Foreign Affairs Committee on Nov. 25th, 2014

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

That's all the time we have right now.

I believe we have a new connection with Emmanuel.

Emmanuel, could we just test the microphone to see if you're back with us?

[Emmanuel Ogebe]

Yes, testing one, two, three.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Okay, that's great. We're going to come back to your questions in a second.

I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Bélanger for his round of seven minutes.

Welcome, sir.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Allison.

I want to say that I'm replacing a colleague, Marc Garneau, so I'm not as familiar with the origins of this particular meeting. If I misspeak, I will apologize ahead of time.

I want to thank Mr. Anderson and Mr. Goldring for bringing up the matter of how the moderate Muslim community can be involved in trying to tone down the extremism of some of its own community. We've seen this happening where the moderates have spoken up on recent events in the Middle East, for instance with ISIL. We've had demonstrations around the world of moderate Muslims speaking out against the extremist violence of ISIL. So I would encourage all religious organizations to engage all faiths in interfaith dialogues.

I'd like to know, quickly because I have a couple of other things I want to bring up, to what extent does your organization, Voice of the Martyrs, do that?

[Douglas McKenzie]

We are, as I mentioned earlier, a Christian-backed organization that believes very much in some of the principles that we have been discovering as it relates to persecution in general. What we've unearthed is that there is a predominance of persecution specifically against the Christian church, so the formation of an organization like ours which is supported by the Christian community should not be a surprise to anyone. Moreover, we are very careful to support any effort that is a legitimate bona fide effort such as the office of religious freedom or similar bodies that are going to bring together people of good will and are going to find peaceful solutions that still respect human rights and the ability of a person to believe or choose to believe what they want to believe without the fear of persecution.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

To what extent is your organization involved in the interfaith dialogues, or is it?

[Douglas McKenzie]

I think, to be fair, we'd have to say that our concentration right now does not include a lot of that, mostly because we don't know channels through which we could engage, but we would certainly be open to that.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

The concern I have is that—and I don't have all the statistics that back your affirmation that the Christians in Africa are the most persecuted—I have also seen victims of Christian persecutors. What Joseph Kony and the Lord's Resistance Army have done to the children in Uganda, in South Sudan, and in the Congo is absolutely horrendous. That's also going on currently in the South African Republic, where it is Christians who have sometimes been persecuting and extremely violent toward Muslims, moderate Muslims in some instances.

So I would not want to generalize that only Christians are being persecuted. They are, but there are Muslims who are persecuted, Jews who are persecuted, and Falun Gong in China, if you're going to go beyond Africa. You have 43 students who have just been killed—well, we all believe they've been killed—in Mexico by the drug lords.

Persecution is an unfortunate worldwide phenomenon, not only religious-based. It's sometimes economic, sometimes politically driven, sometimes ideologically driven. I think Canadians by and large, in all political parties as far as I can tell, are against all kinds and all forms of extremism, whether it's religious, economic, political, or whatever. We try to engage to attenuate it, sometimes militarily, sometimes with development aid, sometimes with dialogue. That's why I would encourage any organizations that we meet to engage in dialogue, because that's perhaps the most potent method over time of achieving that objective of greater understanding, of openness and tolerance, and brotherly and sisterly love.

I'm sorry, I'm lecturing here, and that's not the purpose of this meeting.

I have a question for Saa. I want to congratulate you for the courage you demonstrated and for convincing your friend to jump off that truck with you. Since you've managed to get back to Chibok, how has your life been?

[Saa Chibok]

Since I got back to Chibok, my life has been renewed. I know that God loves me; that's why He helped me and He gave me experience to jump out of the truck. My life has changed, because I know the Lord has a reason for my life. That's why He gives me the experience to jump out from the truck. When we jumped out from the trucks, we were a lot, and some of the girls were even afraid to go back to school, because the Boko Haram people, they told us that if we went back to school anywhere in Nigeria, they were going to find us. So lots of girls now are at home here. They were even afraid to go back to school.

Now that I find myself here, I'm safe. I'm not even afraid of anybody, but I think about some of my friends who are still in captivity, the time we used to get out and play, and now they are not here. For several months now, we didn't hear anything about them. I want them to come. I want them to be safe and to come back to enjoy themselves and to be safe the way I am here, but I remember those are the girls who are still in captivity. I'm always thinking about them, because for now I know that my life has changed and I am in a safe place.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Thank you, Saa.

You know, you remind me very much of another young girl for whom the world has a great deal of esteem, Malala Yousafzai, the young woman from Pakistan who was shot because she was going to school, and now she is lecturing around the world. I hope you can take a great deal of courage from her, as she would from you if she heard your story.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much, Mr. Bélanger.

We'll now start our second round, which will be five minutes.

We're going to start with Ms. Brown.

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

I thank our witnesses for their comments. You have all painted a somewhat bleak picture of what's going on, particularly in Nigeria, and it causes me great concern.

Though Nigeria is not one of the 25 countries of focus for Canadian development dollars, it is a development partner country, and we are spending quite a bit of money in Nigeria. I'll just tell you what we have on our website. It says that the “goal of Canada's international development program in Nigeria is to help the country achieve equitable and sustainable poverty reduction by improving the country's ability to use its own resources for development. Canada supports efforts that focus on securing a future for children and youth, and stimulating sustainable economic growth in two states: Cross River and Bauchi.”

It concerns me, if what you are seeing is the lack of opportunity for these young people to get to school, that we are not really making a difference. The other area where we are spending a tremendous amount of money in Nigeria is with maternal, newborn, and child health. I'm wondering if you have any comments or if you think that there are, in your opinion, other areas where we should spending our money that might be more effective at this point.

My second question is, because we have a rather substantial Nigerian diaspora in Canada, is there any way that we can have the diaspora speak to the issues that you see in Nigeria right now and be a positive influence?

[Emmanuel Ogebe]

Yes. Thank you very much for that question.

I want to thank Canada for the support that they provide to Nigeria in development aid.

Let me mention with regard to the diaspora here that there's a huge disconnect between the south of Nigeria and the north of Nigeria. They're pretty much two separate countries that were amalgamated by the British during colonial rule. You will find that most Nigerian Canadians who you meet are from the south. Most of them do not have any real understanding of or connection to what is happening in northern Nigeria. It's difficult to get them interested and involved in the issue without pertinent information.

What I would recommend with regard to Canadian development assistance is that we really need to see a reorientation of that assistance towards the crisis in the north. We're going to have generational medical needs, generational educational needs, and so on and so forth, that are not being addressed as we speak. I think that there will be a need for a rethink of CIDA's development strategy in Nigeria, particularly in northern Nigeria.

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

Mr. Ogebe, may I intervene at that point to say that we don't actually go in and just spend money. We work with the Government of Nigeria. Nigeria has its national economic empowerment and development strategy, NEED, that it has laid out until 2020. We have to work with the government that is in place there. Do you have any suggestions how they might rearrange their strategies so that our development dollars could be effectively spent in the north and the south?

[Emmanuel Ogebe]

Yes. Now, let me say that the NEED strategy you mentioned was crafted by an earlier administration, and as with all things Nigerian, the next government that comes in pretty much kicks it aside and starts doing their own thing. We have a problem with policy inconsistency.

Again, the government is not the best channel of resources. Some governments have decided that the best way to engage is with civil society organizations and NGOs because they are really the boots on the ground. My thinking is that it would be helpful if CIDA engaged with some of the relief and emergency response groups in the country to actually provide direct assistance to victims of this horrific humanitarian crisis.

Let me give you an illustration really quickly. We have a dozen girls like Saa who we are helping, and not one penny has come from the Nigerian government to help them. Everyone who we're getting help from are individuals—Nigerians, Americans, British—who have just come together to try to help put these girls back in school, but we've not received one dime from the Government of Nigeria. I think that we need to create tracks with civil society to be able to be more effective rather than channelling it through the Government of Nigeria.

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

Can I just clarify that our money does not go to the Government of Nigeria? We do work with civil society organizations and NGOs on the ground. That is where the money is directed. But we have to work in partnership with the Government of Nigeria, because they are the ones who are setting their own country's strategy.

[Emmanuel Ogebe]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

That's all the time we have. Thanks for that clarification.

Madam Laverdière, you have five minutes, please.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

First, I'd like to commend you, Saa, on your courage and also your solidarity with your friends during what must have been a very, very difficult moment. My thoughts are with you, and I wish you all the best in the future. I hope you'll have an opportunity to come to Canada so that we can shake hands in the future.

[Saa Chibok]

Thank you very much.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

I would like to briefly go back to the comments my Liberal colleague made a few minutes ago. In his view, the persecution is clearly not always based on religion. As we know, in Nigeria, among other places, one of the minorities facing a lot of persecution is the gay and lesbian population. Like the NDP, the Government of Canada believes that laws criminalizing homosexuality should be abolished.

We now know that the Voice of the Martyrs organization works mainly on religious issues. However, I gather that the Jubilee Campaign organization works on more general issues of human rights. I wonder if this is a subject you have looked at.

[Emmanuel Ogebe]

Jubilee Campaign is a human rights group that works on religious minority issues around the world. This issue of the persecution of gays in Nigeria is not one that we are working with, largely because we're.... As I have mentioned, the persecution level of Christians in northern Nigeria is really horrendous. That said, no gay person has been killed in Nigeria. Fortunately, we haven't seen that sort of atrocity occur.

I do want to point out that with regard to a comment I made earlier about persecution, religious persecution is about a belief you hold. For people to be killed for that reason is really unacceptable. I think it's something we can all agree on, that it should not be tolerated. So this is not about bashing Islam. I think it's a global concern that we're seeing in Iraq and other places. President Obama, who has been very tolerant of Islam, recently said at the UN that we cannot negotiate with this kind of evil. An evil that will go out and behead other people just because of their faith cannot be negotiated with.

I think that's something we all can agree on, in Canada and anywhere else on the planet.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Okay.

Very briefly, I'll come back to the issue of girls' education, which is a very important issue. I understand that Global Partnership for Education is working also with the Nigerian government for girls' education. Is that an issue you have been following, or am I going too far away from your area of expertise?

[Emmanuel Ogebe]

Well, we have tried to reach out to different stakeholders to assist these girls. We were told that the United Nations was helping the Chibok girls. When we asked them what they were doing, they said they were providing hygiene packages to them. When we talked to USAID, they said they were providing counselling.

We have to take the bull by the horns and provide scholarships for these girls. We're always open to more partners, but we see a lot of rhetoric out there and we don't see enough action. If there are parties who want to work with us, we're more than happy to do that. As I said, Canada is also English speaking, so some of these girls would be able to go to school here and transition quite well if scholarships were provided.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much, Madame Laverdière.

Mr. Hawn, for five minutes.