Foreign Affairs Committee on Dec. 4th, 2012

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

Thank you, Minister. I will give the floor to my colleague Paul.

[Julian Fantino, Conservative, Vaughan, ON]

Let me answer that. You seem to think that CIDA's work is predicated on a number of announcements. I think, rather, that our people do hard work. We make announcements as they may be necessary. Announcements are not the priority.

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

I tend to think that we're working with partners on the ground who have achieved results, NGOs that have achieved results in the last decades, and when they answer a call for submissions, it would be proper practice to at some point get to a decision on them.

I'll pass the floor to my colleague Paul.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

We have one minute.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Maybe I'll put this a different way. Just to clarify, you don't know how many proposals that were in front of you for the partnerships program have been approved. Is that right? You can't tell us right now?

[Julian Fantino, Conservative, Vaughan, ON]

I can't tell you right now, no.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you.

We have the situation, Chair, in which we have a minister who is very articulate on the mining extractive program, but he can't tell us how many actual files have been approved. We're hearing zero for the last year.

I think it would be helpful if the minister or maybe someone there can help us with this. We're hearing of zero approvals for the partnerships program, but exulting over the $25-plus million for the program with extractive industries. I think we need to have more facts to be able to evaluate how the department is doing. I'd appreciate those facts being brought to us as soon as possible.

Thank you.

[Julian Fantino, Conservative, Vaughan, ON]

Mr. Chair, if I may correct the record here, you're confusing approvals with announcements.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

I asked how many approvals there have been.

[Julian Fantino, Conservative, Vaughan, ON]

I've approved all kinds of projects that have not resulted in announcements. If you want—

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Do the people who applied for these programs know? Have they been told?

[Julian Fantino, Conservative, Vaughan, ON]

It's an open window of transparency with CIDA. You can find out at any time you want what we've approved.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Can you name two?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Actually, that's all the time we have. That's seven minutes.

We're going to move over to Ms. Brown for seven minutes, please.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Minister, thank you for being here today. It's been a while since we've had an update on CIDA projects, so thank you very much.

One of CIDA's objectives is always to get out in front of situations, ahead of humanitarian disasters. Last year we saw the pending challenges in the Sahel region of Africa. We started acting last winter, as a matter of fact; I think we put $47 million into that. We established the Sahel matching fund in August, and in early fall you made a visit to the Sahel region.

Could you update the committee, first of all, on what happened with the Sahel matching fund? I know we started it with a $10 million contribution. Could you give us the response we saw from Canadians?

Could you also update the committee on your observations from your visit to the Sahel?

[Julian Fantino, Conservative, Vaughan, ON]

Thank you.

In September I had the chance to see first-hand the challenges faced by what roughly appeared to be about 18 million people plus in the Sahel. Canada was already a world leader in responding to the food and nutrition crisis in the Sahel. In this particular instance, as you indicated, we made an immediate response to alleviate the issues.

The humanitarian crisis in the Sahel region particularly affects children and women, and it was quite acute. This is being further aggravated by the insecurity in the region, including fundamentalists clashing, the Tuareg nationalists in northern Mali. It's a very precarious and unstable part of the world as it is.

For these reasons, our government created the Sahel crisis matching fund. I'm proud to inform the committee that as a result of that outreach, Canadians, being the very generous people that they are, donated a total of $6.9 million to the fund.

The Government of Canada response to the Sahel food and nutrition crisis, totalling some $57.5 million to date, combined with the donations from Canadians to registered Canadian charities, ensures that our humanitarian partners are able to do more to ease the suffering of people throughout the Sahel.

It didn't result, I thought, to the same degree as previous matching fund programs had.... We analyzed this, as did our partner NGOs. The reason for this is the quick response that happened in the first place. We prevented the very serious, more tragic outcome.

There was prevention, there was immediate intervention, which resulted in a much better outcome. We obviously didn't have those very compelling, sad pictures of starving children and whatever, because of that intervention. But we still need to be grateful to Canadians for their contribution.

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

Thank you, Minister.

I understand that part of what we're doing with that prevention fund is helping establish prevention mechanisms for the future in new farming mechanisms, helping them understand issues of climate change, and working forward in ensuring that these kinds of disasters don't happen in the future.

I think you were in Burkina Faso as well, and we have a project there with World University Service of Canada that's working in partnership with one of our extractive industries giving real skilled jobs to local people who are developing opportunities for the future. Could you talk about that project?

[Julian Fantino, Conservative, Vaughan, ON]

In essence, that project and other projects of a similar nature are basically intended to create a win-win situation for all. We have efforts under way to basically empower people or enable them to develop economies themselves, to create employment, to do the kinds of things that will help them deal in the long run with the issues of health, food, and security, the kinds of things that we now are obviously committed to. In Burkina Faso, the need is just so huge, so great, that we're trying to do the humanitarian aid, surely, but at the very same time we're trying to provide opportunities, support, and sustainment for people to develop their own ability to survive, if you will.

Finally, the training there, again partnering with Plan Canada, of up to 10,000 young people in 13 communities to meet local labour market needs with co-financing by IAMGOLD and CIDA is a prime example of what it is that we're trying to do. We're trying to leverage resources in an ethical way that will enable the investment companies to be sensitive to the need to look at social issues, health issues, and community building in places where they operate. This is one example of how that has resulted in some very positive short and long-term outcomes.

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

Minister, this is just a comment, not a question, but I happened to be at Essakane in Burkina Faso two and a half years ago. I saw the project that IAMGOLD had undertaken with the community to provide water, sanitation, and opportunities for real job training skills that are portable into the job market, should people decide to leave and go to some of the other cities that are around there. They are portable jobs that, at the same time, create opportunities for agricultural development there because they are trying to feed all of the people who are working at their mine. They've got a very modern, up-to-date kitchen, and they are using all locally grown produce, which is compounding the effectiveness of the work that's being done in that area. So I applaud you for the work that's being undertaken in those projects.

[Julian Fantino, Conservative, Vaughan, ON]

The big thing there as well is creating employment opportunities and training for local folks, as you pointed out, so it's a model.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much. That's all the time.

We're going to move over to Mr. Eyking for seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome, Minister.

As you're well aware, your department is one of the hardest hit by the government cuts, and I think it's staggering, $320 million. It's pretty disturbing when you see that most G-20 countries are maintaining or increasing their aid with less robust economies than ours.

The other disturbing trend is that a lot of assistance does not fit with the Official Development Assistance Accountability Act, which is mostly supposed to focus on reducing poverty. The other thing we found out—and you mentioned Africa with the droughts and the instability—is that Africa is still the biggest continent in need of help, and that's where your biggest cuts are.

Minister, you're from Toronto. Toronto and the country are great contributors to aid individuals, but most of them do it in their local communities through NGOs they believe in. That's where the vast amount of the contributions are. So when you're kind of cutting these NGOs off, you're cutting off that money stream from these individuals. My question is, do you have a sense of how much money is going to be lost as a result of the amount of money you're cutting from NGOs right now? How much does that translate to in the individual donations that would go to those NGOs to foster the programs they would want to do?

[Julian Fantino, Conservative, Vaughan, ON]

There are a couple of things. First and foremost, I think there's a misconception here, that has been perpetuated, that CIDA is responsible for maintaining and funding NGOs for life. That's not the case. We are operating on the basis of ensuring that the best outcome is achieved for every taxpayer dollar.

To give you an example, I was just in Haiti. Some people will tell me that there are some 4,000 NGOs on the ground in Haiti. Others will tell me that there are 6,000 plus NGOs. This is right from Haitians; this is not an invention or some third-party focus. My response to all of this is that we will operate with whatever agency, entity, NGO, or whatever, that will achieve optimum results for Canadian tax dollars, in a most efficient and effective way, and ensure that the outcomes are what are intended.

The issue isn't about how many NGOs CIDA is going to keep operating.

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

I believe that there should be a review. We can't just keep giving people money, unless you review wherever that money is going. But your department's drastic cuts...some of these NGOs are really doing a good job. It almost implies there's a bit of ideology from your government about whom you're picking.

Do you have any directive from the PMO on whom you pick? How does the process happen?

[Julian Fantino, Conservative, Vaughan, ON]

There is absolutely no directive whatsoever. I think what I bring to the job is my own Canadian citizen and business approach to how things should be done, in consultation with CIDA folks. There's no directive. But it makes perfect sense that we coordinate, that we don't squander a nickel of hard-earned taxpayers’ money. We're not there to address the flavour of the day; we're there to do the heavy lifting.

I should also make it clear. People talk about cuts. These are adjustments. Things happen; things have changed. There are countries that were in dire need of CIDA and Canadian aid—