Foreign Affairs Committee on June 21st, 2006

[Yves Pétillon]

I believe the majority of the donors have committed and have given what they pledged in Washington in 2004. Probably the United States and Canada have been the first to disburse the money and to support the new interim government. The banks, the IDB--the Inter-American Development Bank--and the World Bank, maybe were not so fast because probably they needed more time to design their new program and to be able to disburse.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

We're looking at a lot of initiatives that were started here. There are 1,500 schools to be renovated, 2,500 houses to be renovated, 40 or 50 universities, water works, water supply, infrastructure. Have many of those have been completed?

[Yves Pétillon]

Many have been completed, and that's why I think this document, when we get it, will give you more information about what has been completed and what should be completed.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Could that be correlated with the last document so we could see, looking at what was planned three years ago, if specifically these models were met and actually completed or whether certain segments weren't, and what happened with each contribution or commitment by particular countries and organizations or why they weren't able to commit? That would give us an overall better view not only of all of what was planned to be done, but what has been done.

[Yves Pétillon]

It's possible the correlation isn't perfect. In the document as it stands today, the correlation is no doubt not adequate.

Your question is the same question as was asked by the new government in Haiti. Now the new government in Haiti is also working with the donors to try to look at this type of--

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

If we're looking at it and doing an update of a report that was started three years ago and has expectations for September 2006, could we not best finish that report by noting what has been done to date and what could not be done, with a commentary on the reasons why something wasn't done?

Furthermore, each one of these segments has a substantial amount of money earmarked for it. So if one segment could not be done due to security or otherwise, does that mean that amount of money would still be held in abeyance, with this part of the program going ahead by a commitment from others? In other words, is there still money left to be allocated for doing certain segments that have not been done?

Most importantly, the best way to tell, from our own point of view, would be to correlate it directly to this one, if it's possible, and answer some of the questions project by project.

[Yves Pétillon]

For Canada, we are able to do that. Our document does that. For the other donors, it could be more difficult.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Goldring.

Next is Mrs. McDonough.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

There are so many places one could dive in to ask questions, it's hard to know where to begin. It was a very helpful presentation, by the way.

I'd like to go right back to your earliest reference, Mr. Wallace, to the factors of authority, legitimacy, and capacity as fundamental principles to implement in the course of trying to achieve positive results. I'm wondering if you could speak to us a little bit more about what clearly is a huge challenge--assisting the new duly elected government to effect the kind of transition that is necessary for them to be in the driver's seat. In some ways, I see that as the most enormous task of all, and essential to any real success.

I want to ask about a couple of specifics. Those of us who visited during the election had big ideas about things that parliamentarians could do to help. But when we actually saw firsthand what new parliamentarians were going to have to work with and build on, it was absolutely unbelievable to imagine where one would begin to try to help give them some of the tools they need. I mean, we're talking desks and chairs, practically, never mind the democratic processes that require support and staffing resources and all the rest of it. I'm wondering if you could comment on that from the perspective of any concrete Canadian commitments and engagement.

Secondly, especially around the notion of legitimacy, you hear a lot about corruption, but the voices we heard from--and they were really quite impressive and convincing, I thought--were pretty consistent on there being no way to eliminate corruption unless you had a justice framework, which barely existed. Even for our own police and military who where there, you could clearly see that their ability to actually carry out their function was severely limited. You can track someone down who's involved in alleged corrupt activity or damage to persons or property, but if there's no judicial system, you may just be contributing to condemning people without any possibility of their facing fair trials and all of that.

I'm wondering if you can comment on that. Is there a program on track to which we're contributing in terms of what's needed, and what's going to be needed, to actually put the infrastructure in place that can make for some success with all of this?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Madam McDonough.

You have about a minute.

[Stephen Wallace]

All right.

This is a very interesting paradox, and a very important paradox, of fragile states. You need two things if you're going to be able to build accountable institutions--one is will, the other is capacity. If you don't have will, the money you put into capacity building in the justice sector doesn't work. That's what we've had good experience on. If you respond to a lack of will by not getting involved in trying to help develop accountable institutions, and put all of your money in NGOs, and try to go around a bad government, what happens is the paradox of actually weakening an accountable state even further.

You need to find a way in which you can work with a civil society and private sector to strengthen demand for accountable government, to strengthen the will for accountable government, to go with the ability to develop capacity. You have to be able to operate across the supply of good capacity with the strong local demand for accountable public institutions. Then you have to pick these agents of change, which Monsieur Pétillon was talking about, to say what things you can actually make progress on in even a politically charged, high-risk environment. You can make really good progress, but it requires these kinds of choices.

How does this get played out in the context of Haiti? Maybe, in the few seconds that are left, Monsieur Pétillon can talk about it.

[Yves Pétillon]

We implemented justice support programs for some time. We put an end to that in the last 1990s because there was none of the political will that Stephen referred to. However, we have continued working in the area of demand for justice. To do this, we've cooperated with associations, lawyers and judges. People have made proposals that couldn't be implemented under the previous government.

However, I believe that kind of preparation will help in the reform of the justice system. The new government will have no other choice but to use it. It will now have partners that we will have supported all that time. We couldn't work within the ministry as such.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you.

Mr. Goldring.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Mr. Pétillon, when I asked earlier about the completed projects, you said that most of the CIDA projects had been completed, yet we can go through the list of priority sectors that CIDA has been involved in, and we see security. We know that security isn't tenable there now. There's the justice that's really still under way, the policing has problems, and the disarmament--where it was mentioned in the report here to disarm, seize, and destroy 25,000 weapons over the projected period of three years--I don't believe has been done either.

It also mentions the electricity program in Jacmel. Even on the plane on the way down, we could see it was a top project that was of great pride. When we visited, the plant was shut down for six hours a day, yet the information we were receiving was that it was the only town in Haiti that had 24-hour electric power.

Will all these issues be identified back to the interim cooperation framework? Maybe you have had successes with these programs, but the successes would have limitations. Would you be detailing in the report what these limited successes are?

[Yves Pétillon]

In the area of security, CIDA's main contribution has been to fund RCMP activities. That provided support for the Haitian national police department in order to develop a strategic plan and establish the plan's direction. In that case, we can't really boast of achieving a major feat in the area of security. However, CIDA had no direct responsibility in the matter.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

One of the plans was to train 6,000 active police officers by this date. Was that accomplished?

[Yves Pétillon]

MINUSTAH did recruitment to ensure election security. I don't know what document you're referring to.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

This would go back to the interim cooperation framework, specifically for security and the police. The targets were, first, for 3,200 active and trained police officers, and going through to September 2006, to have 6,000 active and trained police officers. My question is, has that been accomplished?

[Yves Pétillon]

We can't consider that as Canada's responsibility. It's an overall responsibility. We haven't invested any money directly for that purpose.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Is this one of the problems when you initiate a plan like this, that it's too broad-based and perhaps involves too many partners so that no one group is particularly responsible for ensuring the project is completed?

[Yves Pétillon]

You're right; it's definitely a factor. However, as regards the police, I would point out that 1,540 police officers have been recruited and trained in the past two years. I can't say that involves Canadian money, but it was done with other funds.

As you know, we intend to establish a police executive training centre in cooperation with other stakeholders. There is an academy for young police officers, but there's no organization responsible for training police executives. This deficiency has clearly been recognized by everyone. We're going to assume responsibility for setting it up, together with the government.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you.

When you say we have not been involved in training of police officers, do you mean specifically CIDA or Canada? You're referring specifically to CIDA?

[Yves Pétillon]

Specifically CIDA, yes; the RCMP, yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Yes, because the 65 RCMP officers there are mostly helping with training.

[Yves Pétillon]

Yes, exactly, but it's a program of the MINUSTAH.