Evidence of meeting #36 for Foreign Affairs and International Development in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was persecution.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Douglas McKenzie  Chief Executive Officer, Voice of the Martyrs Canada
Peter Jardine  Chairman of the Board, Voice of the Martyrs Canada
Emmanuel Ogebe  Special Counsel, Jubilee Campaign
Saa Chibok  Jubilee Campaign

9:50 a.m.

Conservative

Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all of our witnesses for being here.

Following up on the education theme, Saa, what is it you would like to study? What would you like to do in your life?

9:50 a.m.

Jubilee Campaign

Saa Chibok

I want to be a medical doctor.

November 25th, 2014 / 9:50 a.m.

Conservative

Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB

Terrific. Thank you.

Mr. Ogebe, you talked about educational needs in the north, educational organizations and so on, and scholarships in Canada.

Have you approached or are you aware of any effort by any Canadian organization to provide scholarships, or to go down that road, for people like Saa and others?

9:50 a.m.

Special Counsel, Jubilee Campaign

Emmanuel Ogebe

Frankly, no I haven't, but I'm hoping that when I arrive in Canada in a few hours, through Voice of the Martyrs we may be able to begin to reach out to groups in Canada.

9:50 a.m.

Conservative

Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB

Do you have any idea who you would be reaching out to? Do you have any targets, so to speak?

9:50 a.m.

Special Counsel, Jubilee Campaign

Emmanuel Ogebe

Very frankly, no, I'm afraid not.

9:50 a.m.

Conservative

Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB

Mr. McKenzie, you talked about other countries in Africa that are in the same situation, or are ripe for this kind of situation.

Which would those be, and do you have any thoughts on any pre-emptive strengthening or something that could be done with civil society in those countries to slow it down or stop it?

9:50 a.m.

Chief Executive Officer, Voice of the Martyrs Canada

Douglas McKenzie

We bring our services to those who are persecuted right around the world. We're engaged in 50 different mission projects right now in as many as 35 countries. We're responding more to the specific need as it comes up. That often happens from there having been some tragic circumstances, huge displacements, and those kinds of things.

Certainly, we experience a good deal of this in Africa, but also in other parts of the world. We're very involved in projects in Iran, Iraq, North Korea and South Korea, and China. As I said, there is a focus on service and need. That changes from time to time, of course.

9:55 a.m.

Conservative

Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB

Mr. Ogebe, I forget who brought up finance, but do you know how Boko Haram is financed? Is it from within Nigeria or from outside sources? Because these organizations obviously run on finance, do you have any suggestions about what we can do to cut off their finances?

9:55 a.m.

Special Counsel, Jubilee Campaign

Emmanuel Ogebe

Yes, absolutely. Boko Haram is a real global terrorist group. It's networked and linked into al-Qaeda, al-Shabaab, and a lot of other bad fellows.

Boko Haram has actually trained in Somalia and they've trained in northern Mali. The weapons that flowed out of Libya came into their hands.

Their financing is a bit more suspect, but we've had reports that Turkish Airlines was flying weapons into Nigeria. Iran has sent weapons into Nigeria. So it's a small group of the usual terrorist suspects working to support them.

That said, one key concern for me is the French connection, because France continues to pay off Boko Haram for abducted French citizens. That provides huge funding for Boko Haram to continue to carry out its atrocities.

You see that it has evolved from a group which, a few years ago, used to use machetes and gasoline to bomb churches, into a group that is now using surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft launchers.

It's my hope that working with the UN and other partners, the international community can block the weapons and the funding flows to Boko Haram.

9:55 a.m.

Conservative

Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB

With respect to ransom and the French, do we have any idea what the total amount of funding would be that they would be getting from ransom?

9:55 a.m.

Special Counsel, Jubilee Campaign

Emmanuel Ogebe

It's allegedly in the millions of dollars. They have abducted over a dozen French citizens in the last three years. Those kinds of numbers really add up to a lot of weapons.

9:55 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Dean Allison

Thank you very much. That completes our second round.

We'll start round three with Mr. Anderson, for five minutes please.

9:55 a.m.

Conservative

David Anderson Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK

We watched your video a little bit earlier and towards the end there was a discussion about what can be done. I noticed they talked about praying together, but there was also a discussion of disunity and how the voiceless are not represented because those who should be speaking for them are not united. You gentlemen here can talk about this but, Emmanuel, I'd like you to talk about how the church is coming together to try to address these issues, because I think it probably needs to be part of the solution.

9:55 a.m.

Chief Executive Officer, Voice of the Martyrs Canada

Douglas McKenzie

From our perspective as Voice of the Martyrs we consider our mandate to be twofold. One is to reach out in the direction of those who are impacted by persecution, bringing them practical relief and support, thereby bringing the community together, helping them with their issues of disenfranchisement and disentitlement, and of course the actual physical abuse that is very common.

The other side of our mandate is basically to bring that faith, that conviction, that heroism, that courage, whatever you want to call it, and somehow present it to the Canadian church in such a way that it impacts them and allows them to adjust their dial to the extent that they are tuned into the frequency of suffering that is really happening around the world. We consider ourselves to be bidirectional in that sense: one direction towards the persecuted; the other direction trying to mobilize the church as caregivers for that issue.

9:55 a.m.

Special Counsel, Jubilee Campaign

Emmanuel Ogebe

Yes, if I may respond to that, last week I saw a very heartening thing in Nigeria, which was a bunch of churches and professionals coming together to try to care for the thousands of refugees who are now in Jos. We had Anglicans and others literally across the spectrum coming out to do that. These are people who need support to be able to respond. The reason this is important is that when you have a country that is fifty-fifty Christian-Muslim and when you see that Christians have not retaliated for these horrendous attacks against them, you realize it is key to keep the tempo down. If relief is going in, then people will not be as pained, will not be as angry, will not be as embittered to lash back, which is what could ultimately happen.

Let me add that the patience of the Nigerian Christians is not inexhaustible. We now face the situation where in February next year there are going to be presidential elections. If an infidel, in quotes, wins, there are groups that are already preparing to go out and kill Christians again. This happened in 2011, which is why we know it is likely to happen again. Already in the media we are hearing Muslim leaders warn that there are going to be killings if an infidel wins. So we need to walk with partners on the ground, the development agencies, CIDA, and everyone, to try to see how we can ensure there is no additional violence that could conflagrate further.

10 a.m.

Conservative

David Anderson Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK

When you hear those voices and you're saying Muslim leaders are speaking that way, are there other voices of Muslim leaders who have the courage to speak out and say, “This is unacceptable in our country”? Do you hear that second voice? I think we all need to, but I'm just wondering, is it heard?

10 a.m.

Special Counsel, Jubilee Campaign

Emmanuel Ogebe

I was actually excited to hear just yesterday that Nigeria's top Muslim leader has apparently come out strongly and condemned Boko Haram, which is an improvement because for a long time, Muslim leaders have said that it was Christians who were blowing up churches and killing themselves trying to give Islam a bad name. It looks like we're moving from that propaganda to a point where objective voices are now defining reality for what it is. We hope that there are more such voices.

10 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Dean Allison

Thank you very much.

Are there any other questions or comments for anybody? The next round is for the NDP. Are there any other questions?

Ms. Day, why don't you go ahead then.

10 a.m.

NDP

Anne-Marie Day NDP Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to go back to the issue of education.

Could you give us a picture of primary education and higher education, such as how many boys and how many girls finish primary school and how many go on to higher education?

Saa's dream is to become a doctor, but, to do that, she has to go further in her studies. Could you paint me a picture of the situation there, Mr. Ogebe?

10 a.m.

Special Counsel, Jubilee Campaign

Emmanuel Ogebe

Yes, we do have a high incidence of male enrolment versus female enrolment in many parts of northern Nigeria. We also have a crisis in northen Nigeria where there are about 10 million children who are not in school. We have a government policy in which primary school is compulsory and it is free. But what we have in northern Nigeria is an Islamic system of apprenticeship where kids are put on the streets and they are allowed to learn at the feet of Islamic clerics and mullahs. Unfortunately, on the streets they're indoctrinated, neglected, and they become radicalized.

What is happening is that the Government of Nigeria and USAID are trying to build Islamic madaris for them where they can have both western education and Arabic education. The problem with this strategy is that it isolates them from the general population, so they see themselves as separate and superior to non-Muslim children. So when there's a conflict there is a propensity for them to be violent toward those people with whom they didn't grow up in the same schools and classes.

10:05 a.m.

NDP

Anne-Marie Day NDP Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC

Does that mean that, in other regions, girls who go to primary school reach the end of that level? Do boys finish primary school, and what is the percentage of each?

Could you tell us if the north is the region at most risk or are other regions in the same situation?

10:05 a.m.

Special Counsel, Jubilee Campaign

Emmanuel Ogebe

Yes. The north faces greater risk academically than the south. The south has always been more advanced, largely because we're on the coast and there was more access to the missionaries when they first came. It was more difficult for the missionaries to go up north, and even the colonial authorities wouldn't let them go far north. So yes, the north is more educationally disadvantaged historically than the south. These practices of not allowing boys to go to school is also a problem, and not allowing girls to go to school is a problem.

I don't have the specific statistics on this, but it's a well-known fact about the disadvantage of the north.

10:05 a.m.

NDP

Anne-Marie Day NDP Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC

Could you tell us, without sticking your neck out too much, in which region Canada should focus its aid? Is it in the north of the country?

10:05 a.m.

Special Counsel, Jubilee Campaign

Emmanuel Ogebe

Yes, clearly it would be the north of the country.

For example, I should let you know that right now there are thousands of Nigerian refugees in camps in Cameroon. When I visited the camps there, in one camp they had not been fed for 49 days. This is a UN camp. There are people outside the camp who are trying to get in, and if conditions in the camp are that bad, imagine what is happening to those who are outside the camp. There are people who are being killed by snake bites and a lot of avoidable things. If we could have humanitarian assistance in the UN camps, and also for the internally displaced persons in central Nigeria who are fleeing from the north, that would be helpful.