Foreign Affairs Committee on Oct. 5th, 2017

[Heather Jeffrey]

Up until now, we rely on the voluntary nature of Canadians to let us know where they are travelling. It's their choice, and some Canadians prefer not to inform us of where they are. We accept that. We work with the numbers and the information we have and we still try to use all the communication channels to reach those people who are there.

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

The reason I asked is that, you know and I know, when there's a problem such as those occurring lately, they want help and then we don't know. The systems are down and they can't register and they can't approach us. That's the angle I'm coming from.

Would any piece of legislation help? Maybe Mark Berman would know the policy. Would any new piece of legislation help your department to help Canadians abroad in any way or shape?

[Heather Jeffrey]

Our role today is to speak to the policy as it exists and how we're implementing it on the ground. We're not really in a position to speak to the question of future legislation.

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

What are the lessons learned? I think that was the biggest disaster we have had in the Caribbean. Going forward, with climate change around the world, we can expect more of those. Are we ready to put more services in and train our personnel on the ground going forward? Where do you see this going?

[Heather Jeffrey]

As I mentioned, we have very elaborate emergency operations response procedures and centres. We've learned lessons from previous incidents, and that's why we have things like the 24-7 watch centre and the standing emergency response teams of highly trained consular officers who can deploy to supplement the capacity of our missions on the ground. We're learning lessons from each disaster to try to improve our flexibility and the tools we have at our disposal. Those tools came from the lessons of previous disasters.

So many category five storms in a short amount of time, and their overlapping nature, is unprecedented, so we'll be looking at that to see how we can improve our response and how we can make sure that we have a full range of tools to address some of the communications challenges when communications are down on the islands. There are always things we're going to be looking to. While this was a significant event affecting a number of Canadians, we're very fortunate that no Canadians were killed in this event. No Canadians were seriously injured. All in all, we feel fortunate that we were able to remove so many Canadians from harm's way, the many thousands who departed before the storms and the 1,700 after the storms we assisted in departing. We coordinated with others to use all the available means.

I wouldn't say necessarily that this was the most severe in terms of its impact on Canadians in terms of deaths and injuries. Certainly it was a series of storms that introduced some new dimensions to emergency response, which we are already mining for new ways to improve. Because we see that with global warming, there seems to be a trend toward more intense storms, we are working to address that.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

I would just like to clarify one point, because I think a lot of the discussion about the registry has been based on travel. Is there a separate registry for those people who are students or people who are living in a specific country permanently, or is it the same registry we're using?

[Heather Jeffrey]

There's one registry. For us it's valuable to know all Canadians who are there at a given point in time, whether they've been living there their whole lives or they're just there for three days, so we encourage all to register.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

There is just one registry.

[Heather Jeffrey]

Yes.

One of the things we are doing and encourage is proactive outreach on the part of our missions to not just the travel industry but to all the different institutions to make sure that the Canadians who are present register. That's part of our ongoing efforts.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

I'm curious about the DART. Could you just give me a little bit of insight as to how its deployment is decided? You mentioned in your opening remarks that this storm affected, I think, 17 islands, each with varying degrees of difficulty. Because this is not a standing force, as you know, it has to be rapidly deployed. People have to be called up. How does the decision-making go for where to deploy?

You're looking at the most severe damage on the ground, but you're also looking at the safety of the people on the DART. Just give me an idea of what sort of decision-making process you go through when you decide something like that. Is that under your purview?

[Heather Jeffrey]

That isn't actually under the purview of consular services. It falls under humanitarian assistance and disaster response, but we are part of an integrated task force format, so we work together to share information. What we've found is that the kind of information you need for a consular response is very similar to the kind of information that informs a very good humanitarian response on the ground, so we all work together. We're embedded with each other in the response centre. It's very effective in terms of communications.

Before any deployment of an asset, like the DART or any other humanitarian assistance response, we send a Canadian disaster assessment team, which is an integrated mission—with DND, Global Affairs, and our humanitarian liaison partners—to assess the conditions on the ground and decide what the most effective response is for that country. In some cases, it might be the assets that are provided through the DART. In other cases, it's different forms of humanitarian assistance. We make those assessments when we see the situation on the ground and determine what needs have been identified and how they can most effectively be addressed.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

You mentioned in your opening comments that 97% of consular cases are routine. That would leave 3%, which I calculated to be about 8,000 cases that are of varying degrees of difficulty. Irrespective of the difficulty, when someone is in an extreme situation in another part of the world and you repatriate them to Canada, what happens to that person after that? Do you arrange certain services for them, whether health care or psychological services, or is it that once they come to the border, they're sort of passed on to another agency or group that looks after them?

I just wonder what the process is because I know that to bring someone here there's a repatriation process, but even beyond that point, they probably still need some follow-up or help. How does that work in that case?

[Lisa Helfand]

Something we've become aware of in recent years is that we can't just stop providing services when people arrive at the border. I was talking about the links that we've developed with provincial authorities, and we have worked very hard to make sure that we have the proper links to be able to find someone a hospital bed, for example, if someone needs hospital care. This is very important, in particular in mental health cases.

We have also worked to make sure, for cases involving youth coming back, that we have somewhere for them to go. It's the same for women who are in difficulty. We have developed a network of NGOs and safe houses here where we can make sure that they have somewhere to go so that they don't just come back and then have no recourse and fall through the cracks. That's something that we've developed over the past few years and are continuing to develop.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

I just want to bring up a hypothetical situation for my own understanding. I know that in certain parts of the world when disasters have struck, sometimes you have young children who are left behind and are survivors, and the parents have unfortunately passed away. If that situation were to happen to a Canadian somewhere or to a group or a family where the child was the surviving member, what would be the protocol then?

As I said, the repatriation would happen through your resources to the border, but how does that go beyond...? I'm not clear on the dividing line as to when consular affairs recuses itself and passes on the responsibility to someone else. I would just like to get an understanding.

[Lisa Helfand]

First of all, we work with the local authorities in the country, those in charge of child services, to make sure that there is some kind of care in place for the child, whether it be with other family members or with the local authority. Then we would work with the appropriate child services here to make them aware of the situation, and to make sure that they have all the information. We would then make the link so that they would be ready and available to receive the child when it arrives in Canada.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Hélène Laverdière]

Mr. Aboultaif.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Thank you, Chair, and thanks to the department for your presentation and your time today.

We're an immigration country. We have handed our citizenship to many people, many different countries in the world, and we see some countries that don't recognize dual citizenship.

How many resources and efforts do you have to put there just to deal with these countries, aside from other problems and issues in those situations?

[Heather Jeffrey]

I would say that we treat cases of dual citizens just as Canadians wherever they are. In cases where dual citizenship is not recognized by the country in which they are present and where our consular access is refused, we continue to make representations, to intervene with the local government, and to try all the avenues at our disposal to continue to raise those cases, but we're very challenged, I would say, in our ability to resolve some of those cases because our access can be limited.

We do devote considerable efforts to making sure that Canadians are informed and that they protect themselves before they travel. We devote the resources necessary to continue to try to assure their well being and to resolve their situations.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Beyond the pre-travelling cautions that you give to Canadians, is there anything to demand from some of these countries as a policy change, or are we looking to change our own policies in order to overcome these situations?

[Heather Jeffrey]

Our approach with countries is to continue to insist on the fact that Canadian citizens are Canadian and that we have a right under the Vienna convention to provide consular services to them. We continue to insist on that right even in countries where that right is not recognized.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Okay. So what can you do for Canadian citizens that are detained on the other side of the world in those countries in order to at least assist or to solve their problems, especially when we know that some of those cases are unfair or that a balanced approach is not being taken on the other side?

[Lisa Helfand]

The first thing we do is ask for access when we become aware of a case of a Canadian, whether dual or not. If we don't get access, then we will persist with the local authorities, insisting on getting access. That could be through informal means. It could be through diplomatic notes or diplomatic démarches.

Once we do get access, we have to get the agreement of the person that they want our consular services. If they do want our services, one of the first things we'll do is ask them for the name of their designated contact in Canada so we can liaise between their Canadian family and them. Then we can act as a conduit, for example, if they need money forwarded to them. We can also make sure that they have access to appropriate lawyers and have a list of lawyers provided to them.

One of the reasons we have a designated family member in Canada is that often they need to transfer money to pay for that lawyer. If there is any allegation of mistreatment, we'll make sure that that's looked into, and we'll also have a regular schedule of going to see that person. Most of all, we want to make sure that due process is followed in the criminal or civil matter that keeps them in jail.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Do you believe that some of these countries do respect the Vienna convention, for example, or these international agreements fully when it comes to such circumstances, especially if the bilateral relationship is not all there in order to facilitate...in order to make some of those cases at least fair and just?

[Lisa Helfand]

In the vast majority of cases, the Vienna Convention is respected, and we get regular consular access to Canadian citizens.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

You said “in the vast majority”, so there are areas where the Vienna convention is not respected.