Foreign Affairs Committee on Feb. 17th, 2015

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

That would be very secure. I look at the paper vouchers, unlike a bill or something, generally money has a certain level of security to it from counterfeiting attempts, but a simple voucher would be pretty easy to run off a printing press.

[Jane Pearce]

You know, the issue is that you need to start somewhere. The thing that has dominated my response for the World Food Programme is the most dignified response that I can give, particularly for the women and the sense of normality that the voucher gives them. It gives them the opportunity to choose their own food, to choose what they like. To have a sense of normality—going to the shop, getting their food, and cooking it—is a very powerful thing for people who have lost every single thing that they have.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

But in other scenarios and other theatres, I guess you could say, there have been instances where the food has been taken, stolen by the truckload, from what we see in some instances. So how relatively secure has it been in Iraq?

[Jane Pearce]

Thus far, and I touch wood there, it has been very secure. I have no reason to be concerned at all.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you, Mr. Goldring. That will take us to the fourth round. I understand there's one question that Madam Laverdière would like to ask before we call it a day.

I should mention that apparently Mr. Gignac can hear us although we can't see him.

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

Okay. I would have liked also to talk about access to school for children, but I think we'll have to leave that aside for another day or another context.

I have one quick question for Madam Pearce.

You mentioned that Canada could provide experts for your program. What kind of expertise are you looking for?

[Jane Pearce]

What I discussed with our colleagues yesterday was the kind of expertise that socio-economists and vulnerability and assessment mapping consultants can assist us with in assessments. This is something that we will be doing over the next four to six months. So these were just preliminary discussions but that's the kind of thing that we like. We also can have observers who can come in and assist us in the assessment process.

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

Thank you.

Very briefly, on children in school, we're talking of the lost generation. How many children don't have access to school right now in Iraq, including Iraqi kids and eventually Syrian children? Are you engaged and what can we do about that?

[Martin Fischer]

Again, I hate to sound like a broken record, but around education there are similar concerns in camps and informal settlements. Presumably, the percentage of children who aren't going to school would be extremely high for various reasons. One is that in camps, in terms of the sequencing, we're not there yet in all situations. The funding hasn't been put in place. I know that UNICEF is working hard to convince donors to make education a priority for IDPs in Iraq. When it comes to informal settlements, there are various practical challenges. If you have children who have come—I can talk about Kurdistan—to the Kurdish region of Iraq, the language of instruction would normally be Arabic. In Kurdistan the language of instruction would usually be in Kurdish. Not all children are able to speak Kurdish so even if there were access for them to existing schools, you would face a considerable language barrier.

Out of that are various trickle effects as services are being put up, either formally or.... World Vision sometimes tries to provide informal education or remedial classes so that at least children don't lose track entirely. You have a challenge that as services catch up, these children will eventually fall behind.

I think the example of the no lost generation effort—Canada has contributed generously to that in Jordan and in Lebanon—is a good example where you're systematically working with the host government to address those systemic structures. One of the key things I mentioned before is that World Vision, for example, employs displaced medical personnel to provide services. It's a very practical solution you can also apply on the education side—people who have moved from one region of Iraq to another, who are able to speak Arabic with children, and who have the kinds of qualifications you'd be looking for, are able to provide those kinds of services. There are all sorts of things that, as the response and our response continues to ramp up, are in the sequencing to get to that.

In the meantime, if I may, as Bart has mentioned, there are things that World Vision tries to do to provide a sense of normalcy to these children. We've used the term “child-friendly spaces”. Again, I'll come back to that hospital I visited on Sunday, which essentially is a physical structure that is in not terrible shape, but there's no place for these children to have a routine every day. So yes, they play outside, but they've been detached from their routine of going to school, and they need that routine. One of the things that we were struck with is that some of these child-friendly spaces are rather simple in their physical structure. They are just a tent where we then are able to provide a dedicated space for these children to have, depending on their age, either as a safe place to play or a safe place to have some form of education. That is a real challenge in these informal settlements, where you have this mixture of needs and you need to sequence which needs come at which time.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you very much. That brings it to an end.

I'd like to thank all of you very much as witnesses—the World Food Programme, World Vision, and the UNHCR—for the incredibly important work that you do. I'd like to thank you for taking the time to come and answer our questions.

We're now going to suspend for a minute. We have some committee business to discuss in camera. We need to get to two very quick committee matters.

[Proceedings continue in camera]