Foreign Affairs Committee on Dec. 13th, 2011

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

I'll defer to Ms. Brown.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Schulz, for being here. I really appreciate your discussion.

I had the opportunity to be in Zambia a couple of years ago. After meeting members of their parliament, I met with members of the extractive industry and many other companies doing business in Zambia. Zambia, as we know, has come out of a socialist regime and they are anxious to see companies come in now and provide expertise and development in the area. But the Canadian companies we met said that they're caught in this no-man's land. The Zambians say that in the past, companies provided schools and these companies aren't providing schools any more; they provided roads, and they're not providing roads any more. If you talk to the extractive companies, who pay an enormous amount of tax to the government.... The government has a policy of providing the schools and providing the roads. They're caught in this tension, shall we say.

How do you see us helping to alleviate those tensions? Are there things that Canada can do as bridge-building—in the metaphorical sense—to assist in lowering the temperature for our companies to go in and do that kind of development work?

[Dr. Robert Schulz]

It seems to me that there is a lot of information at the grassroots level that never gets to the top level in corporations. Most people who are in corporate responsibility or international development work are off to the side in corporations and relatively junior. Those people have to be positioned with the CEOs. That's why, if the government provided the opportunity to get the CEOs together on some of the issues that you just presented and asked how could we do this better, it seems to me that the CEOs would then reach down through their own organizations, put the people around them and ask, “How can we do this better?” So that's recognition by the local governments in terms of what is and is not being done.

In terms of schools, if someone provides books or computers to a school, but there are no teachers to teach the students, or if someone provides laptop computers but there is nothing to charge the batteries with, or if someone provides water but there is no one to fix the water well, then at the end of the day the money goes in, but it's not sustainable. The whole issue is sustainable corporate social responsibility, not just one-way giving so that then when the companies leave nothing happens.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

One of the observations I've made when I'm in Africa is the lack of teachers. I've suggested to them that less than a hundred years ago in Canada we had young people who went from our secondary level of school to teaching little ones their one-plus-ones, and that they are missing a resource they have available to them in regard to having their older students become the trainers.

What we really need is trainers of trainers to go in there, assist them, and put that resource back into their own school system. There seems to be some interest in doing that.

This is not really a question, but an observation. Hopefully we can get some of our corporations involved in that kind of program.

[Dr. Robert Schulz]

So I'll turn it into a question: What can we do? We could have internships for students, including MBA students, who would love to spend a summer internship in Africa trying to help companies build. But they're also prepared. They aren't just going in there unprepared. In addition to that, Global e-Training, which is a company that's run by two of my former students, has online training programs in many different trades, programs that are available all over the world, and they would like to do that.

Again, the pieces are there: we just have to find a way to sew the pieces together.

Finally, one of my faculty colleagues, Joe Arvai, has done behavioural decision-making in Africa. What he found was that many people don't understand the choices they have. They have to be able to understand the choices for water and for schools and other choices, including the government. He is a Stanford fellow whose office is right next to mine at the Haskayne School of Business.

So again, we have Canadian resources that are in place and ready to go, and the government could then provide some additional sewing to get these pieces to go together.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

We're now going to move over to Mr. Eyking. Sir, you have seven minutes.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Dr. Schulz, for coming here to give us your perspective on this.

When you talked about putting the pieces together, it reminded me of when I went to Yemen. The face of Canada that was in Yemen just about ten years ago was that everybody knew about Nexen and they also knew about the Canadian Wheat Board, mostly about wheat itself. The kids would buy wheat at the shops and they would ask for “Canada”.

I remember meeting both groups, who were on the trade mission with us. Nexen was a really good corporate citizen there. They were helping with the simple things in Yemen, like teaching people how to use seat belts. They had various things going on. They were kind of taking the lead; our government wasn't taking a lead there. They told us that there were a couple of things they needed there, and one was an embassy, because Yemen had an embassy here. A small embassy--that was one request.

There was another request. Yes, it was good that CIDA was sending computers to these girls' schools, but why didn't we send young people to train these girls? That whole thing would evolve from.... Imagine teaching in a society like that, where women or girls are pushed aside, and there you are, teaching them how to use computers and the Internet. It would open up their world. So you see a situation in a country.... We often talk about Africa, but there are other fledgling countries, and we have this great opportunity.

You also mentioned that we should raise the bar. I see people like those from Nexen being the lead on that. You would bring them in with all the other CEOs and say to them, “Look, you have to go a little further than just getting off the plane, going to the oil field, and coming back to do a little fundraiser”. That's the thing.

Sometimes, though, I think these companies are a little nervous to step a little further. I think that's where you need that set-up where you can teach these other CEOs. We've talked previously about even CIDA being nervous sometimes about doing things in certain areas, so how do we do more of that? Talk to me a little bit more about how you would engage these CEOs in working together with our government.

[Dr. Robert Schulz]

Well, we have two aspects. One is, let's back up on Nexen and Yemen, because the co-author of the book was a vice-president international for Nexen, who actually implemented all the programs you saw. That's the good news.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

It was amazing.

[Dr. Robert Schulz]

The bad news is that Nexen has lost the concession in Yemen.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

That's right.

[Dr. Robert Schulz]

So even though there was a lot of good work done, the host country didn't give enough recognition or appreciation for the work that was done by Nexen.

Actually, the CEO for Nexen at the time was Charlie Fischer, who is one of our MBA grads from the Haskayne School of Business. I know him quite well.

If you put people of good will who are CEOs—this doesn't mean they're all like that—in a room together by industry, by sector, and asked what they were doing to ensure best practices at the CEO level and also to ensure best practices at the CSR level, I think it would be a great step, because if the companies can share their best practices and also connect with the NGOs in the same geographic region, then as the previous speaker said, we stand a chance to have good things happen.

Remember, it's smarter money, collaborative networks, sustainability, and long-term results; otherwise, we just have a continuation of what's happened so far, wherein there is lots of good will but not a lot of results.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Recently CIDA has been criticized for NGO gridlock, with many NGOs saying we're getting the job done, but the funding is not available. There is nothing wrong with any department taking a second look at things; that's a thing to like. Where do you see that, though? Do you see that CIDA should maybe have a bit of an advisory board to deal with some of this traffic of NGOs coming in and out the door looking for something? Should there be a mechanism whereby the government might get advice from groups such as yours saying, let's have a third party to help assess the gridlock?

What do you think about the gridlock that's taking place now, with NGOs coming to Ottawa trying to get funding or trying to move forward?

[Dr. Robert Schulz]

The problem we found with the Victory Foundation is that the NGOs operate very independently. If you have someone doing water in Ghana and someone else doing lights in Ghana, they don't necessarily talk to each other. What we're trying to do is get the NGOs themselves to talk to each other.

If I were CIDA, I'd find someone to sit in on all the meetings for the Victory Foundation and get to be known by each individual agency and maybe even put some money on the table and say, “Here is $500,000 for five projects of $100,000 each. You go and figure out how you're going to work together in a geographic region”—one of the regions Canada is already in—“and you have our money. But you have to come up with a plan for how you're going to work together.” If you put the money on the table, I think the NGOs will cooperate. That's been part of the problem on the NGO side.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

It's similar to how Gates and Rockefeller foundations had their millennium goals; you're saying let's have more of a “whole community” approach, whereby you have those various things you explained, and CIDA should say “you get back to the table and then come to us with a whole community approach for a certain community, region, or country”, and go that way.

[Dr. Robert Schulz]

Again, it's collaborative networks. I think we've covered that lots of times today, and that's good.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

But we have to set the way we do things differently here.

[Dr. Robert Schulz]

But the government has to do things a little differently. Part of that is that it provide funds, and not just for one agency or just one region, but saying: “Here's the money. You have to work collaboratively on the ground, you have to work collaboratively on the delivery side, and you have to work collaboratively with the industry. If you do that, maybe we'll match part of what you're doing. But you have to have a plan for how you're going to work together.”

Right now, as nearly as I can tell, there are not very many plans for NGOs to work together and not very many plans for corporations to work together, and the government is in the middle hoping it will happen. But the possibility is there, if you take the lead today.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

So the government's role is to create that environment, probably.

[Dr. Robert Schulz]

It's to be a facilitator. I call it co-leading or co-branding, with not just the government in charge, but with everyone working together. At the end of the day, I think it's possible. I think it has already started, and I hope it continues at a much faster pace than we've seen so far.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Chair, I have a point of order. I know we're getting close to our adjournment time; I want to make sure I get to make it today.

We've had about four or five meetings on this study that we're doing. One of the concerns we're beginning to have, on this side of the table, anyway, is that we've only had one opposition witness called. We have suggested witnesses, by the way, who would really have balanced out the discussion and who are Ottawa-based. We're not seeing the problem as a logistical problem—to call opposition witnesses, if they're so far away, or inaccessible—but more as a political one.

At the committee level we were really hoping we could work collaboratively and have balance as we debate this issue. Here we are talking about a huge cultural shift in how our development policy works and about possibly changing direction, so we need a balanced debate. So far, we're feeling that the study is so one-sided that it's difficult to get into a debate or a fair discussion.

My question is, how many more meetings do we have for this study? We're really hoping that now we will begin to get more of the other point of view, so that we can have more balance as we move forward.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Mr. Chair, is this not committee business?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Well, it's certainly part of committee business, as far as that goes, but it goes to the deeper question that, probably in the new year, we should have a meeting to discuss witnesses, as we've talked about doing, to determine what we want to move forward with.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

For the record, the government has not put any limitation on who the witnesses are. There is no direction from our side of the table. I think it's just a matter of logistics and of the clerk calling and setting up meetings with witnesses when they're available. There has been absolutely no direction from this side of the table as to who the witnesses should be.