Foreign Affairs Committee on April 1st, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

[Aurel Braun]

If you would permit, perhaps Mr. Farquhar could comment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

He may very quickly comment.

[Brad Farquhar]

I want to very briefly reinforce the comments of my colleagues.

At last week's board meeting we approved a strategic plan for the next five years, which had been worked on for many months by the senior staff. More importantly, we approved a plan that they brought forward to assist our staff. We have seven staff in Haiti, all of whom lost their homes in the recent earthquake. We've set aside a special fund to assist our staff get themselves and their families back on their feet. It's quite generous. It's an important part of being able to fulfill our mandate to do the job we're doing in Haiti.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

We're going to move back over to Dr. Patry.

Sir, you have five minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I hope you will not mind if I speak my mother tongue, even though I understand English perfectly; it is just easier that way.

My first question is for Mr. Braun.

Mr. Braun, I want to be sure my understanding is correct. You said that votes were taken at a meeting of the Board of Directors. That is perfectly normal, and what I want to get at is the result of the votes. Mr. Beauregard apparently approved three grants, to Al-Haq, to the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights and to B'Tselem. You voted against those grants; that is what happened. You said a little earlier that you did so because they were terrorist organizations. Is my understanding correct?

[Aurel Braun]

I had said that some of the organizations, such as Al-Haq, have links with terrorism. You will note that the Israeli Supreme Court, one of the most respected courts in the world, found on three separate occasions—2007, 2008, and 2009—that the head of this organization, the person with whom Rights and Democracy had signed a contract, Mr. Shawan Jabarin, is a senior member of a banned terrorist organization. This is a Supreme Court of Israel decision.

We also had a problem with this organization in that it violated the fundamental rule of non-partisanship, of impartiality. If you go to the website of this organization—and in fact I brought along one of the publications before they were commissioned to do any work—this organization had already made up its mind as to what happened, it had already designated a fellow democracy as basically a criminal entity, as committing systematic war crimes, and that this organization should be boycotted, divested, and sanctioned.

This is certainly not the sense of the people of Canada. This is not within the good conscience of the Canadian people. But what is very odd about this is that this was on the website; this was a decision they had already made. They had reached a conclusion, and then, ironically, bizarrely, in violation of every rule of fairness, they're asked to investigate.

Let me just read you something from the Supreme Court of Israel—

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

No. I just want to ask some questions, if you don't mind.

[Aurel Braun]

That's fine. I just thought perhaps you'd like to get a sense—

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

Mr. Gauthier, let's talk about the decision to retain or not to retain the office in Geneva. Was an external evaluation done? If so, what were its findings?

[Jacques P. Gauthier]

Are you talking about the findings of the external evaluation?

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

Yes.

[Jacques P. Gauthier]

A report was prepared by Mr. Robert and reviewed by the Board of Directors. However, you referred to the closure of the Geneva office. I am sure you know that this was a two-year project, with a specific start and end date—namely August of 2009. So, because the project was completed, the question was not—contrary to what is often said—whether or not the office should suddenly be closed, but rather whether a new project would be approved in order to renew that office's mandate. That was the issue.

It is important to point out, however, that in early December of 2009, there was no one left at that office, because Ms. Cynthia Gervais, who was the Director in Geneva, had suddenly resigned. There was no one there for months.

The context and circumstances surrounding that closure are important. You should also know that there was that legal structure for the Geneva office. Rights and Democracy Switzerland was completely controlled by salaried members. None of the outside directors was part of that board. It had members, rather than shareholders. There were no board members. As a result, for years, very little information was passed on.

Let's talk about costs. I had understood that this had cost close to $400,000 for two years. I learned later that it was very difficult to ascertain the actual cost because of mechanisms, that were consistent with the rules at Rights and Democracy, whereby funds could be provided for a project, because of a partnership or for any other reason.

As the Chair, in recent months, I was finally able to take a closer look at things. That is when I realized that the amount of money sent to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights was not $700,000, as we believed, but more than $800,000. Furthermore, the Geneva office had received, not $400,000, but more than $500,000. So, there were concerns about flaws in accounting procedures.

It was decided that important projects that were being monitored by the Geneva office could be monitored from Montreal.

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

Along the same lines, I would like to come back to a question that was asked earlier by my NDP colleague regarding the firm of Samson Bélair Deloitte & Touche.

I am very surprised that a public agency would call on an outside firm, when this kind of work is done by the Office of the Auditor General on an annual basis. Why call on an outside firm when you can have it done internally through the government?

[Jacques P. Gauthier]

Sir, that is an excellent question.

It is important to understand that the mandate given to Samson Bélair Deloitte & Touche is in no way similar to that of the Auditor General. I had lengthy discussions with officials from the Office of the Auditor General, who asked me the same questions. After hearing my answers, the told me they understood the situation. Allow me to explain.

We wanted Samson Bélair Deloitte & Touche to help us get the answers we had been unable to get from the management team.

Indeed, I want to say that there has been an attempt on both sides to create villains in this situation. But I do not want to do that today with respect to the management team. There are presently circumstances that require us to secure some answers.

For example, what did the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights do with the $800,000? Why did the management team not provide answer for months on end, even though these were considerable amounts of money?

Finally, I learned in recent weeks that it was because the office did not have that information. We needed the assistance of Samson Bélair Deloitte & Touche to track it down. Precise questions were put to the Office of the High Commissioner, which recently began to send us the answers we did not have previously. We will share those with you at the appropriate time, if you agree.

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

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Dr. Patry and Dr. Gauthier.

We're going to move back over to Mr. Lunney.

Sir, you have five minutes.

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

Thank you very much.

First, thank you for appearing here today. We know it's a difficult issue, and we thank you for the time you've put into this. I know that some of you, as you've admitted, if you had known how much it was going to engage you on such a difficult issue you may have thought twice about taking the assignment.

Mr. Matas, I want to pick up on something you said earlier. First, your reputation is well known here in issues of human rights. I see that since 1987 you've been the director of the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development. You were nominated recently for a Nobel Peace Prize. And of course you're a former member of the board, someone who brings a lot of experience in international human rights and experience with Rights and Democracy to the table.

In your remarks you referred to the original mandate for R and D. If I can summarize what you said, it was set up to provide grants to the third world NGOs to aid in promoting objectives of the organization—R and D—and that third world organizations delivering the services would therefore be well removed from the influence of the Canadian government but working on projects that were advancing the objectives of Rights and Democracy around the world.

But it seems to me that you said the mandate has somehow changed. Rights and Democracy is now creating programs and then using NGOs as contractors to deliver services, and the perception of NGOs around the world has changed since the original mandate. I wonder if you would care to comment or expand on that, because it may be germane to what's happening.

[David Matas]

Yes. We do have a funny structure right now in the sense that we have an organization that is fully government funded, has its civil service salaries, purpose, unionization, but that thinks of itself in many ways as an NGO and wants to function as an NGO in terms of policy and direction. And there's a mismatch.

The global perspective of the NGO community has moved on from the date when Parliament legislated the creation of this organization. We've had these various revolutions in countries—the Green Revolution, the Orange Revolution, and so on—that were led by NGOs and that have been foreign financed. And this has changed, often, the perpetrator perspective of human rights NGOs. And this notion of arm's length through this type of organization doesn't really exist the way it used to.

We've also seen the corruption of the NGO community through the Durban I process, this kind of anti-Israel ganging up. If one puts these grants at their best, one can say that the institution simply was blindsided by this because they didn't have a fully developed Middle East program. They weren't quite aware of the high politicization of all of these NGOs operating in the area and they just walked into this problem.

In terms of the institution, (a) it is not functioning the way it was set up to function; and (b) even functioning the way it was set up to function, the world has moved on. As a result, we have to think through... The purpose instructs the organization, and the answer to that, to me, means much more control of the board over the staff than there has been in the past. Certainly, that's what I've been trying to do with the various resolutions I've been presenting, and that's why I welcome the invitation to present a plan to that effect.

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

Thank you.

That leads into my next question.

[Aurel Braun]

May I add a comment?

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

Okay, but make it short because I have a couple more questions.

[Aurel Braun]

We have to look at the larger picture, and one of the very important things we need to understand is that any organization that does not grow, progress, and entertain new ideas is not going to be efficient. The sad thing is when ideas are replaced by dogma. We have a situation where you create a private fiefdom using public money; you have that rejection of accountability.

In looking forward, we have to continue to generate new ideas. We have to look at the 21st century, and what we need in the 21st century may not be same thing we needed 20 years ago. The general approach may be the same, but we have to be receptive. We can't just reject anything that is different. We need to operate on the basis of responsibility and accountability, because it is public money.

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

Thank you.

Change is always stressful for any organization. They like to hit us with oxymorons like “one of the fixed principles of leadership is flexibility”. We're all challenged by that, of course.

Another issue is the signing of this contract with the unionized employees. I understand it was under negotiation for half a year or more, with some difficult though apparently unidentified concerns.

I wonder if you can confirm that this contract was signed by management--I believe it was Ms. Cloutier--probably very shortly after the unfortunate demise of Monsieur Beauregard, without any consultation with the board.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Mr. Lunney, I'm going to cut you off at that. We'll finish the question and then go on.