Foreign Affairs Committee on Oct. 29th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Good morning, colleagues.

This is meeting number 36 of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, on Thursday, October 29, 2009.

Our first order of business this morning is in consideration of the report on the five-year review of Rights and Democracy for 2003 to 2008.

Appearing before us from Rights and Democracy we have Mr. Beauregard, president and chief executive officer; Payam Akhavan, member of the board of directors; Jean Guilbeault, member of the board of directors; Marie-France Cloutier, director, administration and resources; and Razmik Panossian, director, policy, programs and planning.

I understand you will give two opening statements and then we'll go into a round of questioning.

Madame Lalonde has a point to begin.

[Francine Lalonde, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Chair, I introduced a motion about Rights and Democracy's five-year funding plan.

Would it be possible to discuss it before the end of this meeting?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

I think we would probably go to committee business at 10:45, so we wouldn't be cutting Rights and Democracy short.

[Francine Lalonde, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

I do not wish to take any time away from Rights and Democracy.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Madame Lalonde, if we go to committee business, we would have to go in order of the motions as they appear on the order paper for our committee. That isn't the first one up. In fact, Mr. Obhrai has already asked about a motion and so has Mr. Dewar.

If you want to go to committee business, we can discuss that, but it will be at 10:45 or 10:50, not in the first hour.

[Francine Lalonde, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

No, I did not want it in the first round.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Okay, so we can take time in the last hour.

I believe Mr. Guilbeault, who is a member of the board of directors, will have the opening statement and then we'll go to our second presenter.

Mr. Guilbeault, welcome.

[Jean Guilbeault, Member of the Board of Directors, Rights & Democracy]

Good morning. I would like to begin by thanking the Chair, Mr. Sorenson, as well as the other members of this committee for inviting Rights and Democracy to appear today.

For nearly 20 years, Rights and Democracy has been dedicated to bringing to reality the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its binding covenants and other international human rights instruments.

We promote and defend human rights and democratic freedoms around the world. We support human rights defenders and democracy activists striving to achieve better lives for themselves and their communities. We assist societies in the building of democratic institutions and processes that give effect to universal human rights.

I am pleased to represent the board of directors of Rights and Democracy at this important meeting. I would like to offer the regrets of the Chair of the Board, Aurel Braun, who could not be with us today due to a family emergency.

The act that created Rights and Democracy gave it a board of directors that includes 10 Canadian members from across the country as well as three international members to ensure that developing countries are represented.

My colleague Payam Akhavan, who is here today, as well as our members from La Paz, Regina, Kabul, Calgary, Bamako, Toronto and Ottawa will no doubt agree with me when I state that the entire board of directors thanks Parliament for its support to Rights and Democracy over the last 20 years and looks forward to building on our important relationship over the next 20 years.

The five-year review of our organization, which was completed by the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade and tabled in Parliament by Minister Cannon, is an important element of the act that established Rights and Democracy.

In 1988, when Canada's Parliament gave Rights and Democracy the mandate to strengthen democratic institutions and programs that give effect to the International Bill of Human Rights, it ensured that our work would be carried out on behalf of Canadians.

By appearing before you today, we are reporting back to Canadians, through their representatives in Parliament, on our important accomplishments over the last five years. We are proud of these accomplishments. As you will see from the evaluation report and from the presentation by our President, Rémy Beauregard, Rights and Democracy is implementing its mandate in some of the most difficult and dangerous countries in the world, where human rights remain unfulfilled and where democracy seems a long way from taking root.

Notwithstanding the challenges inherent in our line of work, the programs and activities of Rights and Democracy are, in the words of the evaluators, making “a positive contribution to Canada's role in the area of human rights and democratic development on the international stage.” Nowhere is this more true than in Canada's two largest recipients of official development assistance.

In Afghanistan, Rights and Democracy supports the participation of women in the transformation of Afghan society. We are working with women's rights groups and traditional leaders to halt the discriminatory practices toward women, especially in marriage. We contributed to building a democratic culture based on human rights through a number of local partnerships throughout the country. Rights and Democracy's efforts lead to the approval by the Supreme Court of Afghanistan of a new marriage contract that respects women's rights.

We are currently working with an Afghan law-drafting committee that is facing enormous challenges to re-write the country's family law. Our office in Kabul, which employs 18 people, is staffed entirely by Afghan nationals. Our programs touch thousands of people throughout Afghanistan.

In Haiti, Rights and Democracy contributed to the establishment of the Office of the Ombudsman, and organized human rights tribunals after the fall of the dictatorship in 1994. Through our office in Port-au-Prince, we trained over 350 civil society activists throughout the country in advocacy techniques, leading to greater citizen participation in the democratic process.

With funding from CIDA, we are currently working with political parties and politically-active youth to promote multi-party dialogue, encourage the political participation of women and foster greater State-society relations on important human rights issues such as access to food and civil registration.

These examples point to the high quality of our programs in Canada's priority countries. Our work in Haiti and Afghanistan also points to another important factor in the success of our endeavours: sustainable long-term financing. These two country programs benefit from long-term funding arrangements with CIDA, which allow us to operate through offices in the field. Rights and Democracy, as an executing agency, has consistently delivered on results.

However, most of the work we do, whether it is supporting the pro-democracy movement in Burma or documenting human rights violations in Zimbabwe, is funded through an annual parliamentary allocation. This committee's support was instrumental in securing a significant increase in Rights and Democracy's parliamentary allocation five years ago to approximately $9.2 million. The five-year review demonstrates that we have generated positive results with this allocation, and it recommends a series of steps to improve our programs and operations.

Mr. Beauregard will outline what has been done, with the support of the board of directors, to implement these recommendations. He will also explain why the future success of Rights and Democracy depends on a multi-year, single-source funding agreement with the Government of Canada for its parliamentary allocation. As we prepare to finalize our strategic plan for 2010 to 2015, your knowledge and expertise, and indeed your support, will be crucial.

Before I conclude, I would be remiss if I did not recognize the important contribution of Rights and Democracy's staff, represented today by its union's president, Maxime Longangué, and our partners across the globe. As you have seen on several occasions in the past when Rights and Democracy experts have come before this committee, our staff is dedicated to the cause of human rights and democracy, and pursue the mission of the institution with unparalleled professionalism and determination; our employees are the guardians of our mandate in the field.

Parliamentarians, you can rest assured that Rights and Democracy will, with your support, continue executing its mandate of promoting and defending human rights and democratic development throughout the world—that is to say, promoting and defending values dear to all Canadians.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Guilbeault.

Mr. Beauregard, you have 10 minutes.

[Rémy M. Beauregard, President and Chief Executive Officer, Rights & Democracy]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to join Mr. Guilbeault in thanking you for inviting our organization to today's meeting. I would like to take this opportunity to recognize the presence in this room of two other members of our board of directors: Brad Farquhar, from Regina, and Professor Elliot Tepper, from Ottawa.

Rights and Democracy is often called upon to present to this committee. We were here last week to discuss the human rights impact of foreign investments. This important special relationship with Parliament is unique. Few countries in the world have sought to create by law an institution such as ours. To my knowledge, no other country has one whose mandate links both human rights and democratic development. In this respect Rights and Democracy was created not only to promote universal human rights and democratic freedoms, and those who support their realization, but also to foster democratic institutions, structures, and processes that individuals require to give effect to human rights.

In staying true to this mandate and pursuing these intrinsically linked objectives, Rights and Democracy has worked closely with civil society organizations and governments, including the Government of Canada, and has engaged in places and situations where the need is most acute.

Our extensive experience in the field has led us to conclude, as we did in the original report preceding its creation, that democratic development is about reforming the way decisions are made in a society by ensuring that citizens participate in the decision-making process that affects their lives.

Rights and Democracy has applied this unique approach to democratic development in over 30 countries since its creation. Currently we work on four thematic lines, which include democratic development, women's rights, economic and social rights, and indigenous peoples' rights. We operate in 13 core countries.

Rights and Democracy's extensive underground contacts and long-term country expertise, its ability to bring together various actors from state and civil society, and its solid reputation allow it to react and deploy innovative programs rapidly.

The purpose of my presentation today is to present the main conclusions and recommendations of the five-year review. I will describe how Rights and Democracy has implemented these recommendations.

The statutory five-year review that you have before you was conducted by the Office of the Inspector General of DFAIT and covers the period between March 2003 to March 2008. The review included data review and analysis of our programs and activities to determine the relevance of our work and the strategy and governance system deployed by the institution. Six case studies were chosen by the evaluators to provide a cross-section of programs.

I am pleased to state that the Office of the Inspector General concluded that the overall results of this review were positive. The data gathered and interviews held with various stakeholders in Canada and in partner countries have confirmed the effectiveness and relevance of Rights and Democracy's activities in the field as well as their compliance with Rights and Democracy's mission.

As with all evaluations, there were a number of areas for improvement. This is healthy for an organization, especially one that is operating in different contexts with an overall objective fixed in the long term.

Of the five recommendations, four are directed at Rights and Democracy. The first recommendation directed to us is to increase our effort to engage Canadians in the work that we do, as mandated by paragraph 4(3)(c) of Rights and Democracy's act. The act calls on us to foster research and debate in Canada on human rights and democracy issues. We completely agree with this recommendation and we have already made significant progress in reaching out to Canadians to raise awareness. In 2008 we created a communication directorate to better manage the various components of our strategy. We developed a new Canadian engagement strategy, which we have already begun to implement. The central part of this strategy is the new cross-Canada dialogue series. We have already been to Winnipeg and Ottawa, and we will hold a series of dialogues in each province and every territory over the next five years. While our headquarters are in Montreal, we are opening an office in Ottawa to better engage the foreign-policy community concentrated in the national capital.

Over 20 Rights and Democracy student delegations are active on university campuses across the country, from Nanaimo to Moncton. Every year these delegations act directly in their communities to “put the world to rights” in their own way.

Recommendation number 3, which is number 2 addressed to us, but number 3 in the report, is for Rights and Democracy to maintain its program focus in the coming year while improving its management approach and strategy. We welcome this recommendation, as we believe the teams and countries in which we work and the partners with whom we work require long-term engagement. Since January of this year, we have been mobilized in the preparation of our strategic plan as recommended in the report. The 2015 strategic plan recognizes that the institution has a potential that must be maintained. The strategic planning process, approved by the board, was led by Rights and Democracy staff and included efforts to learn from past experience as well as to look forward into the future environmental factors that will influence our work. Consultations were held with board members as well as with 150 stakeholders in Canada and abroad, including the Government of Canada and partner organizations. The draft of the strategic plan has been presented to the board for approval very soon.

Many of our programs will evolve into new and innovative areas of work. Rights and Democracy has been supporting the democratic movement in Burma, and will continue to do so through the democratic voice of Burma and by supporting the Burmese Parliament in exile. Rights and Democracy is working to end impunity for human rights violation in Zimbabwe and to train journalists on how to report in a repressive environment on democracy issues. Thanks to Rights and Democracy, Chinese non-governmental organizations are advocating for democratic change within China by using laws to improve their respective human rights. In Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country in the world, Rights and Democracy is working with civil society in order to foster dialogue around the issue of security sector reform. In Colombia, where I will undertake a mission next week, we are strengthening the political participation and peace-building effort of women and indigenous people through citizen participation initiatives at the municipal level. In Bolivia, Rights and Democracy is supporting the political participation of women at the local level. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, we are supporting efforts by local women to stop sexual violence in eastern Congo and to bring to justice the perpetrators of these crimes. In Morocco and Jordan, Rights and Democracy works to enhance civic participation of youth at the municipal level.

Recommendation number four calls on Rights and Democracy to improve the exchange of information and synergies between its programs. To respond to this recommendation and ensure that the institution operate with a more efficient structure, capable of generating collaboration and knowledge sharing, Rights and Democracy underwent a reorganization in the spring of 2008.

Working groups around priority initiatives and countries were created, as well as a policy team designed to provide research and policy expertise to all programs and initiatives.

Finally, the last recommendation calls on us to improve our financial monitoring and analysis tool. Detailed budgets accompany projects submitted for approval, and vigorous accounting procedures and reporting guidelines are followed by all staff members. Our financial management experts have even travelled to priority countries to provide training sessions to our partners on budget management, an important yet often overlooked result in our capacity-building effort.

As stated by the Inspector General, despite increased funding, CIDA's grand disbursement procedures, based on annual allocation, considerably limit Rights and Democracy's ability to perform its strategic planning.

However, I would like to indicate that CIDA has informed us a few days ago that our budget allocation for the next year had been approved, which will allow us to continue our operations despite the issues that we listed earlier.

Democratic development and the promotion of human rights are necessarily long-term endeavours, with sustainable results possible only with sustained long-term engagement. Rights and Democracy has remained an efficient organization following the increase in funding, and maintains a low percentage of administrative costs compared to the total budget.

As we embark on a new strategic plan for the coming five years, our operations, planning and accountability would benefit tremendously from a consolidated, single-source funding system administered by the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, as recommended by the Office of the Inspector General in recommendation number one.

We will continue to diversify and increase our sources of funding in the coming years to expand our capacity to support democratic development and human rights internationally. The Government of Canada—on the recommendation of this committee—would benefit from implementing recommendation number one, and in so doing strengthen Rights and Democracy.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Beauregard.

We will proceed to the first round of questioning with Mr. Patry and Mr. Pearson, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to Mr. Beauregard, Mr. Guilbeault, Mr. Akhavan, Mr. Panossian and Ms. Cloutier for being here this morning. It is a pleasure to have you here with us. First of all, I would like to thank you for the excellent work that you do internationally as well as the fine documents that you always provide to our committee in both official languages. That is greatly appreciated.

I took a quick look at the records that you gave us. Among the country records, there is one on Afghanistan. You are well aware that Canada's presence in Afghanistan is quite considerable and that it is one of the priorities of this government and the Parliament of Canada. A lot is currently being said about our military mission, but we hear very little about the social mission we are conducting in Afghanistan.

Following the military withdrawal next year from Afghanistan, how do you see Rights and Democracy's presence in that country? Mr. Guilbeault said that you receive $9.2 million in government funding. What portion of that amount is committed in Afghanistan? If you were to receive additional funds for Afghanistan, could you do a whole lot more than what you are currently doing there?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Patry.

Mr. Beauregard.

[Rémy M. Beauregard]

We have a separate budget for Afghanistan, over and above our $9.2 million operating budget. CIDA has given us approximately $1 million a year to undertake a specific project, namely to strengthen the rights of women in Afghanistan. Ours is the only agency to deal with that issue.

You have no doubt been following the family law reform for both the Shi'ite and Sunni communities. As indicated by Mr. Guilbeault, we worked with a committee of experts to support the government and civil society organizations throughout the process, in order to help them shape the public policies that will be based on the legislation. That is our program. We are working in six provinces with a number of women's and civil-society organizations. We have conducted training and produced radio programs to talk with women about their rights. We have often had to deal with the Department of Justice and the department responsible for the Status of Women.

Those are our current activities, but we will have to ensure follow-up. I have discussed these matters with the Afghan minister responsible for the Status of Women during my visit there. Once the legislation is implemented, there will be a family code. We have to establish a mechanism to inform Afghans of the existence of those laws and their meaning. Following that, it will be important to set up family courts or institutions to which people can turn to resolve their problems.

There is currently only one family court in Afghanistan, located in Kabul. In the rest of the country, the normal process is through traditional courts. Women must also have access to legal services. In the six provinces where we have a presence, we are currently supporting legal clinics that specialize in the rights of women and children. There is a lot of ground to cover, and those efforts are not enough. If we are to continue beyond 2011, we will have to build on the experience we have acquired and the contacts we have established on the ground, and continue to work along the same lines. Simply put, this is unfinished business.

You are no doubt aware that it is a great privilege for us to have as a member of our board of directors Ms. Sima Samar, the president of Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission. She has long been an active human rights defender. Recently, the Governor General informed Ms. Samar that she had been awarded the Order of Canada, and she will travel to Canada to receive it in the next few weeks. She is a real asset, and we have developed very close ties with her country.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Beauregard.

Mr. Pearson.

[Glen Pearson, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. Beauregard, the first recommendation talks about the consolidation of funds between CIDA and DFAIT. If you were to implement that recommendation, what difference would that make to what you do? What would be the challenges to that?

[Rémy M. Beauregard]

I would like to ask Madame Cloutier, our director of finance and administration, to respond. She is familiar with the funding difficulties and money entry.

[Marie-France Cloutier, Director, Administration and Resources, Rights & Democracy]

As it was mentioned before, we just learned this week that Minister Oda assigned the part of our allocation that comes from CIDA. This year we heard that we would get full funding in October. Last year we heard in January. This is very hard, because our budget is for the full $9.8 million, and from the beginning of the year we spend on the assumption that we have this money, but we only get confirmation later on in the year. In the meantime, we have to borrow this money from somewhere in order to function. That's one of the problems.

The other problem is that the reporting mechanisms are very different between DFAIT and CIDA. CIDA now grants us on the basis of a project, the project being managing Rights and Democracy, so there is a reporting mechanism that is very different. This annual report normally should be our report to the minister and to Parliament, but for CIDA we have another reporting mechanism that we have to fulfill.

[Glen Pearson, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Madame Cloutier, has that always been the case, the way you report back? Is this something new in the last few years?

[Marie-France Cloutier]

It's new since this committee has gotten us an increase in our funding. This increase was never consolidated. It came directly from CIDA. Before, we only got it from one source and that was from the Department of Foreign Affairs.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

So since the increase in funding there have been these extra accountability measures put in place?

[Marie-France Cloutier]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Okay, thank you.

Yes, Mr. Beauregard. We've got ten seconds.

[Rémy M. Beauregard]

The problem is that Department of Foreign Affairs funding is usually allocated over a three-year period. However, CIDA's funding is allocated on a yearly basis. This makes project planning on the ground extremely difficult.