Foreign Affairs Committee on Nov. 28th, 2006

[The Acting Chair, Liberal, Bryon Wilfert]

You have maybe thirty seconds.

[Michael Small]

The thing I would want to underscore is that contributions toward restoring peace and security can be of direct interest to the poor.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Absolutely, and where there are direct interests, they'd be included in the ODA definition.

[Michael Small]

I don't see a contradiction between the two.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you.

Mr. Casey, please—and just as a reminder, the second round is a five-minute round.

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

Thanks very much for coming. There's certainly some interesting debate here.

You mentioned a number of issues that were covered with ODA funding. Some of them were mine awareness and mine action issues; corrections; witness protection; and stuff like that. When Canada signed the treaty on land mines—we were very active and led that issue—did ODA money go into the development of that treaty and the implementation of it?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

In terms of negotiation of the treaty, no, not to my knowledge. However, certainly in the very large amount of programming that has been allocated since the treaty came into effect in 1997, a large percentage of that is considered development assistance. It has been by other countries as well. For instance, under the most recent round of the OECD definitions, they've included land mine clearance as an ODA activity. Certainly, right from the beginning, land mine victim rehabilitation was considered ODA activity. So, yes, we've spent development assistance.

An important point that I should bring out applies to quite a bit of the peace and security programming. The calculation of how much of that we report as ODA often happens at the end of the fiscal year, after you've undertaken a project. You start from what the needs are and, in a particular situation, what your capability to respond is. You provide the kind of assistance that's required, such as, let's say, police training. Then, at the end of the year or overall project, you go back and look through your expenditures and determine how much of them fall within the agreed upon criteria and can be reported to the development assistance committee. In that respect, that's why we end up with different percentages—and I can give you some of those percentages, depending on the activity.

The peace and security kinds of activities start off as having that as a goal. Some of those activities contribute to poverty alleviation directly and some of them fall outside the ODA definitions completely, and they're reported after the fact. That would be true of the land mine activities, although over time they have increasingly become considered to be ODA.

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

Does not ODA money go into a border issue with Palestine and Israel to deal with alleviating the pressure there? Do we not invest money there?

[Michael Small]

I should point out that this was expended in the last fiscal year before the most recent elections in Palestine. That was in a period in 2005 when Canada was working very hard with the Palestinian Authority and with Israel on improving security and management of the borders and border security in that region.

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

Exactly how did that money get spent? Was that spent on poverty or human rights, or was that a practical application of funds to manage the borders?

[Michael Small]

That particular example was a project for about $25,000 that was managed by the Canada Border Services Agency in cooperation with the Palestinian Authority. It was disbursed under the human security program of the Department of Foreign Affairs, and it came as a result of a mission that a number of departments of the day led to the Middle East to see how Canada could contribute to the Middle East peace process through various kinds of assistance. CBSA found that managing borders, making more secure borders, was one area in which assistance from Canada was asked for by partners and we were able to respond.

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

What I'm driving at here is that I would agree we need a little broader definition of how to use the ODA money, because, both in land mines and this example, they wouldn't qualify under the definition in the bill as it is now, and perhaps we could loosen it up some.

[Alain Tellier]

Once again, and I apologize, maybe this is too focused on the actual text. Because of the way the text actually reads, if you broaden the definition of development assistance, what you do is you have a broader range of activities covered by the bill that are then subject to the test in clause 4, which may not be a bad thing. Once again, my reading currently is that if it fails to meet the test, then there is a difficulty in carrying out the activity because it is covered by the bill.

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

So the definition and the test in clause 4 would both have to be changed to widen the scope.

[Alain Tellier]

They have to be looked at together, I would say.

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

Thanks very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Casey.

There have to be ways that we can keep poverty reduction as the main thrust of it, but not negate some of those other very good programs by saying, oh, they don't fit the criteria. There has to be some way in this act to include some of these but still keep focused on poverty reduction.

Mr. Wilfert, I believe.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for coming, Mr. Small.

In the United Kingdom's aid agency, DFID, poverty reduction has been the primary focus of their development assistance since 2002. The agency, in my understanding, has legislation that is very similar to ours. Can you provide the committee with any evidence that with respect to the United Kingdom's membership in multilateral groups, organizations, contributors have been affected or jeopardized as a result of the U.K. law? Has the law in any way affected contributions?

[Michael Small]

I'm not as familiar with the U.K. law as my colleagues from CIDA, who I believe were giving some evidence to you last week and followed up. I can certainly say that from my own knowledge of multilateral organizations, the U.K., including DFID, remains actually a leader in doing innovative programming in a lot of the areas that I've been speaking about. They do that even within the way their legislation is currently drafted. So you may wish this committee, if you haven't already, to look carefully at that. It has some differences from the act that is currently before this committee. I don't have the two bills in front of me, so I'm not able to make a comparison, but I can tell you how the U.K. acts. It is certainly a trendsetter, as is DFID on its own, certainly in peace and security programming. My Department of Foreign Affairs has collaborated specifically with the U.K.

I'll give you an example from personal experience. About six years ago, we worked with them as a primary partner in developing a training module for gender awareness for peacekeeping operations. We chose DFID to be the partner for that, and it brought along its Ministry of Defence, and actually that module has since been rolled out and is now core curriculum in all UN peacekeeping operations.

They are people that many countries look to. I think that's squaring the circle. As a matter of policy, as I alluded to before, like our own aid agency, they absolutely make poverty reduction an overarching focus of their goals, but that does not inhibit them from being able to pursue quite a few of the other sorts of objectives that I've been describing and that Canada also does in the examples I gave.

The reason I really put these examples forward was in the spirit of discussion to give committee members, if you hadn't previously had a chance, to get a sense of the range of activities and objectives that--in this case I'm speaking from Foreign Affairs, which is engaged in it and involves ODA--can be pursued at the same time by programming that's considered official development assistance under the current arrangements.

[Alain Tellier]

If I might just answer in thirty seconds, I'm not very familiar either with the U.K. act, but my understanding is that it refers specifically to the Secretary of State for International Development spending, which means that other spending, such as contributions to multilateral organizations, once again, I would expect to fall under the portfolio of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. It would thus not be covered by that specific piece of legislation.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Okay. Having enunciated the four areas you raised and heard in response to Mr. McKay, as the author of the legislation, would you say now that the issues you've raised are more ones of execution than of substantive concern?

[Michael Small]

The issues I've raised are issues that I think the committee will want to take into account when you review the final wording of your bill. As committee members, you want to weigh up what kinds of activities you'd like to see Canada pursuing internationally and how they are reported by ministers directly to Parliament, which is the intent of the act. Some of the points I've raised have already been agreed to by a number of the committee members and clearly are not contentious.

After all, the act, as I understand it, largely focuses on reporting and on clarity and accountability rather than on delivery, but in reporting, that also relates back to how Parliament relates to the government of the day. That's where I see those considerations coming into play.

So the wording that is chosen in definitions and key terms in the act will clearly have an impact on how ministers choose to report programs and how they explain the connection to poverty, to democracy, to environmental sustainability, and to any other issues that are considered important by the committee and that become part of the final act.

May I just cite a fact, because it was asked earlier by Mr. McKay, about percentages? There is a certain percentage of Canada's international assistance that falls completely outside of the definition of ODA. Last year, that amounted to roughly $227 million out of approximately $3.8 billion. So it's not a large amount, but it's a tangible amount. And there are certain programs, in particular the program for decommissioning of various weapons systems in the former Soviet Union, which is managed by the Department of Foreign Affairs and which is an important G-8 commitment, that fall completely outside the ODA definition. There are other things as well.

You can work out the percentages. It's not 20%. It's probably more on the order of about 9%.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Small.

Just in conclusion, is it just about receiving credit? Is it all about that we want to get credit? If we're going to give money to it, we want to get credit. Is that what it's all about? Or is there anything else, internationally? Maybe I shouldn't word the question.... Is it about getting credit back home for reaching this 0.7 % goal, or is there anything else on the international field that benefits Canada by being able to include this type of development aid as ODA?

[Michael Small]

I think it's first about wanting to make sure that Canada continues to have flexible foreign policy instruments, and aid is unquestionably one of the central ones that responds to various challenges that we see around the world in failed and failing states and in states that are poor and needing development. Then, second, it's about being clear that those instruments have to function coherently and will serve a variety of purposes, and those purposes are often mixed together and can be accomplished at the same time. Third, and that's the objective of the act, as I understand it, is about enabling ministers to account to Parliament, clearly, as to how those moneys serve a variety of purposes.

It's a matter of the act being drafted in such a way that ministers can report, in a straightforward fashion, how public money is being spent and to which of a variety of different foreign policy ends and objectives, much of which is counted as official development assistance as presently defined internationally.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much, Mr. Small and Mr. Tellier, for your presentations today.

We will suspend for a very short period of time. Committee, don't leave. Don't run around. We're going to get going with the Department of Finance.

Thank you.