Foreign Affairs Committee on June 7th, 2018

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

Could you send this information to the committee? We would appreciate it greatly.

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

Yes, it would be my pleasure.

However, I can tell you that we intend to maintain the same annual level of commitment as in previous years, that is, $50 million for humanitarian assistance, development, peace and security.

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

What happened in June 2013, had a lot of people talking at the time. The government decided to merge CIDA, Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada to create a new department. How has the organizational structure of the department changed since 2013? Are there specific examples of initiatives where trade, development and traditional diplomacy came into play together to create a new dynamic?

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

I did not experience the transition, but I have worked at CIDA in the past. When I came to the position, I'll admit that I was expecting to receive many requests to recreate CIDA, but this did not happen. I believe that the shock had subsided, and everyone was working together.

Here is one of the major benefits of this merger. Now, there are people responsible for development in all countries, not just in developing countries. That allows us to make our colleagues aware of a variety of issues. The geographic sectors of the department are closer to each other, and the people in trade, development and foreign affairs are increasingly interconnected. It is enriching. It allows us to better understand the region and to be more efficient.

My colleagues experienced it, and may want to add something. Personally, I would say that it's going well.

[Diane Jacovella, Deputy Minister, International Development, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development]

Good afternoon.

There is a minister responsible for each division: trade, foreign affairs, and development. It's the same thing for us deputy ministers. At the next level down, all of the managers in the department try to take the various challenges into account when giving their recommendations, but we have nonetheless maintained expertise in trade, development and foreign affairs, so that our projects continue to yield good results.

Let me give you an example. In trade, Canadian companies say that it's very important to have a favourable environment, in order to ensure that the rule of law applies and that the rules are followed. We do the same thing with development, by making sure that the countries have systems of governance.

It's often easy for us to work together to see what's keeping us from investing in countries. If the countries in Africa would get more investments, they would experience greater economic growth.

We care about inclusive economic growth, and we work very closely with our colleagues to achieve it. Given what's going on in South Sudan, for instance, it's impossible to talk about development without talking about peace and safety. We are trying to harmonize our messages, whether they are about politics or development, in order to make sure we're going in the right direction.

We need to make sure that the expertise of the officials at CIDA is still excellent within the new department.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you, Ms. Laverdière.

Madam Vandenbeld, please.

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

Thank you very much, Minister.

My question is specifically about the estimates.

I noticed that in the estimates there is no specifically designated line item for international election observation. I know there are one-off projects. We can do it through embassies, through international assistance, through the peace and stabilization operations program, and yesterday the minister was very clear that we are planning on funding the Ukraine and other elections.

However, there used to be a program called the multilateral elections observation program, MEOP, under the old CIDA. When it was amalgamated, when Mr. Baird was the minister of foreign affairs, he actually cancelled that program and created a section under the stabilization and reconstruction task force, but there was no money and no human resources. At that point, there was no money specifically set aside, and there hasn't been since.

We changed it in 2016 to the peace and stabilization operations program, PSOP, but since it wasn't really a fit, it actually isn't there anymore, which means it's a bit orphaned.

It really is a development type of thing. We also know that in terms of outcomes for women and girls, if there is full political participation, free and fair elections, it is a precondition to the sustainable development goals. It's a way of ensuring that we have democracy and free elections so that we do increase marginalized groups' outcomes.

Would you be willing, especially with the increase in our feminist international assistance envelope, to use some of that funding to re-establish a program that's specifically designated, with the expertise, the in-house knowledge, and the coordination? Election observation isn't something you can just do. You do have to have that type of expertise in-house. Would you be willing to reconsider re-creating some type of program similar to the original MEOP?

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

I agree it's something very important, and it definitely fits very well under our area of expertise, which is good and inclusive governance. I look at it more that in addition to the feminist policy, which I started talking about before, we are looking at the Canadian vision of our intervention in each of the countries we are in. It's more during this exercise that we are considering if, in one country or another, Canada is well positioned to play a more active role during elections. Obviously Ukraine, and I would say Haiti as well, are two big examples of where we are actively involved when there are elections.

This is not something that was raised as a priority during the consultation, and it's not as loud as other things, but we recognize the benefit and it's definitely eligible. I'm not at the point of creating something especially for election monitoring, but depending on the country it's definitely an area of interest.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Mr. Sidhu.

[Jati Sidhu, Liberal, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister, for taking the time out of your busy schedule. If I remember rightly, you came in front of the committee last September to talk about the development finance institution. What I understood at that time was that the main goals of the DFI were economic development through job creation, economic empowerment for women, and climate change mitigation.

We know that Canada and its feminist international assistance policy have been very well received in terms of progressive development. Can you inform the committee how the DFI is progressing, making positive changes in economic growth and in combatting poverty?

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

We're still in the early stages, but FinDev has been created. It's up and running in Montreal. The CEO has been hired, as well as the closest team around Mr. Lamontagne.

We financed the first project earlier this year, which is M-KOPA. I'll say the exact name of the project. It's a Kenyan pay-as-you-go energy provider to off-grid homes that connects more than half a million households on solar energy. It's really a project that meets two of our top priorities, one being contributing to women's economic empowerment, and the other being considering climate change and new, green technologies. This is the first one we have supported through the DFI. It's an investment of $10 million.

It's also worth noting that this company employs 800 people in Kenya, 52% of whom are women, in addition to the benefits that will be brought to the community that will get solar energy through the project.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you very much. I really like that project, by the way.

Mr. Saini, you're on.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Good afternoon, Minister.

The major crisis in Myanmar is a global tragedy that requires a concerted and urgent international response. Crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing have forced 717,000 Rohingya to leave their homes, in the state of Rakhine, Myanmar, and flee to neighbouring Bangladesh. The situation is only getting worse, as even more Rohingya cross the border into Bangladesh each day.

Could you explain Canada's new strategy to protect the Rohingya?

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

Thank you for making the effort to ask your question in French.

Canada was one of the first countries to respond, last August and September. Thanks to the matching fund, the contribution now amounts to $46 million, on top of the $12 million that Canadians donated to the matching fund.

As you know, we recently announced a three-year plan. The first time we did this was for Syria. So, we are doing this a second time, to respond to the Rohingya crisis, because providing our partners with potential work, over a few years, is good development policy.

It amounts to $300 million over three years. Of course, a large part of this money will go to humanitarian assistance for the Rohingya community in Bangladesh, but also for the host community.

I was there. I visited Cox's Bazar. I met Rohingya women and I talked with them face to face.

It is a critical situation. There is a lot of violence. Even in the refugee camps, life is still extremely hard. The refugee camps are overcrowded. There are also dangers related to potential heavy rainfall and mudslides. The situation is extremely serious.

As I was saying, we need to provide basic care and meet the basic needs of the people in Cox's Bazar, among others, but also of the Rohingya communities still in Myanmar, and of the host community.

There is another aspect related to rendering justice and providing assistance with the fact-finding mission. The fact-finding mission is paramount if we want to respond to the recommendations of the reports written by Kofi Annan and Bob Rae for the return of the Rohingya.

There is a whole aspect on justice. Those responsible must be brought to justice so that people feel that justice has been served. Contributing to these missions is a key aspect of our support.

Then, there is the whole issue of international cooperation. I'm happy to tell you that we had this discussion last week, during the meeting of the G7 finance and development ministers. We agreed that we will use this crisis to work together and implement our commitment to an approach that is more focused on sex-specific development, that is more gender-aware, on gender equality and on empowering women in humanitarian contexts.

Beyond providing funding for shelters, water, food and basic needs, we really need to pay particular attention to the needs of women, adolescent girls and girls. We cannot only see them as victims or recipients. We must also find find ways to work with them, consult them and let them participate in the decisions. We need to help them develop skills and leadership, so that they can contribute to living in this community and gain new skills before going back to their regular lives.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

We have time for a short question from Mr. Levitt.

[Michael Levitt, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Okay.

Welcome, Minister.

I'd like to ask you about a disturbing issue we have heard about regarding humanitarian employees abusing their authority. This is a difficult issue, but it is one that is important to discuss. I'm referring to reports and allegations concerning employees of Oxfam GB, but other allegations show that this is, sadly, not an incident isolated to a single NGO or a single place.

While I firmly believe that the vast majority of humanitarian workers do their jobs in very difficult environments and often under dangerous circumstances with the utmost integrity, these stories tarnish their work and the confidence of the public in these humanitarian groups.

Can you describe what the government has done to ensure that safeguards are in place to make sure this is not happening with Canadian humanitarian organizations?

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

Thanks for recognizing that most of the humanitarian and development workers are there for a good reason, and are really dedicated, putting their health and even life at risk sometimes.

When this event came back into the media—it was something that happened in 2011—I immediately reached out to Oxfam-Québec's and Oxfam Canada's CEO to investigate and see what the situation was, if we were involved. They knew about this fact, and they had already taken significant measures to improve their procedures to prevent, to train, and to act in such cases. I was reassured to start with. The same week I called for a meeting with 10 or 12 of our main Canadian humanitarian organizations to have this discussion, to share best practices, to identify the gaps, so we can close these gaps. We are working on these gaps with them, with the department, to see how we can share these best practices and identify the gaps.

The other step will also be to make sure the small and medium organizations also have the resources to undertake such preventive action, have these procedures, have a line where someone can call in a safe way, how to support the person who called, and how to prosecute the one who's facing allegations.

I was reassured that we were already in a good position, but we can always do better. I'm not blind. I think in every industry we have people who behave inappropriately, but we are in a situation where we deal with the poorest and the most vulnerable, so we have to be even stronger. We also had this conversation at the G7 again, and we agreed to share practices to support the UN secretary-general, because we all share the zero-tolerance approach.

One thing that is a bit difficult is to find how we will avoid having one predator being hired by another. We cannot work with a blacklist because of our privacy law, so we are thinking about other mechanisms, such as a humanitarian passport. We want to work together internationally because humanitarian and development workers work for one another. We are all working very hard, especially the U.K. and us, Canada. We're taking the lead on this situation because we don't want this to happen.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you, Minister.

Mr. Aboultaif, the floor is yours.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will be sharing my time with my colleague Mr. Genuis.

Minister, it is no secret that we have had a flood of illegal border crossers over the last year-plus. As the Minister of International Development, what direct intervention did you have with your counterparts from the countries of origin of these queue jumpers to help create solutions at the source?

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

They are not queue jumpers because they do not process through the same mechanisms. The Minister of Immigration, my colleague, went to Nigeria recently, to give you one specific example, because the last influx of asylum seekers came from Nigeria. I understand he's having very productive meetings in Nigeria and in the United States to face the situation. However, I believe this question is really for my colleague the Minister of Immigration.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

There's the development side and the humanitarian side. Have you been involved at all in the overall picture of this whole discussion?

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

I'm not involved as the Minister of International Development.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Do you have any involvement?

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

Are you talking about the asylum seekers coming to Canada? I may not have got your question right.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

I'm talking about the illegal border crossers who have been coming to Canada lately. I'm sure you're working on the side with your counterparts in the country of origin of these border crossers. Have you had any role in that or was it just the role of the Minister of Immigration?