Senator McPhedran: On this theme of clarification and your interpretation, it’s my understanding from our correspondence that when I wrote back and set out a scenario whereby if I accepted your offer, which I did very much appreciate, that it would be under the current rules because we had not yet voted. So could you explain, please, the conditions you set on your offer of membership?

Hon. Marilou McPhedran: Will you take a question, Senator Housakos?

Senator McPhedran: Thank you very much. I want to go back to something I referenced in my speech last evening, and thank you very much for your communication when you acknowledged that you had listened to my speech. You then will recall I referenced a Speaker’s ruling on rule 12-5. I won’t go into all of the detail, but there is one very specific statement I’m going to ask you to interpret, based on the position you have taken about group ownership of the individual member’s position. It says that if a senator withdraws from a caucus, rule 12-5 would cease to apply. The senator would retain any then current committee membership, unless removed either through a report of the Committee of Selection or a substantive motion adopted by the Senate.

Senator McPhedran: First of all, I’m loving this discussion tonight. I’m also in awe of how you managed to deflect the questions with your erudite answers. However, I’m going to see if we can stay focused.

In some ways my question ties in with the reference that Senator Woo made. Under the current set of rules, if I were to be given a committee seat and then I was to change my affiliation or my non-affiliation, I would get to keep that seat for the session, correct?

With the Selection Committee report, if it’s voted on and accepted, anybody who changes affiliation or for any reason their group is in need of some corrections — shall we say — their position can be yanked from them under the proposed report. Is that correct? Thank you.

Hon. Marilou McPhedran: Would you take a question, Senator Woo?

Hon. Marilou McPhedran: Honourable senators, my question is to the Government Representative in the Senate, Senator Gold. I want to ask a follow-up question to the previous reference I made to young women athletes. October 15 was actually an excellent day for Canada. That was the day when we saw 200 girls from an Afghan school flown into Canada and resettled here in record time. Would that it be the standard we are seeing most of the time, but it is not.

My question is about whether the Government of Canada, and in particular Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada and Minister Sean Fraser, could advise through a question from you whether they are conducting gender-based analysis on the evacuation and resettlement of Afghans coming to Canada. The anecdotal evidence would suggest that — even though we have a feminist foreign policy and we have the previous minister Marco Mendicino making a very strong set of statements promising that women at extreme risk would be in a priority area — our numbers relative to other countries are, in fact, low. If you would, seek clarification on this, please.