Foreign Affairs Committee on Dec. 9th, 2010

[Bev Oda, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Dewar, what I will do, obviously, is to ask my staff to go back through Hansard. It's not my recollection that I would say that, but if you could provide me with a copy, I will take it.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Well, I'll help you. I'll read it into the record:

Mr. Speaker, our government has been very clear. We have an international aid effectiveness strategy and we are acting on it. We are getting results for people in the developing countries and all projects by CIDA are assessed against our effectiveness standards.

After due diligence, it was determined that KAIROS' proposal did not meet government standards.

Most of us who heard that question in the House also heard the subsequent answer by our friend, Mr. Abbott:

CIDA thoroughly analyzed KAIROS' program proposal....

What's important here, Minister, is that our impression was that this proposal had been rejected by the department, and what you've established here today is that this was rejected by you. However, what you told the House and what you've stated here today don't match up, and I'm wondering if you have something you want to say about that, because I think people were misled.

[Bev Oda, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Thank you for the question because it gives me an opportunity to clarify this.

The department puts forward to the minister a recommendation. They don't make the decision; they put forward a recommendation. So at every step of the way it's the recommendation that comes forward. The ultimate decision, however, is made by the department—

[An hon. member]

[Inaudible--Editor]

[Bev Oda, Conservative, Durham, ON]

—by the minister, sorry. It's by the minister. Once the decision is made, then the department must ensure that the documentation and the process to follow the minister's decision reflect the minister's decision.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Well, that's all well and good, but we still have you on the record saying, “it was determined that KAIROS' proposal did not meet government standards”.

The fact of the matter is that from what you're saying to us, I guess you have to understand, you have misled us. I don't need you to reiterate the fact that the minister gets to sign off on decisions. We all know that; we've taken our civics lessons.

What we need to understand is why you told the House that this proposal did not meet government standards. There's a difference between government standards and the minister, in terms of how this was signed off on, because, Minister, what I think happened is this. I think what happened is that Ms. Biggs signed off on it. Someone wrote the word “not”. You then decided that you saw “not” in there and you decided to reject it.

Minister, did you thoroughly go over this whole proposal?

[Bev Oda, Conservative, Durham, ON]

I did, many times.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

And what did you see wrong with it that was different from what the officials saw whose responsibility it is to recommend to you whether or not you should sign off?

[Bev Oda, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Dewar, it's not the minister's responsibility necessarily to find what's “wrong”; it's to find the best projects for the utilization of the public funds.

Ms. Biggs would have signed off on the recommendation. Ms. Biggs does not make the decision, though she does ensure that the recommendation coming forward to the minister has been properly scrutinized, etc. It's my responsibility to ensure that it meets the government—the government being the current government that is sitting there, which is saying make maximum use of our aid dollars, help the most people you can in developing countries, make a difference in their lives, and ensure that we're getting good value for the taxpayers.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

So when we have a proposal that is asking for $7 million, that is going to provide an additional $2 million, not from government, that is going to help over five million people, that is going to deal with issues that go everywhere, from education to dealing with crime, insurgency, and health protection, and within which, as far as I can tell, there is nothing that would be outside the government's priorities...I am absolutely stunned that you would have this go through the process, so that people see that there is actually leverage here—again, over $2 million—and at the end of the day, when someone writes the word “not”, you would reject it and tell the House that it didn't meet the priorities of the department. And you think that's okay?

Well, Minister, I have to say to you, as someone whose responsibility it is to hold government to account, to make sure how money is spent, I think you're out of line with the values of Canadians. I don't think you understand how important an institution in the capacity of KAIROS is. You have basically blown decades of work by a group of people who have been working diligently overseas--and will continue to do so but will not have the full capacity to do so.

And Minister, I think it's sad that instead of telling us that you actually made what many think is just an ideological decision, you're saying that it's something you made because you thought it was in line with what Canadians want. Canadians want to see us doing the most we can overseas. This proposal would have done it; KAIROS would have done it.

I just want to ask you finally, do you understand why I believe you misled the House? And would you like to correct the record? Would you like to state for the record that you misled the House, that in fact it wasn't the department that turned down this proposal, in fact you personally intervened and undermined the decision that was coming to you from the department?

I'll give you an opportunity to do that if you wish to.

[Bev Oda, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Well, I'll take the opportunity to ensure that we have the actual facts and the truth put forward here.

First of all—I don't want to mislead this committee or the House—all of our projects have a contribution from the organizations themselves. Their contribution.... They all have the leverage; they all have the requirement that they contribute. As Ms. Biggs has indicated, the Canadian contribution is usually on a three to one basis. So this was not a unique element of this particular project.

As I've said before, we receive many good proposals, and we have to pick the best and the strongest among all. It doesn't mean that there aren't other good proposals that have come forward that we have not had the capacity to fund. Many of the proposals that come from members of KAIROS meet the criteria—they have indicated how many people and what countries, etc.—and we cannot fund all of them.

And I would not agree that anything based on speculation is the fact.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

So you don't want to withdraw your comments made in the House?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Actually, that's all the time we have. We're just over time a little bit.

Thank you, Mr. Dewar.

Thank you, Minister Oda.

We're going to move into the second round, which is going to be of five minutes each.

I have Mr. Goldring, and we're going to finish up with Dr. Patry.

Mr. Goldring, you have five minutes, sir.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you for appearing here today, Madam Minister.

I first want to commend you for the extraordinary job you did during that crisis in Haiti during the earthquake, and for the reaction of your staff and your people to get there as fast as you could. Given the circumstances of the country, it must have been an extremely trying and testing time, particularly with the unfortunate bereavement of some of your own people and the people there on the ground too, whom they must have met and known as well.

Congratulations for that. It's a tremendous effort.

Of course, you are aware that I was in Haiti in 2006 for the election and saw for myself first-hand the tremendous need of that country, even at that time. We travelled through Jacmel, and unfortunately it was badly hit by the earthquake too.

At that time, we had some ongoing funding of $555 million that had been committed. To walk into the earthquake with, in my understanding, an additional commitment of $150 million and an additional commitment of $400 million to support reconstruction.... I can just imagine some of the decisions that you have to make on where your priorities should be lying. Of course, I certainly would agree that an extremely high priority of decision-making was required to allocate that money there, and it has to come from someplace too.

Perhaps you could tell us a little of some of the difficulties of rolling out the funding there, because I think it would be interesting for everybody to hear that there are some conditions and circumstances that are beyond everybody's control. You touched a little bit on the huge amount of rubble, but there are other circumstances too.

[Bev Oda, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Goldring.

Many also know that I was very concerned with Haiti and ensuring that Canada fulfilled its task and did the best it could. As you said, immediately as the earthquake hit, not only I but the Prime Minister himself, with the ministers, responded very quickly. We have been very active, I would say, in the international efforts to respond to Haiti.

Some of the challenges, I would tell you, are very similar; you can imagine. The World Bank estimates that there are more than 10,000 non-governmental organizations right now working in Haiti. To coordinate these efforts and to ensure that things are being done in a coherent manner, we have the international reconstruction commission. That commission is chaired by the Prime Minister of Haiti as well as former President Clinton, who was the UN's representative for Haiti just prior to the earthquake.

The commission itself did an assessment with the international community of the needs in Haiti. David Moloney is our representative on that commission. They have presented a list of projects that they have approved and would like to see go forward. Just two weeks ago, CIDA put out a call so that Canadian organizations who want to respond, to actually contribute to this process, have.... We have set aside the resources for that, and the call went out. We have a deadline. We will review the proposals that come in; then those proposals that come in will have to go back to ensure that they meet the interim commission's criteria, so that then we would proceed with funding them.

I share everyone's frustrations when we see a very slow process on reconstruction. Of course, the cholera situation has made it even more difficult. We're hoping for and have asked for stability and a peaceful situation now after the election, so that our fight against cholera and our efforts to ensure that humanitarian needs continue to be met and that we can continue along the road of reconstruction will continue.

I don't know whether Mr. Moloney has something more to add.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

He may have something, but he'll have to wait. I'm sorry.

Thank you, Mr. Goldring and Minister Oda.

We're going to move over to Dr. Patry for five minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I will share my time with Mr. Rae. I just have one question for the minister.

Madam Minister, my question is about the funds dedicated to Haiti. The government pledged to match the amount of charitable donations made by Canadians, up to $220 million. However, none of the matching funds have been distributed yet. The order paper answer even says that these matching funds are financed partly through the $150 million allocated after the earthquake and the $400 million from the donors conference. In other words, the matching funds are coming out of the existing pledges and the majority of pledges have yet to be delivered.

That means, in my opinion, the government specifically, in a sense, misled the Canadian population, because Canadians felt their donations would be matched by new, not recycled, money.

Do you not think these pledges of money that have not yet been delivered would be much more helpful to stop the spread of cholera? You talk about giving this and giving that, but we don't have any amounts. We'd like to get from your department--not today but later on--the amount of money that was given to Haiti in the current year, poste par poste. I would like to have the facts. I like facts and figures, not just to say that we give this and we give that and we love everyone in the world.

[Bev Oda, Conservative, Durham, ON]

I'll just very quickly say that, for cholera, the government has given $7 million, not out of the earthquake fund. The earthquake fund is not being used for cholera.

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

Where is the money coming from? Is it new money?

[Bev Oda, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Yes. It's from the crisis pool. This is a crisis.

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

Okay. I just want to know.

[Bev Oda, Conservative, Durham, ON]

This is access to humanitarian aid money. So there was $7 million for cholera.

We respond to the Pan American Health Organization, which does the assessments of the needs, as well as the organizations working on the ground. We can't just throw money there; we need somebody there to receive the money, somebody who understands what medications are needed, what equipment is needed, and so on. Consequently, on cholera, we've been responding to that.

I'm going to ask, if I could, David Moloney to respond to where the money is coming from and where it has been spent.

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

I would like to have it by riding also, Mr. Moloney, if you don't mind, because we have another question.

Go ahead.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Minister, just to come back to this KAIROS thing, Ms. Biggs has already said she signed the document that showed it approved. So did Mr. Singh.

Did the final document that you signed two months later have a “not” on it, or did you sign the document that just had the approval on it? Did you sign the document that had the “not” on it or the approval on it?

[Bev Oda, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Rae, I did not put the “not” in. I did not sign the document. The document reflects the decision of the minister.