sovereign Palestinian state.
If you look at the Paris Protocol, there is only one mention of settlements, and that mention only goes to the fact that Israel agrees that it would deduct income taxes from Palestinians working in the settlements and remit that money to the Palestinian Authority. There is no other basis in the customs union of the Paris Protocol to say that the benefits of the customs union were meant to extend to Israeli settlements or to allow Israel to expand the definition of its borders or the scope of its sovereignty to include settlements in any free trade agreement. I think the premise of the free trade agreement, the premise of Minister Carr, is mistaken on that basis.
That is further enforced by what all three of us said, which is that the settlements are illegal under international law, under Canadian law, under the Geneva Conventions Act of 1957 and under the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act of 2000. They are against Canadian policy, and they’re against the recent directions by the United Nations Security Council and the United Nations Human Rights Council. I can cite them to you, because I think these are important for us to understand.
In December 2016, the United Nations Security Council adopted, by a vote of 14 in favour and one abstention — the United States — Resolution 2334, and it says in paragraph 5:
Calls upon all States, bearing in mind paragraph 1 of this resolution, —
— which goes to the illegality of the Israeli settlements —
— to distinguish, in their relevant dealings, between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967;
And in 2018, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 7398, which:
Calls upon all States and international organizations to continue to actively pursue policies that ensure respect for their obligations under international law with regard to all illegal Israeli practices and measures in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, particularly Israeli settlement activities;
So it’s very hard for me to square — I think it’s hard for all of us here to square — Canadian policy defending the use of the customs union to extend the benefits of our free trade agreement to the Israeli settlements in light of not only the laws I’ve mentioned but international diplomatic policy.
Senator Massicotte: Help me out a little bit. We had the minister. The minister was sincere in his response. We’ve had multiple governments adopt a similar position, and multiple ministers. I have to suspect our bureaucrats are pretty sharp in Canada, and I have to suspect they understand and are aware of your argument and the references you make. Why is it, in spite of all that, that Canada, multiple governments for many years, has taken a different approach for probably what they think is the right decision for Canada? Help me out there.
Mr. Neve: Obviously, I think that’s a profoundly important question, senator, and the answer to it is beyond our capabilities. We would say that it is reflective more widely of many ways in which there have often been contradictions in Canadian policy with respect to Israel/Palestine where, as Professor Lynk has highlighted, we have clear Canadian recognition that the settlements are illegal, for instance, but in a whole host of other ways, failure to strongly support resolutions and decisions, sometimes within various aspects of the UN system, an example here of a failure in our trade policy to ensure there’s coherence between recognizing that illegality and then putting in place the concrete measures that will give it force and effect.
There clearly are others who press the Canadian government to adopt policies such as what lies behind the free trade agreement, and sadly — this is not exceptional — there are far too many times when a clear commitment to what international law unequivocally requires is given sort of second-class standing, I guess, over other political and economic considerations. We’re here to urge that that no longer continue.
Mr. Lynk: If I can quickly add to Mr. Neve’s answer, law has changed and our understanding of how business and human rights interact has changed profoundly over the last 10 years, largely led by the United Nations and its new policies on business and human rights. This has created a whole new ethos in considering how to use human rights audits of business transactions and, particularly, free trade agreements.
In the last decade, we’ve seen a heightened awareness of the fact that laws with respect to, in our case, illegal Israeli settlements and the adverse role they play in bringing peace to the Middle East and ensuring Palestinian self-determination are playing a detrimental role. That’s why we’ve seen more emphasis by human rights groups and more awareness by governments with respect to this.
Certainly in my travels in Europe and in my role as Special Rapporteur, I often speak to governments there, and they have a much richer appreciation of the relationship between Israeli settlements and the detriments to Palestinian self-determination and the detriments to Palestinian human rights, and they are much more advanced than Canada is with respect to trying to ensure that their policies towards Israel and the occupied territory are in line with modern international law. We are, I regret to say, among the laggards when it comes to this.
The Chair: Could I follow up? We’ve talked about the Paris Protocol. My kind analyst here has refreshed my memory that Israel and PLO signed the protocol and put it in effect in September 1995. Canada then went in 1999 — and we heard this testimony earlier from the department officials, not from the minister per se — and there was a Joint Canadian-Palestinian Framework for Economic Cooperation and Trade Between Canada and the Palestine Liberation Organization on Behalf of the Palestinian Authority. According to the agreement, it confirms the application of preferential tariffs and any future concessions under CIFTA to goods produced in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. I don’t have time to get the rest of the testimony that we heard from the officials. That, I understand, is in place, and so the preferential tariffs for the Palestinian Authority will continue.
Yesterday, the minister wasn’t asked particularly about that agreement, but he said when he was touring that he was certainly brought, from the Palestinian people, the issues that you’ve raised here and the department raised previously, but that no one objected to the free trade agreement being modernized.
I’m wondering what weight you put on this framework and the preferential tariffs. Does that factor into your submission? Does that change it, or you don’t think it has much effect?
Mr. Lynk: The framework agreement that was signed between the PLO and Canada back in 1999 was designed to improve the bilateral trade relationship between Canada and Palestine. I must admit I think it’s a very small trading relationship that winds up occurring. The Palestinians have a very small, very dependent economy; 80 per cent of their trade is with Israel, and it’s a huge trade deficit they have with Israel. So it’s a small amount of goods that wind up coming into Canada.
Whatever benefit Palestinians receive from that framework agreement is more than negated by the fact that we trade and allow the benefits of our free trade agreement to go to the Israeli settlements, which are exceptionally detrimental to the Palestinian economy. They wind up distorting the economy.
The Israeli settlements occupy an area of 60 per cent of the West Bank, which means that the Palestinians are confined to an area of about 165 little islands of disconnected territory in the West Bank, in the so-called areas A and B, and it’s extremely hard to have freedom of movement of people and movement of goods.
As James Wolfensohn, the former executive director of the World Bank, said when he was the Quartet representative in the late 1990s in the Middle East, without freedom of movement and goods, there is no economy. That is an apt description of what occurs with the Palestinians.
The Chair: So you’re saying that we should have cancelled that agreement and put in place a different framework for the PLO?
Mr. Lynk: No. I’m sorry if I’ve been confusing to you. I think that agreement is good. It needs to be built upon.
I think what I’m saying is that no modern, liberal, progressive free trade agreement between Canada and the Palestinians, be it the PLO or the Palestinian National Authority, will do much to revive the Palestinian economy unless and until the occupation has ended, the settlements are removed in their entirety, and Palestine has its own land base and economic base to be able to thrive and grow and create productive relationships with the rest of the world. Any agreement we have with the Palestinians with respect to trade will have minuscule effect on the Palestinians and their state-building aspirations until the occupation has ended.
Mr. Neve: I was going to say something very similar. None of us, I think, are urging that the agreement with the PLO needs to be cancelled. I would echo Special Rapporteur Lynk’s suggestion that perhaps there are ways in which it too could be improved and strengthened. But the existence of that agreement does not in any way diminish or negate our very serious concerns about Bill C-85.
Mr. Lynk: If I could add one last point with respect to something you mentioned Minister Carr spoke to yesterday, I believe he said — and I did look quickly through the testimony from yesterday — that this issue was never raised to him by any of the Palestinians in his visits to the area.
I am in regular contact with both Israeli and Palestinian NGOs and human rights defenders, whose emphasis and focus is on the occupation and trying to end it. It would be, I would think, the unanimous view of all the Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups that any encouragement given to the continued growth and expansion of the settlements through an economic agreement like CIFTA is detrimental to finding a genuine two-state solution and peace in the Middle East.
I’m not sure who Minister Carr met, but I’m sure if he had met with some of these Palestinian and Israeli human rights groups, they would have informed him very strongly of their position with respect to the Israeli settlements and their view that there should be an absolute prohibition on trade with them.
The Chair: I think he said that many issues were raised with him on all the issues of concern that you’ve placed on the table, and I don’t think we needed to go further on that. The question that was put to him — and I think, Senator Massicotte, you put it to him; I may be wrong — was this: Was the free trade agreement and the fact that we were signing it, as we are now, brought to him in any form? And he said no, it had not. Many other critical issues, particularly human rights issues and settlement issues, were brought to his attention. That’s what I got out of his testimony, for what it’s worth. What I understood him to say is that no one, not officials nor others — but certainly he did hear about the other issues that you put on the table.
Mr. Neve: If I could add one final point on this particular issue, I referred in my testimony to the fact that it is very exceptional for Amnesty to have taken a position with any country calling for a ban on imports in the ways we have. We apply a number of criteria before we make that decision, one of which is to assure ourselves that there is wide support for that position at the grassroots, from local human rights organizations, et cetera. That’s not with respect to Bill C-85 in particular, but that’s actually with respect to the much more serious move of calling for all trade from the illegal settlements to any country to be banned and prohibited, and there we have sensed nothing but widespread support.
The Chair: Mr. Neve, you and I have wrestled human rights issues for decades. I should say that about myself, not about you; you look much younger and more fit than I do.
I want to be sure that I understand your position. You want the human rights aspects in the agreement, whether it is about settlements or other issues that have been documented. If Bill C-85 doesn’t go forward, then we would be in a position of continuing the existing agreement and/or cancelling the framework agreement. So what is your position should the bill pass? We know your position, that you don’t wish it to go. But should it not pass, are you suggesting that the existing free trade agreement continue? I’ve heard Mr. Lynk say we would continue the framework agreement, that it could be there and could be built upon. Mr. Neve, is your position that you cancel the framework agreement and the existing agreement, or are your comments only to the new Bill C-85, if I’m making myself clear? Those are the conundrums that I think the government, quite rightly, struggles with and that we, as parliamentarians, struggle with.
Mr. Neve: I’ll only speak for Amnesty International, cognizant that others may have slightly different responses to the legitimate conundrum, as you’ve framed it. To be clear, Amnesty is not saying that Bill C-85 should be defeated. We’re urging that it be amended to take account of these two specific recommendations: one, that there be a strong human rights provision introduced into the legislation; and, two, that there be an amendment to make it clear that Canada is not going to apply CIFTA to goods or services originating from illegal settlements. That’s what we’re looking for here.
Yes, we recognize that that will pose a dilemma for the government, and it may even require going back to the Israeli government and renewing some round of the negotiations. That may mean that the process of finalizing CIFTA itself is not as rapid as all would like. We would say that when such serious human rights considerations and breaches of humanitarian law are on the table, then, if it’s going to take longer, if it’s going to become more complicated, so be it.
The Chair: I see no other questioners. I think Senator Massicotte and I have taken the essence of the questions that we needed to put to you, and I think you came well prepared to make your case known.
On behalf of the committee, I thank you for coming forward and raising these very serious issues of human rights and the dilemma of the settlements and your perspectives on Bill C-85. I’m glad, Mr. Neve, that you clarified that you’re not against the agreement per se; you want it amended to add to it. I appreciate that clarification. That’s helpful. On behalf of the committee, I thank all three of you.
I hope your first experience, Ms. AvMatt, was not too onerous on you and that you had a chance to come forward, as has been pointed out, in a historic building that has just started to operate. We trust you will come back. I have followed for many years the Quaker movement in human rights, and you are always there on so many issues. We appreciate that.
We appreciate the expertise of Mr. Lynk.
As always, Mr. Neve, thank you for bringing Amnesty’s perspectives to our table. They are ones that we take very seriously.
The committee will now go in camera.
(The committee continued in camera.)
(The committee resumed in public.)
The Chair: Honourable senators, we are resuming the meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade to complete our examination of Bill C-85, An Act to amend the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act and to make related amendments to other Acts.
The committee has heard from Minister of International Trade Diversification, government officials and witnesses, and it would now be at the stage where it could go through the bill clause by clause.
Senators, is it agreed that the committee proceed to clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-85?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Agreed. I see no one against.
Before we begin, I would like to make members aware that we have government officials, who have just arrived on time, from Global Affairs in the room should members have any technical questions to raise as we go through the bill clause by clause.
If at any point a senator is not clear where we are in the process, please ask for clarification. I want to ensure that at all times we have the same understanding of where we are in the process.
In terms of the mechanics of the process, I wish to remind senators that when more than one amendment is proposed to be moved in a clause, amendments should be proposed in the order of the lines of a clause.
If a senator is opposed to an entire clause, I would remind you that in committee, the proper process is not to move a motion to delete the entire clause but, rather, to vote against the clause as standing as part of the bill.
I would also remind senators that some amendments that are moved may have consequential effects on other parts of the bill. It would be useful to this process if a senator moving an amendment identified to the committee other clauses in this bill where this amendment could have an effect. Otherwise, it would be very difficult for members of the committee to remain consistent in their decision-making. Even reading it, it is difficult, so we really do need that coordination.
If committee members ever have any questions about the process or about the propriety of anything occurring, they can certainly raise a point of order. As chair, I will listen to the argument, decide when there has been sufficient discussion of a matter or order and make a ruling. The committee is the ultimate master of its business within the bounds established by the Senate, and a ruling can be appealed to the full committee by asking whether the ruling shall be sustained.
As chair, I will do my utmost to ensure that all senators wishing to speak have the opportunity to do so. For this, however, I will depend on your cooperation, and I ask all of you to consider other senators and keep remarks to the point and as brief as possible.
Finally, I wish to remind honourable senators that if there is ever any uncertainty as to the results of a voice vote or a show of hands, the most effective route is to request a roll call vote which, obviously, provides unambiguous results. Senators are aware that any tied vote negates the motion in question.
Are there any questions? I should say that I received no indication of amendments from any members, which I would have brought to your attention. I have received none. Are there any questions, or can we now proceed? Agreed to proceed?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Agreed.
Is it agreed that the committee proceed to clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-85, An Act to amend the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, and to make related amendments to other Acts?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall the title stand postponed?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall clause 1 carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall clause 2 carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Agreed. Shall clause 3 carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Agreed. Shall clause 4 carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall clause 5 carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall clause 6 carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall clause 7 carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall clause 8 carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall clause 9 carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall clause 10 carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall clause 11 carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall clause 12 carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall the schedule carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall the title carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Shall the bill carry?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Does the committee wish to consider appending observations to the report?
Hon. Senators: No.
The Chair: Is it agreed that I report this bill to the Senate?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Senators, we will leave it to our fine clerk to prepare the report and the bill for reporting to the Senate as soon as it can be done. Of course, we look to this afternoon, if possible, and if there is some difficulty, then, of course, we’ll look to the next following date.
(The committee adjourned.)