Evidence of meeting #144 for Foreign Affairs and International Development in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was work.

A video is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Diane Jacovella  Deputy Minister, International Development, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Sarah Taylor  Director General, North Asia and Oceania, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Arun Thangaraj  Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Planning, Finance and Information Technology, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Mark Gwozdecky  Assistant Deputy Minister, International Security and Political Affairs, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Heather Jeffrey  Assistant Deputy Minister, Consular, Security and Emergency Management, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Troy Lulashnyk  Director General, Maghreb, Egypt, Israel and West Bank and Gaza, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Cheryl Urban  Director General, South America and Inter-American Affairs, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development

9:50 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Michael Levitt

I welcome you all. Thank you for attending the committee this morning.

Let's go straight into questions. We're going to begin with MP Aboultaif.

Go ahead, please.

9:50 a.m.

Conservative

Ziad Aboultaif Conservative Edmonton Manning, AB

Good morning and thanks again for being here in front of the committee.

The feminist international assistance policy is basically a natural extension of our former Conservative government's Muskoka initiative, funding for which will still be in place until 2020. I have met with civil society organizations, which have expressed concern about this funding being extended beyond 2020.

Would you be able to brief us as to whether there are any plans to extend that initiative past 2020?

9:50 a.m.

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

Arun Thangaraj

The funding for the previous maternal, newborn and child health initiative remains within the Global Affairs budget and forms part of these main estimates. As with any priority area—and you see in the feminist international assistance policy the commitments to spending on health, including sexual health and reproductive rights—the forward-spending plans for those initiatives are currently in the early stages of formation. The intention, as the minister said in the previous hour, is to provide stable and ongoing funding for health and sexual health and reproductive rights.

9:50 a.m.

Conservative

Ziad Aboultaif Conservative Edmonton Manning, AB

Is that a commitment to continue funding beyond 2020 at the same level or at a lower or higher level?

9:50 a.m.

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

Arun Thangaraj

In the main estimates, you have an amount for health. It's remained stable. Currently we're looking at the various priority areas, as articulated in the feminist international assistance policy, as well as the needs that are in the countries that we program in, to determine what the spending level for those interventions should be.

9:50 a.m.

Conservative

Ziad Aboultaif Conservative Edmonton Manning, AB

I'm asking because I know that stability means something. “Certainty” is a better term. I've heard from a person from an association and from CSOs that the FIAP is chronically underfunded. There have been questions about how you have gotten the results that you have claimed given that you haven't provided public data.

Again, we need solid information or solid data to at least communicate and understand how far this is going and why, as we say, there is a lot of noise but not so much wheat. We've seen a lot of noise, but there are no results to be seen. If the CSOs are complaining and they are saying the FIAP is underfunded, we need to understand from the department where you are going with this.

Changing the gender levels at your discretion from level zero to level one is, in my opinion, sometimes like changing a financial statement in a way to change the bottom line. I would like to hear from you if that is the case and where you are going with this.

Again, clarity is very, very important so we are able to communicate those results to CSOs.

9:55 a.m.

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

Arun Thangaraj

Maybe I'll address this. The feminist international assistance policy articulated a number of commitments and spending targets that we do report on. We report on them through our departmental results report as well as through the Official Development Assistance Accountability Act. The reporting on how we spend our money and the commitments and the targets that are there are published on a regular basis.

With respect to gender coding, one of the things that we do—and this falls under my area—is that there is an insurance function such that whatever code, whether it be a gender marker or a code against a sector, is validated before reporting. In the previous hour we talked about reporting to the OECD. We have a strong oversight function to ensure that codes are not just changed or applied randomly, and that there's rigour. For example, on the gender side, we have gender specialists who will provide assurance that an investment or an accounting of an initiative towards a gender marker is accurate and warranted.

9:55 a.m.

Conservative

Ziad Aboultaif Conservative Edmonton Manning, AB

That's what is not being translated for civil society or even for ourselves as opposition parties. When we look at it on paper, it doesn't seem to be explained properly, or at least to be understandable. We seem to get all these answers only at committee, and we're trying to get them from you today.

Why is the department not embracing that ethos—the Prime Minister is supposed to be called transparent by default—and publicly providing the information that parliamentarians and civil society require to hold you to account?

9:55 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Michael Levitt

You have 30 seconds.

9:55 a.m.

Conservative

Ziad Aboultaif Conservative Edmonton Manning, AB

We need to bridge that gap somehow, and we need to explain. Transparency is just a motto, but really nothing is being translated on the ground. That's what we've been hearing from civil society, and that's what we've been feeling as parliamentarians, too.

9:55 a.m.

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

Arun Thangaraj

We provide very detailed accounting of our spending every year through the OECD, which provides the standard for how all of our development dollars get spent. We report through the ODAAA report. We also make datasets available publicly through the international aid transparency initiative as well as on Government of Canada websites.

9:55 a.m.

Conservative

Ziad Aboultaif Conservative Edmonton Manning, AB

Thank you.

9:55 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Michael Levitt

We will now move to MP Vandenbeld, please.

9:55 a.m.

Liberal

Anita Vandenbeld Liberal Ottawa West—Nepean, ON

Thank you very much.

As was mentioned earlier by my colleague, this committee is in the final stages of putting together a study on Canada's international democracy promotion. One of the things we heard from the witnesses is that when we're looking at democratic development, democracy promotion and election observation, we're not necessarily looking at the least developed countries, yet when we formulate our aid policy, it's primarily focused on those poorest of poor countries. On the other hand, it isn't really diplomacy either. If you look at the Global Affairs side, in some cases democracy promotion and the work that we would be doing might actually be at odds with some of the diplomatic efforts.

Where does that actually fit? We talk about democratic development and diplomacy. Governance and democracy used to sit under CIDA. Where would you see the best fit for Canada's efforts on democracy promotion in Global Affairs, and could you perhaps elaborate a little bit on what we are doing in this regard?

9:55 a.m.

Assistant Deputy Minister, International Security and Political Affairs, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development

Mark Gwozdecky

I think the simple and short answer to your question is that everybody owns the democracy file at Global Affairs. It's not something for which we want to create a silo and give entire responsibility. My colleagues who deal with the geographic components of the department all have programs supporting democracy in one way or another in the key fragile states they are investing in. The Middle East is a good example where, through the support the government announced for the Middle East strategy, we are helping to rebuild a stable, unified, pluralistic functioning democracy in Iraq, which is really beset by the challenges of many different ethnic and religious groups.

We have a number of programs, some of which are led by my colleagues in the geographic...and some by my branch, but we all are expected to work together to manage the democracy file. It's too diverse and too vast a portfolio to confine it to a single entity in the department.

10 a.m.

Liberal

Anita Vandenbeld Liberal Ottawa West—Nepean, ON

When you look at the technical assistance that Canada provides, whether it's on election monitoring, parliamentary development, rule of law or justice systems.... When we look at the actual institutions of governance, we see that there was at one time a section on governance that was really a clearing house for the best practices, for ideas, for coordinating the crosscutting that you were talking about around the different departments. Is that kind of challenge function or gathering of best practices...?

Globally, of course, I know that we have a number of areas, the UNDP and others, that gather these kinds of best practices and have that in-house expertise. Is there a place...?

For example, the last time we did the estimates in this committee, I spoke of electoral observation. It's one thing to send people abroad and do one election, for instance in Ukraine, which I know we've done a very good job of, but to be able to have that in-house expertise.... Do you have a place where that kind of expertise is being gathered, as opposed to in the different geographic regions? If not, is that something that you think would be helpful?

10 a.m.

Assistant Deputy Minister, International Security and Political Affairs, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development

Mark Gwozdecky

Thank you. I now understand where you were going with your question.

Indeed, we received some new funding in the budget to deal with democracy promotion, and in particular, electoral observation. For all issues we always have a focal point in our department so that there is one place that civil society can call, and then that focal point can ensure that all the arms of the department that can play into it are going to be integrated. That focal point lies in my branch and is responsible for administering the issues.

You mentioned Ukraine where recently we invested up to $24 million in supporting not only the electoral observation mission that we sent there, but any number of other ways that we helped the Ukrainians produce a fairly credible election. Helping them with this information was another area in which we supported them. Yes, indeed, we do have a focal point in the department for democracy and electoral observation.

10 a.m.

Liberal

Anita Vandenbeld Liberal Ottawa West—Nepean, ON

Under the feminist international assistance policy, of course, democracy promotion is one of the focus areas.

How does that intersect with the feminist international assistance policy?

10 a.m.

Assistant Deputy Minister, International Security and Political Affairs, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development

Mark Gwozdecky

It's a core component of the feminist international assistance policy. It stands alone with all of the other elements, and all of those elements are meant to be integrated when we go abroad. It's an area, as I've mentioned, that has received new funding. We've clarified the lines of authority and reporting in the department to ensure that we can deliver on that.

10 a.m.

Liberal

Anita Vandenbeld Liberal Ottawa West—Nepean, ON

Thank you.

10 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Michael Levitt

MP Duncan, please.

10 a.m.

NDP

Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB

Thank you very much.

Thank you, all, for appearing.

I prefer to say “Your Excellency”. We're very grateful for how kind you were when we had our delegation to Ukraine quite some time ago. I didn't realize you were in the department, and it's great to see.

I'm not going to ask you a question about it, but I do hope that there will be follow-up. We are doing this study, as my colleague Ms. Vandenbeld has said.

I'm deeply troubled that, several budgets back, only 4% of the budget was on democratic development. I think you can anticipate that we'll be asking for more. It is one of the action items in the policy, and it obviously is not delivering properly if it stays at that small percentage.

I would like to ask, first of all, two questions related to emergencies and humanitarian assistance.

A number of issues have been raised with me by civil society organizations since I gained this portfolio. First, consistent with the feminist international assistance policy, have you established or do you intend to establish a dedicated pool of aid for gender in emergencies? In other words, a dedicated pool, not just giving money.

Second, Canada has committed that 25% of its aid is supposed to go to local actors; in other words, organizations in the receiving countries for humanitarian assistance. Have you tracked the money going to local groups, and if so, can you release that?

10:05 a.m.

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

Arun Thangaraj

Quickly, yes, we do track. As part of our previous question on data, we do track the type of organizations that we work with in regard to partnering with them, be they multilateral or local. We are having an increase in the number of local partners that we use. Even through our normal, traditional humanitarian assistance, we often use large international NGOs, such as Oxfam, and we'll use a local implementing partner to deliver their assistance.

10:05 a.m.

NDP

Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB

My first question was: Have you established or will you establish a dedicated pool of aid for gender in emergencies as opposed to the one-off like Rohingya?

10:05 a.m.

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

Arun Thangaraj

One of the key pillars in the policy was to apply a gender lens and a gender-responsive approach to humanitarian assistance. The minister provided the example of what we were doing in Cox's Bazar, and that is one element of it. All through the policy in humanitarian actions, we will look at how women specifically are impacted, nutritional support for malnourished children and access to health services, including sexual health and reproductive services as well.