Foreign Affairs Committee on June 7th, 2018

[The Chair (Hon. Robert Nault (Kenora, Lib.)), Liberal, Bob Nault]

Colleagues, I'd like to convene this meeting of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development. This is to deal with the main estimates.

I will go through this process for you one more time, because at the end of this meeting we'll move some motions to go through the different votes. The main estimates for 2018-19 are votes 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, and L25 under Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development; vote 1 under International Development Research Centre; and vote 1 under International Joint Commission (Canadian Section).

Before us today to speak to the estimates and to make a presentation is Minister Bibeau.

Minister Bibeau has been a regular at our committee, and we very much appreciate that. As always, colleagues, we'll let the minister make some opening comments, and then we'll get right into questions, which will run for an hour. Then we'll turn it over to officials after that.

Welcome, Minister. The floor is yours.

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Minister of International Development and La Francophonie]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair, members of the committee, I am here today to present you the Main Estimates.

I am accompanied by Mr. Arun Thangaraj, the Assistant Deputy Minister and Chief Financial Officer. Our Deputy Minister, Diane Jacovella, should be joining us any minute now.

When I was appointed Minister of International Development and La Francophonie, the Prime Minister gave me the mandate of refocusing international assistance on the poorest and most vulnerable people, and on the fragile states.

I was also tasked with holding consultations with Canadian stakeholders from international organizations dedicated to international and humanitarian assistance. The aim of these consultations was to create a new framework for policy and funding, to guide the government's decisions on the assistance it provides, to promote community empowerment, and to support strong, lasting growth in developing countries.

I am very proud of Canada's feminist international assistance policy, which was launched last June after one year of consultations. The policy aims to eradicate poverty and to build a more peaceful, inclusive and prosperous world. It has been proven that promoting gender equality and empowering women and girls are the most efficient ways of reaching this objective.

The fifth sustainable development objective is promoting gender equality and empowering all women and girls. It is at the heart of Canada's approach in implementing the 2030 agenda for sustainable development. Gender equality will lead to progress with all the other objectives.

To this end, Canada is taking action.

Since Canada's feminist international assistance policy was launched last June, the Government of Canada has committed to a three-year, $650-million investment to scale up the number of women, adults and girls, who have access to sexual and reproductive health and rights services. This will help make contraception available to 120 million women and adolescent girls. This funding also supports organizations that help to prevent gender-based violence and harmful practices, such as child, early, and forced marriage and female genital mutilation—cutting.

We also announced $150 million to strengthen women's rights organizations and movements through the women's voice and leadership program. We want to reach the poorest and most marginalized women, and reach more women at the grassroots level. This will help ensure that more women take part in leadership and decision-making. In some cases, women are putting themselves in danger by speaking up. Canada must support the efforts of these women and girls, and give women the platforms, tools, and protection they need to make their voices heard.

Beyond these efforts, we will also increase the number of girls who complete elementary and high school. How? First, last February, I announced funding of $180 million over three years for the Global Partnership for Education. We want to improve the ability of women-owned businesses and farmers to be part of the value chain. We also want to enhance women's land, labour, inheritance, and property rights.

We will also support initiatives that bolster resilience to climate change and increase the number of people working in green technologies and climate smart agriculture, increase the ability of women to hold leadership positions in public life, and transform Canada's humanitarian assistance to a more gender responsive way.

I share your concerns and those of Canadians for the situation faced by many people in Africa, the Caribbean, South America, the Middle East and Asia. Let's take the Rohingya, for example.

The humanitarian situation faced by the Rohingya in Myanmar is absolutely horrible, and catastrophic from a security perspective. Canada was one of the first countries to respond to this humanitarian crisis. Since the start of 2017, Canada has given $45.9 million in humanitarian assistance to address the needs of those affected by the crisis. Last May, we also launched a multi-year strategy, which includes a contribution of $300 million over three years to address humanitarian needs and to promote stability and development in the region, in a timely and coordinated manner.

Making our humanitarian assistance more gender-aware is one of the goals of our policy, which has been concretely implemented in Bangladesh and Myanmar.

For example, when I visited last November, there were only two specialized centres to help survivors of sexual abuse. We decided to support the provision of information services in 20 more. Our actions helped to mobilize additional support within the international community. Today there are a total of 39 safe spaces for women in Cox's Bazar.

I would now like to return to the international assistance envelope, which supports the whole-of-government approach to delivering humanitarian assistance.

Sixteen departments and federal agencies are collaborating to achieve the international assistance priorities. The 2018-2019 Main Estimates include funding of $3.9 billion for development, peace and security programs: an increase of $80 million to facilitate quick responses to unforeseen global crises, an increase of $108 million for the 2015-2020 strategy for maternal, newborn and child health, and an increase of $36.7 million for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

I'm pleased to report that budget 2018 provides additional funding to support the implementation of the feminist international assistance policy, including an additional $2 billion over five years, starting in 2018-19, to strengthen the impact of Canada's feminist international assistance policy and advance our international leadership in key areas, and $1.5 billion in funding over five years, starting in 2018-19, in support of innovation in Canada's international assistance.

Recognizing that government donors cannot meet the needs of the sustainable development goals, or SDGs, alone, our government will continue to explore new partnerships and innovative approaches that will mobilize private capital for sustainable development.

To conclude, through Canada's feminist international assistance policy and the significant investments announced in budget 2018, Canada is better positioned to both help the poorest and most vulnerable and contribute to building a more peaceful, inclusive, and prosperous world.

Mr. Chair and colleagues, thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you, Ms. Bibeau.

We'll start with Mr. Ziad Aboultaif, please.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Minister, welcome to the committee. I had the pleasure of travelling with you to Africa a couple of months ago. Thanks for that whole trip.

First, a large number of your planned results in the departmental plan have not established targets. Somehow this is left blank under the guise of obtaining baseline information. I find it difficult that with all these incredibly talented civil servants, you are not able to make an educated approximation on some of these baselines.

For example, on the percentage of targeted organizations that advocate for the rights of women, children, marginalized groups, or at-risk populations, the whole area was left blank. Does your department really know how many are being targeted and how many you expect to succeed?

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

I just want to be sure I understand your question correctly. You're talking about the results and the indicators we have set, or what we expect from the feminist international assistance policy, and you gave one specific example. Is that...?

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

There is a specific area left blank in the departmental planning report, which is the percentage of targeted organizations that advocate for the rights of women, children, marginalized groups, or at-risk populations. That whole area is left blank, and I'm puzzled. I believe that you have talented resources at the ministry to at least be able to give us some kind of estimation on that. Can you explain why and, if you know the answer, how many of these targets are expected to succeed?

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Maybe I can introduce it, and Arun will be more specific.

We have developed a results framework attached to the feminist international assistance policy with different outcomes and outputs. Some are focusing on the intervention we are making, and others are at a higher level, because we know that we are not the only one to intervene in a country.

I have to agree that we are still looking for some baselines. When we were not measuring certain specific areas, our action.... It was not measured by the department before, because it was not something of interest before. We have mandated a group to study and clarify some the baselines for all of our feminist international assistance policy results framework.

I believe Arun has something more specific to say.

[Arun Thangaraj, Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Planning, Finance and Information Technology, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development]

You answered the question better than I could.

The departmental plan is based on the new departmental results framework. In setting up the departmental results framework, we went to each result area. One of the areas we were targeting is enhancing the empowerment and rights of women and girls. As soon as we'd do that, we'd say, now how best do we measure that?

We established a performance target, as you said, of what are the organizations we target through our programming that represent and advocate for that. Right now there is no indicator. We don't have the data. As part of setting that indicator up, we've set the data sources, our financial system, as well as our project management reporting tool, where we can capture that.

What we are doing now is trying to find what the baseline indicator is for that specific performance indicator. Once we get the baseline, we can set the target.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

How can you walk through this area without having at least some benchmarks to measure? As I said earlier, you have those talented individuals and resources in the ministry who should be able to tell you.... I don't know how you walk into this without at least clarification, or a clear path as to how you're going to move forward.

[Arun Thangaraj]

In establishing the indicator, the first thing we do is ask what becomes meaningful to measure against this target. As you stated, the percentage of organizations we target that do this is a meaningful indicator. But this is a very new area for us in terms of targeting organizations specifically to enhance the empowerment of women and girls.

What we had to do is look at our data sources to see how we captured that information, first of all, to establish the benchmark before we do the target. A lot of it is the underlying data work behind the indicator. It was a rigorous process in getting to the indicator. We do know that we can capture the data, but we don't have what the benchmark ought to be, and therefore the target.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

That's what leads me to be concerned.

To be honest with you, it seems like....

Before I say that, I think there were initiatives before, a Muskoka initiative, for example, in terms of newborn, women, and mothers, that established some base. I don't think you've done much different since then, except for changing the labelling of the whole thing.

I hope that this is not a political calculation of any kind, because after two and a half, almost three, years, we're expecting those measures to be in place and we expect some results. Taxpayers need to see, and we need to know, where we're going with this policy that the government has been talking about for the last two and a half or three years.

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

It's impossible to have baselines when we are starting on something brand new. It was clearly not a priority for the previous government to work on women's rights and all these things, and working with local women organizations in the field.

We have taken the time to work with our partners—Canadian, international, and local—to develop this feminist policy. We have worked very hard on our results framework. This results framework is well aligned with the SDGs as well. Yes, we are still missing some baselines, because it is not the way the department used to work. We are in the process of getting those. These remain our priority.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

We'll now go to Mr. Wrzesnewskyj, please.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Minister, Canada and Ukraine have a very strong bilateral relationship, and we've been among the most steadfast international supporters of Ukraine's democratic and economic reform processes. Since Russia's military invasions of Ukrainian territory in 2014, Canada has contributed $240 million in development assistance and $400 million in low interest loans. Much of Canada's aid intended to bring relief to eastern Ukraine—that's where it's mostly directed—towards the 1.8 million internally displaced, 3.5 million dependent upon aid, and 250,000 children living in an active war zone, one of the regions of the planet with the most land mines.

These are astoundingly large numbers. There are 250,000 children living in an active war zone in Europe. Let me humanize it. Last week, Daria Kazemirova, a 15-year-old girl, did a series of social media posts and soon afterwards she was hit by a Russian artillery shell and was killed. Last year, I welcomed on the Hill Mykola Nyzhnykovskyi, an 11-year-old boy who the Montreal - Shriners Hospitals for Children brought to fit with prosthetics because he lost both legs and an arm—and he lost his brother when they picked up a grenade just outside of their town. That's the real human cost, and the numbers are astounding.

Canada must continue to help the people of Ukraine. Canadians have called upon the Government of Canada to commit to maintaining the funding for international development assistance to Ukraine at the present level of $50 million per year and increasing funding when necessary.

Could you please provide us with an update how the government will meet this particular goal?

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Yes, thank you, and I know that you are a strong supporter for the Ukrainian community, and I appreciate it.

Yes, you're right. We are amongst the strongest international supporters of Ukraine, and we intend to continue to be, to implement the democratic and economic reforms.

We are in the process after the policy of looking at all the countries where we are and the vision for each of these countries. I can reassure you that Ukraine remains on the top of the list, and we will keep strongly supporting the country and their reforms.

We are just about to launch a call for proposals. There will be different possibilities for the organizations, international and Canadian, to provide proposals as long as they're really well aligned with a feminist policy, and mainly the good governance, gender equality, and all of these priorities.

Actually, I intend to visit Ukraine next month. This is also to show you that we stay strongly committed to this country, and we will continue in terms of development and assisting the government as well as providing humanitarian assistance for those you were talking about.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you, Minister, and thank you for that support. I wish you a very informative visit to Ukraine. I hope that you might visit the federal police force. Canada, after the revolution of dignity, was a country that took on rebuilding Ukraine's federal police force, which had been the least respected institution of government in Ukraine and was completely disbanded. It was our officers, women from Canada, from the RCMP, and from Montreal's police force who went to Ukraine and rebuilt the police force. Now it is one of the most respected institutions in the country. Approximately 30% of the police force are women.

Minister, I'd like to move on to another question. Our country has been internationally lauded for introducing Canada's feminist international assistance policy. This committee has begun a study on the situation in three African countries that have been affected by long-term violent conflict: Somalia, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. In all three countries, women suffered disproportionately, and many continue to be victimized to this day. Within these countries there is a window of opportunity for Canada to make a difference in peace building and stabilization in support of UN resolution 1325 on women, peace and security.

What is Canada doing to apply the feminist international assistance policy to help women affected by war and civil conflict in Somalia, South Sudan, and the DRC?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Could you answer that question in about a minute?

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

In the short version of it, I visited South Sudan and DRC, and I witnessed the very difficult situation for women, especially when we talk about gender-based violence.

As a concrete example in South Sudan, Canada has been instrumental in bringing women into discussions of peace and security and the formal peace process through targeted campaigns and social and traditional media and in focus events.

I'll make it short.

Canada's activities in the Democratic Republic of Congo are mostly centred on the fight against sexual and gender-based violence. It's more or less the same thing in Somalia.

We're also leading some interesting initiatives in South Sudan.

Canada also supports Journalists for Human Rights to strengthen the capacity of the media for gender-sensitive reporting in South Sudan.

I would like to speak more about it at another time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you, Minister.

It's your turn, Ms. Laverdière.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Minister, thank you for being here with us today.

The percentage of Canada's GDP allocated to international development has reached a historic low. Canada isn't even fulfilling one third of its international commitments. It compares rather poorly to countries such as Norway, which is also seeking a seat on the Security Council for the same year as Canada. Norway spends 1.1% of its GDP on international development.

Do you have a plan for Canada to meet its international commitments?

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Currently, Canada spends 0.26% of its GDP on international development. When I held consultations, our partners asked for three things: good policy development, leadership and more money.

On policy, I feel that we are very satisfied with Canada's feminist international assistance policy. On leadership, we're providing it at different levels. We are doing a lot to safeguard the rights of women, girls, and, more specifically, adolescent girls. Canada was one of the first countries to respond to the Rohingya crisis in Bangladesh. We presented a plan that is now triennial. We are ensuring leadership on this front as well.

We agree that official development assistance remains a crucial part of fulfilling the sustainable development goals. We committed to adding $2 billion over five years to carry out the priorities of the feminist international assistance policy, and to investing $1.5 billion for innovation initiatives in development.

In addition to that, we created the Canadian Development Finance Institution, or FinDev Canada, located in Montreal. The institution presented their first project recently. This money does not come from the official development assistance, but it still consists of Canadian funding that serves to lever private investments for development.

We also supported an initiative of the World Bank, called We-Fi, that encourages female entrepreneurship. Canada invested $20 million in this initiative that will seek out $1 billion. The first call for proposals has reached $1.6 billion.

We recognize that official development assistance is fundamental, but we're trying different ways of leveraging funds.

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

At this rate, Minister, in which year will Canada fulfill its international commitments?

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

I can't give you an answer, I am sorry.

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

Okay, thank you.

Let's go back the Ukraine file.

A few months ago, I met with representatives of the Ukrainian communities. A number of ongoing projects came to term in January and February, 2018, which caused a lot of concern. I'm not necessarily asking you to give me an answer today, but would it be possible to let the committee know what new projects have been announced, or renewed, since September, 2017?

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

I cannot give you a detailed answer right now, but I will come back to you with one.