Foreign Affairs Committee on Oct. 18th, 2011

[Denis Robert, Director, Haiti Task Force, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade]

I think, Mr. Allen, you have touched on all the right points. It's a problem that dates back in history. It's true that there is no cadastre in Haiti, so there has been a bit of anarchy, if I may say. So when you want to have a piece of land you will have two or three owners with papers. They all claim that they are the right papers. As was said, the justice system does not really arbitrate this, so it becomes a political problem.

We hope that the new administration...and President Martelly has mentioned cadastre as one of his priorities. This is fundamental, as was said, not only to attract investment, but to agriculture, to ownership. We have problems selecting people because nobody knows where to put them because there is no land available for that. This is a real problem. Again, President Martelly has underlined this. We do hope...and we'll help him.

We have some projects already, as was mentioned. Those projects are small in nature. What we want to avoid is that you have a patchwork of projects, that the French have one, and the Inter-American Development Bank has another one, and then the OAS is proposing another one. It will be again a mistake of the past to have this kind of patchwork.

We're trying to work with those who are involved, because there is a place for everybody, but it has to be well coordinated so that the work fits together and it makes sense at the end of the day.

The bottom line is that we need to have a government in Haiti--we do since last week--and then we can start working with them, because as in many other issues, we cannot do it for them. We have to help them to do it, to identify the problem and then find a solution with them.

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

Thank you. That's very good.

I'm glad to hear that the Haiti government is committed to—

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

On a point of order, could the witness clarify if the term is “cadater”?

[Denis Robert]

It's cadastre. I don't know the translation.

[Jon Allen]

Land registry.

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

To finish, I'm glad to hear that the Haitian government is focusing on this problem.

Is there a similarity between the land conveyancing system in the province of Quebec and the system in Haiti that would allow legal experts from Canada to assist in this process?

[Denis Robert]

Yes, indeed.

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

Very good.

Mr. Chair, my next question, if I have time, is for Ms. Filiatrault.

Ms. Filiatrault, you mentioned in your opening remarks about the ongoing cholera epidemic in Haiti. I wonder if you could tell us a little about the current status, what the causes are, and what Canada is doing to assist.

[Lise Filiatrault]

Thank you. Leslie Norton, our DG for humanitarian assistance, can address this question.

[Leslie Norton, Director General, International Humanitarian Assistance Directorate, Canadian International Development Agency]

Thanks very much for the question.

I want to add, very quickly, on your last question, that the situation for land tenure was very serious before the earthquake, but afterwards, because so many of the government buildings were lost, that added to the situation. The humanitarian community is looking at a whole range of community-based solutions for this, and they've been working closely with locals.

On the cholera epidemic, to date CIDA has contributed $8.5 million to address the needs resulting from the cholera epidemic. Our response began last October, at the height of the epidemic. I think you are familiar that in May-June there was another peak, and there's reference to a potential third peak, which we may be seeing now.

In addition to the $8.5 million, we also supported the deployment of a Canadian Red Cross Society cholera treatment centre in Port-au-Prince. This centre treated 1,500 patients in total. The treatment centre is now operated by the Haitian Red Cross, with support from the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. CIDA also supported the deployment of nine Canadian experts to reinforce the operations of the Pan American Health Organization, UNICEF, and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, what we call OCHA.

One of the key results achieved by this support from CIDA is that our partners have treated well over 240,000 cholera patients who had been hospitalized. Probably the most important result is that the fatality rate decreased from 9% to 1.4%. There were over 42,000 children receiving hygiene kits.

Currently PAHO has implemented a disease surveillance and alert system, allowing humanitarian organizations to respond very quickly to new outbreaks. It's being monitored very closely at this time. Our partners are there and they continue to keep their eyes open.

As we look to the next round of humanitarian appeals, we will continue to consider water, sanitation, and hygiene elements to try to prevent any further outbreaks.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

We're going to wrap up on the opposition side, with Ms. Sims.

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

Thank you very much.

I want to thank you for the reports. This is a new area for me, and I'm looking forward to meeting with some of the staff and receiving briefings and updates. This has given me a little more information.

As you know, there have been some concerns expressed in the media and stories have been raised about the speed with which we get our aid to areas that need it, specifically Haiti. I know there was an earthquake in between....

I want to go back to the question that was asked previously about the police academy. My understanding from the answers you gave is that we were in a process of getting bids and we'd shortlisted the people who had made the bids. They were in a conference and then an earthquake happened. We know when an earthquake happens that things get sidelined, so now we're going through another bid process.

Did we go back to the same bidders and pick up from where we left off so we could move forward expeditiously, or have we started as if it's a whole new process?

[Isabelle Bérard]

Thank you very much.

The way you depicted the sequence is good. The conference in Port-au-Prince was to inform the bidders prior to their final submission, and the process was never completed. After the earthquake we paused and relaunched the process. Essentially everybody who had an intention to participate in the process prior to the earthquake was invited to bid again.

When we had the conference with the bidders, we had a number of people attending the conference and we never completed the process. Whether all these people in the room would have bid or not is something we don't know, so we had to start the process from the beginning. There was no short list, essentially.

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

So we were still at the initial stages of inviting bidders, and then we'd call them to a meeting. Now we're at that same initial stage. We've put out the bids.

Have we called them all to a meeting yet, or will that be some time in the future?

[Isabelle Bérard]

The two bidders didn't meet the mandatory requirement, so we had to relaunch it.

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

On those mandatory requirements—excuse my lack of knowledge in this area—were they expectations that we put on? Are we trying to meet the Canadian standards of buildings, and all of that, or were those mandatory requirements negotiated with the Haitian government and we're not meeting them?

[Isabelle Bérard]

They are Canadian mandatory requirements, but they're contractual requirements. They're not necessarily linked to the building code. That is the next step once we've selected the builder.

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

So the technicality on which they were rejected was not the building code, so to speak, but maybe not meeting some of the requirements we had put in place.

[Isabelle Bérard]

That's right.

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

Have we looked at those requirements to make sure that they are streamlined and not a barrier, that they get us to where we want to go without placing unnecessary barriers in the way of contractors? This government is very fond of getting rid of a lot of the rules to open it up and streamline things.

[Isabelle Bérard]

What I'm alluding to are Treasury Board contractual rules, so at this point it's a matter of the bidders meeting those rules.

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

I'm really delighted to hear that we're still carrying on with building the capacity for internal policing, because security becomes very important. But are we ensuring that built into this training is sensitivity toward gender issues, specifically violence against women and sexual exploitation of women? We know that when there is turmoil women often end up being the victims, and abuse is not out of the ordinary.

So what are we doing to ensure that kind of best practice is being instilled into the training we're giving?

[Marie Gervais-Vidricaire]

It is absolutely part of the training. I previously mentioned one particular project to support the security services related to the problem of gender-based violence in Haiti. We do that with UN Women. There's a $1 million contribution to that effect. But more generally speaking, we know that this is a real issue, and it's part of our considerations when we deal with training.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

We're going to wrap up because we have another session to go.

I want to thank Mr. Allen for attending today with his team from DFAIT.

Madame Filiatrault, thank you very much for being here with your team as well.

We'll suspend for five minutes to change witnesses, and then we'll go again.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

I call all our members back to the table. We have an additional three witnesses and just a little over 55 minutes left.

We have Kevin McCort, who is with CARE Canada. He's the president and chief executive officer, and also a member of the Humanitarian Coalition. Welcome, and thank you, Kevin, for being here.

We also have Conrad Sauvé, the secretary general and chief executive officer of the Canadian Red Cross. Welcome again. With him is Pam Aung Thin, who has also been here before with the Canadian Red Cross.

From UNICEF Canada we have Stephanie Kleschnitzki, who is the reports and contributions manager for Haiti at UNICEF.

I'm going to start with you, Mr. McCort. You have an opening statement. We'll run through the opening statements, and then hopefully we'll get time for a couple of quick rounds of questioning.

Mr. McCort, welcome. I'll turn the floor over to you.