Foreign Affairs Committee on Feb. 5th, 2014

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

Okay, thank you.

I would like to go back to the comments that you made about the $50 million to prevent a lost generation of children. Could you please give us a few more details about this? For example, how many children do you expect will be helped? Which partners are you working with on the ground? What are other countries doing?

I have another question which might seem a little strange, but which is relevant in the context of this initiative. Are there other international initiatives being led by Canada or other countries that are trying to look at the situation over the long term? In other words, that are already thinking about the reconstruction of this country? I have even heard suggestions that children could be use as peace builders, etc. Could you please comment on all of this?

[Leslie Norton]

Thank you for your question.

As you indicated, there is the No Lost Generation initiative. It has been estimated that 6 million children do not have access to school and 3 million of those children are not protected. A UNICEF report entitled Education Interrupted was published last December 12.

The No Lost Generation strategy has a budget of $1 billion. It will help 2.2 million children in Syria who do not go to school. That means two thirds of the children. There are also another half-million children outside of the country who do not go to school.

In total, 5.5 million children are affected.

I am sorry, but I am getting the numbers a little bit mixed up

So it's $1 billion to reach the 6 million who are without access to learning and the 3 million who are without protection support. You have 4.3 million inside the country—1.2 million who are refugees—and they anticipate that more than 3.3 million have actually dropped out of school.

There is a need for long-term planning and host country support, and a need for international investment to be doubled. There is a need to scale up on innovative ways to reach children. Of course, they also need to come up with innovative ways to reach children who are in Syria, where the education infrastructure is completely devastated. A big chunk of this money is within the SHARP and the RRP, which are the appeals for inside and outside Syria. So a big component of that is within those particular appeals. It's being led by UNICEF. UNHCR is a large partner. World Vision, Save the Children, and a couple of other NGO partners have come together with regard to this campaign.

There is another initiative under way. I'm sure people have heard of Gordon Brown's initiative called Reaching all Children with Education in Lebanon. That is another initiative that is complementary to this initiative as well.

So they're looking at the needs across the region and trying to really have a campaign, a strategy, to address these needs.

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

The need is $1 billion, basically, and Canada now has committed $50 million. How is the commitment going on this initiative generally?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

That's all the time, but I'll let you answer the question.

[Leslie Norton]

I'm not sure what the commitments are against No Lost Generation, because it's a new initiative that has come out. It's part of the 2014 appeals. We're learning as we go along what other countries have committed. But we can find that out for you and get back to you on it.

I'll just say that there are some innovative approaches. For instance, they're looking at different timing for school: some Syrian children will attend during the daytime, some in the evening. They're also training up teachers, etc.

Those are just some examples. We'll get you that information on other donors.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thanks.

To finish off round two, we'll go to Mr. Goldring for five minutes.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Thank you very much.

It mentioned in the report on chemical weapons that it was all declared chemical agents. How was it determined that this was the entire stock? Could there have been any holdouts? Were there various locations for those chemical weapons? Or is there still a possibility that there could be other locations of chemical weapons there?

Could you comment on that, please?

[Isabelle Roy]

In terms of the declaration coming from the Government of Syria we assessed that it was pretty accurate. When I say “we” it was really a shared assessment...all our main partners, as well as the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

We have some ways, if I may say, to match with some other sources—intelligence and information—so we assessed that it was pretty accurate.

There could be, I would say, some elements, some aspects in the Syrian declaration where we would like more clarification, more details. We could obtain that since Syria has now been an official member of the Chemical Weapons Convention since October 14. It gives us—all the members of the convention—the leverage to send OPCW inspectors and to request any kinds of inspections if we believe we need to obtain more information on certain aspects of Syria's declaration.

So far the number of sites and the number of facilities were all inspected by the OPCW inspectors in the fall. These two phases were perfectly fulfilled and respected and closed.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

So there's still a possibility there might be more there. How desperate is the regime itself, if push comes to shove?

[Isabelle Roy]

But again, the OPCW inspectors have been in all these facilities and for that we have the highest confidence in the information received by them, by all these inspections. They have been inspected and all these facilities have been, I would say, deactivated, roughly destroyed.

The option, the possibility of having another facility on which we would have no information, is extremely low, I would say.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Are all these chemicals right now under full control in the locations where they are?

[Isabelle Roy]

Yes, right now they are under full control. The problem is the removal of these chemicals out of Syria.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Yes.

[Isabelle Roy]

Even if we could say that right now after the two first phases that they are under full control, we never could exclude the possibility, given the situation of conflict in the country, that they could fall into the wrong hands. That's why we pressed Syria to remove all these chemical elements out of the country.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Were there any suggestions of the cluster munitions or other undesirable weapons?

[Isabelle Roy]

On that process, it was only on chemical weapons because it was closely monitored and assessed by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

In terms of cluster munitions, as we said at the earlier session in December, and Canada has also commented publicly in the last months, yes, we have indications that there has been the use of cluster munitions, and we have condemned that with almost the whole international community.

Right now where the cluster munitions are is not part of that process and so I cannot answer you on that.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

So they could still be out there?

[Isabelle Roy]

They could still have clusters, yes.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

A question under the—

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Mr. Goldring, that's all the time we have. I'm sorry to have to cut you off.

We're going to start the third round with your colleague Ms. Grewal.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for your time and your presentations.

While talking about the Geneva discussion, we know that the representatives from different fighting groups in Syria are meeting in Geneva to discuss a possible peaceful resolution. Reports about these meetings suggest that they are very tense and they are unproductive. Given the situation on the ground, in your opinion who stands to gain the most from these talks and what kinds of outcomes can the international community expect from the meetings in Geneva?

[Dennis Horak]

Who stands to gain from the talks? Hopefully, the Syrian people stand to gain from the talks, if there's some sort of settlement or at least some interim confidence-building measures to access, for example.

But as I said earlier, I think our expectations are very low that there will be any sort of agreement coming out. The fact that they're still meeting and they've agreed to meet again is encouraging, but I wouldn't want to hazard a guess at this point whether they'll achieve anything next time around.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

In 2013, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons was awarded the Nobel peace prize for its work—all of us know that—in resolving the chemical weapons crisis between the United States and Russia in Syria. The immediate issues seem to have been handled relatively well.

However, in such an unstable region, what are the additional risks that we face of prohibited weapons being used or falling into the hands of groups who are not allowed to have them?

[Isabelle Roy]

The process led by the UN and the OPCW, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, only related to chemical weapons. This is what I was asked to talk about today.

When you talk about other prohibited weapons, do you have something more precise in mind? Do you mean other than chemical?

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Yes, other than chemical weapons, any others that are dangerous to people's lives—