Evidence of meeting #65 for Foreign Affairs and International Development in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was support.
A video is available from Parliament.
11:35 a.m.
Senior Fellow, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
I guess I would say not until there are conditions in which reasonable elections could be held. As long as there is a threat to election observers, there's a threat to a free and fair election, I would say.
11:35 a.m.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
Fair enough.
You mentioned that you thought Canada should be contributing more in terms of money, both militarily and perhaps on the humanitarian side. What's the number? What do you think we ought to be submitting?
11:35 a.m.
Senior Fellow, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
A number of humanitarian...?
11:35 a.m.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
Yes. First of all, on the non-humanitarian side and on the humanitarian side—do you have a figure for us?
11:35 a.m.
Senior Fellow, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
On the humanitarian side, until a year ago we were the second largest aid contributor to Mali. At Addis Ababa we were the lowest G-8 contributor to Mali and one of the lowest contributors in the world. So I think those two might be brought into better sync.
11:35 a.m.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
You do point out that we were the highest per capita contributor prior to the violence in Mali.
11:35 a.m.
Senior Fellow, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
I guess we were the highest per capita. I hadn't worked it out per capita, but we were the second highest national contributor. Therefore, yes, I believe we can do more. Our friends in Mali deserve more.
11:35 a.m.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
On the military side, how much money would you suggest Canada should be contributing?
11:35 a.m.
Senior Fellow, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
The military situation is in significant flux, as you've seen. Do I think—
11:35 a.m.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
Do you think the French are making progress against the terrorists in the north? How many terrorist fighters do you think there are in the north of Mali today?
11:35 a.m.
Senior Fellow, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Nobody knows the answer to that question, but if I had to guess, I would say between 2,000 and 3,000.
11:35 a.m.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
Okay. I think that's consistent with what the experts told us.
11:35 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
Thank you, Mr. Dechert. That's all the time we have.
We're going to move over to Mr. McKay for seven minutes.
11:35 a.m.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to you all.
Ambassador Fowler, you seem to be very popular this morning. I'm going to continue with that popularity trend. It's a pity you're not more popular with the minister. I'm kind of disappointed, frankly, to learn that the minister hasn't called you into his office for a direct chat. You are, after all, probably Canada's foremost expert in this area, and your comments—whether one disagrees or agrees with them—are fairly pointed, and certainly intellectually and experientially based.
I want you to disaggregate, if you will, your phrase “significantly more engaged”. I want you to disaggregate it in three phases: diplomatically, militarily, and developmentally. You clearly state that militarily there will not be any negotiation with these people. We don't even understand their mindset.
The government heretofore has kind of expressed a certain reluctance to get involved in yet another African conflict. It therefore falls to you and your view to articulate not only why we should but how we should engage militarily. I think diplomatically that's a given, and aid-wise that's a given, but militarily, I think that's where the core resistance or reluctance is on the part of the government.
11:40 a.m.
Senior Fellow, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Thank you.
I've already given some indication of the direction I think we should go, but a bit of this is retrospective. I believe that as soon as the French were engaged and the whole situation had changed from that very messy, tentative UN plan, and we were in a much more active phase and were not waiting for something better to occur between now and October, we ought to have indicated to the French, in the first instance, a menu of things we could provide. The C-17s would have been a great start, and beyond that I think our special forces working with their special forces would have been a good idea.
11:40 a.m.
Liberal
11:40 a.m.
Senior Fellow, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Our collective goal, the goal of the west militarily, should be to diminish the Salifist, Islamist, al-Qaeda threat to the point that the Africans can handle it, and that means diminishing it very significantly. I keep using words like “diminish” rather than “defeat”, because we're not going to defeat them. There's going to be no “mission accomplished” moment. This is an insurgency. This is going to be extremely difficult. Ask the Algerians. The Algerians have been fighting these guys for 20 years, more or less. We ought to be joining in that fight because it affects us and our friends.
There's more we could have done, logistically. There's more equipment we could have provided. I don't think infantry, big numbers of troops, ought to be considered, but I do think we have certain specific skills and we ought to be putting those skills to the task.
11:40 a.m.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
We seem to be fumbling the ball, if you will, in the handoff to AFISMA. The French have expressed reluctance to be engaged on a long-term basis, and this government has the same issue. The sooner you get AFISMA up and running and capable, the better off we'll all be, we hope.
I'd be interested in your observations with respect to our...well, frankly, we haven't done anything with AFISMA. We haven't funded; we haven't done anything.
11:40 a.m.
Senior Fellow, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
I was distressed to see at Addis Ababa that, in addition to an underwhelming humanitarian commitment, we had made no commitment to the two trust funds established to support the African-led force and the training of the Malian army. I think we should have done both of those things. To what level, I can't say, but I would have liked to have seen something significant.
I think, Mr. McKay, you asked me to comment on whether, beyond the pledging conference and the trust funds, we should be supporting AFISMA, and my answer is a tentative yes—as long as we understand, and I'm sorry to be so brutal here, that they're not going to do the job I've been talking about; they're not going to be doing the job of diminishing al-Qaeda.
11:40 a.m.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
Then we end up in a Catch-22. We have a basic proposition that al-Qaeda should be degraded to the extent possible. We have some feel for what would be required to do this, but we have a partner that's not capable of moving up. This leads to a very real difficulty.
11:40 a.m.
Senior Fellow, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
You're absolutely right, unless France and its very militarily capable allies do the job of diminishing first.
11:45 a.m.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
The final point is with respect to this so-called road map to democracy. If in fact the UN resolution is only an appearance of a resolution, as opposed to a reality of a resolution, the road map to democracy seems to be filled with potholes.
I would like to have your views on the ironical effect of withdrawing funding from the Government of Mali, which is a dictatorship at this point, and the contribution that this makes to the ongoing instability of Mali.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
Since he's out of time, very quickly, Mr. Fowler, could you give just a quick response?
11:45 a.m.
Senior Fellow, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Mr. Chairman, you're asking me for a very quick response to the most complicated question I've had yet, and it is an extremely complicated question.
Look, Mr. McKay, I'm not a believer in democracy before everything else, all the time, everywhere. The political situation in Mali is at the moment impossibly complex. It isn't a dictatorship, nor is it a democracy. There are interim leaders, a president and prime minister, who are trying to make it work in the face of continuing obstruction from a group of younger army officers. The Malians have to work this out. I don't think the answer to that is that we can't do anything until there is a free and fair election in a country two-thirds of which is threatened by people who hate democracy, who hate freedom, who hate liberty, who hate equal rights and equality of any kind. That is a bit of a complex situation.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
Thank you. Well done for that short period of time.
We're going to start a second round, which will be five minutes. We have 15 minutes left, so we probably have time for the full round.
We're going to start with Ms. Brown for five minutes, please.