Foreign Affairs Committee on April 8th, 2008

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you.

Mr. Goldring, please pose your question, and the witness can answer later.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

All right. Thank you very much.

And certainly Canada is to be commended for acting quickly and putting sanctions in place and making a positive indication on the international community. But along the line of the sanctions, you had mentioned, Tin, that there are 40 on the list for Canada and 400 on the list from Australia. Does that mean that there are more businesses, or does that mean that there's more of a complexity on the Australian list? That was one question.

The second question that I'd like to ask relates to the border areas, where there has been a lot of strife and trouble, and that seems to be where the military gets its licence, you might say, to be more militarily in the country as a form of governing because of the strife along those border areas. Is there any hope or is there any sense or feeling that there may be a more moderate faction of the military coming down that might have more sensitivity and more of a sense that they're willing to look at reforms? We all know that military regimes have been in place for longer periods of time, and they do change. So is there any sense that there can be change there as an interim step, to encourage democracy?

[Tin Maung Htoo]

Thank you very much.

The list compiled by the Australian government includes the names of individuals who are targeted, who are related to the militaries, including the military leaders. The list is 417 people. It's only names, not entities. When we look at the Canadian list, there are only 40 people, and there are 44 entities, like some businesses and companies close to the military. So what I was trying to say was we can increase; we have a role to increase the list to even some individuals related to the military who are now living in Canada, for example in British Columbia and Toronto. I know a few individuals who are close to the military, like some cabinet ministers, and that's why we would need a task force, like a committee of the whole, to look into what we can do in terms of this enforcement for these measures.

On the second question, Micheline, can you answer?

[Micheline Lévesque]

Regarding the possibility that some of the military leaders might be more flexible, let us take, for instance, Khin Nyunt who was, at the time, considered to be more democratic than the others. Now he, too, is under house arrest. I think that even the military people are unhappy. Many military persons are caught up in the system and we know that quite a few of them would change sides if they had the will to do so and if they knew that the democratic forces would prevail. In 1988, some military people put down their arms and joined with the demonstrators. You know what happened after that. There's torture, and perhaps there is even worse. When a military man crosses over to the democratic forces, he is considered a traitor.

Among other current events, they are moving the capital city. The military regime decided to move the capital into the forest at Pyinmana. We know that the very high ranking military persons are very unhappy with this, because their families live in Rangoon. They have to travel, it complicates their lives, and they are very unhappy. Members of the forces are not happy with shooting at monks, after all, they too are Buddhists. They do not like that.

There were demonstrations because the military leaders decided, overnight, to increase the price of fuel, petroleum, gasoline and oil. Prices went up two, three or four-fold overnight. They did this because they are in difficulty. General Than Shwe's daughter got married. I do not know if you have seen the pictures, but they had diamonds. The military people have a very expensive lifestyle. It is difficult for all the upper ranks to stay at that level.

The Burmese people believe that the revolution is not over, that people will once again take to the streets and that this time, the military will be on their side. This is what they are hoping for. Even the military people are unhappy, and as soon as they believe that they can join up with the democratic forces, they will do so.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you.

Unfortunately, the chair took some of the member's time, so he's basically out of time. Sorry about that, Peter.

We'll move to Mr. Dewar, please.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you to our guests for being here today, and thank you for the work that you've done on this issue.

I would agree with the comments that were made about civil society really being critical in making us aware of what the concerns were in Burma, because it was so hard to find out what was going on after the crackdown. And to that, just before the crackdown in September, there was actually a meeting here in Ottawa around what could happen in Burma.

I'm glad you mentioned the motion that was passed in 2005 by the Parliament of the day. One of the points that was made was to support the democracy movement. I know, having spoken with people who were at the meetings in Ottawa, they really thought Canada was well placed to host both the democracy players' movement and resource it. That's something I just want to repeat for the record, that I think people should know Canada can do that. We can host, if you will, the disparate groups, bring them here to Canada and provide a place for them.

I know that everyone is aware that there's a problem in Burma, but we are hopeful that one day democracy will return and the people who are elected will take their rightful place.

I want to ask you about the SEMA measures that Canada has taken, the Special Economic Measures Act, which we all pushed the government to do, and they did. When the bureaucrats came to committee, they weren't able to tell us how many companies were affected by this. They did say—and this is not their fault, this is just the way it worked—that it was only going to affect future investments, so existing investments weren't going to be touched by this.

Do you have any information you can share with the committee as to what you know about Canadian investments that presently exist? I'd really like to know a little more about the Canada Pension Plan and if you're aware of investments presently that Canada has through the Canada Pension Plan, because that affects everyday Canadians, and most Canadians would be shocked to know that they might still have investments in Burma through their pension plan.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Dewar.

Mr. Htoo.

[Tin Maung Htoo]

There are some Canadian companies still working in Burma--for instance, the Canadian helicopter company CHC. That company is providing helicopter services to Total and Unocal, the two Chinese companies providing all the technique and all the expertise for the natural gas pipelines. The gas is now currently being sent to Thailand. In that operation, the Canadian company CHC, which is based in Vancouver, is providing helicopter services.

Another one, of course, is Ivanhoe Mines. Even though they said that since early last year they had divested their assets, we believe they are still getting the profit from the operation, because the operation is still going on.

There are a few other small companies. For example, TransCanada is based in Calgary. The company has shown its interest in providing some kind of technical expertise for the transportation of natural gas from Burma to India, but we are still working on that issue. We are not sure whether this company has any operation or any technical work in that area.

Of course, CPP is the biggest issue. As far as we've studied it, CPP holds more than $1 billion worth of shares with companies linked to Burma. I brought some information, but it wasn't translated, so I wasn't able to address it with you.

For example, CPP has shares with Ivanhoe Mines in the amount of $67 million. CPP also holds investment with TransCanada in the amount of $152 million and $17 million with the Canadian helicopter corporation CHC. They hold $263 million with Unocal, currently under Chevron--Chevron acquired Unocal a year ago, I believe--$254 million with Power Corporation, and $304 million with Total, a French energy company. This Total and Chevron-Unocal natural gas operation, I read today in the latest news, provided $2.7 billion to the military junta last year.

In that sense, the investment of CPP-IB--the investment board--is not socially responsible. The government and the standing committee should study what.... You can make a regulation. We know everybody contributes to CPP. There are 17 million Canadians--working people, including members of Parliament--who are contributing premiums to CPP, but in a way, we are indirectly supporting oppression, a repression in Burma, by contributing our premiums.

This is a very appalling situation. I strongly suggest the committee study this issue.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much, Mr. Htoo.

That will conclude our meeting on Burma.

Mr. Rae, do you have a comment or a quick...?

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

The only comment I wanted to make is that I thought the original submission Mr. Htoo made was very reasonable and very practical. I think the ideas he's suggested with respect to trying to monitor and focus and get some attention paid in an organized way are very practical suggestions, and I hope we will be able to move forward on them.

Frankly, the sanctions issue is more complicated.

We must understand that the economy is very complicated and that things are closely interconnected. This is why we must watch it very closely.

How can we practically provide humanitarian aid? It is crucial for us to help the democratic movement in a concrete way. Besides, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade should set up a centre for studying the situation.

I believe that these ideas are important. I congratulate you for your work.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

As Mr. Rae has suggested, we thank you for your recommendations and all of you for your pointed recommendations on what the Canadian government can do and also what has to be done internationally to help bring about democracy and change and human rights and all those other things that go with it in Burma.

I may also just add that because our time has been fairly limited, if you would like to enlarge on any of the questions that have been posed today, certainly we would encourage you to make your submissions to our committee. They will be put on the record and we would appreciate that. Your experience and expertise dealing with Asia and Burma is very obvious, so we would look forward to any further response you may have.

We will suspend for one minute and then we will welcome our next guests. Mr. Waldman from Oxfam International will be coming in. We'll just take one minute to suspend.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

We'll call this meeting back to order.

In our second hour we are continuing a bit of an update, I guess, on our study of Canada's mission in Afghanistan. We have Mr. Matt Waldman, Afghanistan policy adviser from Oxfam International. And we hope to have some time for committee business as well, so bear that in mind.

Welcome, Mr. Waldman. You have ten minutes and then we'll go into the questioning fairly quickly.

[Matt Waldman, Afghanistan Policy Adviser, Oxfam International]

I'll speak in English, if I may.

I'd like to thank the committee for inviting me to speak. I'd like to just talk for a few minutes, firstly, about the background to the situation in Afghanistan and then address briefly three issues--rural development, aid effectiveness, and peace-building at a local level.

I think it's clear there has been progress in Afghanistan in terms of development, but we need to recognize that it has been slow and that there is a long way to go. The current levels of development in Afghanistan are comparable to sub-Saharan Africa, and the progress that has been made is being jeopardized by increasing insecurity. Last year there were 8,000 deaths as a result of the conflict, which is double the number of the previous year. Violent incidents were up by about 30% to 35%.

So why are we in this situation? Well, I think there was probably a failure of the international community to appreciate the extent of the destruction caused by over two decades of war. Before the wars, Afghanistan was one of the poorest countries in the world. Afterwards, there was widespread and desperate poverty.

The response after the international intervention in 2001 was to provide a light footprint, relatively limited aid compared to other countries who have come through conflict, and a top-down approach where national institutions were created, but it was done from the top down. Communities have only recently seen results from the international intervention across the country.

I would like to address the key issue of rural development. We think this is the priority issue in Afghanistan today. It is clear when you go to communities that things still are very difficult in rural areas as opposed to urban areas, which have seen some progress. In one community I was in recently of 260 families, 45 children died over the winter due to preventable causes; 12 women died in pregnancy or childbirth.

So what should be done to address rural development? There needs to be sub-national governance reform. We need to build the state at a local level, because at a local level the state has very limited presence or no presence at all. There need to be more resources directed to communities themselves, who can then lead the development process, and we can build civil society at a local level as well.

To address aid effectiveness, very briefly, in terms of the volume of aid, it has been insufficient. According to the Afghan government, $25 billion of aid has been pledged and only $15 billion delivered. When we look at the comparison of military spending to development spending, we see that the American military alone is spending over $100 million a day, and aid spending has averaged about $7 million a day. Too much aid is supply-driven, prescriptive, rather than being needs-based and addressing demand. It's been centralized and urban and has not been evenly distributed. Indeed, we believe that's one of the reasons why insecurity has spread. Not enough aid has gone to build the government, particularly at local levels. Some major donors put the vast majority of their aid around the government, rather than trying to build the government, especially at local levels. Of course there are challenges of corruption, but there are means of dealing with those.

Efficiency is another major problem. A lot of the aid money is going to major contractors and to consultants. We accept that contractors and consultants will be required in the reconstruction process, but it's no reason not to rigorously assess whether they are providing value for money.

Finally, on transparency and accountability, there is not enough transparency. If there were, we could identify clearly the bad practices and try to put them right, which is why we are advocating for full transparency--indicators of aid effectiveness that apply to all donors and measure all the key aspects of aid, such as impact, efficiency, relevance, sustainability, accountability, and the use of Afghan resources. There is clearly a need for increased coordination as well. Finally, we believe that a commission should be established to measure aid effectiveness.

Turning to the last key issue, peace-building at the local level, most of the measures to bring peace to Afghanistan have either been military or they have been at a high level or target-limited. We believe that you cannot impose peace from above. It is essential to try to build it from below.

Insecurity in Afghanistan often has local causes. Indeed, Afghanistan is an incredibly local society, and very often development security depends on variations of circumstances at a local level. We think that community peace-building is an essential measure for achieving peace nationally, and where it has been undertaken in Afghanistan it has made a major difference to levels of security.

That concludes my short presentation. I think perhaps it's more productive for us to discuss the individual issues you'd like to raise.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much for your words.

We'll move to the first round. Mr. Patry.

[Bernard Patry, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Merci.

I read your long report, not all of it, but a big portion. I have two questions.

I think rural development is quite important. As you mentioned, it's mainly around Kabul. I've been in Germany and have discussed it with my German counterparts, and they're doing their aid totally differently. It seems to start from the local area and talking with tribal chiefs, and after that it goes to the local government and then it goes to the province. They achieve much better results than what we're doing right now. The problem we're facing right now in Kandahar is because of the insecurity. The German area is much more secure in the northeast, in the Tajik area.

In Kandahar, is it possible at the present time to start to do PRT? With the new motion that was passed in the House of Commons on March 13, after February 2009 we're supposed to end the combat mission of our army, but we're supposed to do PRT. Is it possible? Is it something that could be achieved, to do some aid after February 2009 in the Kandahar region?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Patry.

Mr. Waldman.

[Matt Waldman]

Thank you.

I am pleased to hear that there are donors that are seeking to promote development from a local level and build it up from there. I think that is the right approach. I should say I think CIDA is doing a good job in Afghanistan. Of course there are some areas where we would press for some changes, but in fact probably the most valuable role for CIDA will be influencing other donors.

We think that the PRTs, the provincial reconstruction teams, have been misused. The mandate of PRTs is very clear, and that is to create a stable and secure environment in which development can take place. We believe that they should adhere to that mandate as far as possible. We accept now that given that over the last few years PRTs have been engaging in development activities in providing assistance, it may be necessary for them to continue to do so to an extent. But we think the urgent priority is for support for civilian-led development processes, and that is why we are pleased that support has been provided to the national solidarity program in Kandahar. And of course, if possible, support should be provided to building the government at a local level. That is why sub-national governance reforms are also important, so that entities of the state at that level are clear about what they're doing.

Of course civil society organizations have a role too, and it's important to boost their contribution. So to answer your question, yes, I think there certainly are opportunities for new means of promoting development in Kandahar. It will always be difficult, but the ultimate objective should be to try to promote and strengthen civilian-led means of promoting development.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

You have a little more time, Mr. Patry.

[Bernard Patry, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

I can share my time with some of my colleagues if they want to ask questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Very quickly.

[Bernard Patry, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

You say to build at local levels, but people living in Afghanistan have been living at a tribal level, not for centuries, but for millions of years, for so many years. We're not going to change them. We cannot bring our type of democracy. You put an election on a local level and they're going to elect the same leader. It's not going to change with an election or no election, in a sense.

But my question is how can we bring more resources to the community? A few months ago I saw a video from Helmand province--the next province, where the Brits are--and it was shocking to see the people with nothing at all. It was the winter-time, and I saw bare feet. How can we be sure that we can help, in a certain sense, to bring in some food at the community level until we have the time to build a society, to bring irrigation, to help them in any field? How can we help them right now?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

You have 30 seconds.

[Matt Waldman]

I think you made a very pertinent observation there, that we cannot seek to create the same kinds of societies and governments that we have in western countries. I think it is possible to deliver aid in rural areas, and there are examples of where that has happened.

Going back to one or two of the points I made, I think there needs to be a clear system of sub-national governance, so the state is functioning well at a sub-national level. I think that's crucial.

I think getting resources out to communities themselves has proven to be effective, such as through the national solidarity program and other national programs, and we should attempt to build that and strengthen those kinds of programs.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

Madame Deschamps.

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Good afternoon. I attentively read the report on the consolidation of community peace in Afghanistan. Oxfam began to operate in Afghanistan more than 20 years ago. I also see that you recently made a survey on security by consulting 500 persons in 6 provinces. This is probably what gives rise to what you are now proposing in the way of setting up a national strategy. You also refer to the fact that the NGOs currently on the ground have already launched peace-building programs in various places, two of which are located in Afghanistan.

I'd like to know how society participates in this kind of program. We intend to prepare this society to restore its own order, as a stakeholder in the settlement of various conflicts. How can the Canadian government intervene? Earlier, you mentioned transparency, and I would like you to elaborate on that subject. Funding is also an issue. I think that an increase in financial humanitarian aid could pave the way to programs like this one and be helpful to peace-building.

I have put many questions to you. I will let you answer them one by one.