Foreign Affairs Committee on Feb. 27th, 2012

[Kenneth V. Georgetti]

Absolutely.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Mr. McKay, welcome to the committee. You have five minutes.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Am I last?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

You have more time. There may be some other questions.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Last, but hopefully not least.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

It depends on what you say. There may be more feedback if you say something that needs a response.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

I'm nervous already, Mr. Chair.

I apologize for not being here earlier, but I understand that you had a fairly fulsome discussion with respect to the Cardin-Lugar amendment to the Dodd-Frank Act and things of that nature.

I wanted to put it in the context of Libya. Ms. Lissakers, you provided a very excellent transparency snapshot with respect to Libya. Clearly, the men and women from Canada who participated in that conflict acquitted themselves brilliantly, but in winning the war we may well lose the peace, because reports keep coming out that not-so-great things are happening there. It may well be that we are going to be back to a situation where the corruption and the lack of transparency and the lack of accountability may actually be very similar to what they were under the Gadhafi regime. We hope not.

If in fact the international community gets together and proceeds with the Cardin-Lugar amendment or themes and variations thereon, how could you see that playing through in a country like Libya for both the mining sector and the oil and gas sector?

[Karin Lissakers]

The then acting energy minister in the transition government, after Gadhafi was overthrown, commented that Gadhafi and his family treated the country's oil income as their personal piggy bank. So Libya is a good example of the kinds of systemic issues we've been talking about with regard to having a strong international transparency standard.

We're working in Libya. We actually ran the first public workshop on oil governance issues in Tripoli in December with Global Witness. It was very well attended by transition government members and workers; there were myriad forms of Libyan participation, which was very encouraging. They're clearly trying to find their way, and as you say, it's quite chaotic. There are all sorts of power struggles unquestionably under way, which is why we think that in a country like Libya--and across the board in the Middle East--a strong concerted message and supportive policies for strong governance of the oil sector will make a difference.

The new folks in Libya do look to the international community for guidance and want to know what the standard is. If there is no standard, then there isn't much guidance for them to look to. I mentioned earlier that Canada is an important voice in the G-8 and the G-20, and it would be very valuable for the Canadian government to join other voices in those groupings to say that we need a global standard and we should push it. We should push it in our international policies, and we should push it in our bilateral development assistance and in other political ways.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Before I bring Mr. Gratton into the conversation, Mr. Dechert was manoeuvring around an argument I hear frequently, which is that if we don't do it, the Chinese will do it or somebody else will do it. That seems to me a kind of “beggar your neighbour” approach.

Given that the desire is there to establish a global international standard, what is your reaction to those companies or countries that won't join in and that may actually try to take advantage?

[Karin Lissakers]

Well, if the EU, the U.S., Canada, and Australia, for example, all adopt the same disclosure requirements through their capital markets, you will begin to cover a large part of the world. The number of Chinese companies and the increasing number of developing country companies are listing somewhere—in London or Frankfurt or Toronto. We want to reduce the number of venues where they can escape those kinds of regulations.

Interestingly, Hong Kong requires new extractive companies that are listing for the first time to disclose payments to governments. We know that Shanghai and Hong Kong are talking about harmonizing their regulations. The Chinese want to meet the highest international standards. They don't want to be down at the bottom of the pile. They're coming along, albeit slowly.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Let me bring Mr. Gratton into this conversation and just get your reaction to what Ms. Lissakers has just said.

[Pierre Gratton]

Reaction...?

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Do you agree with her entirely? I'll sign off here.

[Pierre Gratton]

I've found myself agreeing with her most of the afternoon.

For our members, certainly, our primary interest is that there be something that applies equally to all and is the same: that the reporting standards don't vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and that we can all have a global approach.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

An even playing field.

I think it was a very interesting comment. You say that effectively the Hong Kong Stock Exchange is bringing the Shanghai market into the international community. Is that a quick summary of what you just said?

[Karin Lissakers]

Yes. Some of our colleagues in the Publish What You Pay coalition have been talking to the Shanghai Stock Exchange and we know that there's a harmonization discussion. Shanghai is not yet an integrated international capital centre. They clearly aspire to that. Beijing clearly aspires to have that happen, and Shanghai certainly does. But the Hong Kong Exchange is a very successful international company, so they're looking to Hong Kong for its standards. Whether they'll emulate everything remains to be seen, but I think it's important that the others seem to take note.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Thanks.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thanks.

We're all done our formal rounds here, so if Ms. Sims has a question or two, we'll wrap up after that.

You have one question as well?

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

I have one comment, Mr. Chair.

My apologies to everybody; I have to leave because I have another meeting in another building, for which I'm late already.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Yes, thanks.

All right, Ms. Sims.

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

Okay, thank you.

We would certainly be supporting global standards, and we believe that Canada does have a critical role to play. We were leaders in that area at one time globally, and I think it's time for us to be the same again.

I also want to get back to the advocacy comment that was made. I fundamentally believe that in order to support and build a socially just and democratic civil society, you have to engage the population in critical advocacy. Without that, it is not possible. I believe that the foreign aid, foreign development, and international development that we do, that CIDA does, if it does not have that critical advocacy role in there, then there's a huge area that's missing, where we're just going to people instead of getting them to think and to speak up for themselves and giving them the skills they need.

Can you specifically say what kind of advocacy it is that your organization does in this area, knowing that your international work is paid for by the public as well by workers? They first pay their taxes, so they support CIDA, then out of their dues to your federation, that money is then used for international development because working people are so committed to that international solidarity.

So just a comment from you....

[Lucien Royer]

First, to agree with you, reporting and monitoring are very important. What is needed are internationally recognized standards that create a baseline for everybody and where everybody is equal. One of those baselines is the ILO core labour standards, which also was referenced a number of times in the G-20 and the G-8, historically; that is, a basic, fundamental protection against child labour, fundamental protection to promote gender equality, and fundamental principles to protect the rights of workers in trade unions.

Without that you have inequality and you have the capacity for lowering the standards—here and even more in another country. Therefore, that creates the context in which things should happen. In fact, they don't happen that way, because no coherent labour standards have been adopted by all countries. Therefore, you need advocacy as an antidote for that deficiency; that antidote is important in communities that suffer from those inequalities, that suffer from poverty. Trade unions, workers, and non-governmental organizations alike, and many other communities, actually are involved in basic education and training and support for awareness-raising in the communities and for getting them to become involved.

In terms of promoting the principles of education, it is fundamentally important for them to become involved and to engage their governments—mostly local governments—into actually behaving a certain way, but also engaging companies to actually behave a certain way. Without that, there is no capacity for actually improving the world for the poor. The trade unions actually are involved at the workplace level with the employer. We engage the employer to improve the workplace situation as well as the community situation. Without that as a core, you have a weakness throughout the whole community. The CSR funded by CIDA doesn't do that, doesn't even address that problem.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

Mr. Chalmers or Ms. Lissakers, do you have any final comments before we close today?

[Karin Lissakers]

I thank you for your time and your excellent questions.