Foreign Affairs Committee on Nov. 27th, 2007

[Caroline St-Hilaire, Bloc, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you. You actually have another 30 seconds, if you want them.

[Vivian Barbot, Bloc, Papineau, QC]

I'll continue.

How much of the $126 million requested is going to Afghanistan, Haiti and Darfur? Do you have those figures on hand?

[Robert Greenhill]

What amounts are those, madam?

[Vivian Barbot, Bloc, Papineau, QC]

What percentage of the supplementary funding requested will go to Afghanistan, Haiti and Darfur?

[Robert Greenhill]

I'll answer in part, then I'll hand the question off to Greg. A sum of $15 million earmarked for operations is going to Sudan and Afghanistan. In addition, $16 million included in the grants and contributions is earmarked for Sudan. Of the $210 million in contributions and grants, $40 million is intended for the Afghan Reconstruction Trust Fund.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

All right, thank you, Mr. Greenhill.

Mr. Goldring, did you have a quick one? Then we'll go to Mr. Dewar.

I'm sorry, Mr. Obhrai.

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Calgary East, AB]

Thank you. I couldn't let them get away that easy.

We have you both, the deputy foreign minister and the CIDA president, and I think it would be great for us to know the coordination efforts that the departments, both of you, do to provide a comprehensive overall objective of the government in foreign policy.

There are two areas I would focus on. One is the realignment of all these things to the new priorities of the Americas as well as the foreign affairs committee's democratic development report that we issued, and how that would be done. I'd be interested in knowing how you two work together to reach that coordination.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Yes, that's a good question, Mr. Obhrai. In many different studies that we've done on this, how we coordinate among the departments has always been an issue.

Mr. Edwards.

[Leonard Edwards]

Why don't I start off, and then Robert can follow?

The fact is that we coordinated our presentations today. Maybe that is the first thing to say. But it's an example of the fairly close coordination we personally have. We speak to each other pretty regularly, two or three times a week, and talk about what the agency and the department are doing. We meet regularly, and so do our officials. So in terms of mechanisms, there are plenty of informal mechanisms. I know our ministers and their offices also stay in close touch.

I like to think that we have quite a close, informal way of working together. There are a number of interdepartmental structures that exist or that we're thinking of creating that will help to deal with coordination. I have recently established a group of deputy ministers on representation abroad. All of those departments that I mentioned in my statement as having interests in our representation abroad meet every couple of months and talk about some of the very practical issues of managing our international network, the numbers of people who are moving every year, the new resources we're putting in, where we're bringing people back home, and so on. It's a highly complex management issue, and of course CIDA and Immigration are the two key partners that my department has in our international platform.

We also work very closely together on the international assistance envelope and its management, informally and formally. We very closely coordinate the work that the government does in terms of determining where assistance money should be spent. For example, in the work we've done on Afghanistan there is assistance money that has come that is part of my department's spending structures as well as, of course, CIDA's, which has the largest portion. The Afghanistan task force is another excellent example of where coordination takes place, not only on a daily basis, but sometimes also on an hourly basis.

I'd like to think that we are doing quite well in terms of the overall coordination. Could we do better? I'm sure we could. We always could do better, but I think the record right now is pretty good.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Edwards.

We're going to go to Mr. Greenhill.

[Robert Greenhill]

I'd echo all that Len said. I'd also note that there's a bit of a myth that in fact the two departments don't coordinate well. My experience over the last two and a half years is actually a model internationally. The work we do is truly whole-of-government in Haiti, truly whole-of-government in Sudan, and truly whole-of-government in Afghanistan, together with broader regional strategies.

It's interesting; it was most recently recognized by the development advisory committee of the OECD. When they did our five-year peer review, they actually commended Canada on its whole-of-government approach and said we had a very promising approach to fragile states and this coordination, which they encouraged us to share with other donors.

So, to Len's point, obviously we can always do better, but actually, both formally and informally, we've put in place some really good mechanisms to ensure we're joined up where it counts.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Greenhill.

Just before we go to Mr. Dewar, earlier when we were speaking in regard to the evaluations, both the in-house and the independent evaluations, you made mention that they are public but that you would also make them available to our committee. If we could ask for all those evaluations, I'm certain that would be something that our committee could use. We've just finished an evaluation of the Afghan national program. I think if we could understand even the methodology of how you evaluated, it might be a bonus for us. So thank you.

Mr. Dewar.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to follow up on my question in the last round. I'm going to give you another quote, and this time it's not from a military perspective but a diplomatic perspective. It's a quote attributed to Afghanistan's ambassador to Canada, Mr. Samad, who was quoted in November as saying:

Canadian aid isn’t going far enough... A foundation has been laid, but we have to build on that foundation to make something of it. Whether in Kandahar or in the rest of Afghanistan, we have to find ways of putting Afghans to work. We need public works projects that can employ young people, instead of letting the Taliban or the drug traffickers employ them... The people in Kandahar want to see projects that are much more visible. They need hospitals that function, they need an honest and effective police force... We have to go beyond wells and irrigation ditches. There have to be bigger infrastructure projects.

I provide that quote to you because the previous quote was from General Henault, and he's saying that the mission isn't balanced. Those are his words, not mine, from his quote.

When I hear from CIDA's perspective, am I right that we have six people on the ground in Mission Afghanistan, six new CIDA people in Kandahar...?

[Robert Greenhill]

I think what's important to note is that across Afghanistan we have about 22. We have nine in Kandahar overseeing projects. But there are some 300 aid workers through the agencies.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

No, I was just curious about CIDA. In Foreign Affairs, how many people do we have on the ground in Kandahar?

[Leonard Edwards]

In Kandahar, my count was somewhere around six, which includes the senior adviser, who—

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

And we have about 2,500 military, more or less.

[Leonard Edwards]

That's correct.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

My point is, you get the money and do what you can with it, but when I see roughly nine CIDA people, notwithstanding the people they work with, and six Foreign Affairs people, and we have 2,500 troops, I didn't see it in the comments, but are the three Ds dead? Are we using that language any more? I was looking carefully for the three-D approach. Is that something we don't use any more in terms of terminology from either department?

[Leonard Edwards]

Are three Ds dead? We don't use the terminology all that much, I have to say, because to us that sounds like three different pillars. What we believe in is that we all have to work together.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

I have a short amount of time. I try not to interrupt, but I am doing so, and I apologize.

It used to be that the government would talk about the three-D approach. We don't hear that any more, so I see a shift.

I'm going to go on to another question, because I'm not sure I have much time.

On page 165, there's an item for over $11 million, “To ensure a secured presence in Afghanistan and Sudan, and to provide necessary headquarters support for the delivery of aid”. Is the money in that vote item to hire security personnel? It looks like a vote for human resources. Is that the case?

[Robert Greenhill]

No. It's to provide the operating staff—moving to 35 people in the field—and our 80 staff here in Ottawa.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

So it's not to hire security; it's to hire more people to work in the field. It's a human resource vote, from my understanding of how the votes work.

[Robert Greenhill]

Yes.