Evidence of meeting #6 for Foreign Affairs and International Development in the 41st Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was haiti.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Mark Eyking Liberal Sydney—Victoria, NS
If you don't mind, I'm following through with this. These contractors would have been from the country, the bidders?
Director General, Haiti, Canadian International Development Agency
No, they were—
Director General, Haiti, Canadian International Development Agency
They were international, that's right, but the bidders' conference was held in Haiti.
As I said, the mandatory requirements weren't met by the bidders, so we had to relaunch the process. But we are determined to get this police academy going, and we are hoping that by spring 2012 we'll be able to start building.
Director General, Haiti, Canadian International Development Agency
Yes, the spring of 2012.
Director General, Haiti, Canadian International Development Agency
There was an earthquake in the meantime.
Liberal
Mark Eyking Liberal Sydney—Victoria, NS
There's no doubt there was an earthquake, but to me that would make it more urgent. You have disarray in the community. You have thugs floating around--we saw it. You would think that would have been even more of a priority to get an area cleared.
I've built buildings before. You're not dealing with frost walls. These are block buildings. There's a lot of labour in the area looking for work. So not only would it have been a good infrastructure to have in place, it would have been a great work project for many of these young men and women who are idle. But we just couldn't get it together in that short time. We couldn't clear the site and get it going?
Director General, Haiti, Canadian International Development Agency
The site is cleared, and we are working on the request for proposal. It has been relaunched, and we're waiting for proposals from bidders.
Director General, Haiti, Canadian International Development Agency
We've launched the process and we're in the middle of that process.
Liberal
Mark Eyking Liberal Sydney—Victoria, NS
You wouldn't think that's a bit of a failure, that you're still waiting for bidders?
Director General, Haiti, Canadian International Development Agency
We've got to follow the rules.
Liberal
Mark Eyking Liberal Sydney—Victoria, NS
Does anybody else have any comments on this?
If you people were building your own home and you were going to wait five years, and you're still waiting for bidders...I would think that's a failure in itself. There's something missing here. Why would it take four and a half years to get proper bidders? If there was no earthquake, would it have still taken that long?
Director General, Haiti, Canadian International Development Agency
No, of course not. We were having this conference of bidders in Port-au-Prince to have a conversation with the bidders themselves, but because of the earthquake we had to stop the process.
Liberal
Mark Eyking Liberal Sydney—Victoria, NS
Now, you have other projects that were alluded to. Apparently you're saying they're up and running. Is there a reason why those are up and running faster than this one?
Regional Director General, Americas Directorate, Canadian International Development Agency
The different—
Liberal
Mark Eyking Liberal Sydney—Victoria, NS
I'm wondering where the directive's coming from, the priority of what projects you get moving along here. Does it come from the top? Foreign Affairs?
Regional Director General, Americas Directorate, Canadian International Development Agency
Different projects have different requirements, obviously. Depending on the nature of what needs to be done, and the set of rules around them, some projects can start faster; others are not as fast.
Obviously, when it relates to humanitarian needs, we have mechanisms to respond quickly. But at the same time, if construction is involved, then we do have to follow a certain number of rules and processes to make sure we not only do the right thing, but also that we do it right so that we respect the due diligence and the accountability procedures, because we also want to make sure that things are done with value for money and accountability.
Liberal
Mark Eyking Liberal Sydney—Victoria, NS
One more quick question, if I may.
Whether we failed or we didn't get this job done, what's it like on the ground there? If we still have, as was quoted in this article, the old-style police force they had, which wasn't up to snuff for sure, what's happening there with this non-professional police force or maybe this ragtag group that's in the country? Is it causing a problem with your own aid workers and with law and order and the day-to-day operations of a country?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Americas, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
I think we should just make a distinction between the construction of a building, which in the circumstances--proposals made, earthquake, having to redo the whole process and follow the rules--is one thing, and the mentoring and the training that we have been engaged in with the Haitian National Police, which has continued. For that we didn't need--this building will be important. It will be a key element of them being able to go forward, because they need infrastructure. They have to have proper buildings to work out of.
But our activities with the Haitian National Police have not stopped. They have continued. We have been able to engage with them. We're trying to build up the force. We're vetting police. We're providing a whole bank of training and mentoring, so we continue with that. We do consider it to be key, but we're respectful of the difficulties that people are engaged in throughout Haiti.
This police building is not the only difficulty that people have encountered. As I said, problems of rubble, problems of finding places for people to live--this has been a massive problem, and it's not unique to Haiti. You see it around the world where you end up with a disaster like this. So I have some sympathy for my colleagues in--
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
I'm going to leave it at that. I'm not sure we'll be picking this line of questioning up in the next round. We'll have to come back.
Mr. Dechert, we're going to start a second round. You have five minutes.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your appearance here today and for the good work that you and your colleagues do in Haiti to help the people there who desperately need our help. I really do think that Canadians owe you a debt of gratitude for the work that you do there.
I'd like to start with Mr. Allen. In your remarks you mentioned land title reform. I've heard something about this. I've heard that there are problems with the land title system in Haiti and that it in some way hampers relief efforts, the ability to build new buildings and especially to replace residential housing that may have fallen down in the earthquake. Could you expand a little on that and tell us a little bit more about what the problem is and what might be done to fix that problem?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Americas, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
Thank you, Mr. Dechert.
It is one of the fundamental missing links in Haiti. Denis Robert can expand because he has been working with the Government of Quebec and with France, and with others and with the Haitian government.
In terms of the nature of the problem, not only is it a problem because it has affected the removal of rubble, but it has affected the reconstruction. Each time people want to either remove rubble or build a building or build residential homes, they run into the problem of competing demands on the title. There is no functioning land title system, and there is no court system that's able to adjudicate on conflicting demands.
But it's not only a problem on the humanitarian side. When we were recently in Haiti and met with the business community, it became clear that we're not going to be able to attract investment into Haiti if people who want to build a manufacturing plant can't be assured (a) of the land on which they want to build and (b) that there won't be a challenge to it in the next month or the next year.
It's a fundamental problem.
Denis, maybe you could just expand.