Evidence of meeting #32 for Foreign Affairs and International Development in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was china.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Professor Emeritus, Political Science Department, York University
There are a whole bunch of questions here. Let me see if I can get at some of them.
On the most and least progress in human rights, I think in some ways, law has been the area where we've done a lot, with law and legal aid and so forth. That's very impressive, and we've been doing that for 20 years. Whether you can measure the effect remains to be seen, but from my point of view, it's significant.
Another area is civil society. We've had a small program run by CIDA for maybe up to 10 years through the Canada Fund. We give $25,000 or $30,000 a year to Chinese civil society organizations, and they go out and work on AIDS and they work on the environment, on improving the situation for women, on unemployment, and on age. This is all done in spite of the fact that the Chinese government hasn't really liked it, because we are giving this aid directly to civil society organizations, and despite the fact that our own Canadian government hasn't liked it, because we aren't sure we have control over what we are doing exactly. In general, in anything we do in the socio-economic area, which is part of human rights, you can see that there's progress.
In the political and civil rights area, that remains somewhat more difficult.
On the subject of Canada not looming large in China, I agree with my colleague. We once loomed large in China. We could have been a contender, as Marlon Brando said. But look where we are now. Part of it is not any fault of any government policy. China has just grown so big and so powerful, and we have not. Slowly, in the last 20 years, and this has nothing to do with human rights, our role in the world has shifted. We are no longer quite up there. We can't play with the big boys and girls, so to speak.
So can we affect what goes on in China? Well, certainly, under the current conditions, we cannot. Right now we are not a player in China. The top levels in the government and our level right now have an awkward relationship. Hopefully that will change. Whether we can do it at the mid levels and at the lower levels--picking up on what Pitman Potter talked about earlier about there being many Chinas and that it's not just at the official level--we could do that. How much of an impact that will have when we work with our counterparts at mid and lower levels, I don't know. But we can do that.
How do we engage on human rights? Well, I think we should restore the dialogue at the top level. I think we should get our NGOs and civil society groups more involved in the process with their counterparts. That's going to be tough. I think we should develop those soft programs that we already have that CIDA and IDRC run, and so forth. These are programs that really do have an impact. Some have funded your centre.
I guess those are my answers to those questions.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Thank you for those answers.
I'm going to Mr. Marston again, but I'm going to remind the committee that we do have a very short item--adopting the report from the steering committee--that we want to accomplish at roughly 5:30.
Mr. Marston.
NDP
Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Two names come to mind: Dr. Bethune, and Dr. MacKay in Taiwan. Those names have carried a lot of weight in, I guess some would argue, one country.
You mentioned CIDA funding some of the organizations over there. One of the ones I referred to with our last guests who were here was a workers' group that was offering rights advice to farm workers. I walked through there, saw a poster, and said it looked like my friend...I won't name the individual, but it looked like his work. He had gone into China to assist in this program totally on his own hook.
There are a lot of people engaged in China who we don't even know about.
The dialogue is a tool. Looking at that, in my mind, we're in for an extremely long process. I do think Canada has a significant role to play because of the respect that's there. Sometimes it doesn't show itself, but it's still there. I mentioned before my belief that we should be investing in both CIDA and DFAIT and adding language skills.
The other thing that concerns me is long-term institutional memory. I notice your hair is the same colour as mine. We've got a lot of expertise and a lot of people who have invested a lot of time there. I'm concerned about how we capture and retain that and move it forward within our departments as well.
Professor Emeritus, Political Science Department, York University
I guess I get to reply first because I'm the white-haired guy.
First of all, some people would say that white hair doesn't mean expertise; it means you should be retired and doing something else. Besides, we're trying to develop a new policy here and we don't have time for you people from the past, which indeed may have been the case until today. That's just from own point of view.
Professor Emeritus, Political Science Department, York University
Dr. Bethune and Dr. MacKay and those role models are important. Whenever I go some place in China--because I sort of have a beard and he had a beard and he's bald--they say I look like Norman Bethune. That always immediately provides some kind of an entrée. Even if many Canadians may not agree with his political thinking, he is seen as the Canadian of great significance in China. Today, Dashan, another Canadian and a former student of U of T, is a great comedian on Chinese television. He is now equal to Bethune as a great Canadian hero.
The problem is that there aren't that many Canadian heroes right now in China for the Chinese to look upon. As somebody just told me today, even the taxi drivers in Beijing ask, “What's happened to Canada here? How come you are no longer friendly to China?”--Bethune notwithstanding. This is a problem.
On the subject of workers' rights, they've just passed a labour law in China which is going to significantly improve the rights of workers and increase their working conditions and salaries. As a result, the low-cost, low-end factories in southern China are shutting down and are either going to be moved into the centre of China, where wages are still lower, or they're moving to Vietnam.
In effect, there is change taking place here in the labour area with this new legislation, as China is beginning to move up the value chain. This is a very interesting development, and we'll see where it takes China and whether it can continue to send this shirt that I'm wearing to this meeting today for me to buy in the stores, or whether those shirts will be made in Bangladesh or Vietnam.
President, International Centre for Criminal Law Reform and Criminal Justice Policy
Very quickly, the policy has to be one of targeting, in the sense of what you have been doing, and if you feel you've had a good success in doing this or that, we should continue and see if we can increase it if they're willing. We find that in many respects they're willing in many fields, but not in everything. So it's a question of targeting, adjusting to that target, and benefiting from it mutually.
There are a lot of things we can benefit from and learn, even in our so-called legal system, which we think is so wonderful. Well, there are things that they're doing that could save us a lot of money, a lot of time, and keep some of our people out of jail by using community service. I just use that as an example. I'm not saying our system is not doing its best, but there are things we can learn as Canadians. It's not a one-way street where it's only them learning. Targeting is the way I would put it.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Thank you very much to both of you. We appreciate your comments.
We're going to suspend for one minute. We're going to move into committee business. In fact, maybe we won't even suspend. This will be very quick, if someone would offer a motion that we adopt the steering committee report.
I'll take it from Mr. Lebel, seconded by Mr. Patry.
(Motion agreed to)
Thank you. I will now adjourn today's meeting.