Foreign Affairs Committee on Feb. 10th, 2009

[Lawrence Cannon, Conservative, Pontiac, QC]

But of course not, Mr. Crête. I am always interested in seeing members of the Bloc Québécois defending Canada's foreign affairs policy. Be that as it may, I would like to reassure you: Canada's foreign affairs policy will not be directed by the U.S. As you know, we work closely with the United States, which is our most important economic partner. The people of the United States and the people of Canada have too much respect and regard for one another to step on one another's toes.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

If I have some time left, I would like to ask a related question...

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

You have two minutes.

Again, I would encourage questioners, members, and ministers to try to keep our questions coming through the chair. That would be good.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Pardon me, Mr. Chairman.

It relates to another area, although it is somewhat similar.

Canada signed a free trade agreement with Colombia. Now, the human rights record in that country is of some particular concern. As Minister of Foreign Affairs, do you intend to prohibit agreements that condone absolutely unacceptable behaviour? Just today we received more troubling news: 17 aboriginal people from Colombia were killed by parallel military factions. Would you be inclined to reconsider Canada's position before ratifying this agreement?

[Lawrence Cannon, Conservative, Pontiac, QC]

As you know, the agreement has been signed. It is subject to a 21-day review period, after which, as a parliamentarian, you will have an opportunity to debate the issue if you feel that it is necessary to do so, Mr. Crête. You will also note that pursuant to this agreement, that country must abide by the provisions of the enabling legislation, provisions that are obviously recognized internationally, for example, matters relating to labour and existing benefits. My colleague, the Minister for International Trade, will be in charge of the file. He is the one who will be answering that question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Crête.

We'll move to the government side, and we'll go to Ms. Brown.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will be sharing my time with the parliamentary secretary.

Minister, thank you very much for the brief you gave us. I found it very helpful in its broad brush strokes.

In here you say,“A word now about the Arctic”. I wonder if you could take some time to perhaps clarify, and maybe enhance, the government's strategy for affirming Canadian sovereignty over our Arctic territory.

[Lawrence Cannon, Conservative, Pontiac, QC]

Thank you for the question.

Of course, Canada's sovereignty over the lands, islands, and waters of the Canadian Arctic is long-standing, well established, and based on historic title. Canada is, of course, an Arctic power. We all know that. The Arctic and the north are, of course, part of our national identity.

As you know, and as I've alluded to, I'm making the Arctic a priority of ours, so I will be travelling to the Arctic states to strengthen our position and to reaffirm our engagement on those issues.

As you know, our government has announced, through its northern strategy, a series of initiatives, and these initiatives all rest on four pillars, fundamentally: to protect the environment and the environmental heritage that we all have a responsibility to protect; to promote the economic and social development of the territories; to improve and develop, again, the governance structures there; and once again, to reaffirm our sovereignty. Those basically are the four pillars we're working on.

My colleague the Minister of Indian Affairs, Chuck Strahl, is responsible, from a domestic perspective, for coordinating the whole-of-government approach. The Minister of Natural Resources and the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities are involved. Several departments are involved in affirming our sovereignty and making sure there are projects up there that are going to enable Canada to, as a matter of fact, put its mark on that territory.

For far too long, since Captain Bernier went out a hundred years ago to establish.... I see that Mr. Crête is clapping, because he's a good guy from his riding, or at least he came initially from his riding. Captain Bernier went out there to establish Canadian Arctic sovereignty. So we're actually doing something that should have been done a long, long time ago.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Madam Brown, did you have another question?

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

I do, if I may, and it's just, again, a follow-up question.

I wonder if you could speak to the issue of the Northwest Passage, Mr. Minister.

[Lawrence Cannon, Conservative, Pontiac, QC]

On the Northwest Passage, the disagreement with the U.S. over various waterways that, of course, are known as the Northwest Passage is a dispute over the legal status of the waters and not over the ownership of sovereignty. I think that is important to point out. The waters of the Canadian Arctic archipelago include the waters of the Northwest Passage and internal waters of Canada and therefore fall under Canadian jurisdiction.

As a matter of policy, Canada permits shipping through Canadian Arctic waters so long as conditions related to security, the environment, and the Inuit interests are met. I can say that on January 28 of this year, the government introduced legislation expanding the area of application of the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act. Minister Prentice did this, as well as Minister Baird, and he is taking steps towards implementing a mandatory ship reporting system in all Canadian Arctic waters.

So here again, we are assuming our responsibilities and we will continue to assume them.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Minister, and thank you, Ms. Brown.

Mr. Abbott.

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Minister, we really appreciate your time here, and probably one of the burning issues is Afghanistan. I wonder if you could describe our efforts to assist Afghans in enhancing their country's governance, security, and prosperity.

[Lawrence Cannon, Conservative, Pontiac, QC]

I've mentioned this to Mr. Rae before. It is a key priority for the government. We're devoting considerable funds to that regard and efforts to be able to assist the Afghans in enhancing their country's governance, security, and prosperity.

I alluded to our priorities before in my speech. We placed, as you know, heavier emphasis on reconstruction, development, and training the Afghan security forces. We've also significantly increased our emphasis on Kandahar province over that period. We've reinforced our priorities over a 10-year period. Just to give you a ballpark figure, that commitment runs from $1.3 billion to $1.9 billion. But once again, Mr. Abbott, what's important here is to recognize that our ultimate goal in Afghanistan is to leave Afghanistan to the Afghans in a viable manner, with a better government, more peaceful, and of course more secure. And that's the objective we're pursuing with our policy.

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

On June 10, 2006, Canada announced six priorities on three signature projects. I wonder if you could name them or describe them to us.

[Lawrence Cannon, Conservative, Pontiac, QC]

They're projects. For instance, the Dahla Dam is an irrigation system project. It's extremely important because it will enable diversification in that area. You'll recall education, where we've committed to reconstruction of a number of schools. There's the whole issue of polio eradication, in terms of health. We are extremely active in doing that. Those are priorities, of course, that the government has put forward. We're increasing civilian engagement in Afghanistan. Before, I mentioned this whole issue of being able to build the security forces, but we're also doing the same thing in terms of civilian engagement. We're working, as well, to make sure there will be—and we know there will be—elections in August of this year. So we're making sure the democratic principles that need to be put in place are there.

So those are some of the issues we're working with and tackling.

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

About how many civilian personnel are involved right now?

[Lawrence Cannon, Conservative, Pontiac, QC]

Our contingency, the last time we looked, is about 100 civilians,100 personnel, who are now delivering some $300 million in assistance annually. So close to half of this assistance is targeted directly at Kandahar province, where the need is the greatest.

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

That's interesting; it's a little-known fact in Canada. I was surprised that even in my office in Cranbrook I had a constituent come in, a former civil servant who had applied to join them, and she had such a positive attitude. It reminded me a lot of the positive attitude of our troops over there, in that they're actually achieving things and making a difference.

[Lawrence Cannon, Conservative, Pontiac, QC]

You're absolutely right.

I'll let Len Edwards speak to that. He has some pretty smack-bang people who are working for us over there, and it's not an easy posting. Maybe you could take a second or two on that, Mr. Edwards.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Mr. Edwards, we have about a minute, so it will have to be smack-bang.

[Lawrence Cannon, Conservative, Pontiac, QC]

Well, give him a minute to talk about the people who are working over there for Canada.

[Leonard Edwards, Deputy Minister, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (Foreign Affairs)]

It's not just members of my department; they come from a number of departments, as you probably know: the RCMP, Corrections Canada, and a number of others from the public safety portfolio.

We've been able to put a lot of people into two areas. There are the people who are working at the Kandahar airfield alongside our military folks, making sure that the cooperative effort between our military and our civilian component, particularly on the development side, works really well. There are also people working at the provincial reconstruction team base inside Kandahar city itself.

If you visit, you can't help but be immensely impressed by the dedication and the work ethic of these—in many cases, very young—people who are dedicating an early part of their careers to this cause.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Edwards.

We'll move to the New Democratic Party.

Mr. Dewar.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I want to thank the minister and our guests, Mr. Edwards and Mr. Hirst, for being here today.

I too will go to a number of different files. As you can appreciate, there's a lot to talk about. I'll pick up where one of my colleagues left off, with regard to Mr. Khadr.

We know that at some point our government has to do something. To date, we've had our government simply say.... Well, we know the line; my friend the parliamentary secretary has read the line well. But at some point Canadians want to know when the time is going to come—because it's coming, Minister—that you'll have to do something other than say we're waiting for the exercise to finish in the United States.

I want to start off by asking whether any departmental officials have explored the options for repatriating Mr. Khadr. Maybe we can start there.