Foreign Affairs Committee on Nov. 18th, 2010

[Sarah Johnson]

We currently have 16 long-term observers on the ground who will be in the country from September through the end of the referendum and into February. We currently have an additional 30 medium-term observers for the voter registration. They arrived last week, and they will be in the country until approximately December 19. Over the immediate voting period during the referendum, we intend to have another 50 short-term observers who will join our long-term observers and core staff. So there will be approximately 70 to 80 observers on the ground during the actual referendum. Then we have also deployed observers in the eight out-of-country registration and voting locations. That includes Australia, Canada, the U.S., Egypt, Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya, and....

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

It's okay. I read your notes.

[Sarah Johnson]

We currently have 26 observers deployed across those eight countries, with four observers in Canada--two in Toronto and two in Calgary--for the out-of-country registration. They will be on the ground this month and then again during the referendum.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you for that.

I'm just curious if perhaps they'll stick with their friends in Khartoum. On the whole issue around Abyei, Ban Ki-moon was expressing concern yesterday about it. We have in this area people who are on their southern migration at this point, and there are concerns around conflict.

Do you have anything new to tell us about the Permanent Court of Arbitration? Is it actually going to deal with this boundary issue in a timely fashion? Is that something that still has to be negotiated with Mbeki and the rest, or will it be decided in the short term? Do you know?

[Sanne van den Bergh]

At the moment, the PCA ruling is still accepted by both parties. There hasn't been any official diversion from that. However, in the first negotiations and now in the pre-negotiations for the second item there have been several other proposals floated. None of them have been accepted or outright rejected by either side.

Some of them do not coincide directly with the PCA ruling, and some of them have different directions. At the moment, the PCA ruling still stands and the Abyei Referendum Act still calls for a commission to be set up and the referendum to be carried out simultaneously with the southern Sudan referendum.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Obhrai said there was some suggestion that negotiations will take place on a deal to get this moving. It will have to do with lifting of sanctions and conditions that we put in place for revenue sharing within this area, to ensure they get revenue that flows from oil revenue in the south.

Is that something you're hearing?

[Sanne van den Bergh]

There have been several different proposals, including the one you described. Again this is all unconfirmed because they are proposals. There have been proposals on dual citizenship for mens rea if Abyei were to go to the south, or splitting Abyei in half along the river.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you very much for that.

I'd like to go back to our friends here in Canada, perhaps to DFAIT.

My understanding is that we have three people presently posted in Darfur for the UN commitment, Operation SATURN. In the south, for the SAFARI mission, we have 30 people right now on the ground. Is that correct? I'm just going by data that was provided by the department.

[Douglas Scott Proudfoot]

That's approximately right. There are three or four in Operation SATURN. I've heard there are up to 39 in SAFARI, but it varies from day to day. That's the ballpark figure.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

I'm thinking of concerns that have been expressed by people in the south and the UN Secretary General. Mr. Bobiash was kind of hinting at this as well. There will be a need for further support for UNMIS. Has Canada been asked for more? Are we planning to provide more support for security at this point?

[Douglas Scott Proudfoot]

We have not been asked for more.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Okay.

How is that working at this point? We're hearing, certainly from New York and Juba generally, that there is going to be a need. Are we offering or are we waiting to be asked? If there is an ask, is there any timeline or calendar on when that ask will be formally sent out?

[Douglas Scott Proudfoot]

The force, as it's currently mandated, would not change dramatically in size or composition. However, the UNMIS force is intimately linked with the CPA. Come next year, the Security Council is going to have to reconsider the form that UNMIS takes, or some of UNMIS for that matter. At that time, they may be approaching prospective troop-contributing countries.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

In other words, you don't perceive that there is any need or ask at this point, between now and the referendum.

[Douglas Scott Proudfoot]

As I understand from UNMIS, they are pre-positioning some forces in potential flashpoints, but the UNMIS command itself does not see putting in additional forces...its role is not an inter-position force. It's role has a civilian protection mandate, but it principally has a monitoring mandate. It doesn't really see that a significant increase in the force levels would really make much of a difference. They could use a few more, perhaps, but it's going to be the same order of magnitude as currently.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

We're going to start our second round of questioning and move back over to the government side, with Mr. Goldring for five minutes.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

My question is for Sarah.

First, I'd like to make the comment that from the statistics I'm looking at here, the optimism for the future doesn't look that great either. At present we're looking at $4 billion total annual income from both foreign assistance and oil revenues. However, there's some question on the oil revenue as to whether even that could be maintained consistently, because some of those areas are part of the disputed border areas.

Given that the food possibilities and the farmland are controlled by foreign ownership, the prospects don't look very good to even get beyond the possibilities, with no corruption and all the money being channelled through to the citizenry at a dollar-a-day existence level.

You're monitoring the election. I, too, have monitored elections on 12 different issues in a number of different countries, and I'm somewhat familiar with how they do it with general elections. A referendum should not be that much different at the monitoring level, from your aspect.

How are these expectations being manifested? Is it through the media, through campaign promises, or through promises from different areas? In your assessment, will you be putting forward a full reporting on how you feel the whole issue of separation is being characterized? Is it being characterized from a positive aspect? How is that being done, and who is putting forward those expectations that are leading people to head down that road?

As a second question, you mentioned that you have an acceptance level of a 60% turnout for voters. What is the level of acceptance of the vote itself? Is it a fifty plus one percent, or is it a higher percentage? I ask that because if you take a 60% turnout level with a fifty plus one percent, you can literally have a vote for separation of 30% of the population.

Another element that should be considered, too, is the component of women. In my understanding, from what you said, the component of women being accepted or coming forward to register for the vote is very, very low. You could effectively have, maybe, a 10% level of women on a successful referendum.

Could you tell me what the level is on the percentage of acceptance of the vote, and maybe comment on how you'll be reporting on some of the other elements that seem to be guiding people in specific directions of support?

[Sarah Johnson]

Sure.

As we know, monitoring an election is not very different from monitoring a referendum. We're still looking at many similar issues with regard to the civic and political rights of citizens to participate in a referendum, and at many of the human rights that go along with a referendum, and people's ability to participate in civic and political rights in their country.

With regard to the threshold and the percentages needed in order for the referendum to pass, it is a 50-plus-one vote for either unity or secession, but the threshold for turnout among registered voters is 60%. So of all the eligible voters who do register now, there needs to be a 60% turnout during the referendum for the vote to be considered valid.

You touched a bit on the participation of women in the registration. We are starting to track data from our observers. We do not as yet have firm data to really be able to comment on that aspect of it.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Just on that aspect, if I could interrupt, how are we going to look at this sometime in the future? They're obviously agreeing to have this vote on separation, knowing full well that the involvement of women will be at a very low level. How are we going to view this sometime in the future? Is this not going to be a question? We're in an enlightened era ourselves, in which we certainly want to encourage far more equality and participation, and yet we know going into this that it's at a very low level. How are we going to view that in the future?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Please answer very quickly. We're almost out of time, but we'll let you answer the question.

[Sarah Johnson]

Looking forward, not only in terms of women, but also in terms of general outreach to the population, what the Carter Center has noted in its observations, both during the elections and during the referendum thus far, is that the levels of voter information and voter education have been extremely low. There does need to be increased voter information, perhaps through women's groups, targeted at communities in both the north and the south. As far as we have noted thus far, there's little understanding of the eligibility requirements in the north for both men and women, and we'd really like to see a fair increase in voter education across the board.

As part of the observation, we are also tracking statistics on the number of women who are part of the registration staff. We noticed during the election that a fair number of the registration and polling staff were men, particularly those with the senior positions within the registration and voting authorities. We'd like to see an increase in the representation of women in those local bodies and regional authorities, and we are tracking numbers on that through the referendum as our observers are in the registration sites.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

We're now going to move back over to the opposition, to Ms. Neville, and then we're going to finish up with the Conservatives. And then that will be it for all our questions.

Ms. Neville, you have five minutes.

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Thank you very much.

I don't know whether I need the five minutes, because my line of questioning is very similar to that of the previous questioner, but I would like to follow up a little bit on the issue of women and women voting.

I'm interested in knowing the proportion of men to women, particularly in the south, and the percentages, accordingly, of who's voting. Do we have a disproportionate number of women, yet a disproportionate number of male voters? Again, what further outreach can be done to bring women in to vote?

[Sarah Johnson]

You make a very valid point about the importance of women participating in the process. At this point, given that we're four days into the 17-day registration period, it's hard to tell what those figures are from a reliable perspective. But we certainly share your interest in the representation of women in the vote.

If you look at the registration statistics during the elections, there were some regions where there were more women registered than men. We're hoping that the referendum authorities also release detailed information, as they did during the elections, on the gender breakdown of the registrants. We don't really have good data as yet to share with you on the representation of women in registration. However, I can't underscore enough the importance of voter education and voter information, for the general public overall, but also for women in the population.