Foreign Affairs Committee on Feb. 14th, 2017

[Prof. Joan DeBardeleben]

This is the really hard nut to crack, the security issue. In some way it's probably bold to even bring it up as a possibility because I think you have to work around the edges with Russia to try to rebuild trust without necessarily dealing with that really difficult problem. The big issue in dealing with thinking about how to assure security, both for Russia and for the neighbouring countries, is the transatlantic dimension and NATO.

We remember that Mr. Medvedev proposed the idea of convening a kind of discussion about a new security architecture in Europe in 2008. That was kind of pushed aside by both Europeans and North Americans because it was seen as a potential effort to split Europe from North America. I think that would be a risk.

Of course we now have the additional problem, and we have an administration in Washington whose intentions are not entirely clear on that matter. It might seem to be a rather volatile can of worms to open up at the moment, and one should say that. However, I suppose if Washington draws back from a strong security commitment in Europe, this will place increasing pressure on the EU and on Europe to fill the gap. I'm not foreseeing the most drastic scenario where the NATO commitment would be rescinded. I don't hear that coming out of Washington right now. There seems to be at least an expression of support for the NATO security guarantees, but there could be some ambiguity short of that. This may push Europe into having to take a stronger position in terms of its own security commitment to countries that are its members and also members of NATO.

That could provide an opening for the EU to take a stronger role. I don't know about the EU, but member states, Germany in particular, see some potential in the OSCE to play a more leading role. I think that might be the best vehicle for this kind of discussion. It's not an organization that Russia has a high level of trust in, but it certainly has a higher level of trust than in NATO or any alternatives. It would provide a framework within which one could try to sit at the table and begin to lay out what the key security concerns are of the various parties. We have an Atlantic security community. There is no European security community that effectively operates today, and that's a large root of the current problem.

NATO expansion close to Russia's border, I think, is the key irritant that has led to the current crisis. I would identify that as the most important factor, and the fear that Ukraine and Georgia eventually would be admitted to NATO. I think that's unlikely. I can't foresee that ever happening, but I don't think the Russians see it that way. I think they still have a reasonable, in their minds, fear that that could be the outcome. That would be an intrusion into what they would consider to be their very near neighbourhood. That would be, I think, unacceptable.

This discussion is very important, and I would foresee the OSCE as being the best vehicle through which to pursue that conversation.

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

Of course, I was kidding when I said that the new ambassador should focus solely on the European Union, since Germany is just as important.

We haven't spent much time discussing the energy issue. What impact do you think it is having on the situation?

[Prof. Joan DeBardeleben]

The energy interdependence—I would call it—between the European Union and Russia has, on balance, been a stabilizing factor. The underlying logic of the European Union in its relationship with Russia has been pretty well the same as the underlying logic of the European integration process, which is that economic interdependence is more likely to breed peace and stability. Up until the 2013 Ukraine crisis, despite the crisis in Ukraine that occurred over energy in the first decade of this century, it has generally been viewed as something that could be stabilizing because it's not only Europe being dependent on Russia, but Russia being dependent on Europe for its markets. It's a mutual interdependence.

We've seen in the course of the crisis that it's probably been one of the areas where the two parties have been able to deal most fruitfully and most constructively with each other, both in resolving Ukraine's energy problems and also in terms of the overall framework of controversial issues like the third energy package, where Russia has actually backed off.

I think the risk of reducing.... There has to be a kind of balance here, because on the one hand you don't want to be overly dependent, and the EU doesn't want to be overly dependent; and on the other hand, if you reduce that economic interaction to too low a level, it reduces the incentive to operate with each other in a civilized manner.

I think on that particular issue, things are not going too badly at the moment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you very much, Madame Laverdière.

I want to take a minute to recognize Margaret Skok, who has shown up.

[Margaret Skok, Senior Fellow, Global Security and Politics, Centre for International Governance Innovation]

I was on time but I didn't know about the—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

My apologies for sending you on a wild goose chase, wherever you ended up. I think you were in Centre Block.

[Margaret Skok]

I was everywhere, but I said, “Happy Valentine's” to everyone. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Colleagues, I think we will let Madam Skok make her presentation. She is a senior fellow from the Centre for International Governance Innovation. You'll notice that she was also the Canadian ambassador to the Republic of Kazakhstan, and she also served in Canada's embassy in Moscow in the early 1990s.

Margaret, I'd like you to do your presentation and then we'll get right back into questions, with both of you, in the time we have remaining. I'll turn the floor over to you.

[Margaret Skok]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's not a region that many people know very much about. I enjoyed the last comments that were made about the interconnectivity. Part of the former Soviet Union absolutely connected to Europe, absolutely connected to the east.

I was just in Washington last week and met with the other four central Asian ambassadors and they all reminded me that whereas in 1991, after the collapse of the former Soviet Union, the majority of the trade was with Russia. A majority of the trade for most of these countries now is with Europe. There are a couple, like Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, that still trade predominantly with Russia but they have forged new relationships.

As we maintain our relationship with the United States, they maintain their relationship with their traditional partners, which in some circles are called the spheres of influence: Russia and China. However, they have forged new relationships that are bilateral, multilateral, and international. It is these international organizations and relationships that will make the difference in terms of prodding them—and one ambassador actually used that verb—to move forward in modernizing their economy, modernizing their governance structures, and modernizing who they speak with and how they speak.

The OSCE and NATO are critical—and I'm sorry that I missed the first part of Joan's presentation—and the OSCE in Russia is still respected. Those organizations are also our Canadian eyes and ears on the ground in that region. There are a lot of Canadians who operate with NATO and the OSCE.

I also want to mention someone who has been in the news a lot most recently, and that is His Highness, the Aga Khan. He runs a public-private sector operation in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan. It is a critical and majority investor in some of these countries, particularly Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The focus is on microfinancing, education, and training young people to look for jobs.

I'm not even following my presentation, but you'll have it if you need it.

What is really important is that there are approximately 67 million people in central Asia. Unlike the west, where the majority of demographics are older, 40% of the demographics are 30 years and younger. Unlike some of you, I understand from the Kazakh ambassador, having recently been in Kazakhstan in Astana, that Astana is not at all like Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, or Turkmenistan. The poverty is not like what we see when we look at Africa, for example, or the traditional third world countries. The poverty and the economic growth are uneven. The legacy issues are corruption, governance, and just not knowing how to move forward.

After 1991—and I was in Moscow during the coup—there was a Soviet general who said, “We lost the Baltic fleet; we will never lose the Black Sea fleet.” In 1992, already, they knew what their imperial and their historical—as they would term it—tendencies would be in central Asia and in the former Soviet Union.

There are 67 million people in central Asia—I'm not counting Afghanistan because it is a separate issue—of whom, as I said, 40% are young. It used to be that if they did not find jobs, as migrant labourers, they would go predominantly to Russia, and secondly to Kazakhstan. As the economy and commodity prices shrank, those young and middle-aged people were stopped at the borders. Migrant labour, carrying drugs, and carrying illicit arms were pretty lucrative, but more lucrative—when they were stuck and not able to cross the border into Russia—was radicalization.

Radicalization cannot be underestimated in central Asia. At any one given time, there are seven million people on the move in central Asia. These are predominantly Muslim countries. They are secular governments and totally firm against terrorism, but since the collapse in 1991 of the former Soviet Union, there is also a search for a value system. The Soviet Union came with a value system. Post-1991, the only “ism” that appeared on the horizon was capitalism, and the only direction that was provided by the west was democracy.

They were traders from the Silk Road, way before the drugs, centuries ago. It was china, grain, then drugs, then narcotics, then illicit trade in human beings, and now it's terrorism. I was reminded by my defence colleagues that there is nothing new about ideologies and there is nothing new about terrorism. They have existed for centuries. What is new is technology.

The other issue is that these migrant workers, or these young, radicalized fighters, return home. They are brothers and they are fathers, and they are sisters. They come back to their villages and they are embraced as their own, and no one knows who has been radicalized.

I have reports on insurgents' activities, but there is always a lot more than what happens. In an example last week that did not make the press, 17 people were arrested in Kazakhstan—and I quote the ambassador—“as a preventative measure”. We won't hear from those 17 people again. These governments are interested in stability. They know that their relationships to new partners and to economic growth are critical to their sovereignty. They're not interested in terrorism. It is something that will take them in a direction that they have never been interested in.

Each country in central Asia is a little different. They have long-standing ties to Russia and to Europe. In 1923, when the former Soviet Union closed its borders—unimaginable that you could close such a large country—central Asia was doubly closed. That was where the nuclear weaponry was being developed. That is where there are still—and I've been in five of them—biological and chemical weapons labs, and they're not terribly secure. They have wooden tables that they work on, doors that don't lock, and screen windows where the air goes back and forth, and everything that is carried by air is transmitted to the region. Tajikistan and southern Kyrgyzstan are probably in the worst shape, in terms of diseases and chemical and biological weapon transfer. It doesn't cost very much; pay somebody $100 and they can go into a lab and get it.

As a result of the Soviet Union—Moscow at that point—doing these tests and doing this development, nobody had even heard of these countries. When we speak of Samarkand, many people still think that it might be in India or Pakistan. I often compare the old Silk Road to the Hudson's Bay Company in Canada. These were traders from a long time ago.

In addition, their 77 years in the former Soviet Union trained them to work really hard, in double, triple, and quadruple jobs. These are people who have a huge work ethic and who have had to survive under many different disputes, conflicts, and wars.

In addition, central Asia is where the labour camps were, not the concentration camps. That's another reason central Asia was closed. It speaks to why it is such a tolerant, inclusive, multi-ethnic, multilingual, and multireligious region. In those labour camps were the Russians, who didn't tow the line, the Ukrainians, the Volga Dutch, the Volga Germans, the Poles, the Greeks, and the Koreans.

In these countries you have Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, Jews, and Hindus. Everybody is there. They survived. They are intermarried. Religion isn't a fanatic thing for them of course, because of their time under the Soviet Union, but Islamism, in its—I'm going to use this word with my apologies—perversion, has frightened them. These governments are interested in stability. They know that their sovereignty, as nations independent of Russia and China, and their economic stability depends on their governance and their anti-terrorism. They are looking for models.

The European Union is doing a lot within central Asia in sectors of production like food processing—on top of the machinery Canada brings in—in terms of mining, in terms of co-operation on nuclear non-proliferation.

These countries do not have weapons now. Between Russia and the United States there are approximately 1,800 nuclear weapons. Some of the weaponry has been hidden in—I don't want to call it eastern Europe because in the old American nomenclature it was called the eastern bloc—countries that are now part of the EU. Shortly after the collapse of 1991, there was some weaponry hidden in some of those poorer eastern bloc countries.

I believe what my colleague said. Interconnectivity, economic interdependence, and the work of multilateral, international, and bilateral partnerships are key, and radicalization cannot be underestimated.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you, Ms. Skok.

We're going to go right to questions. I understand it's Mr. Sidhu's time.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you both for sharing your knowledge.

I'll go back to the European Union.

Professor, you mentioned that there's a lot of uncertainty in that area, especially after the Brexit vote, including inequality between the states and slow economic recovery. To what extent do you think these pressures have resulted in the decline of democratic openness, a return to nationalism, and the rise of extremist parties in that part of the woods? What's your take on that?

[Prof. Joan DeBardeleben]

These are just some of the challenges that the European Union faces in terms of the rise of populism. Of course, it has been triggered by a variety of factors, including the 2008 economic crisis and the aftermath of that which, of course, Europe more or less imported from North America in my view; the sovereign debt crisis, which was related to some flaws in the euro's own construction perhaps; and also the refugee crisis.

All of these things have contributed to it. I think this is a risk. It's a risk worldwide. We see it. We see the rise of populism around the world and some kind of a reaction against globalization. It affects a reaction against trade agendas, against immigrants, against all these kinds of impacts of international intrusion into the domestic space.

We don't know what will happen after the elections in Germany, France, and the Netherlands, but the leaders currently of these countries are committed to a different vision, and the elites at the European level likewise.

I think we should continue to try to strengthen partnerships with these countries in dealing with the refugee crisis. We're trying to do that and through the CETA agreement trying to promote economic growth and to generate a positive model of what you could call globalization or at least trade, trade relations, but no doubt these kinds of issues do reduce the capacity of the EU to deal with some external challenges.

I mean there has been a diversion of attention from the Ukraine problem to a certain degree because there are other issues, the refugee crisis in particular, that have taken first place. That's part of why I said I think we should not withdraw from eastern Europe, what we're calling here eastern Europe, the countries between the EU and Russia in terms of Canada's development aid program.

I know there was a viewpoint that this was kind of the EU's responsibility now, this region. There was a drawback and the idea that some of these countries, I think the term was, “graduated” too. I remember that from a few years or decades ago. Now is the time when I think we need to re-engage in terms of not just the NATO commitment but in terms of sharing our best practices—which we have been quite successful with, particularly in terms of our multiculturalism—and not just picking out one country or two countries.

But that region is key to stability. We should make a commitment to support what the European Union is trying to do, because they are under such strain right now with so many different challenges. We can make a positive contribution, as we have in the refugee envelope.

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

Do you see that as a threat to the European Union itself?

[Prof. Joan DeBardeleben]

Yes, there is a potential threat. It's kind of ironic because the talk maybe a decade ago was that the European public was passive and not interested in the European Union. There was talk of a kind of permissive consensus, that they just went along with what the elite said.

Now we see that the public has been activated and not always in the direction that the elites were hoping. In other words, there are strong Euro-skeptic tendencies in some countries. It could be a threat. Even the EU documents refer to the situation of existential...and I don't know if it's threat or crisis, but there is a kind of existential situation that challenges on some level the fundamental rationale of European integration.

This is the place where Russia also poses a challenge because we saw some intervention or attempts to intervene in the American election. I think people in Germany and France are very concerned about this, that there is an attempt to influence public opinion.

We know that there is support coming from the east for certain right-wing movements in Europe. It's important to support.... There's not much we can do, frankly, from here, but we have to watch it carefully and try to align with those countries that are able to maintain the values that we support. I'm quite hopeful that the elections will come out in a more positive direction, but no doubt it's a situation of uncertainty.

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

That was my next question, actually. How can we help from this part of the world since we have trade with those countries and we're looking forward to having more trade with the European Union? How can we help?

[Prof. Joan DeBardeleben]

I think it's important to keep a positive discourse—we're doing pretty well in this regard—and to not feed into the negative discursive space that's emerged, to actively combat the depiction of certain situations in a way that supports the populist narrative or in many cases the Russian narrative in those countries, and to maintain strong relationships with those partners that we share values with.

That sounds good, but ultimately we can't affect the domestic outcome of elections in European countries, and we wouldn't want to try. It's not really our purview to do that. I don't really think, in that sense, that we can do too much, but I think the contributions we've made have been in the right direction. Taking a role in the refugee crisis doesn't by any stretch of the imagination relieve the pressure on Europe, but it sends the message that globalization has some positive elements, that internationalization, the international community, provides positive support, not just threats. That's the narrative that has to be put forth, and it is being put forth. That may be what we can do at this stage.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you.

Mr. Saini, please.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Good morning. Thank you very much for being here. It's been very interesting so far.

Ambassador Skok, since you're from my hometown, I thought I'd start with you, make you feel a little bit more welcome.

[Margaret Skok]

Which hometown is that?

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

The Waterloo region.

I want to talk to you about something that you didn't mention in your remarks, but I think it has huge importance to the geopolitical stability of those five countries. I'm talking about water. Prior to 1991, the Soviet Union had a bargain between Kurdistan and Tajikistan in which they would provide water over the summer, and the other three entities—Pakistan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan—would provide coal, gas, and electricity in the winter.

It seems now that there's no clear understanding among the five countries. Before we talk about anything else, there are more bilateral agreements here and there, some disagreements with the hydroelectric power upstream. How do you see that playing out before we...?

This leads to the second question, so if you could, kindly comment on how that water crisis plays out.

[Margaret Skok]

You're absolutely right. Transboundary water management is a huge mess. They do not trade very well. The mountain regions are really important, because they begin in Kazakhstan and China, and then they become the Pamirs, the Hindu Kush, and the Himalayas. These are peaks of 7,000 metres. They are glacier caps. They melt. This year the water will not be a problem because of the climate change issue, which we understand from some of our colleagues does not exist, but it does exist there.

The rivers run north, downstream. There are upstream and downstream considerations. One is agriculture. It is about irrigation. It is about cattle and grain. It is also about drought, and it is about flood plain management. CIGI did a security governance conference in Astana a year ago. We're proposing one in May in Ottawa, because one of the things that we can do with all of our thousands of lakes and rivers and the International Joint Commission between Canada and the United States is transboundary water management.

They have begun to speak to each other. The Kyrgyz ambassador said last week, “We don't need to speak to the Uzbeks, because we will control the water.” The Uzbek ambassador said, “Kyrgyzstan is very poor. If we pay them, they'll give us the water.”

In the meantime, and it is an exaggeration to call it this, perhaps a successor nation in the central Asian grouping might be Kazakhstan. For the last seven years, it has paid probably $100 million a year to pay, correctly, the transit tariff of gas or oil through Turkmenistan to Kyrgyzstan for the winter, in return for water.

Most recently there were proposals through the World Bank for a hydro dam development. Manitoba Hydro International was one of the bidders. But in Tajikistan what is being built instead is a huge dam, and that dam will divert, will flood, and climate change on top of it will cause mudflows, as we've seen in the past.

Transboundary water management will also.... We are used to water management for hydro, for food, for recreation. Water will become an issue in terms of food security. I don't like to put it on the table as a food security item, but within a year, it might become a food security item.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

That leads me to the second question, which I'm going to ask in terms of Canadian interests.

The Chinese Marshall Plan for the “one belt, one road” that's going to go through 60 countries—

[Margaret Skok]

It did go.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Rather, it did go and that road will go through four of those countries.

If we are looking for a launching pad for Canadian interests or Canadian influence in the region, would you recommend Kazakhstan as a launching pad? If you look at the stability of those five countries and you look at the country whose economy is most advanced, and having recently travelled to Kazakhstan, would that be a place for Canadian business to have some interplay with that concept?

[Margaret Skok]

You have the one belt, one road initiative. While we lay sleeping, China did the infrastructure with the different banks involved. They have just done a shipment of non-essential goods from China through Kazakhstan, Russia, Europe, the channel, to England. The shipment shaved 22 days off of normal freight forwarding.

Is Kazakhstan a natural leader? With 4% unemployment, which is lower than ours, and 10% to 11% in the other countries—that's probably not true, since there are two that do not really report unemployment and I will leave you some stats—if it is pitched as a leader in the region to the rest of the central Asian nations, it could continue the competition.

There was a question I was asked by students in Kazakhstan last year. There is a C5 plus Europe, meaning the five central Asian countries plus a European arrangement. There's C5 plus Russia, plus the United States, plus China. What about a C5 plus Canada?

My answer was simple. Why not just a C5? Whenever do you sit down by yourselves and speak? They have several regional organizations. One, of course, is the Commonwealth of Independent States. You have the Eurasian Economic Union. You have the Shanghai co-operation agreement. You have the Collective Security Treaty Organization, of which either Russia or China or both are the chairs. When do they ever meet by themselves to speak?

Recognizing that Kazakhstan has economic power to lead I think it would be important, nonetheless, to collect them together, as we are going to try to do again in Ottawa in May, and have them speak to each other and look at our models.

Does that answer the question?