Foreign Affairs Committee on Feb. 5th, 2014

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Is the Canadian government's position still that in a post-conflict Syria, if we ever get there, there is no place for Assad and that he must be removed?

[Dennis Horak]

Yes.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Okay, that's still our position.

On the chemical weapons and the fact that—

there a was a slowdown, you have explained that the specialized ship that is in charge of destroying these chemical agents, the MV Cape Ray, will arrive soon. In the meantime, the chemical agents are being sent to the port of Lattakia. Is the intention then to send the 1,300 tons to Lattakia and to load them all at once on the MV Cape Ray to destroy them at sea?

[Isabelle Roy]

Norway and Denmark have chartered frigates specifically for the transfer from the port of Lattakia and the large American ship.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

It will be somewhere in the middle of the Mediterranean, is that right?

[Isabelle Roy]

Yes, and 5% of the chemical agents that have been removed are already on those two ships.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

They are waiting for the MV Cape Ray.

[Isabelle Roy]

That is correct.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

That's all the time we have.

We're going to move over and start our second round of five minutes.

Mr. Anderson.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our witnesses for being here today.

Mr. Horak, earlier on you were talking about the regime change and surrender, and you made a comment around the lines that the solution really lies in realizing the opposition's goals. I'm just wondering if you could talk a bit—maybe this answer is self-evident—about how coherent those goals are. Is there a cohesive presentation of goals that we can look at and say that these are the things that can be achieved, or is it just not there?

[Dennis Horak]

The reason I'm hesitating is because the notion of cohesion and the opposition is sometimes hard to deal with, because it's a very divisive group. When we're talking about the opposition, it depends who we're talking about.

In terms of the opposition coalition, which is sort of the principal one that is recognized by many countries, in discussions with various friendly countries, they have developed a game plan on where this wants to go, in terms of a transitional government, democratic principles, etc. There was a thing called the London final communiqué of October 22 of this year where they laid out a number of principles. You have the Geneva principles from the Geneva 1 communiqué of 2012, which, again, laid out the principles underlying a transitional government and enshrining principles of democracy.

When I'm talking about the principles of the opposition, I'm talking about a commitment to democratic government and diversity of Syria.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Would that be the one main commitment they're making that they can agree on, or are there others as well?

[Dennis Horak]

I'm just summarizing.

The Geneva communiqué of 2012 lays out on four or five pages an agreed program and basic principles and these are reaffirmed by the London 11 final communiqué this past year. The idea is to set up a diverse democratic state that reflects the interest of all of Syria's people. That's their goal. Whether everybody who claims to be part of the opposition ascribes to those goals is another story. But in terms of their formal commitment, that's what I was referring to. It's a constant source of pressure on the opposition to reflect that in word and deed. We have urged them to be as diverse as possible both in their membership and in their approach.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Are we comfortable then in saying that the diverse membership is committed enough to those principles that we can expect to see them realized if a transition government is put in place?

[Dennis Horak]

Well, I'm not sure we're 100% comfortable with that. We do not formally recognize the Syrian opposition coalition as the sole legitimate representatives of the Syrian people, as many other countries do, because of concerns we continue to have about the diversity of the membership and their commitment. Others have fewer concerns. They acknowledge that they are not perfect but that they are the best game in town. There's a lot of pressure on everyone who is part of the coalition or everybody who is working with the opposition to try to impress upon them that these are the goals that need to be maintained. I think, by and large, for a good section of the opposition, that is a genuine commitment. Am I confident that at the end of the day, assuming Assad leaves, that this is the kind of Syria we're going to get? I couldn't say I'm confident.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

I don't have a lot of time left, but I wanted to switch. Paul started to ask about this a bit, but there were some reports in the paper the other day about areas where the government is deliberately starving people and expecting that people are going to turn over rebel leaders before the government allows food into an area. I'm just wondering if you can comment on the validity and accuracy of those reports. Is there anything that can be done to deal with such situations?

[Dennis Horak]

I saw the same reports. We have very few ways to verify the veracity of them, but I don't doubt them for a second. I think doing that is very much in Assad's playbook.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Okay, thank you.

[Dennis Horak]

In terms of what we could do about it beyond trying to work out humanitarian access, there's very little at this point.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Okay. I have just a quick question about vaccine programs. Has there been resistance to them or has implementing them gone really well?

[Leslie Norton]

I would say that it's gone quite well, and I say this because they've managed to have quite widespread coverage. They had targeted 22 million children in the region and in the first round they managed to vaccinate 24 million children in the region, of whom 2.4 million are in Syria. In the second round in December they managed to vaccinate 2.2 million in Syria, and then in January, 3 million in Syria. I think all parties recognize the importance of vaccinating. WHO has been able to negotiate access for the vaccination campaign; however, there still are areas that are unreachable. There are hard-to-reach areas as well as the besieged cities.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

They haven't been using that as a political tool at all, have they?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thanks. That's all the time we have. We'll have to come back in the next round.

We're going to turn it over to Madame Laverdière for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

To begin I would just like to ask for clarification. It was mentioned that Canada could be a member of the high-level group, but Canada is still not a member?

[Leslie Norton]

We are a member of the high-level group on access. We attended the meeting on January 30 in Rome.