Foreign Affairs Committee on June 13th, 2006

[Robert Miller]

I'm very glad you asked that question, because it allows me to finish my presentation.

As we say, we benefit. The Parliamentary Centre is a small institution whose capacity depends in large measure on our relationship with the Parliament of Canada and the provincial legislatures. Over the years we've worked closely with the National Assembly of Quebec, with the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, and with three or four of the other provincial legislatures.

What we are working on developing, in the Haiti project and more generally, is a deepening and broadening of that collaboration. A former clerk of the House of Commons, Bob Marleau, has become chairman of our board. He has proposed the development of a relationship—what he's calling an agency of choice relationship—between the Parliament of Canada and our work internationally that would provide concrete, practical assistance from this institution to priority parliaments around the world.

Let me just give one small example, which I close my paper with.

We have been told, in our missions, that one of the challenges the new government of Haiti confronts is the signing of a number of international agreements, including trade agreements. One of their priorities is to try to build closer relations with their neighbours in the Caribbean, but generally their international relationships have suffered greatly over the last 20 years.

We're suggesting it might be possible for this committee to develop a twinning relationship of sorts with the counterpart committee in the Chamber of Deputies of Haiti. I recognize your responsibility is to do your work, your business, but consistent with that, something of this sort, that provides some mentoring and conceivably provides some technical assistance from time to time, when that's possible, would be very useful. This committee has a lot of experience in the trade area, among others, and the indications are this will be one of the important committees in both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate of Haiti.

That's just one small but important example of ways in which I think this successful, powerful parliamentary institution can be helpful to an institution that is at the opposite end of the parliamentary spectrum.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Miller.

Mr. Goldring, you have five minutes.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Thank you for appearing here today, gentlemen.

In reviewing your report and listening to your talk on it, I was reminded of my last visit to Haiti. There were several things that popped up in my attention, which would certainly lead us to believe that there are more difficulties than just those that appeared on the surface, in trying to bring about democracy through the recent elections.

I think the elections themselves indicated one situation, evident in the fact that the presidential election had such a high level of support for it, and the follow-up parliamentary election had a relatively low level at 30%. It was still a success compared to past elections. A 30% level, rather, indicated--in support of President Préval's comments in our private meeting with him--that there was a general understanding or misunderstanding of the roles of parliamentarians as to what they could actually do in contributing to the governing of Haiti. In the past they had been argumentative rather than being supportive of good works and actions.

I think this supports what had been discussed before about working on the democracy programs in Ukraine and Russia and many other countries. These countries have a a very strong literacy rate, whereas Haiti has an extremely low literacy rate. It would seem to substantiate the feeling that perhaps this direction of governance should go much further than just being at the parliamentary level. It should extend directly into the communities and into the schools themselves so that the children and eventually a generation down the road will have an understanding of the role their parliament can perform.

Also we had a discussion, Joseph, on whether the members of parliament themselves, as part of their training program, would be introduced into the community through town hall meetings or whatever to try to gain experience from our parliamentarians on how the community can interact with them. This is so the community can buy into the meaningful purpose of a parliament and so that members of parliament can take that information to the central government and hopefully make gains. But I'm not seeing that direction in there.

So my question would probably be more about what your budgetary allocations are and whether it would be your intention to do something like that if you had a more substantial budget. Do you have the resources that are necessary to be able to comprehensively take a really worthwhile approach straight from the grassroots level to the parliament, and what would that budgetary expectation be per year for the next year, two years, or four years?

[Robert Miller]

Let me just very briefly say that we're still at the stage in our paperwork with CIDA, which is funding the program, of identifying the budgetary components. There's no shortage of money. In development, often people talk about money being the problem. In the field of governance, it's really the major problem. The real challenge is effectiveness, choosing the right things to do and getting your partners to truly buy into the process.

This project has a budget of $5 million over three years, which is a substantial amount of money for doing these kinds of activities. That should include activities to build relations between members of parliament--particularly in the Chamber of Deputies--and their constituencies.

Let me ask Joseph to say something about that, because this is a theme he's brought back time after time from his missions to Haiti, including the one he participated in with you a while back.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Is that $5 million from CIDA? And is it out of the $42 million that they had?

[Robert Miller]

That I don't know. I assume it's part of the overall allocation, but my own feeling on the parliamentary component is that the project can and should take perhaps four or five years to accomplish, and those kinds of resources should not be disbursed so quickly.

Joseph, go ahead, please.

[Joseph Kira]

Thank you very much for the question, Mr. Goldring.

I think the answer to your question is that we've tried to be sensitive to the fact that we have now in place in Haiti a newly elected leadership, parliamentary as well as executive level. One of the reasons we didn't flesh out some of those ideas that we have discussed over the months and so on and so forth is to make sure that when we approach the Haitian partner they don't feel as though we are bringing to them a ready-made solution and rather that this in fact is an exercise that will be iterative and that will be collaborative, and that we're there to also listen to what they have to say to us.

We have a sense of what they could definitely use in terms of instruments and mechanisms. However, at the same time that Haiti is a sovereign nation, Haiti's sovereignty is also an institution. That's something we have also had indications that we also have to be very sensitive to, especially at a time when we have gone from a transitional government to a legitimate sovereign government.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Should we not be identifying this as a helpful addition that has to be addressed? Because, quite frankly, just to do it from the top end, from the parliament itself, would be very limited as far as impact is concerned. Should we not identify it and say that this really has to go into probably an education unit in the schools themselves for a period of time, and even to bring to the media and the public an awareness of the benefits of what this could do?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Goldring.

Very quickly.

[Robert Miller]

I'd very quickly say that projects of the kind we do can build elements like that in them, but they depend on other projects, other programs, which may be done by Canada or by other donors.

Canada has a long tradition, perhaps the longest tradition of any major donor country, of engagement in Haiti at the community level. We have some excellent Canadian non-governmental organizations, like CCE, based in Montreal, which has a strong international reputation and has been working in Haiti for 35 years. This organization understands the community level very well.

One of the things we're going to explore is the possibility of partnering with them, saying we want to find ways to facilitate members reaching out to the community, can we use your resources, your knowledge, and your experience to make a connection?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Miller.

Mr. Marston, please.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

It may just be a lack of knowledge on my part, but it strikes me.... In terms of the number of different political parties that got elected, what is the sophistication level of these parties? Is there any sense at all of going in a similar direction? Or are they very unsophisticated?

Next to that, regarding the comments I was hearing from Mr. Goldring around education for the ordinary folks, it strikes me, listening to you, that there is more of a focus on educating the newly elected people as a primary goal. But the concern that comes with this is that where you have potential divisions with those numbers of parties there's the risk that there will be a level of distrust and that they'll think we might be backing a particular group. Does any of that happen?

[Robert Miller]

We're always very careful in what we do to make clear that we're supporting the institution of parliament, not this party or that party. Therefore, we will work with all parliamentarians of whatever party.

You're quite right to emphasize the divisions as a critical factor. Again, there are some organizations on the ground that have been working in Haiti with the political parties. We think we can partner with them. Effectiveness in this field depends very much on working with others. Any one organization, like the centre, can only do a small part of the puzzle. Governance, as all of you know very well, is very complex.

Once we're established on the ground, which we're in the process of doing now, we can start to build those kinds of relationships.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Miller.

You have more time, Mr. Marston.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

No, that's fine.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Mr. Van Loan.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

In your brief you talk about the three missions that you've done. When were these?

[Joseph Kira]

The first was in December, the second one in March, and the third one in April.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

So they're all in the run-up to the current situation.

[Joseph Kira]

Yes.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Canada has been involved in Haiti for many years through roughly three rounds--this is the third round, if I'm correct--hoping to pull it out of the problems it's in. In regard to the first two times around, do you know if Canada was doing anything on the parliamentary side?

[Robert Miller]

A bit.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

How was it done, who was doing it, and why did or didn't it work?

[Robert Miller]

Actually we have a very interesting lessons-learned document prepared by a former law clerk of the Canadian House of Commons, who spent three years--

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

And where is that?