Foreign Affairs Committee on Feb. 9th, 2011

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Dewar, that's all the time.

We're going to move into our second round, which is now five minutes for questions and answers. I'm going to move it back to this side of the table.

Mr. Van Kesteren, sir.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for coming, Mr. Latulippe. This is very difficult for you, I know, and many of the questions that have been asked of course are before the courts and it is difficult for you to answer some of those.

I want to shift channels. And I know that you'd probably appreciate that, but I think that it's important that we shift channels too because we are in perilous times. I think most people would agree, when we look at what's happening in Egypt, across the Middle East. And this morning I read in the paper, I think others did too, that Indonesia, which is.... Oftentimes we think about the Middle East and that as being the largest democracies of Muslim countries, but Indonesia, of course, has that distinction. We read the alarming trend where we're starting to see some...discrimination, we'll just call it, and more than that, some violence against other groups of people within their own Islamic sects as well as, of course, Christian churches.

It is absolutely important that we maintain and that we grow our democracy. I know that's really the job of your organization, and I know that's where you want to go and that's where you want to take us. So I wish you would just talk to us at this particular point and tell us what we're doing there and what we can do to just stop what's taking place there.

[Gérard Latulippe]

Maybe I can give you an example of what we just did in Egypt. It is interesting. We supported the training of bloggers, teaching them how to use and secure blogs and how to use that for promoting democracy and human rights in Egypt. This is quite useful.

We need to want a more equilibrated approach to human rights and democracy. We cannot protect human rights without strong democratic institutions. I have never seen human rights protected in a dictatorship. That is one reason one of the strategic shifts we have to do is to work with other actors of democracies.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

But you're walking a real tightrope between what we all hope is going to be achieved and of course what could be the direct result of the violence and the disruption, especially in the Middle East. I'm thinking more in terms of the Muslim Brotherhood and where that could lead.

What are you doing to possibly encourage and help direct that fledgling democracy to move in the right direction, toward what we would all agree would be a better place for them?

[Gérard Latulippe]

Everywhere we work we have to put more emphasis on the reinforcement of democratic institutions, to play a better role in increasing democracy. That is whether it is Parliament, political parties, civil society, or other institutions that have a role in democracy.

Let me give you an example. We're working with civil society organizations and municipalities in Colombia to help link them together to develop their budgets. It's participative budgeting so the decisions of a city have a role to play in saying where the money will go to improve development in their municipalities. This is a way to increase democracy.

In Morocco, where there are a lot of disaffected youth, we have a program to train youth to play a better role in their society. We have an excellent program that can be reproduced across the world with youth citizenry.

That's where I want to lead Rights and Democracy.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

You spoke in your opening remarks about the role that parliamentarians have. I know the last time you visited you were also quite passionate, and we all caught the passion about possibly training better parliamentarians.

Mr. Goldring and I have just come back from an African country. It's part of our duty, as parliamentarians, not only to view what's going on there but to encourage these people. We have a unique role here. I want you to maybe elaborate on that and on what your plans are for the future. That is very important. That is something I am passionate about as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

I'll let you answer the question, but we're out of time for Mr. Van Kesteren.

Go ahead and answer the question.

[Gérard Latulippe]

I'll give you an example of what we can do. There are so many countries where parliamentarians and citizens are very far apart. There is a gap, a credibility gap. We can bring those countries' MPs together with their constituents. I've done that in the past in many countries of the world. Here we don't work with parliamentarians.

We can organize town hall meetings. We can organize the relationship between the citizens and the parliamentarians. This is something that is very important, that can bridge the civil society and the MPs and bring more political rights to the citizens. It's increasing their participation in democracy.

That's where we have to go. That's what we can do.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

We'll now move over to Dr. Patry, for five minutes, sir.

[Bernard Patry, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My thanks to Mr. Latulippe and our guests.

Mr. Latulippe, through our clerk, you have provided us with a document whose goal is to demonstrate “due diligence”—as you call it—that you have done on, and I quote: “…the problems indicated to me by the SIRCO firm…”

I have read your report in its entirety. It has 10 chapters. It contains nothing about the computers. I will come back to the Cairo conferences. As to the Alternatives organization, Ms. France-Isabelle Langlois has been cleared of all charges, if I may put it that way. You already mentioned the Iranian Human Rights Documentation Centre in connection with Mr. Akhavan because he was a member of its board of directors. Mr. Akhavan had no conflict of interest. That was what the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner said. It was the same situation for the Iranian film director. Same thing for the discretionary grants for Durban II. The questions were dealt with; those interns never worked on preparations for Durban II. There was no collusion on the collective agreement. In terms of Mr. Beauregard's meeting with a member of Hezbollah, you say that: “the president of SIRCO told me that…the president met a representative of Hezbollah…” You know, those are very damaging allegations against Mr. Beauregard, who is now deceased. It is serious to say such things and to come to that conclusion when maybe there was one representative from Hezbollah in the room.

I remember when Mr. Chrétien was accused of that at the Francophone Summit in Lebanon because someone from Hezbollah was in the room. There may have been 300 people in the room and who knows if they were from Hezbollah. When I go to some of those countries, they all look alike to me to some extent. It's hard to tell, you know. These are allegations. I have one request, one question, for you. Could you provide the committee with the full wording of the mandate given to SIRCO by the board of directors? I would like to read the full wording.

So, you are here to talk to us about the future of Rights and Democracy, but can you really move forward if you do not know what happened? That makes it difficult to move forward. Do you have the tools to move forward with the current board of directors?

[Gérard Latulippe]

Since January 20, the board of directors and I have closed the door to the past. I have put an end to the investigations and reports. I have done nothing more than report the facts as told to me by Mr. Sarrasin. I have just reported the facts. With that done, we have to build for the future. I think it is my job to build for the future and that is what I am doing. Look, let me do my job. I need you so that I can do it. This has been going on for a year. It is 2011 now. Nothing is to be gained in rehashing the problems and talking about a crisis that hurt people on the staff, people on the board of directors, and Mr. Beauregard's family. Are we going to be rehashing it all for years to come? As Canadians, we all want an organization with a role to play on the international stage. Help me to move past what I will be the first to acknowledge was an unfortunate crisis for Rights and Democracy. Help me.

[Bernard Patry, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

What is your reply to my request for the wording of the mandate given to SIRCO?

[Gérard Latulippe]

The wording of the mandate has two parts to it. Are you talking about SIRCO?

[Bernard Patry, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Yes, just SIRCO, not Deloitte and Touche.

[Gérard Latulippe]

You received that document. It was submitted to the committee. Essentially, it had to do with the dismissal of the three directors. What did SIRCO do? I am not justifying the company's actions. It took 20,000 emails and picked some of them which lawyers used in the process of dismissing the three directors. The lawyers tell me we have a strong case.

[Bernard Patry, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

But…

[Gérard Latulippe]

You asked me and I am going to tell you. They were asked to investigated the theft of computers. I personally left that with the police. It is not up to SIRCO to investigate the theft of computers; it is up to the police. The police found no suspects. They investigated the matter thoroughly.

In the beginning, the mandate to SIRCO also dealt with the Access to Information Act. But I did not want matters under that act to be dealt with by a private investigator, so I asked an expert that we work with to handle it. The final part was what is contained in the due diligence report.

You have in your possession all the emails that SIRCO chose, in chronological order. If you want to find out the details, read those emails. Personally, I have no interest in doing that because I am not here to read emails, I am here to build an organization…

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Sorry to cut you off, but we're over the time.

We're going to move to Mr. Goldring for five minutes.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Mr. Latulippe, to return to the question of my colleague, we just came back from a visit to Ghana. There was a Canadian group over there doing some governance work with the Ghanese government. One of the comments that was made there was that one of the difficulties is that the members of Parliament, particularly in the northern regions, are desirous of being involved in policy-making. This policy now is brought down from the government that is in power. The suggestion was that if an organization such as yours would work with the members of Parliament to show them the way to develop this policy at the community level and bring it forward before the government was formed, that policy could probably contribute to the election campaigns themselves and be reinforced through the campaigns so that when the government was formed there would be a reasonable chance that policy would be initiated. This was a comment that was very strongly made.

I saw that also in Haiti, when I was there in 2006. There was a void of any type of policy development by the political parties. I see that you have been doing some work in Haiti.

Again, as you said, you're not working with the members of Parliament yourself. You're working with agency groups that are there in the field. Could you expand on that and tell us, is that local group qualified? Do they have this political party experience themselves, or should that work be done within those local agencies, maybe by former parliamentarians that would be able to guide the process much more effectively?

[Gérard Latulippe]

That's music to my ears and gives a specific case of what we can do easily. That's one of the new strategic objectives of our organization, to work in those types of projects. Until now, we have worked, essentially, on civil society, with civil society organizations. We should involve parliamentarians, train parliamentarians on how to do policies in countries where it's very difficult. I have been working in Haiti, for example. They don't have a research centre. They don't have anything. If you have peers who teach them and discuss with them, that's the way to improve their work. Also, it's related to the protection of human rights.

We are in a transition. We have to reach out to those new types of projects. That means for us to increase our funding through project funding, to use our core funding, to raise money from international donors, not just to rely on the Canadian government. Also, it means working with other actors, such as parliamentarians.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

I have another quick question. You had indicated in your remarks that the funding arrangements from CIDA are complicated, a serious constraint. Could you elaborate on what type of funding is from other organizations? You had also mentioned that your group gave funding to the United Nations group. At the same time, you're saying that CIDA is giving money to United Nations groups. My question would be, why the middle person? Why wouldn't CIDA do it directly, or are these two channels both contributing to the same United Nations groups in particular in the rights and democracy field?

[Gérard Latulippe]

What we want to do is move out of doing only grants. In the case of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, it was in fact discussed at length in the Deloitte report. We're not going to leave all grants apart, but we are still going to do some grants.

You know, when you go to an international donor, you say, “I have core funding”. Peer organizations don't have this advantage of having core funding that you give us. You go to the Swedish CIDA, or you go to the Norwegians, and you say, for example, that we have a good project here for helping civil society and citizens and for doing town hall meetings in Haiti, and if you want to give us some money, we can put some money into it, because we have core funding. We'll put in $200,000, and they'll put in a million. Peer organizations don't have this capacity. That's where we have an advantage. That's where I want to lead.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Mr. Goldring.

That's all the time we have. We're out of time.

[Jean Dorion, Bloc, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

A point of order, Mr. Chair.

I notice that you gave the floor to Mr. Goldring even though it was clearly after 4:30 p.m., the time when our meeting was supposed to end. A little earlier, you made a gesture to me indicating—at least as I understood it—that you would not be giving me a second round. Could you tell me how rounds can be assigned like that? Perhaps there are rules that I am not familiar with. I am asking the question in all sincerity.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Sure. It was just based on the ability to tell time. We spent an hour, and we were a little late starting, so we went over to get the full hour in.