Foreign Affairs Committee on Feb. 12th, 2013

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Gentlemen, thank you for being here.

I do want to give the Red Cross a little bit of time here to talk about some more of their programs.

And I'd like to dispel some of the myth that seems to be here about Canada leaving the Sahel region of Africa. Certainly Mali has been one of our countries of focus, and Mr. Fowler, you indicated that Canada has been the largest contributor: $110 million a year going into that country. We've been working on governance issues. We've been working on maternal, newborn, and child health. We've been on education.

Contrary to what seems to be out here about Canada not investing in helping with military engagement, we have been on the ground working with ECOWAS and training in military and police capacities in Niger, in all of that region, to ensure that they are building capacity.

I've had the opportunity to visit the Kofi Annan centre in Ghana, and certainly Canada has been intimately engaged in that country and in that process. ECOWAS is invested in ensuring that all of the countries of the Sahel region are getting the training. When the Sahel crisis started to emerge, Canada was the first one on the ground with contributions for humanitarian endeavours to ensure that food security was going to be there for the people of the Sahel region. We've contributed some $56 million, over and above the $110 million that is going into Mali—$56 million. We still have Senegal and we still have Ghana as countries of focus, so certainly we are engaged in the Sahel region.

I know you've talked about this amount of money that we contributed at the funders' conference. We've contributed $13 million, and even if that is only 2% of what is being contributed, we heard last week that the EU is only contributing $20 million. So the contribution that Canada has given per capita is punching way above our weight. We actually had the ambassador here last week from Mali, who said, and I quote...she's thanking Canada for the generous contribution that was announced at the funders' conference last week. So I just think that we need to dispel the myth that Canada is not engaged.

To the Red Cross, to both organizations, both Canada and the international, you've both indicated that you have a very long-term engagement with Mali. We talked first from Canada. You said that you've been engaged in Mali since 1986. That's 25 years' worth of programming.

I wonder if you could both expand on the programs you have there and how you are helping the Malian Red Cross build its own capacity so that they can take over at the right time.

[Chris Rosene]

Thank you very much.

Yes, as you pointed you, we have been involved for a number of years. We have not been physically present all those years. We've been participating with the Mali Red Cross, always trying to give them the lead in their programs and to support them in the strategies and the priorities they develop—but among their priorities are disaster response and emergency response.

In this latest crisis they have been working very closely with the ICRC, as pointed out by my colleague, Rob Young. They would not have been able to do that if they weren't there and already on the ground, with a presence in a wide area of the country and in the different regions. That presence is very important. We are working with them in capacity-building to try to strengthen not only their ability to respond to emergencies, but also their ability to deliver services to their constituency.

One of those areas is health. A number of Red Cross societies are strong in the health area, as we are in Canada, in the Canadian Red Cross, and the maternal and child health program that we are conducting with the Mali Red Cross, with support from Canada, is at least a beginning. I would say that we need to do much more, because the scope, the range, and the period of that work are still a bit limited, but it is taking advantage of the fact that Red Cross volunteers have a basic training in first aid, and on top of that training in first aid they can be helped to deal with issues affecting child health at the community level.

We know that an investment in health generally is a good investment, for two reasons. We know it pays off economically—the studies show us that—and we also know that it builds resilience. In the communities that have to respond to some other kind of threat or crisis, if they have stronger health in their communities, especially for women and children, they are able to respond in a more resilient fashion, so we're building resilience.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you. That's all the time we have.

We've gone over a little bit, so we're going to move over to Madame Laverdière for five minutes, please.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you all for your presentations. They were extremely insightful.

My questions are also for the Canadian Red Cross and the International Committee of the Red Cross officials.

Could you give us more details on the refugee situation? What are the most urgent needs? What is the most valuable contribution Canada could make to help the refugee situation?

[Stéphane Michaud, Senior Manager, Emergency Response for International Operations, Canadian Red Cross]

Thank you, madam.

The refugee situation in Mali is not due solely to the recent conflict. Refugees have been on the move since the farming crisis in 2011. So far, an estimated 371,000 refugees have been displaced, the food crisis being as much to blame as the conflict. Most of those people, some 227,000, have been displaced internally, within Mali.

Numerous agencies are assisting these displaced people, including the Red Cross's organizations in every country affected, especially Mauritania and Niger, as well as Mali. Following France's involvement in the conflict, the number of displaced people grew by 35,000. The needs of these people are tremendous. The Malian Red Cross is reviewing its operations, as well as its capacity, not only to help the displaced in the short term, but also to support the country's long-term recovery post-conflict.

I would say the best thing Canada can do is to keep supporting the Malian Red Cross and those agencies providing direct assistance to the refugees, be it the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees or the World Food Programme. Some needs will indeed persist once the conflict has ended.

The food crisis that preceded the military coup and the influx of extremists in northern Mali is still not over. When they return home, these people will return to a new reality—at least we hope so—but still need support.

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

Thank you very much.

On the topic of assistance and financial support, I would like to know how much both of your organizations have received in terms of financial commitments to address the crisis in Mali. And what percentage of that money has actually been received from the various donors?

[Robert Young]

For the ICRC, our budget for operations in the region.... I can refer you in more detail to our emergency appeals and also more conveniently it's in electronic format.

I have to say that here in Canada we are very grateful, and that's not just platitudes from what I said at the beginning. In 2012, the Canadian government gave more than has been received in the past by the ICRC for our operations in that region. We asked for more and we got more.

Now the appeal for 2013 is open. It was recently launched just before the end of the year, and we're hoping that Canada will continue to keep us in mind. We need funds for food assistance, which has been mentioned in relation to IDPs, populations displaced because of the fighting, which is happening today. I was just reading a report about my colleagues on the very top corner on the Algerian border. Yesterday the ICRC and the Mali Red Cross were helping about 4,000 people being hosted inadequately by about 400 local families, who were doing their best in their traditions.

We certainly need funds not only for food assistance but for other sorts of operations, including, as was mentioned in your previous question, supporting the Mali Red Cross. This is one of our objectives, to ensure that when peace comes, the Mali Red Cross will be stronger than it was at the outset.

Thank you.

[Stéphane Michaud]

In addition to the Mali transfer from ICRC, we're very glad for a contribution of $250,000 that was given to the Canadian Red Cross, so we could contribute to the federation in Mali. This constituted about 25% of the overall ask in Mali. The ask was more modest for the federation than the ICRC because it was tailored to the capacities of the Mali Red Cross, which is a very cost-effective agency and the main implementation partner of the World Food Programme in Mali as well. We're very thankful for that.

In addition to that contribution, the Canadian Red Cross itself was the first to mobilize and send a coordinator, not only for Mali, but for the whole of the Sahel, based from Dakar to Mauritania and to the Mali Red Cross, and we maintain that presence to this day. We're very involved in that region right now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you. That's all the time we have.

Mr. Williamson, maybe one quick question before we wrap up.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

I'll do my best.

I'm going to direct this question to Mr. Fowler.

It's nice to see you here today. I've listened to you and read some of your work over the years. I appreciate your frankness. It's refreshing, particularly in the Canadian context.

I agree with your assessment on the ground that it's dangerous, it's evolving, and it could likely get worse before it gets better. We've used language today about diminishing al-Qaeda, degrading, but really what you're talking about is killing the enemy. I appreciate and I agree with your view. This is not a question of battalions and lines on a map, but more of an asymmetrical warfare, potentially.

I want to get a sense of what that means so that we're not just talking at an abstract level to effectively wage the campaign you're suggesting and, frankly, that I think would be needed. We see UPI referring to the northern part of Africa, or parts of it, or of Africa's Tora Bora, for example, to give a sense of what we're looking at here. Correct me if I missed a point here, but basically what you're talking about is a campaign that would be waged from the air, one that would involve special forces to ID targets, and then regular soldiers would be needed to back up and follow through on that. As well, there are logistics and the transportation to and from the theatre. That's a sizeable contribution, and I'm not sure it's one that Canada could even make on its own.

[Robert Fowler]

Indeed, we're very close in terms of our prescriptions. I never meant to suggest for an instant that Canada should do this on its own. In fact, were that the prospect, I would be getting cold feet. I'm suggesting we do it now in company with the French—make it easier for them. We have the kinds of assets they need. But so do other people. We need overhead intelligence assets. We probably need drones. We don't have them. We need small teams going in there to do the work that needs to be done, and for a while. I don't know how long “a while” is; it's not forever, not 10 years. But we have to leave it so that the slowly arriving, the very slowly being trained-up Malian army and the AFISMA force can hold the line. That is exactly what I'm suggesting.

Mr. Chairman, if I may just say to Ms. Brown, I don't want to get into a numbers war, but you did talk about a European contribution of $20 million. That, of course, was the European aid agency. It wasn't individual European countries. The individual European countries—Germany, France, Britain—have all contributed vastly more than that amount.

Yes, I do think we need to do this, and we need to do it pretty quickly.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

To our witnesses, Mr. Fowler, Mr. Rosene, and Mr. Young, thank you very much for being here today.

We'll suspend the meeting for about five minutes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

We'll get started again.

I want to thank the ministers for taking time out of their busy schedules to be here today.

We have Mr. David Morrison, senior vice-president of the geographical programs branch with the Canadian International Development Agency.

We have Minister Julian Fantino, the Minister of International Cooperation.

We have Minister John Baird, the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Joining him is Ms. Buck, who has been here before. Welcome back to the committee.

I believe both ministers have opening statements.

Why don't we start with you, Minister Fantino? We'll give you ten minutes to start, and then we'll move over to Mr. Baird. After that we'll go for some questions for the next hour.

[Julian Fantino, Conservative, Minister of International Cooperation]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before the committee. Thank you for the invitation.

Our country has a long-standing history of cooperating closely with Mali, bilaterally, regionally, and then as part of la Francophonie on issues of development, good governance, and security. In fact, we have been one of its principal development partners, helping the country to stabilize its democracy and make concrete health and educational gains.

The crisis that Mali currently faces is multi-dimensional. The country has been in a particularly fragile state since fighting intensified in the north in early 2012, followed by the coup d'etat last March. The humanitarian situation is also of grave concern, as Malians are still dealing with the consequences of the food and nutrition crisis that affected the Sahel region in 2012 and the impact of the conflict in the north.

Since the suspension of direct support to the Malian government following the coup d'état, the Canadian International Development Agency has continued to provide development and humanitarian assistance through multilateral and non-governmental organizations.

On the humanitarian front, with Canada's support, the United Nations World Food Programme has provided emergency food and nutrition assistance to an estimated 1.3 million people in Mali over the last 12 months. With our help, UNICEF has provided life-saving nutrition programming for the treatment of more than 39,000 Malian children suffering from severe acute malnutrition. Our support to CARE Canada is helping the organization implement cash transfer programming that is enabling 3,000 vulnerable households to meet their basic needs with dignity. CIDA has also provided regional funding in response to calls for assistance from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the Red Cross movement.

The High Commissioner for Refugees has provided 142,000 Malian refugees with essential items such as blankets, kitchen sets, shelter, and sanitary supplies, while the Red Cross movement has distributed essential household items and hygiene kits as well as food to an estimated 600,000 people affected by the conflict.

Mali also benefited from the direct generosity of our citizens, who contributed $6.9 million to registered Canadian charities through the Sahel crisis matching fund last August and September. The fund was established in response to the food and nutrition crisis that has affected Africa's wider Sahel region.

I should also add that at last month's donor pledging conference in Ethiopia, I announced, on behalf of the Canadian government, that Canada is providing an additional $13 million for a number of initiatives aimed at addressing Mali's pressing humanitarian needs. These include delivering shelter, primary health care, and water and sanitation to some 150,000 Malian refugees in Niger, Mauritania, and Burkina Faso, and to more than 235,000 internally displaced people in Mali.

In regard to addressing longer-term needs, while CIDA has no ongoing development projects in any of Mali's unstable regions and is not currently working directly with the Mali government, Canada is still providing development assistance in the country's southern areas to ensure that populations there continue to receive critical health and educational services. This type of support is critical to avoiding social unrest in the south and to stabilizing the part of the country where the vast majority of the people live and where the interim government sits.

A stable south means more efforts can be concentrated on the security situation in the north. This is also important to ensuring continuity and progress in the good work that CIDA has done in Mali over the years. Up until the coup d'état, the agency's bilateral program had in fact delivered significant results. Canada's contributions to save the lives of mothers and children in Mali, for example, have helped increase the rate of assisted childbirths by 13% since 2003, and 92% of children under the age of one received essential immunization in 2010.

As part of a long-term strategy to reduce hunger and poverty, CIDA supports irrigation and agricultural development projects and promotes the use of new methods and techniques to increase food security and economic growth. This helps sustain farmers and increase their production both for their own consumption and for selling in local markets.

Also in 2010, primary school students received 1.2 million new textbooks for their learning. These are critical years in a child's academic and social development, years that cannot easily be made up. Ready access to quality textbooks is helping to keep children in school and ensure that they are in fact learning. CIDA also helped to establish the textbook repair industry in Mali. Working through the Malian government's Ministry of Education, nearly 120,000 textbooks lasted much longer, postponing the need to buy new books and saving the government money.

Another of the cornerstones of Canada's development program in Mali is promoting good governance. CIDA's support to the justice system helped the ministry of justice develop and implement automated procedures aimed at speeding up the court system.

For over a decade, CIDA has been active in democracy building in Mali where our interventions are based on the same principles that guide our efforts to advance democracy in other parts of Africa and elsewhere in the world, namely human rights, the rule of law, accountable public institutions, and freedom, including the right to freely participate in a fair and democratic electoral process.

It would be a shame if Mali's current fragility caused a backslide of any kind with respect to these significant gains. Canada's support for Mali builds on our strong and long-standing history and friendship with all the different regions in Africa, where we have a profound interest in advancing prosperity, stability, and democracy.

We are also actively engaged with our development partners from francophone Africa. Last October I accompanied our Prime Minister to the 14th Francophonie Summit in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where Canada announced support that will help prevent sexual violence against women and girls in the DRC and provide victims with much needed services and support.

I also travelled to the Sahel last fall to witness for myself the widespread suffering caused by the food and nutritional crises, and to Ethiopia last month to discuss the conflict in Mali and the financial, logistical, and capacity-building needs of both the Malian forces and the African-led international support mission in Mali.

Considering Canada's long-standing support and involvement in Africa, it really is no surprise that we would seek to support Mali during this difficult time. While our suspension of direct assistance to the Government of Mali remains in effect, the agency continues to work with partners to provide much-needed development assistance to address the needs of vulnerable Malians—assistance that will help to secure a safe, bright future for Malian children, assistance that addresses the needs for nutritional food, assistance that supports maternal, newborn, and child health, and assistance that supports the immediate needs of the population affected by the current conflict.

Mr. Chairman and members, development work is never easy, but it is particularly difficult in places that lack constitutional order, peace, and stability. The crisis in Mali can only be resolved through a collaborative approach between the various Malian, African, and international stakeholders. Canada wants to see a democratically elected government in place in Mali and stability restored.

Let me reiterate that Canada remains committed to a concentrated international approach to the crisis in the Sahel, to the re-establishment of security and democracy for the people in Mali, and to overcome the humanitarian crises that plague the region.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Minister Fantino.

Minister Baird, the floor is yours, sir, for 10 minutes.

[John Baird, Conservative, Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and colleagues. Thank you very much for the opportunity to be with you today.

I'd like to say at the outset that I have been following your recent meetings on the situation in Mali and am pleased with the level of interest that members of this committee, and indeed members of Parliament from all parties, have shown in this complex and important file.

Today's meeting represents just one aspect of our government's commitment to educate parliamentarians on Canada's response to the conflict in Mali. I hope we will be able to reach a consensus on this important issue. As members know, the Prime Minister and I made this commitment to the leaders and critics of the opposition parties. This issue transcends politics, as it should.

For the benefit of those joining us today, here is some context.

One of the poorest countries in the world, Mali covers a swath of west Africa that is roughly the size of the province of Quebec. The northern part of Mali, an area the size of Alberta, is the poorest area of the country. It is sparsely populated, with towns and villages dotting the desert terrain. Historically, it has not been under the central Malian government's close control, with one ethnic group in particular launching semi-regular rebellions against governments of the day.

In recent years, the situation in northern Mali has been compounded by the increasing presence of terrorists and radical Islamic extremist groups, as well as by the influx over time of arms illegally trafficked throughout the region.

Radical extremists ramped up the attacks against the Malian defence forces early in 2012. Then in late March a handful of junior officers caused a political crisis, when they successfully led a coup d'état just weeks before a planned election in which the incumbent president was not running.

I'm pleased to say that Canada reacted quickly and strongly to condemn the coup and to demand the return of constitutional rule. To underscore Canada's insistence that Mali again find its way back to democratic and representative governance, I, along with my colleague Julian, suspended direct bilateral aid transfers so as not in any way to support the illegitimate governance. We instead worked through NGOs to deliver humanitarian assistance, as my colleague has explained.

By June 2012 and over the months that followed, groups of Tuareg nationalists, Islamic extremists, and criminals occupied the entire north, oppressing local populations. Civilian men, women, and children saw their basic rights abused. Thousands were driven from their homes. Millions are now at risk of malnutrition.

I am providing you with this context to simply say that Canada was monitoring the situation and responding to it long before most people's attention turned to Mali in recent weeks, long before headlines began appearing almost daily.

Canada has been active in Mali for a long time. We have responded strongly to the many challenges that have arisen over the past year, and we will continue to take appropriate measures in cooperation with like-minded members of the international community.

On December 20 of last year, just days before Christmas, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 2085, which wisely places emphasis on both the political track and the security track for resolving the situation in Mali, and which authorizes a one-year deployment of an African-led international support mission in Mali.

In January, at the request of the interim Malian government, France quickly launched a military operation to support the military in its efforts to drive back a sudden terrorist advance to the south that threatened the capital. Our government endorsed that initiative by providing a large-capacity C-17 aircraft. It has since transported almost one million pounds of equipment. This support and that of other countries has helped France and the French forces and other African forces push the extremist elements out of most of Mali's northern cities. The French have said that, conditions permitting, their forces would be withdrawn by the end of March.

We're looking at ways to help address the humanitarian crisis, and in Ottawa and in Bamako we are supporting the road map to democratic elections sometime later this year.

Colleagues, we are operating on three tracks to address the serious challenges that exist in the country, and we are looking at ways to effectively address the challenges of the broader region. We have been there, and will be there, for the people of Mali and, just as important, for its neighbours.

With that, I look forward to your questions and comments.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Minister Baird.

We're going to start with the opposition.

Mr. Dewar, sir, you have seven minutes.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to our colleagues for their perspective and the point of view of the government.

I'll start with Minister Baird, Chair.

Just in terms of this mission—you have just outlined how long you've been following Mali and have been involved, but it has changed and has been fluid—who is the lead minister when it comes to the file on Mali? Are you the lead minister, or is it someone else?

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

As Minister of Foreign Affairs, obviously I take the lead on foreign policy. It's very much a team approach. I work very closely with my colleague, the Minister of International Cooperation, in this regard. I also work very closely with the Minister of National Defence. Obviously on issues of national security, the Prime Minister chairs that cabinet committee and gets the advice and counsel of everyone, from his national security advisor to the Chief of the Defence Staff.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

So you're the lead, with help.

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

With respect to policy, I would expect so, yes.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

I ask that because there was some confusion at the beginning. I think you'll acknowledge that. There was the suggestion from Minister MacKay that we're going to have military training. Then you were suggesting not. Then there was the ask from the French for the lift capacity that you just mentioned and acknowledged we would sign on to.

For some of us, albeit we're the opposition, there was a concern that there was a lack of coherence as to what we were doing. It seems to be foreign policy, in this case, a little bit by drift at this point. We really want to see that coherence because we need to see that our government is on the ground and understanding what exactly the threats are. They are many. We've had witnesses here talk about the obvious threat from extremists. There's also what happened in the Sahel in terms of the food crisis. We have a regional crisis here, as you acknowledge.

Can you tell me how many Canadian embassies or missions have been closed in Africa in the last five years? If you don't have it, can you just provide it to the committee in writing?

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

I know there was a CIDA office in Niger.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

You can provide it to the committee.

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

I didn't think—