Foreign Affairs Committee on May 5th, 2016

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

We will.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Colleagues, I want to take this opportunity to thank both ministers for appearing before the committee.

I very much appreciate both ministers' opening comments, in particular the comments relating to the importance that Minister Dion and Minister Bibeau place on the estimates. I think it's very important for us as a new government and as a new Parliament to look at the estimates, and the supplementary estimates that we'll have a chance to look at, as an opportunity for us to get information on behalf of the Canadian people. That really is about openness and transparency.

I want to thank you very much for this first opportunity to do so and to invite you to come back very soon, when our supplementary estimates come in.

Lastly, everyone got a chance today, which was good. This was very impressive and a good start to the relationship with these two very important ministers.

On behalf of the committee, thank you.

We'll take a short recess and then we'll come back in the second hour with the officials.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Please take your seats. It's Thursday afternoon, and as you know, we try to keep a tight schedule. There are many other meetings to do later on this afternoon.

In front of us are officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development.

I would maybe ask deputy Jean to introduce his colleagues. Then we'll get right into the questions. I understand there will be no opening comments by the officials. We'll get right into talking about the estimates further for roughly the next 40 minutes.

Deputy Jean.

[Daniel Jean]

Thank you, Chair.

As you know, we are what you could call a portfolio department with several sectors. I'm the deputy minister for foreign affairs. I'm also the deputy head of the department, which means I'm responsible for the management of the department.

My colleague Peter Boehm is the deputy minister for international development. He's the deputy minister serving Minister Bibeau.

Arun is our chief financial officer and our ADM corporate services, if I can translate his title into layperson language.

Vince here is our ADM strategic policy. The strategic policy is integrating all the various aspects of the department.

I hope I've answered your question, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

You have.

Mr. Clement, I understand you will be starting off the questions here this afternoon.

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

In terms of the development aid budget, how much goes to China and how much goes to India?

[Arun Thangaraj]

Directly, we have no bilateral programs with either China or India, so we don't do anything—

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

In terms of funding to NGOs that in turn is then spent in those countries, perhaps.

[Arun Thangaraj]

I do have that. It's in one of these binders somewhere. I'm sorry....

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

No worries.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Take your time. You have four years.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Arun Thangaraj]

It's all right. I have it right here.

The answer to that is in the statistical report. As Madam Bibeau said in her remarks, we have official development assistance. So there's a portion of our assistance that either would go through NGOs, or some of the money that we get to multilateral organizations gets accounted for against countries.

I have it here. It's a good thing I have good binders.

[Daniel Jean]

It depends on how you take the definition of development. We do human rights with groups. We do human rights work in China. We do women's empowerment. We do forced early marriage work in India with groups.

It depends on how you define development. From a human rights perspective, we are active in some of those countries.

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Right. That's good to know, but I was more interested in economic development and that kind of thing.

[Arun Thangaraj]

Our overall official development assistance from Canada to China is about $1.35 million and for India it's $4.97 million. A lot of that work is done through NGOs such as World Vision or others. Certain health projects are run by multilateral organizations, such as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which will spend a portion of what we as a country give them in those areas. That is the official development assistance spending from Canada for those two countries.

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

I guess we're into the world of sustainable development goals now. Is that right? We're past the MDGs and we're on to the sustainable development goals.

I'm just wondering whether we do an audit in terms of how those intersect with our bilateral spending to make sure we're trying to reduce overlap, because obviously, the sustainable development goals is a multilateral project under the auspices of the United Nations, and then we have our own bilateral spending. Is there an audit done to make sure we don't duplicate?

[Vincent Rigby, Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development]

Mr. Chair, perhaps I can answer that question.

It goes back to, I think, the question that Minister Bibeau fielded in the previous session in terms of funding for the sustainable development goals. We haven't actually established priorities and identified specific activities in support of the sustainable development goals.

There are 17 goals altogether, as you know, 169 targets. We're not necessarily going to support every single goal, but at the end of the day, whatever we do will support the sustainable development goals. You say it's under the UN auspices, but whatever we do, whether it's bilateral, multilateral, or something through NGOs, it's, in all likelihood, going to support those goals, whether we end up supporting all 17 or focusing on five or six.

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

It's kind of hard not to support those goals if you have so many of them.

[Arun Thangaraj]

We have to remember they're universal, so there's going to be a domestic side to this as well. I guess I'm just trying to clarify that it's not sort of separate. I think anything we do at the end of the day is going to be in support of sustainable development.

With regard to the review that's being conducted right now, if you look at the mandate letter that's been provided to Minister Bibeau, it's about going away and conducting the review and consulting Canadians, and as we do that, it's in support of sustainable development goals. The SDGs are like the international framework, and Canada's development assistance, like everybody else's development assistance, will operate within that framework.

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

I have sort of a picayune question. If we're looking at this table again in terms of assessed contributions to international organizations, there seem to be a lot—not a lot but several that have the word “Commonwealth” in them. There's the Commonwealth Secretariat, the Commonwealth Foundation, and the Commonwealth Youth Programme. Are those all run by the Commonwealth or are they separate programs? How do they intersect with one another?

[Arun Thangaraj]

These are all separate programs. For example, the Commonwealth Youth Programme supports youth development initiatives in Commonwealth countries and it's designed to enhance the relationship between Canada and Commonwealth countries. The Commonwealth Foundation, for example, has a separate objective, and that's to contribute to civil society and governance within the members of the Commonwealth country. Each of those assessed contributions for the Commonwealth has distinct purposes and objectives.

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

If I aggregated all of the line items that have “Commonwealth” in their name, would I get a better understanding of how much we contribute to the Commonwealth?

[Arun Thangaraj]

That's an indication of what we would contribute through our contributions to Commonwealth organizations.

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Are there any other programs we do, apart from these, that are not listed?