Evidence of meeting #34 for Foreign Affairs and International Development in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was mongolia.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Lois Brown Conservative Newmarket—Aurora, ON
I'd be a willing host if you ever need a place to billet someone.
Vice-President, International Services, Canadian Executive Service Organization
Thank you.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
That's all. We'll come back to you, Ms. Brown.
We're going to move to Mr. Dewar, for seven minutes.
Paul Dewar NDP Ottawa Centre, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you to our guests.
I might start with our friends from Mongolia. I'm curious about other jurisdictions or other countries that have worked with you. Are there any that are involved in public service reform and support?
Tundevdorj Zalaa-Uul
The modern Mongolian government public service organization is very young, with only 15 years of experience. As we mentioned earlier, we have been through three short phases, and we are still improving our legislative system. Everything is still in progress.
We do not have any countries that directly cooperate with us in our civil service council, like Canada. We do not have that right now. We're still in the process of contacting experience.
NDP
Paul Dewar NDP Ottawa Centre, ON
So Canada is the only country you are working with.
Thank you very much.
NDP
Paul Dewar NDP Ottawa Centre, ON
You talked a little bit about how that's working. Ms. Barrados, having been in front of committee, has told us a bit about that. Have you worked with us at all specifically on the issue of customs and excise and that kind of administration?
Tundevdorj Zalaa-Uul
The President of the Public Service Commission of Canada visited Mongolia in May 2010. During her visit, some cooperation issues were suggested to help our public service, in particular, cooperation and an exchange of experiences in the areas of public service reform, many public principles, codes of conduct, the selection of public service senior and executive officials, and other applicable areas to assist with our public service. Those are--
NDP
Paul Dewar NDP Ottawa Centre, ON
All right. So it's nothing very specific. You're doing the framework at this point.
NDP
Paul Dewar NDP Ottawa Centre, ON
Thank you.
Mr. Rourke, I'm interested in the window of time in which you think it's important to have commitments. I guess from both sides, right? You were talking about how a window of somewhere seven to eight years is important in terms of seeing a commitment from both sides.
Executive Director, Centre for Trade Policy and Law
I was talking about the sustainability of what you're trying to do.
Executive Director, Centre for Trade Policy and Law
I mean, you have to develop a partnership. A lot of times there are some cultural differences that take a little time to organize and understand; you start off with some discrete activities to sort of demonstrate your expertise and to build some relationships. You start knitting together some activities that go to some sort of objective, but this is more technical assistance than it is development. A lot of times, technical assistance may be all they need, but technical assistance in my mind is just short term and for specific problems.
But if you have a development question like some of the ones they're talking about in Mongolia, about basically building up the capacity of the public service to serve citizens in a transparent and developed country kind of way, that's going to take a while. One of the things that takes a while is changing the culture towards some directions that they're not used to. I don't have that experience in Mongolia, but in other countries where there was a move from a more controlled to a more market-oriented economy, there are a lot of cultural things that have to change in order to get at the objectives that the ambassador was talking about in terms of transparency and so forth.
NDP
Paul Dewar NDP Ottawa Centre, ON
Just on that note, you mentioned that you have done some work in Cuba. How long has that arrangement been in place and how much work have you been doing there?
Executive Director, Centre for Trade Policy and Law
We worked for three years talking about trade policy in market economic terms. We worked with the ministry of trade and their training institute. It was very much a question of what I was alluding to in the beginning: they want to understand different models of how things are organized in different countries. They wanted to know how Canada would do it and they've gone to Spain to ask questions about how the Europeans do it and so forth.
We were there for three years and we're talking about doing some other activities there in the future.
Executive Director, Centre for Trade Policy and Law
They approached us in the context of a programming envelope that CIDA had organized on modernizing the state. That was their term for public sector reform. One of the areas was trade policy. The ambassador called us up and said, “I understand you know something”. That's how it began.
NDP
Paul Dewar NDP Ottawa Centre, ON
Thank you.
Ms. Lee, just to sum up from my questions, I'm interested in how we go about doing this. I've had some concern, frankly, about this issue, and that, as opposed to just saying okay, we know some people who need some help and we'll go and help them, we start with an overview of what Canada's strategic interests are so we can actually help in a way that is effective, that is with some planning and--to get back to Mr. Rourke's point--that is sustained. I'm a little concerned that if we just do a niche here and a little bit there we don't actually do as much as we possibly could, and it needs to fit into a larger framework of what I guess our foreign policy would be.
I'm just curious as to how, from your organization's point of view, you end up getting involved in the projects you do. Do you have a strategic approach as to where you want to actually get involved and with whom you want to work?
Vice-President, International Services, Canadian Executive Service Organization
Yes. As Phil said before, we look first of all at our history, our strengths, and areas where we can provide a service. We also look at the CIDA countries of focus, because they are based on the overall strategic Canadian foreign policy. We are guided very much by what CIDA promotes in terms of its strategic countries. As most of our projects are funded by CIDA in any case, we go through that process of talking to CIDA to find out where their interests lie and where they would like us to go based on our strengths and what we have to offer.
Right now, we are looking at diversifying and going to potential funders outside CIDA, in which case we are looking at the Inter-American Development Bank, because I know that Canada's focus is on the Americas as our backyard. We're looking strategically towards assisting countries in the Americas based on the funding that we can get from the Inter-American Development Bank. But basically right now we are guided by CIDA, because our funding comes from CIDA.