Foreign Affairs Committee on March 8th, 2016

[Tamara Guttman]

Thank you very much for the question.

I'll do my best not to speak on behalf of other departments and agencies about the specifics of how they train, but I can confirm that we do provide.... Canada trains its own peacekeepers, both military and police peacekeepers, on the issues surrounding sexual exploitation and abuse.

From the Global Affairs side, we focus more on setting the broader standards, particularly in the United Nations, and how we advocate at the diplomatic level of the overall standards set for the organization and set for peacekeeping missions. No doubt there's much more to be done there. We do as Canada have a zero tolerance policy. It unfortunately doesn't mean that zero cases have occurred, but in every instance, Canadian cases, when reported, are investigated. The individuals, if there's found to be merit in the accusations, are withdrawn. Then the individual agencies pursue whatever disciplinary measures they would have to speak to in the next hearing.

We will be very keen to speak with the new UN special coordinator and to see how she frames her agenda and obviously what kind of support Canada might be placed to provide.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you, Ms. Guttman.

We'll go to Mr. Miller.

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

Thank you.

Ms. Guttman, I want to develop a bit what Mr. Kent said. What role do you play in encouraging women to join armed forces and police forces? As background to that, I taught one of the first infantry sections with women in Canada. It certainly changed the tone of the section, and probably increased performance. It is one of those last barriers internationally to be broken down. What role do you play in encouraging, writ large, the participation of women in armed forces and police forces?

Also, what role do you play in making sure the codes of conduct are enforced? A lot of Canada's role, obviously, is setting the example. What role do you play in making sure that the laws of war are observed and that the internal codes of conduct are enforced and prosecuted aggressively?

[Tamara Guttman]

Thank you very much for that question.

Again, in terms of Canadian recruitment, I could speak to it, but internationally.... I gave an example to the honourable member regarding Afghanistan, where Canadian funding supports the capacity building of Afghan armed and police forces, which includes specifically funding for recruitment, training, and support to female recruits.

That's one example. There are different elements to it. In Canada, first and foremost we have to be a role model of both representation of women and also in our conduct. That's what we strive to do. In terms of setting standards, for example, we support through the United Nations the setting of these targets for the recruitment of women. I don't have statistics in front of me, and I apologize, but we have seen a fair amount of improvement in some areas in having female peacekeepers take part in missions. We do need to do a bit more there.

I apologize if I haven't fully answered your question.

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

It's just the part about enforcing codes and laws specifically.

[Tamara Guttman]

In terms of enforcing the codes, again speaking more for the international diplomatic arena, this goes very much to the support we offer to the United Nations, to the Secretary-General directly, to his representatives on peacekeeping, to the representative on sexual exploitation and abuse. We support their work.

I think some will know that a Canadian justice led the commission of inquiry into sexual exploitation in the Central African Republic. I'm very proud of the role Canadians are playing in helping to expose what's happening, to deliver findings but to deliver important recommendations. We will do our best to stand behind those and to help the UN and international partners implement them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Mr. Levitt, you have three minutes.

[Michael Levitt, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Thank you.

Thank you for being here this afternoon.

I want to go to some of the solutions proposed by the Security Council resolutions on WPS, because many of them are quite simple and quite compelling. In particular, one talks about empowering women to participate meaningfully in the economic, political, and social lives of their communities and countries, including on issues of peace and security. I'm wondering if you can speak to how this particularly has manifested itself, and if there are specific examples of how this policy has been promoted.

I'd like to highlight this with the example of Rwanda, which post-genocide has seen a huge shift in the inclusion of women, with over 40% being represented in cabinet and almost 50% in the judiciary. Is this the type of example we can look at to replicate in other countries? What are your thoughts on this?

[Julie Shouldice]

Through our development assistance, Canada supports women and girls to become agents of change in their own lives as well as for their families, their countries, and their communities. We recognize that when women are empowered with the knowledge and skills to succeed, they tend to marry later, tend to have fewer children, and have better health and economic outcomes.

When we approach some of these issues, we look at addressing the barriers that women face to empowerment, through things like promoting and advancing their human rights, supporting their equal participation and decision-making at all levels of political, economic, and social life, and reducing inequalities and access to and control over resources.

In practical terms, in conflict situations that can mean specifically the human rights element supporting the prevention and response to sexual violence and other harmful practices, and strengthening the capacity of women to participate in peace-building and peace processes.

To give you an example, through Development and Peace, which is a Canadian NGO, Canada is supporting work to protect women's and girl's human rights by advocating for their active and meaningful participation, so there is that type of engagement through women and local women's groups.

It's also to advocate for peace and security activities, including peace processes to strengthen efforts to prevent violence, including sexual violence, and to work in countries such as Haiti, Afghanistan, Colombia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It's about both addressing barriers and then empowering opportunities, and we take the joint approach of having both.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Hélène, you're next.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I would like to state first, for the record, with regard to the previous session, that denying services to women and denying women the right to choose are coercive policies.

Thank you very much for your presentation.

I think my question is partly related to what Michael said earlier. I admit that, during the presentation, I was struck by the emphasis on the protection of women, sexual violence and discrimination. We are talking about women as victims who need to be protected.

This study is on women, peace and security, and just as much on the participation of women in peace processes in general. In addition, even the UN report issued after the 15th anniversary shows that, when women participate not only as advisors, but also in the negotiations, peace agreements work better and are more sustainable.

What more can be done along those lines?

[Tamara Guttman]

Thank you for your question.

I’m sorry if we gave you the impression that we were stressing protection too much, but the fact remains that it is very important, of course. Participation and the positive features of this program are so important. However, that's not always easy.

We gave Syria as an example before. The participation of women in negotiations was promoted there. We can also talk about Canada's support for informal diplomacy before the peace process in Syria. A woman representing the official opposition in Syria insisted on the inclusion of the text of resolution 1325 in the declarations during the preparations for the peace process and for the political transition in Syria. That passed through as a result of Canada’s efforts.

In terms of NATO, I think Canada and Iceland, to mark International Women’s Day, organized a meeting yesterday on promoting positive action in order to identify possible ways of including women and of being sensitive to gender in the work that NATO does. Ambassador Kerry Buck, Canada’s first female ambassador and permanent representative to NATO, was there.

There are a number of other examples. However, it is true that it is not always easy.

We can also mention the support in recruiting police forces. Ukraine is a very good example. Canada continues to support a large reform project for Ukraine’s patrol police, the most corrupt police force in Ukraine. Actually, Canada, with the support of the United States, has been working directly with Ukraine on that matter. Ukraine now has a completely new police force that includes a lot of women. Two policewomen from Montreal have supported the project as advisors on gender equality.

Those are just a few examples.

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

Thank you very much.

On a different note, we have learned that Canada is going to review its action plan, which expires at the end of the month. That is very good news.

Do you have any details on the process? How will it work? Do you have a timeline?

[Tamara Guttman]

That is a very good question and my colleague Anthony Anderson will answer it.

[Anthony Anderson, Senior Policy Advisor, Conflict Policy and Security Coherence Secretariat, Stabilization and Reconstruction Task Force, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development]

Thank you very much, Madam.

We're in an enviable position because the government has just announced that it will renew, but they only did so a couple of hours ago. It's easy for me to say that we haven't formulated all our plans yet.

That being said, of course we have been giving it some thought. We've been anticipating the sunsetting of the plan. We did a mid-term review in 2014, which identified some of the areas where perhaps we could improve. We worked on that subsequently and some of that will be reflected in the report that we hope will come out in not too long a time. We've also been having very preliminary discussions with our partners at National Defence and the RCMP as to how we might go forward.

We have had initial discussions as well with civil society organizations, some of which I see represented here today. We're very pleased to see them involved in this particular process. They give us invaluable advice. They've written reports on our reports and we take those into consideration.

I think we're essentially looking at a blank page. In other words, we're not just going to brush up the old action plan. We're going to have a fresh look at it and see whether we can perhaps solve some of the problems that have been revealed over the past five years.

We're looking forward to this process. We haven't got hard timings yet. In discussions with our civil society colleagues I think we're agreed that there's no need to rush to get a new plan in place by March 31, the end of this month. It would be a mistake to try to do so. Perhaps we have a bit of time to give it some thought. The sort of activities you've heard about today will continue. We don't need an action plan to keep on doing these sorts of things.

We're going to go at it deliberately. We're going to go at it consultatively and hopefully, we'll have a better action plan in the not too distant future.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Saini, please.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Ms. Guttman, for your opening remarks. They were very thorough. I have a quick question for you.

You mentioned all the programs that you had, that you were engaged in helping certain states, especially the fragile and the failed states, in some way, but I didn't hear about any programs to help combat human trafficking or sex trafficking specifically. I'm wondering how effective programs have been, if indeed we have them, and whether we should be doing anything more.

[Tamara Guttman]

Thank you very much for that important question.

I regret that I don't have that information with me as it's not part of my own mandate, but we do have programs within Global Affairs Canada, and I think we would be pleased to return with some detailed information. Human trafficking, in particular, has been a very important part of the work of the department. I regret that it's not in my own area, but we can certainly return with some information.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Mr. Sidhu.

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

Thank you for your presentation. You're doing a great job, but I'm a believer that there's always room to improve.

Under this report, when it comes to implementing gender equality while working with other partners in disaster areas, what are our Canadian strengths? I know we believe in the Canadian values of gender equality and the power of women, but when we're working together, how do we ensure that those areas are looked after?

[Tamara Guttman]

Thank you very much for that question.

It's a really important dimension of not just how we support women and girls, but how we support better outcomes, whether it's coming out of conflict or coming out of a major disaster which is integrating gender considerations right from the get-go, and how we approach a solution rather than trying to put them off to the side as a separate issue. I can give one quite recent example. It's more about conflict than disaster, if that's okay.

Of course, we are part of the coalition addressing ISIL. The team I lead works on stabilization with our international partners. We have just had a team return from a meeting of the coalition group on stabilization, which focuses on how to bring services, how to restore stability, how to restore order, and so forth, immediately in newly liberated areas in Iraq.

Just a week ago, in fact, our team was at this meeting and had a very thorough discussion with the Iraqi Prime Minister's office about gender issues and about how to integrate this into planning directly. It was the first opportunity we had had for such a discussion, and we were very heartened by the receptiveness to continuing that dialogue, to working on how we can integrate that from the get-go, and not as an afterthought. I think that's one example we're just starting to build.

In terms of when we respond to disasters, it's much the same, and I don't know if Julie will want to jump in on that. Again, the way we respond with humanitarian assistance or with immediate disaster response, the gender factors are there. It's how services are delivered, how people are helped, whether they're in IDP camps or temporary evacuation shelters, and so forth. That's part of what we bring.

I'll turn to Julie to see if she wants to add to that.

[Julie Shouldice]

Thanks very much.

I think it's important to note that gender equality is a crosscutting theme for all of our development assistance, and we integrate gender quality considerations into all of our policy and programming. As we're doing work in natural disaster situations, it's part of the analysis that we undertake in terms of the work that we do.

That analysis provides insights into how gender equality can be promoted to achieve short-term and longer-term sustainable development results. We have a team of gender equality specialists who support that process and provide technical assistance for the analysis that's done.

As a department, we have a two-pronged approach: one is that of mainstream and broad gender integration; the other is targeted programming when we have specific gender equality gaps. We take both approaches in order to have a broad base.

With our partners it's an ongoing part of our dialogue in terms of the importance of gender equality, the importance of ongoing integration of gender equality considerations, so it's something that we are [Technical difficulty—Editor] and ongoing discussions about.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you very much.

That will be the end of that round.

We'll now go to the Liberal side for the second round. I think, Peter, you're going to start.

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

Thank you very much for being here today.

This is a question for whoever wishes to take it. There is some overlap.

Point number 4 in the solutions proposed by the Security Council is to prevent and respond to sexual and gender-based violence by assisting women and girls with reintegration into their communities, by giving them access to justice, and by holding perpetrators to account. It's the latter point that I'm particularly interested in, holding perpetrators to account, and giving the victims of violence access to justice.

There are, as you well know, local efforts on the ground in terms of conflict transformation. There are many we could point to. Rwanda has come up in the discussion today. The Gacaca process is well known and highly regarded. There's South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and many other examples.

What is happening in terms of making sure that as an international community and in Canadian foreign policy we are making it a primary focus that we support these local structures on the ground so that when efforts at justice are being developed, it's local actors taking the initiative on their own, that they actually have ownership over the process, that they don't have the sense that it's being imposed on them?