Evidence of meeting #60 for Foreign Affairs and International Development in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was haiti.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:40 a.m.
UN Special Representative of the Secretary General for the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), United Nations
I spoke to the President a week ago asking if he could do something, but he is very reluctant to intervene.
11:40 a.m.
Bloc
Francine Lalonde Bloc La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC
I suppose that is because there are so many people in the prisons who have not been before a judge.
11:40 a.m.
UN Special Representative of the Secretary General for the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), United Nations
Yes.
11:40 a.m.
Conservative
May 31st, 2007 / 11:40 a.m.
Conservative
Wajid Khan Conservative Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, gentlemen, and Your Excellency.
First of all, Mr. Mulet, I'd like to congratulate you on your appointment. There are challenges, but with challenges come opportunities for doing a lot of good.
Sir, I agree with you that security is a prerequisite to any development in any country, not just Haiti. Canada has obviously remained determined and committed to supporting the Haitian government in reconstruction, development, security, and democracy. Canada is committed to investing nearly half a billion dollars, $520 million, over the next two years.
Could you comment, sir, on how this money is being spent and what concrete benefits or results there are that you can share with this committee?
You mentioned debt forgiveness for Haiti, if I understood you correctly. The committee would like to hear what amount the Haitian debt is.
11:40 a.m.
UN Special Representative of the Secretary General for the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), United Nations
Thank you.
Ambassador Boucher is probably better placed than I to know how Canadian money is spent in Haiti, but from what I've seen and witnessed, it's making a big difference. Canadian money is spent in their PNH reform program, in parliament, and now you're going to be building a new inspector general's office for the PNH and also a police academy for officers. Canada is now rebuilding all the police stations and sub-police stations in the southern part of the country. You are also involved in—
11:40 a.m.
UN Special Representative of the Secretary General for the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), United Nations
In corrections, yes, of course. You're involved in prisons, not with a repressive approach but with a humanitarian, human rights approach, to provide better conditions for inmates and everything.
There is also budget support for governance and decentralization.
So from what I've seen, I think it's money well spent. Absolutely.
11:40 a.m.
Conservative
Wajid Khan Conservative Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
Is there any expenditure in the health and education sectors?
11:40 a.m.
Canada's Ambassador to Haiti, As an Individual
Yes, we do a lot in support of the department of health at the national level, as well as in a few departments, mainly in Artibonite where we do concentrate our efforts.
Education will be a sector of concentration for CIDA in the coming years, so we will again want to support elementary education. I think close to half a million children don't go to school now, so we would want to make sure that by 2015, in line with the UN millennium development goals, all children in Haiti go to school. There is also some thinking being done about the possibility of building a professional school to enhance Haitian capabilities and ensure that young people will get training and be in a position to work.
11:45 a.m.
UN Special Representative of the Secretary General for the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), United Nations
The latest I've seen is in regard to the penal chain. Canada is now supporting that also, because we have this unit that is investigating corruption situations and cases, but it doesn't have enough resources, financial, human or technical, to follow up on the penal chain. In a joint venture of the European Union and Canada, since last week, they have been providing assistance in an effort to have impunity in Haiti.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Wajid Khan Conservative Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
Other than security, and assuming the security situation does improve and provides some comfort, are there any other recommendations you might have on how to encourage FDI, foreign direct investment, in Haiti, and in what sectors? You were talking about foreign investment coming into the country. What steps can we take to encourage that?
11:45 a.m.
UN Special Representative of the Secretary General for the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), United Nations
I think a lot of money is needed in Haiti right now.
As you rightly mentioned, education is a priority. Only 15% of the educational system in Haiti is controlled by the ministry of education; 85% is controlled by private institutions, and the quality is very, very bad. Only 5% of Haitians have enough resources, enough money, to send their children to the private educational system. And 51% to 52% of children who should be going to school are not going to school right now, so the gap is growing every year between children who go to school and those who don't. Again, this is another time bomb in the country.
So I think any investment in education at this point would be more than welcome.
Of course, infrastructure is very much needed: electricity, energy, everything. Everything—including hospitals. It's a country that used to have roads and hospitals and institutions, all of which have imploded and there's nothing left. So everything needs to be reconstructed.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
11:45 a.m.
NDP
Paul Dewar NDP Ottawa Centre, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you to our guests. It's a pleasure to have all of you here today.
Mr. Mulet, I've actually had the pleasure of being in your country in interesting times in 1986. Maybe sometime over a cup of coffee we can chat.
I also had an opportunity to make a very short visit to Haiti. It's really sad to see what has happened to Haiti. The world seemed for a time to have turned its back on Haiti, with a lot of distraction in other places. We'd hate to see this new-found attention of the world community on Haiti—well, there are two things: one, if it isn't sustained, as you mentioned, and secondly, if it isn't going to provide for stability.
There's so much to ask questions on, but let's talk about the prison system. Mr. Boucher, what is our financial commitment right now to refurbishing the prison system? Maybe I'll just start with that: what is our financial commitment to that right now?
11:45 a.m.
Canada's Ambassador to Haiti, As an Individual
At the moment, I would say it's less than half a million dollars. This is concentrated in building a new prison in Fort-Liberté in the northern part of the country. We are also thinking of building a new prison in St. Marc.
A technical mission was in Haiti just a few weeks ago to look at the whole correctional system and to see what kind of effort Canada can make. I think this mission will make recommendations in the coming weeks. I'm quite optimistic that they will recommend we increase our effort. We are, at the moment, thinking about an investment of between $3 million to $5 million in the coming three years.
11:45 a.m.
Canada's Ambassador to Haiti, As an Individual
Yes, but in a month I think we will have eight correctional services officers from Canada there. At the moment, we have four on the ground, but we'll get four more in the coming weeks.
11:45 a.m.
NDP
Paul Dewar NDP Ottawa Centre, ON
So if I were to ask you right now, you would say Canada's strategy and investment is a work in progress.
11:50 a.m.
NDP
Paul Dewar NDP Ottawa Centre, ON
Okay.
On the issue of investment, Mr. Khan referred to how many dollars we had been spending or had dedicated to spend in Haiti. Can you give me a breakdown, generally speaking—and this is just to get a macro view of things—of how much we're spending on things like the justice system, on prisons, which I'll call institution building, versus what I'll call humanitarian aid or spending on education and health care, etc? Can you give me an idea of what the breakdown is there?
11:50 a.m.
Canada's Ambassador to Haiti, As an Individual
I didn't expect such a detailed question, but I will say at the moment that close to half the money spent this year will go to education and health and to reinforce governance. The other part will go to infrastructure, police reform, justice system reform, as well as correctional services reform. Also, we have approximately $20 million in what we call local development, encouraging the small communities to design projects.
