Foreign Affairs Committee on Dec. 1st, 2011

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much again, Minister, for all your information. We'd gladly have you for two or three hours, but time being short, I'll be brief myself.

First, Minister, do you believe that Israeli settlements in occupied territories are a violation of the four Geneva Conventions and are an obstacle to achieving a comprehensive and lasting peace?

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

I think unilateral action on either side is distinctly unhelpful.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Okay. So the Canadian position on this hasn't changed.

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

We still have Deepak.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Pardon?

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

The government's position has not changed.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Then why was it that Canada voted against all UN resolutions in the last month, including resolutions containing similar language?

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

I don't think we voted against all of them. I think we abstained. We changed our vote on nine from being negative, seven of them to yes and two of them to abstentions. I think our actions.... I put out a statement that day that clearly indicated the rationale. I think singling out Israel for condemnation dozens of times every fall is unhelpful.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Thank you. I'm sorry if I phrased my question badly, but Canada did vote against resolutions with similar language last month.

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Yes, but you said we voted against “all”, but we--

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Yes, but I meant resolutions containing...and I'm correcting my record on that. But my main question is why did Canada vote last month against some resolutions containing similar language?

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

I think through our votes we expressed our frustration with the current United Nations process. The resolutions too often are one-sided and lack balance and do not reflect the complexity of the situation.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Thank you. But it does send some sort of mixed message, doesn't it?

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

I think we clearly laid out our rationale for it, and we stand by that.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Minister, also speaking of the UN, Canada was not elected to the UN Security Council the last time it tried. It was the first time that Canada did not succeed in being elected to the UN Security Council.

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

The second time, because in 1946 we didn't succeed.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Oh, I didn't know that. Thank you for the clarification.

Still, it's perceived by a lot of analysts and observers as an indication of Canada's reputation suffering abroad, and not being what it used to be. What are you going to do to address that situation?

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

I don't accept the premise of the question. I suspect Iran voted against us probably because every year we lead the charge to condemn them for their deteriorating human rights situation. I suspect North Korea voted against us because of our condemnation of their nuclear program.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

If I may interrupt, Minister, I suspect that Iran and North Korea have probably always voted against us.

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

I suspect the--

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

The issue is that the countries that used to vote for us are now voting against us. I'm wondering if you know which countries they are. Also, by the sheer number of countries that did not vote for Canada, I think our rating is obviously going down.

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

I don't see that vote as a popularity contest. Increasingly, we see the European Union vote as a bloc, and obviously the family we're in for the constituency win for election is problematic. Frankly, I think you'll see in this coming year, and in 2015-2016, Australia and New Zealand expressing concerns that increasingly Europe votes as a bloc, and that makes it more difficult.

Undoubtedly, some of the positions that the Canadian government has taken weren't met with enthusiasm from other countries, but we don't take foreign policy positions to try to endear ourselves for election; we take them based on our values and based on our principles.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you. That's all your time.

Ms. Brown, five minutes, please.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, I apologize for being late this morning. When I agreed to co-chair the World AIDS Day breakfast, I didn't know that we were moving our foreign affairs committee meeting back by 15 minutes, so my apologies for my tardiness.

We've talked about a lot of the hot spots around the world, and there are so many of them that we could actually spend a lot of time discussing each one of them. But what hasn't been discussed here this morning is the issue of a rising China.

I have been in Africa a number of times over the last number of years, and I've seen the incredible influence that China is putting into a lot of the countries in Africa. In infrastructure, obviously there's political influence going on there as well, but we have developed a better relationship with China over the last number of years. Our trade is growing, we're having more diplomatic exchanges, the Prime Minister has been there, and the foreign trade minister has been there recently. I wonder if you could talk about our growing relationship with China, as China is emerging more and more as an economic influence in the world, obviously. Tied in with that, we have human trafficking issues--not from China, but from other South Asian countries. I know those are two separate issues, but could we address those in the discussion?