Foreign Affairs Committee on Oct. 5th, 2017

[Heather Jeffrey]

In terms of the consular feedback, we have feedback forms online and available in all of our points of service abroad where we invite and request our clients to provide us with their views on the level of service provided. I believe that around 95% of the ones we received have been positive and rate their service as “very good”, but we might need to get back to you in writing with the exact statistics.

For example, in the response to the hurricanes, I think you will have heard Minister Freeland invite Canadians—again, with a particular feedback line—to submit their input on their experience to us online or via phone so that we can work to respond better. Every consular case and every situation is different, and every one offers opportunities for us to learn, so for us it is very important to have this feedback and we highly value it.

As I mentioned, the large majority of services are relatively easily resolved, and they are not significant cases. I think in general we are meeting all our service standards and people are very satisfied with that level of service. In complex cases, it is more complicated but we actively solicit and invite that feedback.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Hélène Laverdière]

Thank you.

Since we have very little time, could you please send us the figures, the number of outstanding lawsuits, and all the information available about the follow-up process for future complaints?

Thank you very much.

Mr. Sidhu now has the floor.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, panel, for giving us insight into what's happening around the globe.

My office has been getting calls when Canadians go on foreign soil and get into a relationship and have children. Then, at the end of the day, they have problems with the custody of those children, because the spouse, of either gender, is not co-operating. How deep can we go to help Canadians solve that issue? How much power do we have within our governments to bring that child back, or whatever the dispute is?

[Heather Jeffrey]

I'll just offer some general remarks, and then I'll turn it over to my colleague Mark Berman to talk about the specifics.

Certainly we agree. This is one of the areas that have been of particular focus to us, family-related cases, cases of child custody and in some cases child abduction. We've seen a significant increase in the number of these cases as Canadians increasingly live abroad in different countries.

We had, for example, last year, 886 family-related cases that we were dealing with. It's a significant number, not significant in light of the 265,000, but for us, it's a significant number when you think that those are all individual cases that require our attention. We've put in place extra focus, extra training, and a number of tools—I referred to one in my opening statement about how to assess the well-being of children—but we're operating in foreign legal environments where often we have different legal frameworks.

The Hague convention provides for the signatory states, of which Canada is one, formalized mechanisms that allow countries to speak to each other and have points of contact and formalized processes for working to resolve these cases. But not all states are members of that convention, indeed many of the countries we deal with aren't. We have to find individualized solutions.

I'll turn it over to Mark, who leads the consular unit, including the child protection unit, to speak to that.

[Mark Berman, Director General, Consular Policy , Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development]

I'll just add a couple of comments.

Consular officers are trained to help families navigate and interpret local family laws, and they will help identify potential resources in the countries where these problems occur. As Heather mentioned, if the party is a member of the Hague convention, then that process is facilitated, but it's more complicated if, in fact, the child abduction involves a non-treaty partner of Canada. In that case, consular officers will provide ongoing assistance to the child and both parents.

Each country presents its own set of unique challenges relating to issues such as dual nationality and child custody laws, the recognition of Canada's court orders, and a country's approach to controlling the exit of people from its territory. It depends on the country we're talking about.

Canada, in the international community, is a champion of the Hague convention. We work very hard to promote new memberships to the convention. We do that in a number of ways. In 2013 Canada created a new forum called the Global Consular Forum, and we are the permanent secretariat to that. That is an opportunity for us to work with governments to promote the Hague convention.

We also work within the Colloque, which is the grouping of Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the U.S., and the U.K. We have agreed to coordinate the response and identify countries where consular issues are particularly challenging and issues of child abduction and such are a problem, to try to facilitate and encourage those countries to sign onto the Hague convention.

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

Ms. Jeffrey touched on legal counsel. I was going through the notes, and we have a couple of dozen lawyers on the ground. Do we as Canadians have a crown counsel or a service we provide to Canadians abroad?

[Lisa Helfand]

Because all the local contexts are different, it's important that we provide them with the right counsel. In this case, this is the list of local counsel. Usually we are able to steer them toward someone who has a specialty in this area. This is the person who should be handling the matter and who can most properly come to the best conclusion.

We will, on occasion, consult with our own lawyers to make sure we are providing the best possible advice, but they will tell us to consult the local lawyers.

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

In terms of Canadian-born children travelling abroad without the consent of a second parent—there are a lot of issues throughout the world—how do we handle this once they're gone and the spouse here on the ground is troubled about how to get their child back? What kind of service do we provide in that respect?

[Lisa Helfand]

We have a special unit within consular operations that deals with this type of issue. The first thing that the left-behind parent will have is someone who they can contact in Foreign Affairs at the federal level who can help them navigate this difficult situation. Of course, local police authorities will also be involved in these situations, because these are police matters. There is now a system set up so that there's one point of contact in every child welfare agency or police agency to help left-behind parents. We help the parents navigate through that system as well, to steer them to where that one point of contact is.

We also, of course, have people on the ground at our missions, and they can help provide the local context, as we mentioned previously.

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

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Hélène Laverdière]

Thank you.

Mr. Saini.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

I have a three-part question, actually, just to start off with.

You mentioned in your opening remarks that there are 260 points of contact throughout the world. Obviously, we can't be everywhere, but I read somewhere that those points of contact are in about 150 countries.

Obviously, we must have agreements with other countries to act on our behalf for consular affairs. How many countries do we have that with? Which are those countries? What does that framework look like in terms of the privacy that's shared and also in terms of the powers that country has to intervene on our behalf?

[Heather Jeffrey]

As you mentioned, the importance of our relationships with other countries in terms of providing reciprocal consular services is really important, because it allows us to extend our reach. There are regions, for example, in the Americas, where the Government of Canada has a much larger footprint than in other countries in other parts of the world. There are other regions, for example, the South Pacific region, where our colleagues in Australia have a much more developed network and greater geographic proximity.

We have agreements in place in different jurisdictions to provide consular services to each other's citizens. I'll give you the example of the most recent case. There was a volcano erupting in Vanuatu, a very remote South Pacific island where there are, nonetheless, Canadians present. In Vanuatu, it is Australia that has a presence and provides consular services to those Canadians who need them, and they do so quickly. In other jurisdictions, we provide those services on behalf of others.

We have agreements that are in place broadly, and we also work in an emergency context, with the whole network of our like-minded partners, on a case-by-case situational basis, where there are vulnerable citizens in need from other countries and we have the ability to provide service. We do so on the basis of humanitarian grounds, irrespective of whether we have in place long-term MOUs.

In addition to the agreement with Australia, we have agreements with the State of Israel, where, for example, I believe it's in Venezuela—

[A voice]

And Cuba.

[Heather Jeffrey]

—and Cuba, we provide consular services to Israeli citizens. We have agreements with the U.K. and other jurisdictions as well.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Do you have an approximate number of countries with which we have those agreements? Which countries are they?

[Lisa Helfand]

As Ms. Jeffrey mentioned, we have a special agreement with the Australians. We also have three agreements, as far as I know, where we have other countries that are called our “protecting powers”, that are in countries where we cannot be. Each protecting power agreement is slightly different, but the Swedes are our protecting power in North Korea, the Italians in Iran, and the Romanians in Syria. In the case of the Swedes, they have the authority to offer consular services when we ask them to do so.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

What power do these agreements have? Are they similar or exactly the same as our own consular services in other parts of the world, or is there some framework that has been set up where there may be a point where they have to reconsider a fact or ask the Government of Canada to what extent they can advocate for a particular citizen?

[Lisa Helfand]

Each protecting power agreement is different, but what it comes down to is communication between the protecting power and us. We will ask them, either through informal or formal channels, to carry out a particular consular service for us, for example, to go visit someone in prison, and they will come back and report to us on the results of the visit. That's the most common way the protecting power agreement is implemented.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

To follow up on that, I recognize that on your website you have four different categories of travel, and one category is “Avoid all travel”. Obviously, then, if there is a particular place in the world where you're suggesting to Canadians to avoid all travel, I highly doubt you will have consular services there. I also highly doubt that any of the allies would have consular services there.

What do you do in that situation, where you don't have a particular footprint there and you don't have a framework or an agreement with another country to advocate? How does that protocol work?

[Heather Jeffrey]

I was just going to say that in some of the places where we actually urge people to avoid all travel, we actually have a presence. For example, in Kabul or Baghdad or places in war zones, we have missions and staff that are there under specific security protections, but we don't consider it safe for Canadians to travel freely about the country. In some countries, there are only certain regions of the country that are insecure.

Where we do not have a presence and we don't have a pre-existing relationship, in most instances we have a network we can extend. For example, we have a consular warden system, which is a system whereby prominent Canadians who are residents in that region or in that country on their accord agree to be a point of emergency contact for us to allow us to reach out and check on the well-being of Canadians and to otherwise assist them. For example, in many of the very small Caribbean islands affected by the hurricanes, given that there were, I think, 17 different islands affected, we had wardens who were in place who actually went far above and beyond in terms of travelling throughout the islands to locate Canadians and ascertain their well-being.

We work through other like-minded partners. We can work through other organizations. Our consular staff are, I've learned, extremely creative and adaptable. They'll work through non-governmental organizations or other business structures to try to reach people. In general, I would say that, from the international consular links we build and the Global Consular Forum, all countries find themselves in the same position. None of us are everywhere, and certainly none of us are everywhere all the time. There is a very supportive system whereby if people are vulnerable and in need and have specific medical or security issues that need to be addressed, those who are closest make the best efforts to reach them.

In a place like Syria or where the security situation is very difficult, it's not always possible to reach people, but we use all the means at our disposal to do so.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Hélène Laverdière]

Thank you very much.

Mr. O'Toole, you have the floor.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

I'm going to continue my questions with Mr. Gwozdecky, because I was cut off. It's good to see you again. You were before the defence committee a few weeks ago on North Korea. It's good to see that you have all the easy files.

We left off with Omar Khadr. You raised that case, and certainly there was a $10.5-million settlement paid for a range of things. The Supreme Court case decision you mentioned was interesting in that it said that it's the crown's prerogative in terms of when someone is repatriated from that type of position. The charter violations related to the three consular visits that took place under the Chrétien and Martin governments.

Consular officials are in a bit of a catch-22 in a situation like Saudi Arabia, North Korea, or in that case, Guantanamo. If they don't visit, they're not providing consular assistance to the level Canadians would expect, but if they visit, knowing there's mistreatment, Canada could insert itself into the charter. Is that why the policy changed following the Khadr case?

[Mark Gwozdecky]

No. In fact, the grounds for the Supreme Court decision were based on the fact that the visits that took place were not consular visits. They were Canadians who were there who participated in interrogations. It wasn't, strictly speaking, a consular case per se. But we did learn important lessons from that experience that we've applied to new protocols, which are now in place to avoid such scenarios taking place again.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

In that case, it wasn't considered consular assistance. It was investigation or interrogation by officials. When these visits took place under the Chrétien government and the Martin government, why did they not consider repatriation at that time and question him in Canada, for example?