Foreign Affairs Committee on Nov. 28th, 2006

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

It's gone beyond simply defining it as poverty reduction, has it?

[Michael Small]

That line was gone beyond quite a long time ago, at least ten years ago--in the 1990s.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

With regard to some of the examples you used, could you think of any other examples, maybe elimination of national debt in certain circumstances, or other scenarios and situations for which you'd need a little bit more flexibility in the basic definition to be able to address it?

[Michael Small]

Actually, Mr. Goldring, my colleague from the Department of Finance is probably better placed to deal with those questions on debt reduction. I would ask him to respond. He'll be speaking in the next while.

Certainly we have counted both multilateral debt reduction, as well as things that Canada as the national government chooses to write off as ODA, if it's to a developing country.

Going back to your earlier question of a moment ago, I should also emphasize that the broadening of the definition of ODA has occurred at the same time as donors have repeatedly--as recently and importantly as in the millennium development goals--reasserted the importance of combatting poverty. The two are not in conflict with each other. You can have a policy goal of making poverty a principal focus of development assistance but at the same time regard your official development assistance as a flexible instrument to accomplish related international objectives such as peace and security. Certainly that's been itemized in some detail in the millennium development goals, which all donors and participating countries are expected to meet.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Goldring. You have half a minute.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Going back to the original question and debate on the competent minister--whether singular or plural--can you point out specifics in this bill that would give cause to that concern? Are there specific points in the bill that we should address?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Goldring.

Alain, do you want to respond to that?

[Alain Tellier]

One example would be in clause 5, which starts with “The competent minister”. I think there are one or two instances that refer to “the” competent minister; in other places I think the text uses “a” competent minister.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

How would you suggest that could be fixed?

[Michael Small]

I'm a little loath to actually suggest, given the fact that there are official amendments to the bill.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

We want a good bill here, and we want a bill that's going to achieve certain things. If there are technical problems and you have suggestions, we would take it as a suggestion, not as a—

[Michael Small]

I think where you have any references to “the Minister”, you may wish to look at recognizing, as Mr. McKay pointed out and I suggested in my remarks, that there will always be several ministers involved in this activity. Change it to “a Minister” or “a designated Minister” or “a competent Minister”--some language like that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Small.

Madam McDonough.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Thank you very much for appearing this afternoon, gentlemen.

I just want to move very quickly through your points. On the first one, I don't see a single person in the room who doesn't fully acknowledge that there are several ministers who can have responsibilities. Accountability is required in relation to all of them, so whatever word change is needed, it's a simple matter to reflect what it is we agree upon here.

Secondly, with respect to the concerns raised about IDRC --I did appreciate receiving a brief from them, and I know you've made some comments--I think the fact that it really is an autonomous body accountable to a separately constituted board really doesn't bring them within the purview of what we're trying to do here, although I have to say that as a result of the recent trip of this committee to Europe, one of the things we came back appreciating is that we don't know and understand as much as we need to about what IDRC does. That's our responsibility, and I look forward to our doing more. We are hearing more about some of IDRC's initiatives from international contacts with whom we're meeting than we actually hear at home. So I think by bringing this to light, it's helpful. It reinforces our interest in doing that, but I don't see that this encroaches on that legislation. Nothing you've said here suggests otherwise. So unless you have some further comment about that, I'm satisfied that that's not a problem with the current draft.

Thirdly, again, I want to agree with my colleague, John McKay, that a change to international human rights standards would deal with the problem you've identified with the term “obligation”, so I would hope we could come to some consensus about that.

I want to move quickly to the cluster of comments you've made that have to do with what is considered ODA-able. I know we don't have time to fully discuss this the way we would like, but I just want to ask you flat out.... You've identified a number of things, starting with the World Intellectual Property Organization, the International Telecommunication Union, and so on, and then a number of program items--mine action, deployment of corrections training officers, and so on. Can I just clearly understand from you that those things are now ODA-able in terms of the definition that is being used under the OECD, with which we are complying? Now, I know not in their entirety; you explained that in some cases it's a percentage. But all of those items you've put before us are now ODA-able in some portion or in full. Is that the case?

[Michael Small]

Yes.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

I have to say--maybe I'm not fully grasping something--the fact that this is so actually makes me worry that we're doing even less about poverty reduction with our current ODA obligations than probably most Canadians believe, than even parliamentarians think to be the case, because we're coming nowhere close to meeting our obligations to the millennium development goals, nowhere close to meeting the levels of ODA that we should be delivering.

We've just come back from Europe, where it was utterly humiliating to be a Canadian, frankly, and trying to explain. People weren't even polite, off the record. They'd say, “What the hell has happened to Canadians? You know, we're just seeing no real progress, no real commitment.” Every one of those countries had already committed to 0.7%, and some of them were actually close to 1%.

Am I wrong in my conclusion about that? Maybe it underscores why we need this legislation to actually make a real serious push on poverty reduction. None of it precludes these activities from taking place, but it does preclude a false notion of how much we're committing to serious poverty reduction. These can be supported because they have merit in their own right. Maybe some of them need to be under defence or somewhere else, but we wouldn't be getting false credit and giving ourselves a false signal of how much we're actually doing in the way of serious poverty reduction.

[Michael Small]

In your analysis, you and your colleagues on the committee may want to make a distinction between two things. One is the breadth of the definition of ODA and how it gets counted. The second is the volume of ODA that we expend, the total number.

The volume of ODA is a function of the amount of development assistance that governments choose and Parliaments approve. Currently Canadian ODA is steadily growing at 8% a year. That could change, depending on how governments choose.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

We're currently at what level today?

[Michael Small]

I think we're at 3.2% of our GNP. Of course, it's a ratio.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Not 3.2%, but 0.32%.

[Michael Small]

It's 0.32%. Correct.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

And it's going to backslide because of three one-time infusions that aren't built into the core or aren't built into the base.

[Michael Small]

The distinction I'm making is between the volume of ODA, the overall global ratio, and the definition of ODA and its breadth.

While you were speaking, I glanced at the next round of discussions coming up. Among the countries that are pushing for or advocating supporting a further broadening of ODA to include more peace and security expenditures are the Netherlands and Finland, which are very high up on the total ODA-to-GNP ratios. They're much higher than Canada is. Countries like the ones you visited that have that goal and are at 0.7% or above it also share that same policy objective when it comes to the breadth of the definition.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Is it not the case that when you have Finland at 1% and the Netherlands certainly beyond 0.7%—I don't know their actual figure—it might be more understandable that they would say, “We're delivering poverty reduction programs at a very high level; in fact, we're at three times what Canada is delivering”? Maybe we should be saying some of the things we're doing in regard to genuine capacity-building, genuine peace-building. Those might be considered for inclusion in the definition because we are going so far beyond our obligations. What would Canada's excuse be? Do you understand my point?