Foreign Affairs Committee on May 5th, 2016

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

Madam Minister, the committee heard from numerous witnesses during its study on women, peace and security. They told us that the department had stopped providing base funding to small NGOs, in Canada and in developing countries. This is of course tremendously problematic for many of them.

I would like to know whether you will consider this in your review the policies of Global Affairs Canada.

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

Yes, of course.

One of my objectives is to re-engage Canadians on international assistance. We have seen that a certain detachment has set in and that Canadians do not understand international development objectives as well on the whole. This could in part be attributed to the fact that smaller organizations have received less assistance in recent years.

For the moment, I will not talk about funding or assistance for operations. These topics are covered in our discussions with the organizations and in our review. That said, we are somewhat open to this. We are looking for ways of increasing the involvement of Canadian NGOs, whether small or medium in size. We are also trying to determine the associations or groups through which this can be done.

I am also very interested in the Canada fund for local initiatives, which is managed by our missions abroad and which provides an avenue for working with small NGOs in developing countries.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you to everyone for being here today. Your time is very valuable. Obviously we appreciate your testimony.

The issue of Iran has come up already, but I'm interested in the issue in general policy terms, particularly because it's so important for Canadian foreign policy these days.

Mr. Minister, as you know, yesterday Ahmed Shaheed, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, spoke to a Senate committee. He said that in his view, engagement with Iran and continued focus on human rights are not mutually exclusive realities. This view obviously takes seriously the notion that a dialogue between states is vital for advancing human rights.

Minister, can you speak about why this government, under the leadership of the Prime Minister and yourself, has taken a different approach in our relations with Iran? In particular, how might this help Canada meaningfully raise human rights concerns to the regime in Tehran?

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

It's because, dear colleague, this government is convinced that engagement is better than isolation, that Canada has a role to play, and that if you're not there, you don't play a role. It doesn't mean we should have closed eyes as a country. We should have open eyes. We should be very careful.

We also believe in multilateralism. Take sanctions; sanctions are effective if they are collective. If a country stops trade and others are trading, it will be barely seen in the country that is the target of the sanction, but it will affect a lot the country that decided to stop the links or to close the channels with the country.

You have a lot of exchanges between Iranian Canadians and Iran. We have an opportunity to improve the situation in this country. There are some political parties that are close to us and want to see a more liberal society—in the philosophical sense of the word, not a partisan sense. Thank God, as I said, Canada was in Iran at the end of the 1970s to rescue the U.S. hostages. We have a role to play, and our allies are asking us to do so.

There is something that I find completely incoherent in the policy of the former government. That is, you're out of Iran, but when you really need to address an issue in Iran, you use a friendly country. That was Italy. It's still Italy, and we need to thank Italy. That means Italy stays in Iran, and we use Italy, but we get out of Iran and say that everybody should get out of Iran. So why are you using Italy?

Do you see the incoherency? I think we should stop that. We'll see how we may improve the situation in order to help the people of Iran, Canadian interests, the interest of Israel, and the interest of all of our allies to make progress.

We will continue to sponsor the UN resolution of the situation of human rights in Iran, something Canada has been doing for several years, during Liberal and Conservative governments. We'll continue to do so. We have a lot of credibility to do so, especially when we will improve our capacity to understand the society of Iran of today and see where we may find room for improvement and which deterioration we need to denounce.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

I think it runs counter to the kind of instinctual approach that some have adopted in the past, unfortunately: there is a regime that we disagree with and therefore we isolate ourselves from it. What you're saying runs completely counter to that, and I think it's a very promising development, frankly.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Yes, this makes sense. Collective sanctions may work; they worked in South Africa. We have collective sanctions on Iran today in order to denounce les essais balistiques to be sure that the militarization of their nuclear capacity will not exist. We do it with our allies to be sure that Iran knows that they have behaviour to avoid.

Russia is the same. We need to support the Ukraine, but for that we need to be involved. If you are not involved, if Russia is somewhere and your chair is empty, Canada is penalized but not Russia. This kind of incoherent and irrational policy should stop, and we should use all the capacity we have, as a Parliament, as a government, and as a great country to see improvements in human rights, national interests, and the peace process. Canadian must be a peace builder. In order to be a peace builder, we need to be there.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you, Minister.

That's the end of the first round. We'll now go to the second round, and we'll go to Mr. Saini.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you very much for being here.

Minister Bibeau, this question is for you.

All members on this committee, I think, were greatly saddened by the earthquake in Equador. It was very good to see the government respond in their time of need.

Being a new MP, I'm a little bit curious about the procedure and protocol of how your department gets the funding it needs to ensure that we are able to send aid when and where it is needed. With natural disasters, they can strike at any time, any place, and without warning, so it's very difficult to put that into the budget. How do you allocate the funding? Can you just give us an insight into how the money gets appropriated and what the formula is, what the protocol is, and how you decide how much to give?

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

Every year, at the end of the year more or less, we get appeals from the major international organizations that provide very urgent humanitarian assistance. We contribute once a year to these major organizations so they are in a position to respond right away when something happens. It may take a day or two before we get some information, and then we will.... I have different examples in mind. Sometimes we give a little amount right away to such organizations, but the main thing is that we are waiting for the call from these organizations.

Depending on the capacity of the country, depending on the call we receive, depending on our proximity—I don't how I should say it—with the country, we have a fair share that we normally contribute to a country. For example, in the case of Equador, we first gave $1 million as a quick response. We sent a team into the field made up of three members of Global Affairs Canada and three members of National Defence. They went there to evaluate the situation to make recommendations. In addition, the embassy put in $100,000 from the local initiative fund and then, further to the recommendations of our team and the appeal from the international organization, we increased our contribution to $2 million.

In terms of proportion with other natural disasters, it's more or less always the same fair share that we contribute to a country. In the case of Equador, they will also get l'hôpital de campagne de la Croix-Rouge, the hospital.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

The Red Cross field hospital.

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

Thank you—and it will stay there after the action of the Red Cross. This is more or less the way it works to decide how much we give.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Just to follow up on that, and this is maybe for Minister Dion, you mentioned earlier in your commentary $24 million more being funded for security. We have 177 mission points abroad in 109 countries. Security is tricky. The point I would like to highlight is that sometimes you could have a natural disaster in a country, and the infrastructure system in that country may not be the greatest to begin with, but when you have a natural disaster, it could further deteriorate. How are you able to compensate for that, especially if Canadians are living in that zone or Canadians need access to an embassy or a mission in that country that has undergone that natural disaster?

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

The budget of Madame Bibeau includes provisions for this kind of risk, in order to give us the capacity to find the funds rapidly when there is a disaster. That's the way we work.

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

We also have $200 million per year for what we call the crisis pool. If we still have funds left from the previous year, they are added to the $200 million. We have very quick access to this fund. I even have special authorization to proceed for very urgent needs.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Will some of the $24-million increase that you mentioned be going to cybersecurity, and in what way?

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Indeed, part of the budget is for improving our systems. I don't think the $24 million is targeted to a specific aspect. It's part of the seven-year plan that was identified by the government in 2010 and will continue until 2017. At that time, we'll see how we may change the allocation if we consider that one aspect has not been developed as much as the others.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Kent.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Thank you to both ministers for your appearance today.

I won't rise to respond to my honourable colleague on the other side with regard to foreign policy differences of past and previous governments, but I do have one question on Iran.

Could you tell us just how many exemptions you have authorized for the SEMA Iran sanctions since taking office, and for what Canadian companies?

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

I'm told that we don't have that with us today, but since you asked, we'll look at that and see which answer we may give to you later.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

I ask that as an honest question, simply given the outreach for commercial opportunities in Iran, and knowing that to do that you would have to authorize with the Iran exemption authority.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Yes, but if it's military, we cannot. There are still sanctions.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

I understand that, but I also understand there's at least one Canadian aerospace company that has been talking a pretty aggressive game about attempting to engage.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

What do you mean?

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Bombardier.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Yes. Well, aggressive...they want to be in the competition, certainly.