Foreign Affairs Committee on June 7th, 2018

[Arun Thangaraj]

I unfortunately don't have a breakdown by—

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Could we get those as a percentage of the overall CIDA budget?

I'd like to come back to a previous question that referenced NDI and IRI. We spend billions upon billions on development aid and humanitarian aid, quite rightly and correctly, yet it seems we spend a very small fraction on the institution building that's required or on building the institutions of democracy. That speaks to addressing the root causes of conflict as opposed to dealing with the results.

There used to be a structure called Canada Corps, which was put in place back in 2005. I think it lasted until about 2006.

Were there any assessments done on the effectiveness of the work of Canada Corps, which engaged quite directly in institution building and things such as election monitoring?

[Arun Thangaraj]

I would have to come back to you on that. I don't have any information on whether there's been an evaluation of Canada Corps, but I can come back to you.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Sure.

Finally, I'm still having a hard time understanding. What is the funding that's been earmarked, or has any funding been earmarked for election monitoring in the coming year?

[Arun Thangaraj]

Again, I don't have that information.

One of the priority areas is inclusive governance, and so I could roughly—

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Okay, I see—

[Arun Thangaraj]

It would be—

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

More specifically, it would be appreciated if you could provide the committee with answers to those questions.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you.

Madam Vandenbeld, please.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Going back to my previous line of questioning about some of the Canadian organizations, the NGOs, we know that a lot of the staff of those organizations, people who are working in the field of humanitarian assistance, are women.

One of the things I've been told by some of the women working in places like Care Canada and elsewhere, is that under the contribution agreements or the contracts they have with Global Affairs, the employer is not allowed to fund any top-ups on parental leave. Many of these people have been working for 10 years or more. They're long-term employees, but because of the nature of the agreement they have with the Government of Canada, they're not allowed to have the same kind of top-ups that other employers might wish to provide. It's actually precluded.

Can you tell me, first of all, is that true? If it is true, is there any interest in reviewing that?

[Arun Thangaraj]

That issue came up, I think, last year.

I can't remember the organization that raised it with us, but we are reviewing our policy on that.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Thank you very much for that.

The other thing I wanted to say was that in 2010, I was managing a global project for women, for women in politics. I had staff on five continents.

My regional coordinator for sub-Saharan Africa Skyped me one day and said, “You Canadian women are hypocrites.” I stood back and asked, “What do you mean?” She said, “I studied at McGill and I know that Canadian women have reproductive rights, but it's not good enough for us African women.”

She pointed out a clinic in her hometown. It had been Canadian-funded for 40 years. It was providing needed medical services in a conflict-affected area. It provided sexual and reproductive health support for young girls, 14-year-old girls, who'd been gang-raped by militias. Because one of the things that the clinic offered was abortion services, their funding was actually cut by the Harper government. As a result, that clinic—with almost no notification and after 40 years of working with Canada—lost all of their health services.

What I'd like to ask—because we are very clear that we support women's reproductive health and choice—is how are we rebuilding those broken relationships? How do you go into a village where the doctors and nurses lost their jobs, the clinic shut down...how do you go back in there and open that clinic and ask them to trust us again? Is there a way we can restore and rebuild the trust that people, particularly women in developing countries, had in us?

[Arun Thangaraj]

With the announcement of the funding for sexual and reproductive health and rights, as well as the broadening of the definition of maternal, newborn, and child health, our development officers overseas, the ones we have at headquarters and our partners have been very active in the communities and countries in which we work to rebuild that trust and to ensure that the full suite of that programming is available.

I was in Mozambique a couple of years ago, where those services were provided. The community was very accepting of that. I think it will take time, but the work has begun over the last couple of years.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

I think Minister Freeland's intervention yesterday will go a long way toward that.

The other thing I want to bring up is this issue of interference in elections and in democratic stability by using technology, often by nefarious actors, sometimes state-backed actors. Are we looking at how to make sure that, first of all, we have protections in terms of some of those organizations that might be based here in Canada? When we're looking at development work, how do we counter some of the destabilizing impacts of organizations that might even be criminally funded, that might be trying to destabilize? Human rights defenders and democracy defenders are being attacked online. There are journalists who.... The space for political dialogue is closing in many countries, and often it's not coming from that country; it's coming from outside, and it's being done through use of technology.

Are we looking at that when we look at our development assistance? Is there any thinking around that?

[Arun Thangaraj]

The thinking around that is a little bit broader. In budget 2018 there was $16 million announced for cybersecurity. An element of that is international. What Global Affairs will be doing is looking at coordinating international cyber activities. There will be a dedicated unit to do that coordination internationally for us.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Genuis, please.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the officials.

I'll start on the issue of education. When Canada funds or supports education abroad, what is our process, in general? What's our process for engaging with the curricular content? All of us are in favour of education, supporting education. Also, there's a reality that sometimes messages that encourage division and demonization of minorities actually happen in the context of schools and education infrastructure. What's your process for trying to make sure Canadian dollars aren't connected to that? Does your department have any involvement in the direct creation of curriculum, writing curriculum, and offering curricular tools to schools around the world?

[Arun Thangaraj]

To the best of my knowledge, we don't have any involvement in direct creation.

When we do education funding, we often work through large multilateral organizations, such as the Global Partnership for Education, where we are part of the governance and we have a say in how the organization implements projects, for example, in education. When we work with Canadian NGOs that are involved in education as well, as part of our due diligence we look at what type activities they're doing, to ensure that they are not indoctrination or something contrary to Canadian values. That would be as part of the upfront due diligence in projects.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Do you think a Canadian public servant would directly review the materials that are being used, textbooks and that sort of thing, or would you defer that review to other organizations and partners?

[Arun Thangaraj]

That I would have to confirm, but in any project we do, our project officers are responsible, no matter what the subject area. Whether it's education, health, or environment, we have specialists. Before we fund, or before I will sign them off as a CFO, they have to go through that technical review to ensure that they will achieve the development outcomes.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Right, so a technical review is one thing. I guess what I'm wondering is, to put it concretely, if there's a history textbook that's appearing in a public school in Pakistan and there are questions about how that history textbook integrates a discussion of the history of minority communities, and that history textbook has Canadian dollars in it, would Canadian officials be reviewing the content of that textbook, or would the review be at a step-back, higher, overarching type of level?

[Arun Thangaraj]

I would have to confirm that for you, but to use your example, if there's risk of that happening, it's unlikely that would be the type of education intervention we would fund. We may fund things other than textbooks, but we would look at those types of risks before making a funding decision.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Even if you're funding things other than textbooks, if you're funding classrooms where this content is being taught as well, the concern is still there. I understand there is some uncertainty, and fair enough. Perhaps this is an issue that you'd be open to following up on in writing to the committee. It's one that I actually hear about from time to time from diaspora communities in Canada that have specific concerns about curricular content that we're funding as part of development assistance and whether that's reflective of our values in every case.

[Arun Thangaraj]

I know with certain partners, no matter what project, we do monitoring. Every project that we fund has a monitoring evaluation component. In flight of a project, we do the monitoring. We ensure that the activities that we're funding are the ones that we ought to be funding. I'd be more than pleased to follow up in writing.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Excellent.

I think I have about 50 seconds left.

What programs and how much money do you have in programs that fund Canadians to travel and volunteer abroad as part of a development assistance strategy?