Foreign Affairs Committee on Dec. 8th, 2011

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Okay, excellent. Very good.

Back over to Ms. Sims.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Thank you.

I really want to commend you for bringing Selfridges and voodoo together. I have to tell you, it's one of my favourite stores when I go back to England. Now I'll have to pay special attention to the voodoo element, right?

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

But my question really seeks some clarification on something you said earlier. You actually were contacted by government, rather than responding to a proposal that CIDA put out?

[Cameron Brohman]

No, we submitted the proposal to CIDA long before we were contacted and were told that it was a great proposal but it was not what the Canadian government was focused on in Haiti. The artisan sector was outside of what they were doing there. But, as I said, when the earthquake hit, the Clinton Foundation convened a summit in New York, the Clinton Global Initiative, a conference that Brandaid Project was asked to lead, because we were already working in the artisan sector in Haiti when the earthquake hit. We had a certain expertise and we immediately commissioned an assessment study. So we went to New York and we led this conference, and one thing led to another.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Thank you.

My next question is for Results Canada. I think you've shown the symbiotic nature of the private sector supporting the great work that the public sector does. It's no secret that the NDP has been very vocal about the impact of the freeze on our aid and how that is actually leading to real on-the-ground damage to programs, etc. We know that you're doing some excellent advocacy in this area. I've had the same people sitting in my office that some of my colleagues had, saying that we should lift the freeze. As you know, despite the rough economic times it's going through, England is going to live up to the 0.7% commitment that it made a long time ago. So can you expand for us on the importance of lifting this freeze?

[Jean-François Tardif]

That's quite an important question. At Results Canada, we see an economy that may not be growing as fast as we wish. But it is growing and the aid budget is not, which means that our aid is a smaller and smaller proportion of our national wealth. We wouldn't want to see that happen many years in a row. We're already among the least generous nations, and we don't want to be moving towards the back of the pack. We need to reverse that freeze. At a minimum, we would want to be able to pay for inflation and population growth in the developing world, so that we keep the same impact in terms of lives saved. We need to expand our aid programs so that we can continue the fight against pandemics, offer an education to the 67 million children who have no school to go to, and give access to water and sanitation.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for your presentations, gentlemen.

Mr. Tardif, you highlighted the importance of the public sector in financing and development. The public service is, then, in a certain way, the steward of the contribution to development of the private sector businesses. To my mind, this concept is important. Obviously, we have to stay the course and move forward in that direction.

My question concerns the durability of these projects, and it is also addressed to you, Mr. Brohman. How and at what point will the local population be able to be directly responsible for its own development?

[Jean-François Tardif]

I will begin, if you will.

I think that this is quite fundamental. I will give the example of the mining company Teck Cominco, in Canada. It supports micronutrient programs, involving zinc, to be specific. Zinc is provided to very poor populations, such as in Senegal, for instance. This allows them to better resist the effects of diarrhea. That is an excellent thing, but Senegal's development cannot be based on foreign contributions. So local health, nutrition and education systems have to be bolstered.

The international community is, in large measure, favourable to that. I also think that the private sector sees its role as making a contribution and providing help, in fact, rather than stepping in as a substitute. I think that that is in fact much better, in the social arena particularly.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Madam Groguhé, that's all the time we have.

We're going to finish off with Ms. Brown. Then we'll break for a bit and get into some committee business.

Ms. Brown.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

For the record, Mr. Chair, I want to reinforce the fact that Canada has doubled its aid to Africa since we took government. We have also done the most important thing, of untying our aid. That allows far more efficient use of the money so that more help can go to emerging economies, developing countries, and putting more money into the hands of organizations to purchase vaccines at the best possible prices so that more people can be assisted. In the past, when our aid was tied, fewer people could get access to vaccinations because of the cost. That's important for Canadians to know.

Mr. Brohman, we had as a witness a couple of weeks ago, a gentleman by the name of Hernando de Soto. I don't know whether you're familiar with his work.

I'm glad you are. I don't have to give you a synopsis of it.

One of the most important things he talked about was property rights, and how emerging economies have such difficulty because people who want to be entrepreneurs are extralegal; they're outside the legal boundaries. He talked about that in light of the people, entrepreneurs, who are setting up shops and don't have access to capital because they don't have any assets in real property.

My question is about these artisans you are assisting. Haiti is having a very difficult time with property rights—as in real property and the ownership of property—and their judicial system is also very limited at this point. How are you protecting them?

If I could just add another question: how many women are part of these artisan groups?

And in helping these people become profitable, how are you then taking pressure off the aid that needs to go into these countries for the future?

Those are a lot of questions.

[Cameron Brohman]

Your first question was on Mr. de Soto's recommendation that poor people who are currently renting a hut in a slum, paying anywhere from $200 to $1,000 a year, be given a deed to that land. They then have collateral that essentially makes them liquid, and they can borrow money.

Was your question about how Brandaid was ensuring that?

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

How are you helping to ensure that they have, not so much real property, but copyright essentially. You've got artisans who are creating brand. How do you protect that?

[Cameron Brohman]

We sign contracts with our partner producers. The contracts specifically define what we regard as the intellectual property, and it belongs to the producers. So when a product is designed, even when it's designed by Patty Johnson, who works for Brandaid and CIDA, the intellectual property of that design, the copyright of the creator of that design, belongs to the producer, to the artisan. That's a Brandaid policy.

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

With whom is it registered?

[Cameron Brohman]

We're working on how to register this to protect it in any real sense. I can't give you a black-and-white answer on that. The legal systems in Haiti and other places are complicated. We now have the advice of Gowling Lafleur, which is the biggest copyright law firm in Canada, and also JWT's law firm. We also have work being done on this by a law firm based in London who are the global experts on trademark, and who are doing this for us pro bono. But what they're going to do is to find the answer to your question: how do you protect this? All we know so far is that Brandaid commits not to put all of this value under our brand, like Macy's, like Donna Karan, which is what's currently happening. We have a model that returns 20% to 25% of the retail price to the producer. That's higher than anybody else's. We believe in profit, but we believe in fair profit, not winner-take-all capitalism.

I don't know if this answers your question, but our mandate has a red line and we simply can't guarantee anything in some of these environments. What we can do is that once we get the product into the market, we can decide who gets what, in terms of a fair profit split, who gets a credit for that IP. That's what we can do.

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

So, effectively, you're saying that when this pro bono work is being done, it's aid in another form?

[Cameron Brohman]

It is.

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

It's expertise aid, is it not?

[Cameron Brohman]

That's absolutely right. But it's a subsidy, as I call it, and things have to be subsidized. But these two law firms took this on pro bono, because they said this is interesting, and it's innovative, and nobody's doing this. We're always looking for things that can put us in a leadership position.

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

May I go to my second question?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

I was going to wrap up around quarter after. We could do one more round, with an NDP and a Conservative member. I think we could get all our committee business done in less than half an hour.

So should we have another round? Okay.

I'm going to wrap it up with that. We're going to come over here, but we are going to come back for one more round. This will be the final round, which is just going to consist of Ms. Sims and then probably Ms. Brown, or whoever on that side decides to take it. This is for five minutes and for sure it's the last round.

Ms. Sims.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Thank you, Chair. I really want to congratulate you on making a very wise choice.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

I'm going to go back to Mr. Brohman and just ask a question, because I'm still struggling with this. You applied for a grant through CIDA and you were rejected?