Foreign Affairs Committee on Jan. 31st, 2008

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Mr. McGovern.

[Peter McGovern, Director General, Bilateral Commercial Relations, Asia and Americas, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade]

In the particular case you mentioned, the company put this operation up for sale in a third party trust further to pressure from the government. This operation is for sale in Burma and the conflict does not arise from this investment in Burma.

[Vivian Barbot, Bloc, Papineau, QC]

All right.

Do I still have time?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Madame Barbot, you still have three minutes.

[Vivian Barbot, Bloc, Papineau, QC]

My other question concerns the report to which the government responded, which was presented by the committee in December. In the wake of this report, should Canada not, as did Norway, Denmark and the United States, demonstrate its interest in, and support for, the government in exile, that is, the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, and the committee representing the People’s Parliament? Would that not be a way for Canada to express its support directly?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Mr. Mank.

[Randolph Mank]

Canada maintains relations with states, not with governments. So it is rather difficult to recognize the government in exile. We nevertheless have discussions from time to time to check whether the actions of the Government of Canada are consistent with the hopes of the democratic movement in Burma.

[Vivian Barbot, Bloc, Papineau, QC]

With these exchanges, does Canada wish to show clearly that it has a certain sympathy for the people? For instance, it conferred citizenship on Aung San Suu Kyi. Is that such a gesture?

[Randolph Mank]

Obviously Canada greatly supports the democratic movement in Burma.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Madam Barbot.

We'll go to Mr. Obhrai, and the government may split its time.

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Calgary East, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll split my time with my two colleagues.

Thank you very much for coming here.

I just want to make a little statement for my colleagues on the other side. During the recent visit that the Minister of Foreign Affairs and I took to India, we raised this matter with the Indian foreign minister during our bilateral visit and asked for India's help in putting influence around this thing. So the matter was raised at the highest level with the Indian government. I won't say what the response was, but suffice it to say that we did put pressure on them. That's the piece of information I want you to know about. We are engaged in international diplomacy on this issue.

I'll hand it over to my colleague, Peter.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Mr. Goldring.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Mank, in your statement you had mentioned, of course, the more recent economic measures that have been brought to bear. At the same time, you also mentioned the earlier measures in 1997. Could you explain what some of the material differences would be between the two? What triggered or what initiated the first measures? If there were some differences in the two related measures, was there not some point in between where some of the other measures might have been initiated too? What triggers them at what different levels?

[Randolph Mank]

That's a very good question. I can say that the first set of measures, taken as a package, were largely a result of the actions of the government in Burma, the massive crackdown on peaceful protests in Burma in 1988. The Canadian government had always been concerned about things that were happening in Burma, but that historical event, where the security forces were shooting indiscriminately into crowds and killing people, led us then to start to look at what we could do. That's why that list of things that I mentioned to you was developed. It takes a bit of time to assess a situation and design the appropriate response, and that's what was felt to be appropriate at that time. It was actually putting Canada in front to some extent in showing the international community what should be done.

What we have now moved to here, in this case, is the reaction to yet another egregious violation of the human rights of the people of Burma. We felt that in this case we had reached a trigger point where they were endangering regional peace and security. I could ask my colleague, Mr. Hannaford, to explain that a little more deeply if you're interested, but essentially we felt it was time to take it up to another level, again in part because of the sanctions themselves and the effect they would have, but also in part to lead the international community to give it some sort of encouragement that we should all continue to put as much pressure as we possibly could.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

If you could, please, keep in mind that the other further extension to this would be at what point in time would you decide to remove your diplomatic relations, cut off your diplomatic ties, because it seems to me that would be an additional step. And are there any steps between what you've instituted now and that ultimate and what is being considered now?

[Randolph Mank]

There are lots of potential steps, but it's always a decision for the political level as to what next measures one wants to take.

We have found having diplomatic relations is useful for the dialogue, and we are a country that is trying to encourage a dialogue internally there. So that's an avenue that hasn't been cut off at this point because of its utility to us essentially.

But I'll let Mr. Hannaford say a bit more about that.

[John F. G. Hannaford]

Sure.

Thank you very much, Mr. Goldring, Mr. Chairman.

Without doing an exhaustive review of the regulations, suffice it to say that the earlier measures that were taken were under a range of different instruments, including the Export and Import Permits Act and those related to the movement of goods.

What has happened most recently is action has been taken pursuant to the Special Economic Measures Act, which was instituted in order to allow for more targeted sanctions in certain instances, and among those are situations that either are an international crisis or threaten to be an international crisis. So that's the triggering mechanism in this context. That was determined to be the case by the Governor in Council. Certain actions were taken, then--pursuant to the SEMA--in order to address the situation in Burma, and those include an export and an import ban, effectively.

The export ban is conditioned by the movement of humanitarian goods by fairly broad measures: an assets freeze; a ban on the transfer of technical data, which is a defined term that includes things like blueprints and other sorts of value-added goods; there are bans on investment, which we discussed earlier; a prohibition on provision of financial services; and then measures relating to both shipping and to the movement of airlines.

A lot of those measures do go beyond what was simply available in our other mechanisms. These are specific measures envisaged by SEMA that were taken as a result of their specific allowance under SEMA.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you. You do have more time but not much.

Mr. Kramp, perhaps you are willing to get a question in.

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

I have half a dozen, but we'll play it by ear as we go along.

Mr. Bagnell made an interesting statement where he mentioned the figure of $2 million, potentially, budgeted right now, to add to the hopes of the Burmese people. Quite frankly, regardless of whether there is $2 million or $200 million, do we have a vehicle by which we are able to offer assistance in a country that is really not that stable?

Could you comment on the stability and on our capacity to deliver assistance regardless of the dollar amount?

[Randolph Mank]

Yes. We don't have a bilateral development assistance program with Burma. That was cut off. That was one of the measures we took to express our displeasure with the way things were going some time ago.

The question of how to support the democracy movement is a very delicate one, because anything you do in public or talk about in public imperils these people, who are already in danger, even more. So one has to be extremely careful.

As I said earlier, it is clear where Canada's sympathies are, and in general, we of course want to support the pro-democracy movement.

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

I just wanted--

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

When we come back on the second round, Mr. Kramp, we will give you the first shot.

Mr. Dewar, please.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I want to thank our guests for being here today.

I want to pick up on SEMA. SEMA is a tool we have. It came into place, I believe, in 1992. We've used it in cases like Haiti and the former Yugoslavia, and in this case, in Burma.

I'll just pose the question and then we can decide who should answer it.

We could use SEMA to cover previous investments. What I see here now is a prohibition on new investment. Am I correct in saying that SEMA could be used to go after existing investments before the date it came into force most recently?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Mr. Hannaford.

[John F. G. Hannaford]

Thanks, Mr. Chair and Mr. Dewar.

We're a little limited on what we comment on in terms of other options that could or could not be pursued. I'm particularly limited just because I can't be in a position of offering legal advice in this context.

I can say that the measure that is in place does address new investments, but that can't be taken only in isolation. There is also the ban on provision of financial services and on certain transactions, which will obviously have a bearing on ongoing investment. This is to put in some context how the measure operates as it now stands.