Evidence of meeting #90 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 cases.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
In cases of natural disasters—earthquakes, tsunamis—we have a rapid response unit that we can turn to.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
A rapid response unit in those sorts of situations where Canadians' lives are at risk—whether it's terrorist groups or it could be warlordism—that could be immediately turned to and sent to take on that task, would you be supportive of that sort of unit?
Fellow, Canadian Global Affairs Institute
My understanding is that there is actually such a unit. It works closely with the consular function, but it is not part of the consular function. That's because it straddles some lines. The intelligence that goes into any difficult situation is going to have to be carefully handled. I think it is clear that you do need a point of contact and you need somebody to be responsible. My understanding is that there is actually such a point of contact and there is such a responsibility within Global Affairs.
The other point, as to whether you should create a cadre of people who just focus on this aspect, I think is a more difficult one and it obviously relates to resources. It relates to the question that Mr. Livermore put on the table. You have to have experience. You have to have experience in Ottawa and you have to have experience abroad in order to manage these cases that are complex, of any type.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
I have one final point because the comment was raised a couple of times that a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian. The context was quite different. It was an understanding that every Canadian, whether born in Canada or abroad, has the same rights. It had nothing to do with what is being discussed here. It was an unfortunate misrepresentation during a very serious committee meeting.
NDP
The Vice-Chair NDP Hélène Laverdière
Thank you very much.
Questions and comments will have to be very brief. It seems that we actually have to adjourn the meeting in six minutes.
Mr. Livermore, you said this:
“contacts are part of the solution.”
Ms. Fortier, you said that foreign experience was also necessary.
Many witnesses have said that, in any given country, difficult cases often require a good understanding of situations on the ground. Pardon my bias, but I believe that the people from Global Affairs Canada or even from certain NGOs are those who best understand the reality on the ground and the best networks there.
Nevertheless, we have heard about cases where the Royal Canadian Mounted Police essentially controlled the operations, and where Global Affairs Canada didn't seem to participate much, at least on the surface.
Could you talk a bit about these situations and about intergovernmental coordination, especially with regard to kidnappings?
Senior Fellow, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Could I just speak to one aspect of that; namely, contacts abroad? This is perhaps a controversial point in the sense that what very often happens abroad is that Canadian embassies have contacts with individuals who are actively involved in insurgencies in other countries, and this is not an unusual situation. We would have, for example, contacts with the FARC in Colombia. We would have contacts with Hezbollah, with Hamas, that some might regard as terrorist organizations or that might be listed by the Canadian government as terrorist organizations.
You might ask what the point is of having some of these contacts. Having the contacts enables you to contact them when something bad happens. When something bad happens and you suspect their involvement, you can't create the contact out of the air. You have to have an established contact.
To me, foreign affairs has gone a bit too far, trying to be a bit too pure in the past—and possibly at the present time—in saying we won't have contact with certain organizations. I think, at the head of mission level, it may be appropriate to say that there are no official contacts. But the reality is that no serious country in the world goes without having those contacts—not the United States, not Great Britain, not France. They all have contacts.
A subsidiary point, if I could just be brief, is that in many countries, the Canadian negotiators won't be dealing with the person who has the Canadians; they will be dealing with a mediator, somebody who knows what's going on, on the ground, and whose services are then brought into play.
It's important that Canadian embassies understand what needs to be done, who the mediators are, who people with good offices are, so that when something bad happens, everybody understands what needs to be done.
Fellow, Canadian Global Affairs Institute
I think the points Dan has made are good. We should also recognize that we do work closely with the RCMP on many matters. Certainly I appreciated them in the transfer of Canadians who had died abroad, particularly in the Haiti earthquake. They were amazing.
When you're moving into an international realm, you do need experience, and the chairwoman has made that point. An ambassador is responsible for what happens in his or her country in terms of Canadian issues.
There is a point to be made in terms of better communication—good communication with the consular side—so it's understood what the consular aspect is. If there are points that are firmly on the security side, which have a different connotation, then some communication on that side should be made without basically giving the store away. Really, the issue here is working together in a way that respects the capacity and capabilities of each.
I am very pleased to hear that the assistant commissioner of the RCMP has recently said that they would not prosecute Canadians who pay a ransom through an intermediary. That is a good step.
The question of ransoms, of course, presents a moral hazard. On one hand, you don't want to give resources to somebody who's going to use those resources for bad. On the other hand, you really want to have that Canadian citizen back safe and sound.
NDP
The Vice-Chair NDP Hélène Laverdière
Thank you both very much to both of you. It was a pleasure to see you, from a personal point of view. Thank you also for your testimony here today. That will certainly help us produce a good result and good recommendations for the government.
The meeting is adjourned.