Foreign Affairs Committee on May 21st, 2013

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) we are studying the subject matter of clauses 174 to 199, the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Act, of Bill C-60, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 21, 2013 and other measures.

I want to welcome our guests here today. From the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, we have Nadir Patel, who has been with us before. It's good to see you again, sir. He is the assistant deputy minister and chief financial officer for corporate planning, finance, and human resources.

Joining him from the Department of Foreign Affairs is Michael Small, the assistant deputy minister of the transition team. Welcome to you, sir, as well.

From the Canadian International Development Agency we have Vincent Rigby, who is the vice-president of strategic policy and performance branch. Welcome to you, sir, as well.

We're going to start with you, Mr. Patel, then we'll move over to Mr. Rigby, and we'll go from there. You have 10 minutes and we turn the floor over to you.

[Nadir Patel, Assistant Deputy Minister and Chief Financial Officer, Corporate Planning, Finance and Human Resources, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and honourable members.

We have a brief statement and then we'll be happy to take your questions.

On March 21, as part of Canada's economic action plan 2013, the government announced that it would amalgamate the Canadian International Development Agency and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade to create a new department that will deliver enhanced alignment of our foreign, development, trade, and commercial policies and programs. Along with my colleagues from DFAIT and CIDA, I'm pleased to be here with you this morning to study this proposed legislation which, upon receiving royal assent, would create the new Department of Foreign Affairs, International Trade and Development.

It's important to note that this legislation is only the first step in the amalgamation process started by budget 2013. While the legislation makes its way through both chambers, planning is under way on how best to bring together the corporate functions of the two departments without any interruption to business continuity. Indeed, officials from both DFAIT and CIDA are working diligently to ensure that all the required legal, administrative, and financial requirements for the new department are in place in accordance with Treasury Board regulations, when Bill C-60 receives royal assent. While this will not be an overnight process by any means, we will be prepared to hit the ground running.

As outlined in budget 2013, international development, poverty alleviation, and humanitarian assistance will remain central to Canada's foreign policy. Indeed, they will be a core function of the new department and will result in greater overall impact of our efforts.

Poverty alleviation through development assistance and the provision of humanitarian assistance in times of crises are a tangible expression of Canadian values, which the government will continue to advance on the world stage. As we move forward, both the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of International Cooperation, as is now the case, will play a key role in providing oversight and direction in the planning for and implementation of the new department, with the deputy ministers overseeing the day-to-day aspects of the amalgamation.

To help give shape to the new organization and to ensure this process unfolds as seamlessly and effectively as possible, a dedicated transition team will be put in place to work closely with and provide key guidance to all involved. We hope to have more to say on that in due course.

I will conclude my remarks, though, by indicating that while it will take some months to organize the core functions of the new department and maximize policy coherence and synergies, I can assure members of the committee that we remain committed to ensuring that this process is as seamless as possible, both for employees, and for our operations at home and abroad. Indeed, lessons learned and best practices from previous amalgamations of Canadian departments and from the experience of other countries are being considered. External stakeholders and staff will be consulted along the way. Throughout the transition, we will continue to take advantage of any opportunities to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of programs and operations.

Mr. Chair, I will now turn the floor to my colleague, Vincent Rigby, whom you've introduced as the vice-president of strategic policy and performance at the Canadian International Development Agency, to speak in more detail about the proposed legislation's impact on CIDA.

Mr. Rigby.

[Vincent Rigby, Vice-President, Strategic Policy and Performance Branch, Canadian International Development Agency]

Thank you, Nadir.

Good morning, committee members.

I'd like to highlight a few aspects of the proposed legislation that are specific to CIDA and the role of development and humanitarian assistance in the new department. First, under the proposed legislation, Canada's assistance will remain focused on poverty alleviation and on humanitarian assistance. These efforts are a reflection of Canada's values and our commitment to making a difference in the world. Canada will continue to play a leadership role in helping those most in need.

Second, under the new legislation, the roles and responsibilities of the minister for international development with regard to development and humanitarian assistance will be enshrined in law for the very first time, putting development on an equal footing with trade and diplomacy. The bill states that the minister for international development “is” to be appointed, whereas the current act states only that a minister “may” be appointed. There will also be a deputy minister for international development. The persons holding the office of minister of International Cooperation and president of CIDA on the date of royal assent will assume the positions of minister for international development and deputy minister for international development in the new department.

According to the proposed legislation, the minister for international development will be responsible for fostering sustainable international development and poverty reduction in developing countries and for providing humanitarian assistance during crises by, first, undertaking activities related to international development and humanitarian assistance; second, ensuring the effectiveness of Canada's international development and humanitarian assistance activities; third, fostering relations with other countries and organizations engaged in international development or humanitarian activities; and finally, ensuring Canada's contributions to international development and humanitarian assistance are in line with Canadian values and with Canadian priorities.

I would also like to draw your attention to a couple of the transitional provisions in the proposed legislation. Staff employed by CIDA on the date of royal assent will automatically become employees of the new department.

In addition, the duties and functions of the current Minister of International Cooperation, and of the president and employees of CIDA will transfer with them when they join the new department. That will help ensure continuity and a smooth transition to a unified department.

Thank you.

We're very happy to take your questions.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Mr. Rigby and Mr. Patel.

We're going to turn it over to the NDP and Madame Laverdière to start.

You have seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak to our guests this morning. However, I consider the current process to be illegitimate, even though we have agreed to participate in it. I don't think that such an important piece of legislation should be included in an omnibus bill. I feel that a change of this magnitude should be studied in detail by our committee. We should also hold all the necessary consultations.

Speaking of consultations, Mr. Chair, I'm a bit aghast that the CCIC, the Canadian Council for International Co-operation, which is the biggest umbrella organization in Canada, will not be heard in this committee. We had suggested inviting them as witnesses to this committee, and I understand they have asked to be heard by this committee. If the process were not enough of a problem, situations like this would already be a big problem.

By the way, we have also asked in particular that Minister Fantino come to this committee. It's very important. We've also asked in the past that Minister Fantino come to talk about the budget and the budget implementation bill. We have not seen Minister Fantino for quite a while in this committee, and I think it would be important and responsible for him to come here to talk to us.

This being said, my apologies to the witnesses.

I felt that these issues needed to be raised.

Thank you for your presentations. I could ask you questions for hours, but I will just ask you a quick one. It's for all of you.

When were you told about the amalgamation of DFAIT and CIDA?

[Nadir Patel]

Mr. Chair, what I can say is that I was informed that this was in the works as a possible item for the budget a few days before. The exact number of days I can't say, but just a couple of days before. The only reason for that is some early planning in terms of—when I say early, a couple of days is about as early as we could get under the circumstances, given budget secrecy. But that would have been the earliest.

Then of course the actual announcement being confirmed and details being made available to the extent that they were available happened on budget day itself.

[Vincent Rigby]

For myself, I was informed on the day of the budget. Again, as Nadir points out, with budget secrecy being what it is, that's to be expected.

Also, keep in mind I was out of the country at the time. I was in Senegal on business.

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

You were in Senegal?

[Vincent Rigby]

Yes.

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

Nanga def?

[A voice]

Oh, oh!

[Michael Small, Assistant Deputy Minister, Transition Team, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade]

I was overseas at the time and read about it in the budget announcement. At that point I sent a private message to the deputy ministers indicating that I had some advice and some experience that was relevant to the project, which is why I'm in front of you today.

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

Thank you very much.

To your knowledge, what kind of consultations were held before the amalgamation was announced? What kind of consultations do you think will be held over the course of the coming weeks and months?

My question is for all three witnesses.

[Nadir Patel]

On the first part of that question, it's not a question I can answer, because I don't know. As I said, there's budget secrecy, and the budget was being developed under the Department of Finance, so in terms of any level of consultation it's not something I can comment on in advance of the budget announcement.

Once the announcement was made, in the context of the budget itself, what we did was simply announce to employees what it was that we knew at the time. There was a meeting with employees that took place—I believe it was budget day or the day after, a couple of days after, whatever it was—just to announce what it was we could say based on what we knew, and that was essentially following the budget.

[Vincent Rigby]

I'd be in the same position, Mr. Chair, so not really in a position to speak to the consultations ahead of the actual budget announcement.

As with Nadir, I can say that right after the budget announcement there was widespread communication within the agency. There was actually a town hall early the next week, and then we were invited to a town hall over at Foreign Affairs as well, to basically have the deputy ministers of both organizations talk to the amalgamation, and some of the early steps in terms of the way ahead.

[Michael Small]

What I can speak to is that the experience of other countries is highly relevant, so I took part in a visit to four other European donor countries, along with the two deputy ministers, the president of CIDA, and the deputy minister of Foreign Affairs, and had some fairly frank and candid conversations with them on their experience of amalgamating development assistance, foreign policy, and in many cases international trade.

If it's relevant, I'll provide more details in answers to follow-up questions.

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

Thank you.

I have a quick question for Mr. Small. Actually, never mind—I think it's fine.

Mr. Rigby, you said that humanitarian assistance should be in line with Canadian values and priorities. However, it is generally recognized that humanitarian aid should be neutral. I think everyone acknowledges and accepts that.

I am not quite sure I understand how humanitarian assistance will be aligned with Canadian priorities. Does this mean that, if a non-priority country is flooded, we will provide less assistance than we would in the case of a priority country?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Mr. Rigby, we have about 20 seconds left.

[Vincent Rigby]

I have 20 seconds. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

What proposed section 14 says is that humanitarian assistance will be aligned with Canadian values and priorities. So certainly, in terms of alignment with values, I don't think there's going to be any issue there. I think one of the fundamental values that Canadians embrace is compassion. So humanitarian assistance will continue to reflect Canadians' compassion for people and countries that are involved in humanitarian crises and emergencies, etc.

I think you could also make the argument in terms of broader Canadian foreign policy priorities that while those are set by the government of the day, I believe if you look at the record of the Canadian government over the last number of years one of the Canadian government's priorities has actually been providing humanitarian assistance. In providing that humanitarian assistance, I think Canada has embraced the humanitarian principles of independence, neutrality, and humanity, etc. So I don't see there necessarily being an inconsistency there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

We'll turn it over to Ms. Brown for seven minutes, please.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Gentlemen, thank you very much for being here. I think this is going to prove to be a very interesting discussion, and one that I hope will actually raise awareness amongst Canadians about the enormous amount of work that Canadian international development does and about the amount of money that we contribute to humanitarian aid.

I was at the European Commission last Wednesday on behalf of the Prime Minister's Office. I made the funding announcement for our contribution to the Mali request. Canada gave $75 million last week. We were in the top seven donors, which is really quite remarkable. We have had a lot of money going into Mali. It's a country that we've been very focused on. At this funding conference we proved our generosity once again, continuing our work in development and humanitarian aid.

If we reflect over the last couple of years on the things that Canada has done, we look at the amount of money that went into the East Africa drought relief fund. Again, millions of dollars went in there—about $142 million, if I'm not mistaken. If we look at what we contributed to the Sahel in this last year, we stepped up to the plate recognizing early in the game that there were problems that we needed to address. That contribution went forward. Again, $47 million went in right off the bat in order to be sure that we were assisting. We're helping in Syria, where we've put about $80 million in humanitarian aid. That doesn't negate any of the work that we're doing in development. We continue with our development work because we know that, in the long run, we have to be focused on getting these emerging economies on their own feet.

I would really like to focus, Mr. Rigby, if you don't mind, on your talking about being in four other countries and looking at the experience of other countries. One of the countries that I spoke with last week at the spending conference in Brussels was the small country of Finland. Years ago they realigned their foreign development and international assistance with their foreign policy department. USAID did the same thing years ago. The U.K. did the same thing years ago.

Can you talk to us a little bit about your experience and the countries you spoke to?

I beg your pardon, Mr. Small. Can you tell us what your experience has been in discussions with these other countries and how they came to the decision that this was the best thing for them to do within their government?

[Michael Small]

Maybe my colleague Mr. Rigby would like to add something, because I was the beneficiary of a lot of prior analysis and a trip that was organized by his group. His section of CIDA in particular takes a very close look at what other donors do, and all donors, including Canada, report lessons learned to the development assistance committee of the OECD. So we went to four countries in quick succession—Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, and Belgium, the national government in Brussels—rather than talking to the European Commission.

We also, before that, had a short but very productive discussion with local ambassadors from Sweden and Denmark, as well as those four countries here. So we got a bit of a snapshot of their experiences.

Overall, it was fascinating. Every single one of those countries had amalgamated development assistance with their foreign ministry. In the case of Belgium, it happened 10 years ago. In the case of the other three, it was about 20 years earlier, all around the early 1990s. They did it for coherence reasons, which are the same reasons the government today is looking at bringing this bill forward. They saw development assistance was an integral part of their country's international expression and they wanted greater coherence with foreign policy. More recently, several of them are now bringing international trade in. For instance, the Netherlands, which is a very eminent and effective donor, has just made the decision, four months ago, to bring the international trade elements into their foreign ministry, which they did not have before.

In Canada, our experience has been, since the early 1980s, to have international trade and foreign affairs merged. That's an important template and experience that we'll be drawing on and looking at, in terms of how to factor in and bring in fully the development component, when Parliament decides to pass this bill and it becomes law and comes into effect.

In terms of experiences, all of them said it works well. They had lots of specifics about the fact that you make a decision once, you carry it forward, and then there's always, inevitably, some reorganization that happens along the way, depending on things. But all of the subsequent reorganizations that they did over a 20-year period were to provoke and promote greater coherence and greater cohesion. Denmark was a very good example. They first had their foreign ministry divided between a south group looking after developing countries and a north group looking after mature democracies and industrial countries. About two years ago they decided to merge that into a much more integrated structure, where you have people dealing with development, foreign policy, and trade, no matter which country of the world.

The Norwegians told us they made the same kind of change because they realized the world was changing. The developing world doesn't compartmentalize the way it used to. When development agencies like CIDA were stood up, there was clearly the third world and then there was the first world. We all know that emerging markets are complex and interesting. Look at the countries where the Prime Minister is going today and tomorrow. They're development assistance partners, in Peru and Colombia. They're very significant trade and investment partners, and they're important political actors.

If you have an organization that is coordinated at the officials level and you have ministers who are on point to collaborate with each other and to work under an integrated foreign policy, you're going to support a more effective agenda. So looking at the experience of those countries was relevant.

I can add a little more. I won't take more time in answering this question, but on the human resource questions, I've a background as a former assistant deputy minister of human resources in Foreign Affairs. That was something that they all spoke to, having a more integrated capacity to help deliver all those different things.

I'll stop there.

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

So if I may just ask, are any of them looking at reversing this policy?

[Michael Small]

None. In fact, in every case, as I said, if they made any changes, they were to increase coherence. I could parse them out separately, but they always found that they needed to go further than what they had done originally, once they had stood up the initial set-up.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Mr. Rigby, you're always on the short end. You have 30 seconds left to finish off, if you could.