Foreign Affairs Committee on Nov. 20th, 2014

[Father Elias Mallon, External Affairs Officer, United States, Catholic Near East Welfare Association]

The area of the world that we refer to as the Middle East is probably a lot more complex than most of us realize. For one thing, its present state did not evolve naturally. After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, which basically had controlled most if not all of the Middle East, basically the victorious parties of World War II, with the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916, I believe, decided to divide the Middle East up in terms of areas of influence. That was basically the dominant rationale for the development of these countries.

If one looks at a map, it's striking how many straight lines exist as borders in the Middle East. A lot of these countries are artificial. For example, the Ottoman Turks were wise enough to divide what we call Iraq now, into three units. In the north there was Mosul, which is where the Kurds are; in the middle there was the vilayet of Baghdad where the Sunni Arabs are; and then in the south was the vilayet of Basra, where the Shiite Arabs are.

The Ottomans knew these people were different. When the Europeans divided the land up, they put these people all together and then declared, well, this is a country, probably with the idea that they were creating a country like Italy, France or Germany, Canada or the United States, where in point of fact, these countries have no history as a unit. They're artificial and they are inherently unstable. When one sees what's going on in Iraq between the Shiites in the south, the Sunnis in the Anbar province north of Baghdad, and the Kurds up in the area of Mosul, if one knows the history of this area, that's not really a surprise. If anything, the surprise is that it took this long to happen.

In addition, in the west—the United States at least—we speak of two Gulf wars. The people over there speak of three Gulf wars, the first being the Iraq-Iran war, which went from 1980-1988, where at least a half a million people were killed and possibly a million. Some two years later there was what we call the first Gulf war, which was to remove Iraqi troops from Kuwait. Then lastly, there was in the west, the second—or for the Iraqis, the third—Gulf war, which started in 2003, and which we were saying ended in 2011. Well, that's not so clear anymore. For years there has been no stability in this area.

Then in 2010, sort of to everyone's surprise, a man named Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in Tunisia and the Arab Spring began. I did some writings about the Arab Spring and one of the things that made me uncomfortable was actually what it was being called, the “Arab Spring.” My experience of the Middle East is that the spring is not a good time. That's the time when the rains stop and it gets incredibly hot and things die. In Europe and in North America, the spring is a time when everything blossoms and everything is nice, so the spring is an optimistic time. I wondered if calling what was happening in the Middle East the Arab Spring wasn't ominously prescient of what was going to happen, despite the fact that the people who were calling it “spring” didn't realize that.

What has happened is an inherently unstable situation with artificial countries, artificial divisions, and really, very little sense of national unity.

All of a sudden you have three major wars in Iraq and Iran. Then you have the destabilizing of north African countries, Egypt, and then ultimately the destabilization....I don't know if you can even call it a civil war anymore in Syria. All of this was basically an artificial vacuum and once the artificial thing broke, all kinds of operatives, who more or less were always there, were able to move in and fill the vacuum.

Until recently, in Syria one spoke of a central part—it's not the central part really, but the area around Damascus—that was controlled by the Assad government with considerable help, from what I hear, from the Russians. Most of the other embassies had left Damascus.

The western part of Syria was controlled by many groups of opposition. Opposition people that were constantly shifting, sometimes fighting each other, some of them being secular, some of them being—I'm not sure what it means—moderate, some of them being like the Jabhat al-Nusra, more extreme, but they were named groups.

In northeastern Syria and the area that's called Jazira, nobody knew who was in control there. It was in this area, around the city of Raqqa, that all of a sudden—I don't want to say ISIS appeared—it sort of coalesced. The people who coalesced to form ISIS had been there in the area for a while.

They started to come together and got organized in a way that none of the other opposition groups in Syria had been or still are organized. They were able to, even last year, take over the city of Raqqa and that is basically where they centred from. From there they went into the northwestern part of Iraq, the Mosul, the plain of Nineveh, and have basically wreaked havoc there ever since.

At the end of June 2014, which coincided with the first day of Ramadan, Ibrahim Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared himself the caliph and now we have the Islamic State, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh, but a highly organized and incredibly brutal group of people.

Historically, I don't think that the Middle East has seen this kind of wanton destruction since the invasion of the Mongols in the 13th century, which wiped out the caliphate in Baghdad and destroyed much of the Muslim-Arab culture for centuries.

Now we're back to libraries being destroyed, monasteries and manuscripts being destroyed, and people killed for no other reason than they don't fit in. Also historically, and my dates on this are not clear, but it was just around the time of the Mongol invasion that there was a group called the assassins, which was a Muslim sect who behaved very similar to the Daesh, ISIS, or ISIL, but they were more limited. They were equally wanton in the destruction and killing, but not as organized and ultimately the Mongols destroyed them.

I guess I would end my remarks with that.

For people who are familiar with the Middle East, in a sense this is not a surprise. While hindsight is always 20/20, this wasn't or shouldn't have been a complete surprise. We should have seen that at least the conditions or the possibility for this happening were alive and well in the Middle East. But right now we are faced with a destabilizing influence in the Middle East, the likes of which I do not think has existed since the Mongol invasion.

In the past I maybe sometimes over-optimistically had some idea what was happening in the Middle East and where it was going. Right now I am not sure where it's going, but I am sure that the Ottoman Empire is now completely gone.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

We'll now turn it over to Mr. Hétu here for his opening remarks and then we'll start with questions from the members.

[Carl Hétu, National Director, Canada, Catholic Near East Welfare Association]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for the invitation to appear here at this committee. I will speak in English just so that my colleague in New York is familiar with what I'm saying. He understands French, but being far away in New York who knows if he'll be able to hear everything I say in French and there's no simultaneous translation in New York. I'll just do my remarks, but if there are questions in French, I will go with it in French.

I think what Father Elias is describing to us is a region that is really remarkably made up of a great diversity and multi-confessions. There is no other place on this planet where there's such great diversity, where you have Shiite Muslims, Sunni Muslims, and different groups like the Yazidis, a group with a religion that predates Jesus Christ in the region. You have many tribes, clans, Christians of different cultures and areas. It's a great diversity of people and it's a unique place in the world being the cradle of monotheistic religion, the cradle of civilization, the great civilization of Mesopotamia, etc. So the diversity of the Middle East is what kept it, I would say, very unique in a sense. Having so many diverse people who were able to live together through the ages is remarkable.

What we see happening now is the destruction of that diversity, of the multi-confession of that region. In a global world where the world is becoming more and more attached through various means, to see what's happening right now in Iraq is an anti-globalization, if you prefer. It's the destruction of that diversity. One of the victim groups.... Of course anybody, like Father mentioned, who is not thinking like the ISIS or like that kind of ideology will be eliminated in a savage way. The whole population is certainly at risk as we've seen.

In Iraq, since ISIS started to form and build, we're talking about 1.8 million people who are displaced in the country. We forget that in Syria there have been three years of war, entering the fourth year, and it has caused much suffering. We all know that two million to three million people are refugees outside of Syria. There are about 1.5 million in Lebanon, another one million in Jordan, and that's on top of the Iraqis. About one million Iraqis between 2003 and 2010 had already fled Iraq to go to Syria. Then they are moving from Syria to Lebanon. Then we're talking about Jordan; between 2003 and 2010 half a million Iraqis had already fled to Jordan. Those people remain there even though the coalition was built a few years ago in Iraq and some folks went back.

But if you look, a group of people who are suffering very much are the Christians. Our organization focuses on Christians. We help Christians. This is our main concern. Of course, it doesn't mean that we won't support any other groups, but we are focusing on Christians because they have become the target of, and are vulnerable to, all those crimes and hatreds over the last 10 to 15 years. The Iraqi people 10 years ago in 2003 had about a million Christians in that country. According to our own research statistics with the local churches it's down to about 200,000, maybe 150,000. That means the entire Christian population is being evacuated from Iraq.

If you think about it, Christianity started with St. Thomas in the time of the apostles and Jesus, in a time when Mesopotamia was thriving, and here the people who joined this new religion over time created something very powerful, very good, in this area because the Christians' role over there has been very great in terms of education, in terms of job creation, in terms of social services serving all. That's why under many regimes the Christians over time always found a way to survive, to thrive, to participate fully in that society. Their contribution, their knowledge, and their connectivity with us in the west, being part of the larger Christian community in the world, and the west's values and stuff, is being eliminated. This is because often groups like ISIS see the Christians as the west, the western influence, the western theology, the western ideology, the western ways of doing things, and they're being targeted. They have no way of defending themselves. They're not equipped like other folks with guns and tribes, etc. What we're seeing right now is that out of 200,000 Iraqi Christians in Iraq, about 150,000 are on the run. This is what's going on. They're on the run.

So that you know about this, since 1949 our organization has had three offices: one in Lebanon, that covers Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and Lebanon; one in Jerusalem, covering Israel and Palestine; and one in Amman, covering Iraq and Jordan.

Those offices are made up of local people and Christians, working, of course, with a majority of Muslims.

Over those years, working with the Christians, we had to change our entire program this year from development and service to emergency crisis. All our resources have been moved into helping the population survive to wait this out, if you will, until things get better. As Father Elias just told us, we don't know when that's going to stop.

In Syria, at one time there was at least what we call the Free Syrian Army that you could dialogue with, between the Assad regime and the Free Syrian Army. They've been defeated—by whom?—by ISIS and by al-Nusra, groups that disobey al Qaeda.

So who can you talk to in Syria? You cannot talk to anybody any more. Since the Geneva talks last January, there has been no discussion at all between the Syrian regime, the Assad regime, and anybody else to find a peaceful resolution in Syria. In the meantime, there's more chaos, more destruction, and more civilians are being killed; and more Christians, who are in the minority, are about to flee, or are fleeing the entire region. The region could lose part of the diversity it has.

Just to give you an example, about four years ago I talked with the previous Iraqi ambassador to Canada, with whom I had lunch. He was telling me that he was born in a small village in Iraq and that he went to the Dominican Brothers' school. That's where he was exposed to the world, to all the great things the world could give him. Instead of being stuck in his little world where only his clan and his tribe would be important, he realized there was so much more through the Dominican Fathers. He said, “I will work all my life to make sure that the Christians remain in Iraq because they have given me, and people like me, the possibility to understand some concepts of respect, dignity, compassion, and forgiveness, which are so important in this time now”.

So, yes, our organization is working hard to try to keep the Christians there, but people just leave. Right now those Iraqi Christians, a new wave of refugees, are going to Lebanon and they're going to Jordan. Let me tell you, I talked with our offices just last month. We had an emergency meeting in New York, and we have two things happening. There is donor fatigue, because we do a lot of fundraising in the States and in Canada. At first people were very generous. They would give a lot of money. I'm telling you, money came in to us and to many other organizations. But now we go back to the same donors and ask, “Can you help us again?” and now, after three years of war, they say, “Well, how long are we going to do this?” But the problem is that people are suffering more now than they were three years ago, so what are we left with?

That's why I think the role of the government here is very important because that aid would be crucial not only for people to wait this out, but how long is it going to last? Can we remind each other that there are some unresolved issues in the Middle East, one of them being the Israeli-Palestine issue. There are now almost half a million Palestinian refugees still in camps and in many cities in Lebanon. There are still 1.5 million Palestinian refugees in camps in Jordan, on top of one million Syrian refugees, and now another half a million Iraqis. How can a country of six million sustain that?

The same thing is happening in Lebanon. Let's not forget that Lebanon is a democracy, maybe not a democracy like ours, but it serves well the multi-confessional diversity of Lebanon. Despite the violence, they're holding it together. Lebanon could fall. I'm telling you, there is a lot of incursion. There are a lot of battles—as recently as last month—and each time there is resistance to not fall into another civil war. They know about that and they don't want to go back there.

That's why I think it is crucial that the role of our government has a multi-faceted approach. Of course, as Father Elias said, ISIS doesn't want to negotiate. They're brutal and they need to be stopped, but that's not the solution in itself. It is just a means to stop them. I think the government here needs to really focus, with a very strong component besides the military action it has undertaken, to have a component of humanitarian aid to wait things out, yes, but to start helping people to go back home.

Only last month, a few folks from Erbil in Kurdistan, who tried to go to their homes, were really berated by the coalition. What they found was that their homes had been totally destroyed. Everything was gone—their church, their home, their park, their school—everything was destroyed. Whatever was left was mined by ISIS, which had left mines and stuff. As they walked into their homes, people got killed because there were explosives in there.

What I'm trying to tell you is that there is no easy solution. It's pretty tough for people even to go back home, so where's the hope? We need to incorporate how to help people go back home and to have some kind of normalcy in their lives.

In Syria it's the same. Many families are going back to Homs, but the whole infrastructure of the city of Homs is gone—water, electricity, hygiene, distribution of food. They cannot even feed themselves anymore in Syria because it's so chaotic at this moment. It's an emergency famine situation in many neighbourhoods. How are we going to face that?

I will conclude with this. All that's to say that the other component that's important for all of you to consider is also the diplomatic effort. The complexity of this region needs to be understood. We absolutely need to find our best diplomats, our best way to work with the United Nations, with other nations, to really work out a diplomatic solution, because if there's no peace, if there's no diplomatic discussion or alternative, the ulterior alternative will be more war and destruction. And you know what? Sometimes there's a boomerang effect, and it might hit us right back in our faces.

This is the situation as we see it. Our own organization is stretched to the limit really, and not only us. We meet with many other agencies all over the world, and they are also stretched out quite a bit.

Thank you very much for the opportunity once again.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, sir, as well.

We're going to start over here with Mr. Dewar, for seven minutes, please.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to our witnesses.

Before I begin, I want to put a motion forward at the end of our discussion, just on the estimates. I meant to mention that at the beginning of the meeting, because we need to deal with the estimates. Perhaps I can return to that after our witnesses have been heard, before the committee ends its meeting today.

To both our guests, I want to thank you. You have provided a rich context. I was actually in Erbil in 2007. At the time it was a safe place. It was incredible to see the diversity that you speak of, and our previous guests spoke of, and it's really important for us to note that when we talk about the region, it's a very diverse region and rich in its diversity.

It was interesting also in 2009, here in Ottawa. With some others, I hosted a discussion on what was happening in Iraq and how Canada could help, particularly with the crisis with those minority groups who were leaving. Of course, that was because of the new phenomena called al Qaeda in Iraq who had been targeting some of the groups we've been discussing today.

Some have looked at this and said there were warning signs before ISIS. The manifestation of ISIS wasn't predicted, but the fact of the matter is that this has been happening for quite a while, since 2003. Yes, there was success with the awakening. The problem was, frankly, that the change in government in Washington and the lack of understanding of sticking with the plan was interrupted.

My colleague, Mr. Garneau, and I accompanied Minister Baird to both Baghdad and Erbil. One of the most compelling visits we had was meeting with the Catholic representatives, and also the refugee camps.

One of the things they mentioned to us was in the case of—and I think this applies to the Yazidis who, unfortunately, can't simply move because of their faith, and I think you touched on this. Their faith is based on geography. Anyhow, they mentioned that they can't go back to places like Mosul. They were emphatic about the fact that they want to remain in the region. They have been there for thousands of years. They wanted to see Canada and other donors and supporters help with reconstruction, not for refugee camps but to actually relocate within the region. I think it's a smart thing to be doing, because we don't want to see these historical peoples leave the region.

My first question to both of you is this. How long have you been kind of monitoring what has been happening since 2003? Along with what I've just mentioned, are there other recommendations you have? I think we need to do more than building refugee camps as a stopgap, which is important in the short term, but we have to start looking at longer-term and comprehensive strategies.

What about relocation? If they can't go back home to places like Mosul, should we look in the interim, or maybe medium-term, at relocation help with construction of new places for these people to move to?

[Carl Hétu]

Do you want to say something or do you want me to go ahead, Father Elias?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Go ahead, Father.

[Father Elias Mallon]

Yes, I think it's very important. One of the problems in the Middle East is that, yes, there needs to be construction and things like that, but even prior to that, there needs to be the emergence of a civil society there. Otherwise, you just go from movable refugee camps to more permanent refugee camps. Right now all of that region lives under authoritarian governments and they basically don't have the structures of civil society. While the physical needs have to be met—that's clear—there are socio-political things that have to be developed if those countries are going to develop any kind of pluralistic stability.

[Carl Hétu]

If we look at the immediate issue, we had a team that went there last week. We go there regularly working with the local church and the way it's happening, there are two things.

First the Kurdistan—since you've been there, I'm sure you will appreciate this—is a world in itself. It really is a totally different, foreign, but within Iraq, kind of society. What that means is that the people who are refugees there now are not Kurds. They don't speak Kurdish. They don't even know the culture of Kurdistan. They cannot integrate into the Kurdistan society. Actually the Kurds don't necessarily want them there, either. We're starting to see some tension.

Last week it came out very clearly. They were very welcoming at first. There were 120,000 to 150,000 people showing up like this at their door. It was quite something to accommodate. Just think about the hygiene itself. Just think of washing yourselves, just the clothes. People got there with absolutely nothing. Within 30 minutes, their life was shattered, last August 7. They just had to flee with just their lives, without even a change of shirts or underpants or what have you. This is how critical it was.

At first, people were really fine, saying, “You can come.” There's an unfinished shopping mall. I don't know if you had a chance to visit it. There were many churches, schools that welcomed all the people. But you know, the Kurds are saying, “Well if you cannot come to our schools”—and they can't because they don't speak the language, they don't have the same curriculum—“you have to get out now; our school has to start.” So thousands of people are now having to find another place to stay.

At that mall, after three months, they've been told that at the end of November they have get out. That's another few thousand people who have to find another place to stay because the Kurds say, “I have to finish my mall here; I have a business to run.” It's like this.

Then there are a lot of privileges among the Kurdish people. They're helping their people and their friends. The others, well, you get the crap. Then you'll get that aid from organizations like ours or others that are there to help out through other means. So already there are tensions. We see it on the ground.

The other thing is that the people want to go back home. At the same time, they know they can't. What we see happening is that right now there is a need with winter coming up. Of course the winters there are not like here. But nevertheless when you're used to 40-degree weather and then you're moving to a freezing point, it's hard. People have no clothes. They have nothing and we need to equip, so that's a temporary thing.

Do you want me to...?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Yes, we have to move over to the next.

[Carl Hétu]

No problem. That's good, sure.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

We're going to move over to Mr. Anderson.

Thanks.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I just wanted to get your reaction. Someone said that this ISIL activity is not about the persecution of minority communities. How would you react to that statement?

[Carl Hétu]

I don't think it's about the persecution of minorities. It's about the persecution of anybody who doesn't think like them. Unfortunately, it looks much worse to minorities because they cannot defend themselves. Not being able to defend yourself, you have to flee. That's what happened in Mosul. That's what happened in Qaraqosh in August where all those 120,000 people left. They had no way of protecting themselves. So it looks very bad. It looks like they're attacking minorities because they happen to be there. But the next day, it's going to be another group of people. Even many Sunni tribes that were supporting ISIS are now becoming the victims. Their mosques are being destroyed. That was not part of the deal.

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

How do you see, then, the organization against them coming together? We had a discussion in the last hour about the necessity of trying to establish some sort of reliable fighting force against them. We talked this morning about trying to re-establish civil society, and you can't do that without order. It's difficult to set up a decent police and judiciary system unless you have some structures as well.

How do you see that happening in the area? Where is the leadership going to come from, and what is it going to look like, the group that's going to be able to push back in this area?

[Carl Hétu]

There has to be a concerted effort, not only by the Iraqi people. If we look at the last three years, when Maliki took control of the Iraqi government, his whole premise was revenge on the Sunni Arabs who had persecuted the Shiite for so long. That created a bit of the mess we're in.

Now that there is a new government, there is an awareness that there is a bigger threat out there and maybe that will force people to sit down and talk to each other to develop some kind of cohesion among themselves. Maybe it's going to be hard for them to do it. If there is a solution to be found and a civil society to be developed, it has to be done by them. Perhaps it can be done with our aid, but not by imposing a western kind of approach on a very Middle Eastern historical way of doing things.

They need to develop their own security, and I think they realize now that the historical fight between the Kurds, the Shiites, and the Sunni Arabs needs to come to a stop somehow. There needs to be resolution. However, ISIS is in the way, so there needs to be aid, and I am a strong believer in the United Nations. There are a lot of mechanisms that can be put into place to at least host those discussions and those talks. The military implication is there. There need to be talks in the meantime about finding a long-term way to get a civil society to establish itself. I don't know if others have something to say on that, but that's my view.

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

You talked a little bit about financing, and we talked earlier about educational institutions being financed over a multi-generational period, resulting in radicalization, and then the Internet being used for that as well as fundraising. I'm just wondering if you can comment a bit about the role of education. How do you see yourselves? You talked about some people who have seen a broader view of the world because they've gone to your seminaries and schools. What is the role of education over the next five to 10 years in trying to deal with this issue of radicalization, or is the radicalization coming primarily from western countries, which is not going to be dealt with successfully just in the Middle East?

[Carl Hétu]

It's a very big question because, when you look at education in a normal setting, education does its job. You know, “I want to become a doctor, a nurse, or an engineer. I want to help society, I want to contribute, and I want my family to be able to live well, my kids to go to school, my handicapped child to get the proper services.” Everybody aspires to that. In Iraq, it's the same thing. Most families aspire to that.

When you're being denied those rights, that's when you turn to other action to find a source of money and resources to aspire to that. Sometimes what happens is that you end up in the ranks and files of groups that promise you all kinds of things. It's a well-known fact. A group like ISIS gives a lot of promises to different places and villages, and the Sunni Arabs in particular, who were not well treated under the Shiite Iraqi government.

When ISIS comes about, promising some kind of freedom, more resources, and more aid for their families, people are tempted to do that. It's not that they want to do terrorism; it's not that they want to go and kill people. They just want a better life for their village, because it has been denied that by another regime. Somehow they get caught up in this. It becomes bigger than they are, and they lose themselves into what is becoming a very brutal group called ISIS.

In that sense, this is more what's happening. How to counter that? Well, once again, it's discussion, resources, and aid. Right now all the kids who have left as refugees from Mosul, Nineveh plain, and Qaraqosh do not go to school. There is no school at all for them. That will be a loss of a group of people who can't have education, and it will have an impact on them.

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

I am going to run out of time here shortly, but I'm just wondering if you can give us an idea of what practical access humanitarian relief organizations currently have to the populations in northern and eastern Syria and in northern and western Iraq. I'm just wondering.

We've had discussions here before about the government running interference on delivery of relief supplies, which are being hijacked and redirected, and I'm just wondering what access you have and how easily your supplies are being delivered where they need to be.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

We have just one minute left. That's all.

[Carl Hétu]

Okay. Traditionally, our aid goes through the local church. We trust them. We trust them on the ground. They're local. They know everybody in their towns. Everybody knows them. The trust is there, and they have a very good system to evaluate the needs of each family, and they know the families.

That system, whether it's in Syria or in Iraq, has always had a very good success rate for helping out where it's really needed, so there's no movement of aid into the wrong hands or anything like that. As much goes to Muslims as to Christians, so in that sense we have a very good, well-coordinated group of people on the ground, and we're really proud about that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

That's all the time we have.

We'll go to Mr. Garneau for seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to first thank both the witnesses for being here.

Father Mallon, you spoke historically about why everything is in turmoil in that region, starting all the way back at the Sykes-Picot Agreement, and you confessed in the end that you weren't sure where it was going.

Obviously, we are intervening in that area and that means we have to have a plan. Where would you like to see it go so that somehow at the end of all of this we can have not just a few more years of quiet and then have it start up again in some other way but rather that something long term actually happens? I'd be interested in your thoughts.

[Father Elias Mallon]

I think what you mentioned is extremely important. A lot of times I get the feeling that a lot of effort is going into restoring the status quo ante. That is not sustainable.

What needs to be done...and I also have to say that we have to be very careful. I was being interviewed once recently and I used the expression “military solution” and then I stopped myself and I said, ”No, that's an oxymoron”. There is no military solution. Military action can provide a space, some quiet, and an opportunity, but the solutions have to be in terms of infrastructure, civil society, and education.

For example, one of the things that are very lacking throughout the Middle East is the concept of citizen, and that's the basis of pluralistic society. Until that is developed, we talk about democracy, but democracy without a notion of citizenship can end up being the tyranny of the majority, which we have seen in places.

So I think, first of all, we have to realize that the control we have over that region is quite modest at best. We have to keep a safe place—that's clear—and that may take military action, as long as we realize that's not the solution.

Once we have the safe place for society to develop, we need a civil society in which every citizen is equal and every citizen has an equal stake, and that is not the case in the Middle East now. Excuse the sexism, but it's every man for himself. So that has to change. There's no tradition of that. It's not like France after World War II, which went through a terrible destabilization but could go back to a society that had existed. That is not there in the Middle East. We're really starting from point zero.

The other thing is that we should not simply assume that the countries that we inherited in the Middle East are the countries that are going to remain. It's easily possible that there would be a reconfiguration of borders and political units there. We have to not necessarily promote that—no, that's not our job—but we have to be aware that it might very well happen.

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

Thank you.

When I had the opportunity to be in Iraq in early September with Minister Baird and my colleague Paul Dewar we had an opportunity to talk to the deputy minister of foreign affairs and we had a rather interesting discussion. I'm saying this by way of observation. He was interested in the concept of federalism. He said they were very familiar with the fact that Canada has a federal system. I found it interesting that this was being explored given, as you pointed out earlier on, the fact that there are Kurds, Shias, Sunnis, and many other minorities. I found that encouraging.

While I was there we went up to Erbil, and Paul and I and Minister Baird met with Chaldean Christians. I have to say that the Chaldean bishop was extremely eloquent and very forceful in telling us about the need for help because they had fled the Mosul area and they were in dire circumstances. I'm not sure if we went to the mall that you referred to but it was a building right across the street from the church where we met, and we met some people who were evidently in great distress. They were not even in the schools, which were temporary at that time.

Then we went to the Baharka United Nations camp and got some sense of the scope of the challenge because many more camps are needed and are not even funded currently. Yes, we talked about long term at the beginning, but in the short term, what is your assessment, Mr. Hétu, about the need for humanitarian aid with respect to this displaced population in the Kurdish area of Iraq.