Foreign Affairs Committee on March 27th, 2007

[Josée Verner, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

These are laudable objectives, but we must also ensure that the aid we provide is effective.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Madam Minister.

Mr. Obhrai, you can ask a very quick question, and then Mr. Wilfert has a quick question.

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Calgary East, AB]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Minister, for coming today.

One question that everybody has in their mind concerns this important symbol of government authority, the Afghanistan police. We keep hearing about a lot of concerns with the Afghanistan police and the lack of confidence by the Afghan people in the police services of Afghanistan. I know that CIDA has done a lot of work in that area to assist the Afghanistan police. Perhaps you would like to elaborate on our assistance in that area.

[Josée Verner, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you for your question.

You are referring to the Law and Order Trust Fund for Afghanistan, through which money will be provided to train Afghan police officers. That program is the responsibility of my colleague, Peter Mackay, the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Of course, the aim is to provide training to both the armed forces as well as the police in Afghanistan, in order to provide for the safety of the Afghan people.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you.

Mr. Wilfert, you can have a very quick question.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Chairman, given the minimal number of CIDA staff that you have in Kandahar province, where do you get these reports from in terms of your evaluations or benchmarks? Do they come directly from CIDA personnel? Do they come from the Canadian military? Do they come from the Afghan government? How can you be assured that what you are hearing is in fact actually happening, given so few personnel? I don't think you have increased it since I was there a year ago.

[Josée Verner, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

CIDA staff within the PRT have a number of ways to report to their CIDA superiors. I have had numerous opportunities to speak with them, either by telephone or upon their return to Canada. The information comes from them, from the Afghan government which provides us with figures relating to their achievements, from United Nations organizations, for example, which provide us with information on what is being done in Afghanistan, and from our partners, including Rights and Democracy, which conducts strict audits of the achievements in Afghanistan.

That also applies to the assessment that we have made of the micro-credit program. As I said in my opening remarks, this has allowed us to determine that 10,000 Afghan citizens were helped through the MISFA program.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Madam Minister.

We have time for just a very quick little question, the final question of this morning, Mr. Owen.

[Stephen Owen, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Thank you.

This will be a very general question, Minister. Thank you for being here.

Absolutely foundational to the concept of development is the health of people and the health infrastructure of people, whatever their age may be. We know the Canadian health districts and jurisdictions across this country are encouraging health professionals from underdeveloped countries to come and work in Canada. Does CIDA see any responsibility for itself to compensate for that loss of very necessary personnel and expertise in those countries by, for instance, funding health infrastructure, funding medical scholarship, doing something to put back what we are drawing away from those countries that need that assistance much more than we do?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Owen.

Madam Minister.

[Josée Verner, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

I would remind you of what I said earlier. When the Prime Minister travelled to the G8 Summit last July, he announced that $450 million would be provided for health care in Africa, over a 10-year period. One could assume that this money will help developing countries, particularly in Africa, to deal with health related issues. This will, of course, strengthen their health systems.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much, Madam Minister, for being here today. We recognize that health-wise you're doing this when you're battling a real cold and the flu, but we appreciate your being here and answering the tough questions on CIDA. And we appreciate also the hope you've given and shared with us that the people of Afghanistan are experiencing--renewed hope in great part because of the work that we have achieved during our stay there.

Thank you for being here. We will take a very short recess, and we will come back for the second hour of our committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

I call this meeting back to order. We're still waiting for our next witness for the second hour. He has a PowerPoint presentation, so I know he's planning to be here. However, perhaps with the committee's indulgence, we could move to committee business for a very short period of time.

You have been given a witness list. We have been asked to cut back the number of witnesses on Afghanistan to a short list of those we would invite to come.

Mr. Obhrai.

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Calgary East, AB]

During the steering committee meeting, when I was talking to you, we said that we had presented about 38 witnesses, and I said we would bring it down to a manageable number, which we have done. We have now submitted a new list of only 15 witnesses.

However, what I would like to say is, looking at the list of what has been submitted by all the parties, it's quite extensive. Then I go down the list that has been proposed by the library. I don't think, going through that list, that it's of any value to us. For example, ambassadors to Canada from Afghanistan, from Iran, from Pakistan, and all these--I don't think those would be appropriate to call.

So I would say that the list that was submitted by the parties does cover an extremely broad base and would be sufficient to have a comprehensive view on Afghanistan and to create a report. So I think that would be fine, from our point of view.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

We commend all parties for working on that list.

Does anyone here have anything on that issue? Is the updated version of the Afghanistan list all right then? It still gives us 30 names to invite. This is mainly so that our table can begin the invitations. We have to have support in order to allow our table the opportunity to work through our break weeks so that when we come back in April there'll be some meetings lined up.

Do we have a consensus here that they can go ahead with that witness list? All right, it is agreed.

Seeing our witness, Pierre Beaudet, Doctor of Sociology from the University of Ottawa, hasn't shown up here yet, we'll go on.

There was a bit of a discussion at the end of the last committee business in regards to our draft report. I'm going to ask that we go in camera very briefly to talk very quickly about that report. I have talked to our researcher and asked him to answer some of the concerns that Madam McDonough had at the beginning of the report. Maybe we'll just suspend for one minute so that we can go in camera.

Madam McDonough, is this in regards to the report?

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

I just want to ask a procedural question. If our witness doesn't appear, can we go back into committee session and go from in camera to public in order to discuss some other matters?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Are they matters on committee business?

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Yes. We're sort of wasting our time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

What did you have in mind?

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Honestly, I'm not trying to be provocative here, but this committee passed a motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Okay. Yes, I think we can come back in. I anticipate he's going to be here. He has the presentation here. He's in Ottawa, and his PowerPoint presentation is here, so I anticipate he's going to be here. I think we can come back if he doesn't show up.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Okay. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

We'll suspend for one minute.

Proceedings continue in camera