Afghanistan Committee on Feb. 8th, 2011

[Françoise Ducros]

I think you're talking about Watan, which is associated with SNC-Lavallin's activities. It has always been the security company employed by SNC-Lavallin.

That being said, you can come back to this question.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

I will come back to it.

On the issue of the reorganization of the schools, I would like to talk about the Afghan-Canadian Community Centre. I think that will mean something to you. I am somewhat fearful about its future.

Why does CIDA seem to be reluctant to provide funding? The funding up to now has come largely from the private sector. I am referring to the article in the Toronto Star.

[Françoise Ducros]

I've read the Toronto Star article on that. CIDA has supported and worked with the Afghan Canadian Community Centre since 2008. It has funded it. There is a Toronto Star article, to which you referred, that suggests that funding came from a different organization. It has come directly from CIDA in the field. We are currently in negotiation with the ACCC and we do not believe that the sustainability of the ACCC will be affected. We're currently in discussions as to what would happen going on.

The article to which you refer I think is not entirely correct. It infers that CIDA would have turned down ongoing funding to CanILF. Currently, we fund the ACCC directly, which has an independent association with CanILF.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Did Ryan Aldred meet with the Minister about that?

[Françoise Ducros]

Mr. Aldred met with the Minister. The grant is made directly to the ACCC and it was not made through Mr. Aldred.

The question about renewal of the funding is factually incorrect.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Are the figures I just gave you correct?

In 2012, CIDA's contribution to Afghanistan will be about $100 million. In 2013, it will be $80 million, and in 2014, $75 million.

[Françoise Ducros]

I think the Minister has spoken to that. The contribution to Afghanistan would be about $100 million for the three years. That includes the figures you just quoted, plus the contribution for the Muskoka Initiative, which would be $75 million over five years.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you.

Mr. Harris, please.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you, Chair.

Welcome to our committee.

I didn't know there was an Afghanistan-Pakistan task force, but apparently there is. And I gather there's no Afghanistan task force, from Mr. Bachand's question, but perhaps you can deal with that when you answer.

I was a little concerned about your report. Some of the stuff is rather general. And I appreciate that you're trying to find a focus, but I was surprised to hear that although we did have a goal of building 50 schools and training 3,000 teachers, neither of which we've achieved to date, your paper talks about 800 schools across the country and training 110,000 teachers and principals. I'm assuming that some money was given to a program.

What's going to be the effect of reducing the aid commitment to Afghanistan? We see a reduction. I think there was $232 million spent in 2008-2009 and we're going now to $100 million a year for only three years. What's going to be the effect of two things, first of all the lack of a long-term commitment beyond three years? Because I think many of the needs of Afghanistan are not short-term needs, they're obviously, clearly, long-term needs. If there's going to be any significant success and progress in Afghanistan, it's going to require a significant indication of commitment for the long term. And the reduction of funds of that significance, does that mean that programs you've supported in the past are going to be ignored or shut down? Or are we going off in a whole different direction here now?

I'm a little concerned about that, because the three years that you've identified and the focus on children and youth I don't object to, but there are other important things Canada was involved in that don't seem to be mentioned here. Can you tell us what's going to be left out, if you're stuck with the $100 million and these particular things?

[Françoise Ducros]

Sure.

Mr. Chair, if I could, I struggled with the statement because I was trying to give a broad picture of Afghanistan and not focus just on Kandahar. But I do want to assure the committee, as I stated when I was last here, and as I continue believe, that we are well on track to meeting.... The 50-school commitment was 50 schools to be built or rehabilitated in Kandahar, and we are on track to do that. For the 3,000 teachers to be trained in Kandahar, we believe we are fully on track. So I wouldn't want to leave the impression that we aren't going to finish that.

I did want to say, though, that we were doing work throughout the country, not just in Kandahar, which leads me to the 110,000 teachers and the 800 schools and other stuff that we've done.

On the question of the long term and the focus, as we developed, for planning purposes, the ongoing program post-2011, we are very deliberately trying to build on those successes that we've had, which is why we're focusing on education and we're focusing on children, which we believe is where we play a leadership role as we move into 2011. By the same token, we're continuing to work where we've had success on the health side, including polio immunization, and how we can build upon that.

On the issue of some of the things that we're not doing, the programming in Afghanistan was a little over $200 million, and pursuant to the Manley panel, half of that was to go to Kandahar. We achieved, I think, between 48% and 52%, depending on when you measure it. The ongoing programming will be focused nationally, which doesn't mean that we won't continue to hopefully get some drawdown and reach into the provinces, but our $100-million-plus will be focused on national programs that will try to build upon the past successes that we've had.

As to things that we will or won't do, by focusing on education and on health there are other issues that we won't be doing, we won't be moving onwards. We were doing economic growth, particularly around the agricultural improvements around the Dahla Dam. We believe—and we have examined it with other donors—that work will be ongoing. It won't be done by us at this point.

On the issue of capacity-building, we will continue to work and build upon past lessons. I'm hoping to—

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Okay, but if I can be a little bit specific, some of the things that we talked to officials in Afghanistan about last spring included the suggestion, for example, that Canada has a lot of qualified and trained Afghan expatriates who have technical skills and abilities, and if Canada had a program, that would provide support for them to return to Afghanistan for a period of time. You don't have languages issues, you don't have culture issues, you have skills that are there. The Minister of Agriculture himself was an example of someone with Canadian training and experience, and of course there are others, the governor of Kandahar City.

Those kinds of programs are not possible under the mandate that you've been given, I take it. So if our committee were to recommend such a thing, that would involve either a change of the mandate or some other government program to take place. You can't do it under your current mandate is what I'm thinking.

[Françoise Ducros]

No. I'm sorry if I left you with that impression.

We will have ongoing capacity-building. With the examples you talk about of providing technical assistance through Minister Rahimi and other ministers we've worked with through CGSO, we would continue to build on the capacity-building side of things.

What we were thinking as we program--and none of the program is established yet, and we drew from those experiences on the fact that Canada was quite successful on that--would be to focus some of that capacity-building where the rest of our program is focused.

So we have provided experts to the Ministry of Education in the past, to the Ministry of Finance, to the Ministry of Agriculture, and that is a component of the current programming.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

In the--

[Françoise Ducros]

It falls under.... Sorry.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Go ahead.

[Françoise Ducros]

If you look at the six priorities, there is a governance and human rights priority, and the capacity-building actually falls under that.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

It can be without changing the mandate, so this committee can feel that we're not necessarily overturning the apple cart by making these kinds of recommendations.

In relation to education, you refer here to training for teachers, particularly female teachers. Obviously I think this is key for transformation in Afghanistan.

Would you have the same focus in the area of health, in terms of training female health workers? We're dealing with reproductive health, we're dealing with family health, we're dealing with maternal health. Clearly the training of women in that field is going to leave a lasting impact. You talked about exposing people to--and I never heard of this term before....

[Françoise Ducros]

At Mirwais?

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

You'll have to wrap up your time here.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Is there going to be a focus on training women to provide these health care workers in Afghanistan as part of that?

[Françoise Ducros]

We're currently establishing what the programming would be with regard to maternal and newborn child health. But in all of the programming--particularly in newborn and child health--there would be a women focus. So we would certainly examine the possibilities.

That, by the way, has been identified by Afghanistan as one of their priorities, to train women health workers, midwives, and others and to provide other incentives to ensure that we have access of women to those institutions.

The example of Mirwais was actually to bring women into a situation where they would have a place as they waited before they gave birth that provided certain protections and was conducive to good health care.

So while we have not yet established that programming, because it follows the announcement that was made in Muskoka, we are currently looking at that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you very much.

My apologies, Ms. Brown. I mixed up the two rounds. So we'll actually have the seven-minute round on the government side and the five-minute round back to back.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

You gave me the eight-minute round.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Actually, I've been giving everybody eight minutes.

Go ahead, Ms. Brown.