Foreign Affairs Committee on Feb. 8th, 2012

[Barbara Martin]

I can't give a great deal of detail about the actual dependence of Syria on Iranian oil. However, the situation in Syria vis-à-vis its economic environment as a consequence of sanctions is becoming extremely difficult. The currency is falling, and there is inflation. There are breadlines forming. There are electricity blackouts because of the lack of access to fuel to run their generators. The dependence on the oil is keeping that economy limping forward.

As for the threat to Israel, certainly Israel perceives the threat from Iran as an existential threat, a threat to its very existence. This is because of the pronouncements of the regime with respect to Israel's existence. The support it has provided to Hamas and Hezbollah has equally been a threat. Both Hamas and Hezbollah are showing themselves to be increasingly reluctant to be allied with the Syrian regime right now, and the Hamas leader has been rumoured to be trying to persuade Assad to accept the Arab League plan. Hezbollah has also said that it will not seek to engage in a confrontation with Israel at this time.

The threat is very real, but the players right now are taking some fairly cautious stands, which I think is indicative of the extent to which people are worried about the overall consequences of the instability that would emanate from Syria.

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

With regard to the proximity of Syria to Israel, we know that Iran has said it has missiles that would reach Israel at this point. I suppose that what they're putting up in the air can go across land too. Do you see them keeping this relationship with Syria open in order to use it as a strategic point if they ever decide to attack Israel?

[Barbara Martin]

That is potentially quite a good analysis. I can't say with any certainty either yes or no, but I think it reveals your understanding of the complexity of the situation.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Mr. Eyking, sir, you have seven minutes.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for coming in on short notice. We just brought this up last week.

I've spent some time in Damascus. I was there on trade issues eight years ago with our government. It's quite an eye-opener to see the large youth population of Damascus. There's a lot of unemployment, and you can almost sense the frustration among the populace, so I'm not totally surprised by what's happening.

The Russians have been visiting there in just the last couple of days, and apparently they've been quite well received. According to reports, over a million people showed up at the rally when the Russians landed there. Many people know that most of the support Assad has is from minorities; he has a big following with them. Gadhafi and Mubarak seemed to have mostly military support, but as these things unfold, it gets more complicated if there's a large population supporting a dictator or whatever it maybe.

What I'm concerned about.... We hope that down the road there is going to be a good outcome from this turmoil, but I'm concerned about these minorities and the role they're playing right now. How they might be treated in the aftermath, when this is all said and done?

[Barbara Martin]

I think that's a legitimate concern.

The Assad regime is from the Alawite minority, which actually represents only 12% of the population. Christians represent 10% and the Jewish group makes up 3%.

The Alawites, the Christians, and the Sunni elites support the Assad regime. The majority Sunni are in opposition to the regime; this is why there is tremendous concern about the evolution of a sectarian war within Syria, and about the considerable vulnerability that the Alawite minority or even the Christian minority might feel if a Sunni majority is able to take over power in the country. There is unease about what this would mean for the future in terms of minority rights within Syria.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Yes, because there are many examples in history. We saw what happened in Rwanda. When somebody gets power all of a sudden, it can be a scary thing.

Also, it's my understanding that the opposition council is stationed in Turkey. Does our embassy in Turkey have a lot of dialogue with them? I don't how much influence there is, but I'm hoping. Is that dialogue perhaps helping to prepare them for this? It could be inevitable that they are going to be ruling. It's similar to how we had to deal with Libya. Can you tell me more about what's happening there?

[Barbara Martin]

There is a great deal of engagement, not just through our embassy in Ankara, but with a number of embassies around the world. The Syrian National Council is primarily made up of expatriate Syrians, and one of the challenges it faces is developing its base of support inside.

The conversations with them are similar to the conversations that we've had in headquarters as well, urging them towards a peaceful solution but also trying to find unity within the opposition itself, trying to map out a strategic plan for how they would handle it, and of course continually urging the fundamentals of democracy, rule of law, and respect for human rights, including women and minorities. It's a mantra for our officials in the field.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

When I was doing the trade talks there, we found that it's a hard place to do business. We weren't successful. We were trying to help companies with their natural gas; Syria has a great wealth of natural gas.

In part of your presentation, you talked about sanctions in the petroleum sector and the changes you're going to make. What do we do very much of there? Do we have much of an economic stick in what we are trying to do or are doing?

[Barbara Martin]

We've been among the earliest among our allies to impose sanctions on the Syrian regime, including the sanctions on the petroleum sector. Those sanctions, because they are done by a group of significant traders with Syria, are starting to have bite. Syria relies heavily on oil revenue to support government revenue.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

I'm also worried about our companies. That's what I was leading to; how could our companies be affected by these sanctions?

[Barbara Martin]

Our current commercial exposure in Syria is quite low. The largest commercial engagement pulled out of Syria a number of months ago. Actually, they operated through European offices, and it was largely as a consequence of the sanctions the European Union imposed that they were compelled to pull out; our trade relations with Syria, which were small, will now be diminished even further.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

You're saying the impact will not be huge on our companies because we're not that big in there.

That's it, Mr. Chair. I don't have any more questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

We'll move back over to the Conservative side.

Do you have any questions? I know we're waiting for bells, but we can keep going until then.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Ms. Martin, can you tell us about the government's call for remaining Canadians to leave Syria?

I understand that in December the government announced a voluntary evacuation for Canadians in Syria. Can you explain what the “open express lane” entailed and how this program worked? How was the Syrian community in Canada engaged in that process?

[Barbara Martin]

I'll defer to my colleague, Mr. Dubeau.

[Robin Dubeau]

The voluntary evacuation was launched for a period of one month, from mid-December to mid-January. It was an attempt to document people as quickly as possible so that they could benefit from existing commercial options to leave the country.

We put in place different measures during that time, from small-scale measures to larger ones. The first one was to extend the opening hours of the embassy to receive as many Canadians as possible. The fast lane that you were referring to was to expedite the production of travel documents and immigration documents. For instance, a passport application would normally take 15 working days; we were able to produce passports in five working days. That would enable people to take advantage of commercial options that were available for them to leave. We would point them to those commercial options through travel agencies and we would also point them to airline companies and ground transportation companies.

Another measure we put in place was to increase the capacity of our 24/7 call centre so that when we received calls from the Canadian community here in Canada or from people on the ground in Syria, we could direct their questions and get answers as fast as possible. As my colleague said in her opening remarks, we received close to 1,600 calls. We also placed 3,400 calls in an attempt to give people registered with us the latest information.

One of the last measures we put in place was really to communicate as much as possible through all available means—mass email, mass SMS messaging, texting, calling people, and calling the families here as well--to convince their loved ones to leave the country. We believe it's been effective, given that about 300 of them who were in contact with us during that period said they had left.

Those basically, in a nutshell, are the measures we put in place for that period.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

It sounds as though you made some very significant efforts to assist Canadians in Syria.

Do you have any idea how many Canadian citizens remain in Syria today?

[Robin Dubeau]

Well, as my colleague said, close to 1,600 Canadians are still registered with us in the database, but there's no obligation for anyone to register. The assessment that the mission made through different calculations—it's more of an estimate than any scientific number—is that there are fewer than 5,000.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Do you have an estimate for us on the size of the Syrian Canadian diaspora community in Canada?

[Robin Dubeau]

In Canada? I couldn't answer this question.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Have you been working with any of the Syrian Canadian organizations on the evacuation and the other issues surrounding the current crisis in Syria?

[Robin Dubeau]

Yes. Before Christmas, we organized several—two, if my memory serves me well—teleconferences with Syrian Canadian associations and Arab League associations in an attempt to explain the nature of those measures and to encourage them to reach their loved ones back in Syria and convince them to take advantage of those measures to leave the country.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

I can tell you that I have met with Syrian Canadians in my city of Mississauga, where there's a large community of Syrian Canadians. I met with them recently, during the parliamentary break. They are generally quite pleased with the service they've been getting from our embassy in Syria and the Department of Foreign Affairs and with the position that Canada has taken thus far on the crisis in Syria. We're going to continue to engage with them and certainly will let you know what we hear directly from them.