Foreign Affairs Committee on Feb. 13th, 2007

[Clement Mugala]

We are developing a program, yes. So I agree with you that we need to be more or less in fourth gear to ensure that this is at the top of the agenda.

You asked whether emergency aid should be stopped, and I say no. People are suffering. But how do we direct that aid? Should we give it to the bureaucrats, who are going to put it in their pockets? Or should we give it to institutions like CARE Canada, which we know is a credible NGO. It delivers; it has gotten results.

So my answer would be to give them aid. It's an emergency, they need it, and the people are suffering. But give it to people who are going to deliver that aid and that are going to get results.

[Bill Casey, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

What about multilaterals?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Bernard Patry]

That's it, Mr. Casey. We still have Madam McDonough and Mr. Goldring.

Go ahead, Madam McDonough, please. We have five minutes left.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have to say, the characterization of support for Mahmoud Abbas as — and I think I'm accurately quoting — “funding a terrorist death cult” causes me a great deal of concern about how counterproductive, provocative, and dead wrong many of the things I've heard from your organization today really are. But I don't want to pursue that.

I'd like to ask a question to both groups with respect to the government's — the government likes to call itself the new Conservative government — creation of the Office for Democratic Governance, which is now having funding rolled out to support its activities. My question is whether either of your organizations was consulted in the process of the creation of that new Office for Democratic Governance. And what would you hope would be the results of its creation?

Second, given the amount of focus the Canadian Coalition for Democracies has expressed about transparency, accountability, and so on, what is your position on Bill C-293, which this committee has been dealing with and which is largely inspired by the need for ensuring effectiveness, transparency, and greater accountability?

[Naresh Raghubeer]

I can take the first question, and I will ask Clement to speak about Bill C-293.

Regarding President Mahmoud Abbas, article 8 of their constitution states that “The Israeli existence in Palestine is a Zionist invasion...”--

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Excuse me, Mr. Chair, I have a point of order. I did not ask a question about that. I said I would like to ask two very specific questions, which I asked.

I would direct you to that request, please.

[Naresh Raghubeer]

I just want to correct the record, but I will do that by leaving a note.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Actually, we don't have time to correct the record.

[Naresh Raghubeer]

Okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

We had better stick to the questions that are posed.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Bill C-293, and the new Office for Democratic Governance....

[Naresh Raghubeer]

We were not consulted regarding the creation of the Office for Democratic Governance. I believe that was an interdepartmental creation.

As for Bill C-293, Clement has written about this, and I will ask Clement to comment.

[Clement Mugala]

My comment on that is, in my own opinion, it is addressing the issues that we are trying to address — effectiveness in aid development. I would support the principle. I don't know about the mechanics of how it is going to work. I think that is before the committee. In principle, it embraces the issues that we are addressing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Mr. Watt had an answer on the other.

[Fergus Watt]

We can only address the consultation process. We were not formally asked for our views, but I'm involved in an international UN-related process, the international conference of new and restored democracies, and my work with officials in foreign affairs there led me to have numerous conversations about this process.

Your question raises a very good point, because the government has a democracy council, and that is its consultation mechanism. We feel it is deficient because it doesn't involve a sufficient number of civil society organizations. There are some very good organizations. Many of them have appeared before you: the Parliamentary Centre, CANADEM, Rights and Democracy, some government agencies, CIDA and IDRC. There is nothing wrong with consulting them.

To get critical feedback in a consultative process, you need to consult more than just the organizations that are also getting their funding from the government. You need to discuss bona fide civil society organizations. That is why we recommended a greater investment by Canada in democracy promotion, which also requires a more effective consultative process, one that includes more civil society organizations.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

I will give you an extra 30 seconds. You still have it.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

I would like to follow up on that point. You know that in the most recent budget there were actually cutbacks to the consultative processes, through DFAIT, with civil society, on a number of fronts, and also in terms of diplomacy-building. I wonder if you could comment on that. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but it seems like it is going in the opposite direction of what you are recommending.

[Fergus Watt]

The answer is you're right. It is worrisome. Many of the important achievements in Canadian foreign policy and also of the United Nations are the result of government and civil society partnerships. These don't always have to be expensive. In this information age, there is a lot you can do that doesn't cost a lot of money.

What is more important is the will to consult. It is important that civil society and government relations be an important part of this committee's purview. Government officials don't wake up and decide to consult civil society. It's a pain in the neck and they would rather avoid it, but they need to be told to do it. I am hopeful this committee would consider including something like this in its report and its study.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Watt.

I promised Mr. Goldring he could have the last 30 seconds. Go ahead.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Most would consider that Canada has been a democracy since 1867 — in the very beginning — yet I am looking at these ten indicators of democracy that you have here now, and many of those issues would not have applied through the years of Canada, from the rights, to women not having the vote. One of the difficulties that we have been seeing is perhaps we are trying to define democracy too tightly. What we should be doing, rather, is trying to define “democratic improvement”, as opposed to some idealistic example of what a democracy is. As long as there is democratic improvement, that is the real goal.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Goldring.

[Warren Allmand]

Could I briefly answer?

Democracy is a canon of perfection you aspire to. It's like Christianity. There's no perfect democracy in the world, and there's no perfect Christian except one fellow. So it's something to aspire to. We can all improve, and we improve on those ten indicators I was referring to.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Allmand.

Thank you to both groups for coming today. We appreciate your input.

We are going to suspend and I'm going to ask the committee to stay. We're going to have ten minutes of committee business. We have a number of motions we want to deal with. We'll give the guests time to clear.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Committee, we're going to move back to committee business here. I'm not certain how many motions we have. We have motions that go way back to the summer, but we for certain want to look at a number of motions.

The first one we want to deal with is Mr. Wilfert's motion, then Mr. Obhrai's motion, then Madam McDonough's motion.

Mr. Wilfert.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Chairman, would you like me to read it?

I move that the committee invite senior officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade responsible for the decision to close the Canadian consulates in Milan, Italy; St. Petersburg, Russia; as well as Fukuoka and Osaka, Japan, to appear before the committee by February 20, 2007 in order to examine the rationale, the cost, and implications of such a decision.

I put this forth, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, because in the Kansai region of Japan, for example, the Osaka area, with 25 million people, there's no question that in terms of outreach, in order to be able to trade and do business, this is the second-largest market out there. With this closure, which employs one Canadian and seven locals, with companies like Sony and Panasonic, I want to find out what the rationale is. I think it's very important: if we're going to be scaling back our operations in the second-largest market, I think this should be debated.

As far as Milan goes, Milan has four Canadians and 18 locals, and that consulate is a jumping-off point for much of the business in eastern Europe. We have heard, certainly, concerns raised on the Fukuoka and Osaka closures by Ambassador Numata, etc.

I could go on, Mr. Chairman, but in the interest of time, I will close there.