Foreign Affairs Committee on June 20th, 2006

[Pierre Racicot]

I would like to comment, since I went to Haiti on a mission. I had an opportunity to discuss the situation there with Quebec police officers.

The situation is this: they are grappling on a daily basis with not a peace-keeping, but a peace making situation. All they have is a small kevlar vest and a handgun. They are not armed to deal with bandits who shoot at them with Kalashnikovs. They must therefore call upon MINUSTAH when they encounter a blockade where there are people with rather heavy weapons.

A police officer told me about situations where he and his fellow officers had to wait two to four hours, lying behind their truck. He told me that if the Haitians had really wanted to take him out, they could have done so. They had simply decided that it was not in their interest to kill him at that time. The fact remains that shots were being fired around him for three hours.

I have heard on several occasions that MINUSTAH, a complex United Nations organization involving several nationalities, is very slow to react, thus placing police officers in a military role for which they are neither trained nor equipped.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Are you not under the impression that you're caught in a vicious circle?

I have become aware of some remarks on the subject of a decade of difficult partnerships. I imagine that my colleagues have done the same. The issue is Canadian cooperation with Haiti. The Canadian International Development Agency has worked on this. I was flabbergasted to discover the "disappointing results" of Canadian assistance to Haiti over many years. These are the terms that were used. An assessment was done and apparently, of 450 projects, almost none worked, for all kinds of reasons.

There is currently a Canadian military presence in Haiti. We are also part of a kind of organization that should ensure or maintain the peace, or bring it about. But you are telling us that there is none. There are armed gangs but there is no security. It may not be the entire population, but the fact remains that this small group does whatever it wants.

I cannot understand why organizations like your own do not sound the alarm with all these wonderful people who testified here and who came to talk to us about all of the huge efforts being made, asking us to renew their mandates. If those are the results, we will not renew them. All that costs money.

[Michel Chaurette]

I would like to make a few quick comments, if I may.

I was in Brasilia with a Haitian delegation. We were meeting with the Brazilian heads of the MINUSTAH of the time. I will share two comments with you. First of all, the Haitian civilian organizations unanimously stated that they needed this intervention, but that the MINUSTAH did not intervene. We have therefore done important work in pressuring MINUSTAH to act. The Brazilians responded that they had a vision for the role of MINUSTAH according to which they had to further development and security at the same time. Unfortunately, the international community did not respect its financial commitments, particularly in the area of development. They therefore stated that their hands were tied. They said they were waiting and did not wish to act only in the area of security.

I can testify that the international community, having committed to reviewing its aid mechanisms in Washington, in order to deliver assistance rapidly to Haiti, was not successful on the ground. The major international banks, amongst others, were not successful in delivering assistance to Haiti quickly.

Canada was the most effective, in other words the most rapid, in delivering assistance.

That is one of the explanations. The other is the will to act differently, but that did not work. We did not want to push people, but Haitians were waiting for such action. That is the message we are here to send, and it is not the CECI's message; it is the message of civil society stating that this action needs to be taken.

[Thérèse Bouchard]

I would just like to clarify one thing: when we criticize MINUSTAH, we know that there are several stakeholders involved, and we are not singling out the Canadians. I think that is very important. The Canadians are professionals, whereas some of the others are not prepared to accomplish this task and are not really properly trained in their fields.

I think therefore that one must differentiate between the Canadians who report back to you and the overall picture.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Madame Bouchard.

Mr. Goldring.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Madame Bouchard, you're identifying security as being the major impediment to moving forward in Haiti. From our meetings there, this has been suggested and confirmed to us, from the lawlessness in the Port au Prince area, the red zone, to police commenting that yes, they're there as advisers, but they're not there with authority to do the policing.

With that in mind, if MINUSTAH is perceived to be a problem, is somebody else or another authority directing MINUSTAH? Are they holding it back, or is it right within the command structure of MINUSTAH itself?

[Thérèse Bouchard]

I am not a specialist as regards military forces. As Mr. Chaurette said, I don't believe that Haitians want MINUSTAH. However, we want it to be effective.

Is it an issue of the terms of reference, the interpretation of that mandate, of political will or of ability? I am not in a position to do the required analysis. However, if we consider the size of the forces and the investment they are asking for, we can say that the results we might have expected have not been achieved.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

So when we look at the interim cooperation framework report, about the projected plans in Haiti that were to be completed over the years leading up to and including September 2006, what percentage have been completed? How many failures to perform are there in here? Would you have any?

You were a member of the group that put this together—the name of your association is in here, among the 50 or so organizations. Would you have some idea of what the failure to complete the projects would be in there? Is it because of the lack of security, or is it because of the organization of the various groups?

[Thérèse Bouchard]

I will pass the....

[Pierre Racicot]

Maybe I can comment on this one, because last fall I was evaluating some projects in Haiti in another capacity.

The first reason we see partial failure is because people are seeing a result in too short a term. Trying to help a community, to empower them, is not something that is going to happen in a five-year span. You can make some progress if you keep going at it, but given the way we measure results in a situation like Haiti, in my opinion, it is very difficult to show positive results in the relatively short term. We've always had this difficulty. The poorer the country and the more complex the crisis, the more truth there is to what I just said.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

When you're speaking about 20,000 improved houses, you're speaking about rehabilitating 43 universities and 2,700 schools, somebody had to come up with those numbers. I would think it would be a fixed number, which could be moved relatively forward over the period of time that this was. Are you suggesting that other factors are impacting why they didn't move forward?

[Pierre Racicot]

I believe that the way you asked the question, it should be asked of CIDA, because we're in no position to give you an answer to that.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

The project you mentioned about part-time jobs, which you've been creating, is one that you've been.... How many man-hours or man-days—I'm not sure how they classify them here—of jobs have you been able to produce?

[Michel Chaurette]

I can't answer that precisely.

In the agricultural area, the Department of Agriculture had prepared 60 projects for Haiti under the Interim Cooperation Framework. Two years later, it had been unable to implement a single one. It is just beginning to do so now.

Significant progress has been accomplished with these programs this year. The results, in terms of job creation and investment, are starting to be felt. But during the first two years—and that was the projected length of the project—very few initiatives were undertaken. The delays are therefore what is causing a problem.

In order for the stated objectives to be reached, it is clear that the duration of the Interim Cooperation Framework must be extended. I do not have detailed statistics in hand, but based on the experience of the Department of Agriculture, I would say that less than 10 per cent of the objectives have been achieved.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

For how long?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Yes, for how long would you think they should be extended? If for two years you have 60 projects and there's no fruit from the labour, then how long would you wait?

[Michel Chaurette]

When the NGOs analyzed the ICF with a view to the Washington consultations two years ago, the conclusion was that we were discussing a 10-year plan, or more that the international community and the government wanted to achieve in 18 months. More than 18 months were required only to mobilize the resources.

We are of the opinion that this plan, which is supposed to be an interim plan, is in fact a long-term development plan. It will take at least 10 to 15 years before results will be achieved. This was the generally held impression, of the civilian organizations.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

How would those numbers be put together then? And how would that look if it were to be a comparable proposal to this? Somebody had to put these numbers together as to expectations. In here there are 335,000 man-months of temporary jobs, and what you're saying is that you can't tell us how many man-hours of jobs your organization has created. Yet the entire basis for these reports seems to be in very hard numbers, and I would think somebody had a plan on how they were going to be proceeding with it. What happened to the plan?

[Thérèse Bouchard]

When we say that we cannot specify the number of hours, it is just that we do not have that information in hand today. This does go back in time to some extent. The fact is we could provide this to you.

I will give you an example. I do not want to generalize, but this example speaks volumes.

One month ago, when I was in Haiti, a bridge was undergoing repairs. Part of the work had been done, but the process was endless. This bridge spanned a river. The repairs to the left side of the bridge were completed, whereas those on the right side were not. For some time, the cars and other vehicles had had to cross one at a time. The farmers were so exasperated by this situation that they broke—

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

But these are normal scenarios with any construction project. As somebody who has been in the Amazon, you would be aware of that.

[Thérèse Bouchard]

Yes, but the people just broke the good part of it. That's not the usual way to....

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

I have one final question. What would you describe as the will that would be holding back the security or the projects that are under way, which might themselves be held back by security?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

You'll have to sum it up, Mr. Goldring. You're over your time.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Would you say that the will is from the government itself, or is it within the MINUSTAH?

[Pierre Racicot]

The answer to your question is incredibly complex.

Beginning the implementation of a project is a very long process in Haiti, because the government of that country is not very effective. This is part of development. When after 18 months, something seem on the verge of starting up, a new political crisis arises and everything grinds to a halt.

For this reason, the projects that have the best chance of standing the test of time in my opinion are those that call on the cooperation of Canada or another country's civil society and Haitian civil society. In that way, it is unnecessary to go through all of the levels of government.

That is a simplistic answer, but in reality, when you are working with the Haitian government, it is a very long and difficult process.