Foreign Affairs Committee on Aug. 1st, 2006

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Let me pick up on a similar theme. The....

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Order, please.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

I'll start again, Mr. Chair, and pick up on a similar theme.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Could we have order, please?

Mr. Van Loan, you have ten minutes.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

I was hoping to divide my time with Mr. Obhrai and, if possible, Mr. Casey. I had him in mind.

I wanted to start by saying that the feedback I've been getting from constituents is that Canadians are pretty proud of what Canada was able to achieve with this evacuation. It is seen by them as very much a success story. More than 13,000 people were evacuated without mishap, and that kind of evacuation is a pretty remarkable achievement.

It resonates a lot with me, because I have a personal family story. My family were refugees from Estonia, and there was no government there to help them when they had to evacuate by the Baltic Sea. They had to pull together their own resources with another family and literally buy a shipping company, consisting of a ship and crew, to get out. They were on rough seas and they were seasick, but they were pleased and delighted to have been able to escape and enjoy freedom, and ultimately the freedom that Canada had to offer. When I contrast that kind of situation with the tremendous support Canada has given to its nationals, I understand why Canadians are so proud.

To underline the success, I want to pick up on what the chair said about the capacity we had and the strength of our operation, the help we were actually able to give to other countries because we had enough capacity to do it and our plans were strong enough.

Could you could tell us more about what Canada did for other countries?

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Central Nova, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Van Loan. I acknowledge what you've said.

In the early goings, there were other countries, because of their proximity, their assets—mainly ships and helicopters already in the region—and larger embassy staffs who were able to commence evacuations perhaps 24 hours or 48 hours sooner. We were literally faced with the challenge of securing assets—the equipment, plain and simple—to evacuate people, and that challenge was immediately acute because of the disabling of the Beirut airport.

As you know, this entire operation—and I know we will get to the issue of cost—was done entirely at the expense of the Canadian government, that is to say, of the Canadian taxpayers. There has been no charge, nor any attempt to seek reimbursement from evacuees. Taking people out of harm's way was the right thing to do to, and I believe there is a spirit of generosity running through this country that will affirm that.

As you indicated, I spoke to many of the evacuees and to many whose family members were affected, as you have. Certainly over the past number of weeks we've received hundreds of e-mails expressing gratitude to Canada and, in particular, to the efforts of Canadian public servants who helped in the evacuation. We've also had a number of e-mails from foreign nationals, evacuees from other countries who were taken out of Beirut by Canadian ships, who were attended to by Canadian volunteers or Canadian government employees who helped them.

I don't want to take up a lot of time, but there was one woman I spoke to in Charlottetown who was an evacuee. She told of the difficult circumstances, of the heat and how uncomfortable it was making that crossing, and they had to wait. Upon landing in Larnaca, they were allowed to take only the possessions they could carry. This was a war zone, and those people were facing very trying circumstances; there was a lot of emotion involved. Many people were fearing for their very lives and those of their loved ones.

I can understand the frustration they felt. I can appreciate the immediacy with which they felt they had to leave Beirut, and the gut-wrenching decision it must have been to have to leave behind other family members in some cases, as well as pets and possessions. It was a difficult, life-altering decision, to say the least.

For many, that crossing was harrowing. But this woman told me something else. She said she's been going back to Beirut for many years and made that crossing many times. She said many of those crossings in the last 20 years were similarly harrowing, because of the weather, the water, or the boat itself.

We went with the best available boats we could get, we secured them as quickly as possible, and we moved on with an action plan that eventually evacuated over 13,000 Canadians. That was a remarkable effort, and this evacuation was a success, in my view.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Minister.

Mr. Obhrai.

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Calgary East, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Minister.

I want to address the question that the opposition member, Mr. McTeague, just asked: “Where were you?”

Let me tell you, we don't go on television like you do, running this country, when the crisis is there--

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

On a point of order, Mr. Chair--

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Calgary East, AB]

Mr. Chairman, I want to make it very clear where the minister was. The minister was with me in my riding, talking—

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

A point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Mr. McTeague, on a point of order.

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Mr. Chairman, I think you will find that my questions are not only in order, but unlike Mr. Obhrai, who has part of the position of handling consular affairs, neither he nor the minister were in fact there for the first four days.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

That's not a point of order, Mr. McTeague.

Continue, Mr. Obhrai.

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Calgary East, AB]

Mr. Chair, I have 5,000 Lebanese in my riding who are extremely concerned. When this crisis took place, they had family members there and they wanted to talk. The minister took time out in Calgary to come to meet with members of the Muslim and Lebanese communities to assure them about what Canada was doing for them. For them, that was very important.

These are Canadians. That is where he was, with me, totally engaged with the people, and that is how the government should run. We cannot ignore our own diaspora out here who were affected by this, and I want to thank the minister for taking time on such short notice to come to talk and assure these Canadians that the Government of Canada was there.

So I would like to thank the minister again.

I will now ask the minister how much engagement he has done—we have done—with the local Lebanese who are here and concerned for their loved ones.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Mr. Minister.

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Central Nova, NS]

I thank Mr. Obhrai for the question.

I know that he, and not just during the period in which this crisis has occurred, has met repeatedly with representatives of not only the Lebanese and Arab community, and the Muslim community, but many groups across the country on behalf of the government and on behalf of his own interest in international affairs. I thank him for that.

As far as the necessity to communicate with other groups that were affected is concerned, families in particular who had loved ones displaced or involved in the evacuation, it was an ongoing and in some cases overwhelming task. As I mentioned, there were over 35,000 calls that were coming in. The initial operation, which was receiving calls in Beirut, had to reroute calls to Ottawa because of the sheer volume. With 32 staff in the embassy, it was impossible to field those calls.

There was initially a wait, as you might expect, because of the backup of calls, but when that rerouting started happening in Ottawa, we started bringing more people into the call centre, and the wait times dropped to five minutes within days.

As far as communicating directly with the families and with those inside Lebanon is concerned, that was the priority. Getting information directly to them about how they could make their way in the most efficient and expeditious way to Beirut, to the port, for evacuation purposes, that was the priority. I don't apologize for putting the emphasis on getting people out of the country. Communicating with them directly was the best way that we could do that. We used every available means to do it: phones, the Internet, and the warden system of individual volunteers.

You, as well, were involved in setting up a number of meetings that I've had during this period of time in your own constituency. In Ontario, Mr. Casey set up a similar meeting here in Ottawa with representatives who wanted to come and speak about their concerns. I met yesterday in Charlottetown with another group of citizens, some of whom had returned from Lebanon. And we will continue to do this. This exercise is not complete. That's why the input of you members of this committee, and you, Mr. Chair, is very helpful.

Will there be lessons learned from this? Certainly. We did the best we could in the circumstances we were in.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Minister.

Mr. Casey, you have about a minute, so please proceed very quickly if you have a comment.

[Bill Casey, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

A minute--

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

On a point or order, I think the record has to be cleared here, certainly given the testimony that we just heard. If I'm not mistaken, the minister was actually at the stampede in Calgary. I don't know how, and considering what Mr. Obhrai has just--

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

That's not a point of order, Mr. McTeague.

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Mr. Chair, on a point of order, if it's possible for him to speak to Mr. Obhrai's constituents, why could the minister not speak to the nation? That's the critical point here that we're trying--

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

All right, Mr. McTeague--

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Calgary East, AB]

On a point of order.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Another point of order. Mr. Obhrai, let's leave it alone, and we're going to go to Mr. Casey.