Foreign Affairs Committee on Dec. 9th, 2010

[Margaret Biggs]

Yes, I think as the minister said, the agency did recommend the project to the minister. She has indicated that. But it was her decision, after due consideration, to not accept the department's advice.

This is quite normal, and I certainly was aware of her decision. The inclusion of the word “not” is just a simple reflection of what her decision was, and she has been clear. So that's quite normal.

I think we have changed the format for these memos so the minister has a much clearer place to put where she doesn't want to accept the advice, which is her prerogative.

[Jean Dorion, Bloc, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Minister Oda, you had this to say to the House on October 28, 2010, about a CIDA project: “After due diligence, it was determined that KAIROS' proposal did not meet government standards.”

Since the president of CIDA recommended approval, who was it that ultimately decided the proposal did not meet government standards? My question is for the minister.

[Bev Oda, Conservative, Durham, ON]

It's my responsibility to ensure that CIDA respects the policies and the directions of the government, so consequently--

[Jean Dorion, Bloc, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

So then, you implied that someone other than yourself made the decision, but ultimately, you're acknowledging to us that you personally were responsible.

[Bev Oda, Conservative, Durham, ON]

I have advice within my own office, as I say, I have discussions with the department to understand their positions, and ultimately the responsibility, the final decision, lies with me.

[Jean Dorion, Bloc, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Then it wasn't someone else, as you implied to the House. When you said “it was determined that” and so forth, you were trying to justify the decision, but in point of fact, you were ultimately the person responsible for making that decision. Two months after the president of CIDA recommended approval, you decided not to approve the proposal and you let the House believe that someone other than yourself—we don't know who exactly—made this decision.

[Bev Oda, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Yes. That's my responsibility as the minister.

[Jean Dorion, Bloc, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

One of our colleagues on the committee, Mr. Jim Abbott, said substantially the same thing in a statement to the House on April 23, 2010. He had this to say: “The criteria for the funding for KAIROS is the same as the criteria for funding for anyone else applying for such funding. KAIROS did not meet the criteria. It did not get the funding. There was no surprise there.”

In fact, this has nothing to do with the criteria. Basically, it comes down the a decision by the minister. By phrasing your answer this way, isn't this the same as misleading the House indirectly?

[Bev Oda, Conservative, Durham, ON]

No, I disagree. The questions that would have been discussed are: Is the best value for taxpayers' dollars to achieve results in developing countries? How many people in developing countries who are living in poverty would benefit from these public funds? What kind of impact would it have on sustainable improvements for the lives of those living in poverty? Those are also considerations that we give to every CIDA decision.

[Jean Dorion, Bloc, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Mr. Chair, may I point out that the text preceding the signature and the word “not” speaks very highly of the project. There are many pages. For instance, it says:

“Successes: stopped the crimes against women and children in the Magdalena River in Colombia; helped free black child slaves in the Sudan; instrumental in the DRC Congo government's adoption of its first poverty reduction strategy paper”, etc.

There are other comments about the Philippines and about the program's successes. In spite of everything, in spite of CIDA having made a recommendation and the president of CIDA having recommended approval, ultimately, the process was blocked by someone, at the minister's level.

That's what I wanted to find out today, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Madam.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

Did you have a quick question? I have one minute left.

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Madam Minister, right away we see that there are many amendment criteria, that the winds of change are blowing at CIDA. You talked about making aid more targeted and more effective.

Following up on my Liberal Party colleague's comments on the KAIROS decision, what made you decide at the last minute that the coalition no longer met the criteria? What criteria would that be?

I think we have demonstrated here that KAIROS met the criteria for the proposal that the coalition was submitting for the umpteenth time to CIDA. Suddenly, there are criteria , I'm not sure which ones, that are not being met. Perhaps you can tell me what they are... Many changes have taken place at CIDA, many priorities have been set, perhaps to reflect your government's unknown priorities that we are trying to understand.

What criteria did KAIROS fail to meet when it submitted its proposal to your department, considering that for years, the coalition received CIDA's aid and support?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Ten seconds.

[Bev Oda, Conservative, Durham, ON]

CIDA receives hundreds, if not a couple of thousand, applications every year. Many of them are very good projects. Many of them work in different areas and actually have to be weighed. We have to then make a judgment with the resources we have to support projects that will maximize the impact and also to ensure that we are distributing our funds where the money is needed; we have projects in many countries. In many of the countries listed we have other projects. So there are many factors that are considered at the same time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

We're going to move on to Mr. Lunney, sir, for 10 minutes.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

We know, Minister, and we appreciate the good work that CIDA does in delivering aid on behalf of Canadians around the world to many, many nations in need, and many good programs, including governance, capacity-building, and so on around the world. I'd say to my colleagues around the table here, you know, we all realize that many good programs are oversubscribed. Many demands come in. I think of our summer student program, the student employment program, that we all have to make decisions on. I know in my riding we have to make decisions on who's going to get the funding and who isn't. There are always people disappointed because there's never quite enough money to cover all the worthy projects.

Minister, I wanted to draw attention to our work in Africa, because I think sometimes there has been an underappreciation, shall we say, of the amount of investment that Canada is actually doing in Africa. I think you touched on that briefly in your opening remarks. But I do find it unfortunate that some members want to seem to disregard the fact that we've doubled our aid to Africa.

I wanted to ask you about the program related to youth. I think around the table here we'd probably agree that youth are very key to a successful future. I'm aware that CIDA has a skills for employment program engaging youth in Africa. I want to ask you about that. It is engaging some of our Canadian community colleges. I understand you met with them recently and announced some 36 projects that will provide vocational training for African youth, to help them establish strong technical and vocational education and training systems. If I'm correct here, I understand Senegal, Mozambique, and Tanzania may be involved in those programs. I'm just wondering if you could provide for us some context of what CIDA is doing to help create employable skills for youth in Africa.

[Bev Oda, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Thank you very much for your observations about the work CIDA is doing, and also the challenges we face.

As I indicated in my opening remarks, Africa is receiving a substantial amount of international support in many, many sectors.

This is one issue that is really important and that we have to address. If you look at the demographics in many African countries, you'll see that increasingly the majority of the population is under the age of 25 or 30, and this trend will grow as we go forward. So it is important that we address the challenges that youth in those countries will face.

Consequently, we are working with the Association of Canadian Community Colleges, which we all know is a quality institution, having done a very fine job for our Canadian youth. We can share and export their expertise to other countries. The ACCC, the association, came forward and proposed doing some work on vocational and skills training in Africa.

If poverty is to be reduced, individuals must have access to opportunities for increasing their income. Without the skills and the literacy training, they will never achieve the opportunities to move out of poverty. Consequently, we are supporting this project by ACCC, called education for employment. There are 25 Canadian colleges and institutions who will be working with their African counterparts. The other exciting part of this project is that they're actually going to be working with institutions in this country. And we're building the capacity in those countries, so they can go on training their youth and improve the quality of the vocational training they're giving.

The range of fields is quite broad. It includes the fields of construction, marine and port activities, agriculture, tourism, mining, fisheries, and the agrifood industry. This program, as I said, is called education for employment. So there is an assessment made of what industries will need in those countries, what businesses are needing, what skills they need, and what they should be trained in, and then the program is designed accordingly.

Building the economy and giving people financial security means, as it does in Canada, more jobs, stable jobs, secure jobs. So if we can give them the tools and skills they need going forward, we believe that our Canadian colleges are probably among the best in the world as a group to do that work in Africa.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Thank you. I appreciate that sentiment.

We have a very capable institution out our way. Not everybody is cut out for a university education, but boy, those trades are surely needed in Canada, and I'm sure they are in Africa.

Can I take it another way, to Haiti, here? I want to ask you about the reconstruction efforts in Haiti, as we know that country has been through a terrible time and is going through more instability right now. But I understand from your remarks that CIDA is requesting some $40 million in addition, through the supplementary estimates, in support of the reconstruction effort. We've committed a fair bit of money to rebuilding there and Canadians have given generously.

I wonder if you could give us an idea of some of the specific programs this funding is going towards in Haiti.

[Bev Oda, Conservative, Durham, ON]

I certainly can. As you know, Canadians have been very generous in their response to the needs in Haiti. The government itself has been very generous as well. So we've made a significant commitment to that country.

Just in humanitarian relief, we've disbursed over $150 million. This is an ongoing need, as you know. We've provided, in terms of food assistance, food for 4.3 million people; emergency shelters for 370,000 families; drinking water for 1.2 million people; protective services for 63,000 children; vaccinations for one million children and youth; as well as 11,000 latrines, sanitation facilities, mosquito nets, hygiene kits, and kitchen sets.

There are stages, as you know. There's an immediate need for humanitarian aid, medicine, shelter, and so on. Then there's the stage called “early recovery”. We were in the stage, I would suggest, of starting down early recovery and we wanted to ensure that the commitments made to Haiti were going to actually flow and be done in an orderly, coherent, and logical manner. That's why Canada supported the international approach to reconstruction, which was to set up the interim Haitian reconstruction commission and to work with the international community through a World Bank trust fund.

We are doing that now with committed money, $30 million for the trust fund, to be able to have resources it needs to meet some of the requirements put out by the Haitian government. We committed to rebuilding the hospital in Gonaïves. We've committed to building a new police academy and officer training facilities. We've committed through the Red Cross for some more permanent kinds of shelters.

But Haiti, let me assure you, has had its challenges, and now, of course, it has increasing challenges with the cholera epidemic. As you can imagine, we are monitoring on close to an hourly basis, not a daily basis, the outcome of the election process.

These are all challenges that country is facing right now. They also present a responsibility for the international donor community to follow and to make sure that we can be where we are needed to do what is needed. However, reconstruction itself has challenges. We have millions of tonnes of rubble to remove. We have land titling disputes that have to be settled. We have access challenges in terms of getting materials into that country. Infrastructure is missing as far as roads for heavy equipment are concerned, and so on.

So there are many challenges, but it has to be done in a logical order and in a coordinated way with our partners and also in support of the governing body.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Does CIDA still have personnel on the ground in Haiti, or are we relying on the coalition that you referred to, the Haitian reconstruction commission, to monitor the progress of these projects and to make sure they're on target?

[Bev Oda, Conservative, Durham, ON]

We do have people on the ground. We have a full mission. We have CIDA staff as well who are working very closely with our partners and with the government. Unfortunately, during the earthquake, CIDA lost two of its employees.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

Mr. Lunney, that was a very impressive 30 seconds.

Mr. Dewar, the floor is yours for 10 minutes.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to our guests and the minister.

Ms. Biggs, I want to start with you on this KAIROS application. Just looking at the memo that was referred to, it says there was a request for $7 million, but the total package is $9 million. I'm reading here that just over $2 million would have come from KAIROS itself. Is that correct?

[Margaret Biggs]

Yes. Normally there is an in-kind contribution. The organization puts it in and we usually cost-match it up to a one to three ratio.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Okay, so what we in fact had here was not just an ask for over $7 million, but also some matching money through the organization itself. I think that's important, Chair, because what we're talking about here is leverage, and we often talk about capacity in particular.

But, Minister, I want to ask you about something, because there is a lot of confusion here and I just want to be able to understand this. From what you and Ms. Biggs have stated today, we understand that this went through the department and that there was an approval by departmental officials, who signed off on it for you to approve. Then someone wrote the word “not” on it. We'll leave that aside for a second. As you said, it's apparently not important, but we'll put that aside. Then you decided not to approve the application.

The problem I'm having here, Minister, is that during this time that you had officials approve this, it looks like it was a very good proposal. It would help over 5 million people--and 2.5 million women and girls and 2.9 million men and boys were expecting to benefit from it. All of this was fitting in with the range and ambit of what departmental officials seemed to think was important.

The problem, Minister, is why did you then tell the House that officials told you not to fund KAIROS? I ask you because that's not what I'm hearing and that's not what I'm seeing.