Foreign Affairs Committee on Dec. 4th, 2012

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

If I may, Minister—

[Julian Fantino, Conservative, Vaughan, ON]

I thought I was answering.

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

I just want—if you could allude to the ones—

[Julian Fantino, Conservative, Vaughan, ON]

Mr. Chair, could I finish?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

A quick response, yes, then we'll come back.

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

I'm sorry, Minister, they give me only five minutes for the whole thing. That's why I can't fit so much in.

[Julian Fantino, Conservative, Vaughan, ON]

I just want to make it clear that we are not in the business of funding NGOs for life. We will pick and choose those that provide the most ethical, most efficient, and most effective results for Canadian taxpayer dollars.

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

“Ethical”, you're saying. The Canadian Nurses Association, the Canadian Teachers' Federation, Development and Peace—are you saying they're not cutting it? They're not doing the job? They're not ethical?

[Julian Fantino, Conservative, Vaughan, ON]

You said that; I didn't say that. You framed it in that context.

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

I can't see why these NGOs have been cut.

[Julian Fantino, Conservative, Vaughan, ON]

Well, because times have changed, country statuses have changed, needs have changed. The world economy has changed. Programs start and programs finish. There are all kinds of variables and we're adjusting to that. But I should assure you and the committee that we have not cut our ability to respond to humanitarian aid situations or disasters. That's still there, and we will continue to respond to those situations officially and effectively, as Canada has in the past.

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

Do I have time?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

You have five minutes. I'll give you two more. You get seven minutes, Mark. Go ahead for two more minutes.

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

Minister, we've always funded technical advice for corporate social responsibility. It was part of our mandate before. Now it seems to be—and you're disputing, saying that we're not subsidizing Canadian companies. But when you're giving money to these companies, you're technically not being a watchdog if you're cutting the corporate social responsibility fund that we used to have and maintain.

I'm sure that 90% of our companies in Canada are good corporate citizens and they want to do the best. But do you have any mechanism in place, or are you cutting the funding for that mechanism that we had, to make sure that our corporations are good citizens of the world when they're putting mines in Panama or Chile or Africa? What trigger or what mechanism do you have to make sure that they're good corporate citizens, instead of just giving them money for their coffers, I guess?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Minister, you've got about 30 seconds to answer that.

[Julian Fantino, Conservative, Vaughan, ON]

We do not fund mining companies. We use all the due diligence in the world, and the extractives institute will be another asset that will help us do the ethical kinds of things that need to be done to enable countries to develop their own industry in a way that they can profit and benefit from the results of extractives.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

For our second round, which will be five minutes of questions and answers, I'm going to move over to Mr. Obhrai.

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Calgary East, AB]

Thank you very much. Five minutes is pretty good. I would love to give my two minutes to Mark Eyking, but you gave it to him, and he wasn't asking an intelligent question anyway.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Calgary East, AB]

Minister, welcome to the committee. I think this is your first visit to the committee. Am I right?

[Julian Fantino, Conservative, Vaughan, ON]

Yes.

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Calgary East, AB]

Very good. You're doing a good job. I liked the answer. You said “adjustment” instead of “cuts”. So take note of that, it's called adjustment not cuts.

Minister, you spoke about taking over the results agreement approach to using the taxpayers' dollars very efficiently, as you have outlined.

As you know, you touched on Haiti, but our other largest contribution is to Afghanistan, where Canada has been at the forefront in helping. Recently, in July, there was the Tokyo Conference in reference to coordination of aid to Afghanistan.

Can you update us on the Tokyo Conference, the accountability issue, and our role in Afghanistan?

[Julian Fantino, Conservative, Vaughan, ON]

I did have the opportunity to travel to Afghanistan twice in my capacity as associate minister of National Defence. Even in the timeframe of six or eight months apart, I saw significant differences in the actual situation there.

I was struck by the difference compared to my previous visit and how many improvements are actually being made, as we speak. To see little girls walking down the street, coming and going from school with backpacks filled with school books and uniforms, made me feel like we were looking at children here, like there were some other issues happening there.

It shows our commitment there is paying off big time by changing the direction of young lives and most definitely impacting positive futures for them. Due to our government's efforts in Afghanistan we are also seeing more health workers being trained. The Afghans are also beginning to take over responsibility for their own security.

I must also say that recent developments in Afghanistan have been somewhat troubling, but we have made the commitment on mutual accountability to the people of Afghanistan and to the Canadian taxpayers, at the recent Tokyo Conference.

I had the opportunity to have a brief discussion with Mr. Karzai in New York and impressed upon him and his people that our development assistance is not unconditional. It is dependent on increasing accountability, transparency, and proof that the rights of women and girls are being upheld, protected, and championed.

Canada has achieved significant results in its engagement in Afghanistan, but obviously, it's a work in progress and much still remains to be done. In many areas, Canada's fingerprints on Afghanistan in terms of the rule of law, human rights, the development of farming there, and the water issues.... There are so many areas.

To that end, we can't talk about Afghanistan without paying tribute to 158 of our soldiers who lost their lives there, and one civilian member of Canadian authorities, and as well to all the injured folks.

It's been a sacrifice, but I'd like to give Canadians the assurance that significant improvements are continuing to be made.

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Calgary East, AB]

Do you want to ask a question, Dave? You have a minute.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

I'll ask a quick question.

Minister, it's great to see you. I'll maybe have the second round, and I can ask a little bit more.

Can you talk to us about partnerships? You talked about partnerships. We had the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation here. We also had Rotary and I believe the polio project as well. Can you tell us about those projects and those partnerships, and how they've been successful?