Foreign Affairs Committee on Jan. 28th, 2021

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

It's good to know, but how many people are going to starve before June? It's a long way off, and there is a humanitarian crisis right now. Look at how the world reacted to the Syrian migration crisis.

On that note, are there Venezuelans coming to Canada, or is there anything more that we can do to sponsor them or to help them in any way to get out of this misery?

[Michael Grant]

At this stage, there is no specific program to receive Venezuelan migrants. There have been quite a number of Venezuelans who have claimed refugee status in Canada in recent years. However, in terms of a specific program similar to what was done with Syria, there isn't one at the present time.

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

What can we do to push for that? I think everybody certainly knows that this is a very real crisis. Look at how Canada stepped up with the Syrian crisis. Why can we not be stepping up now, when this is the big crisis right now?

[Michael Grant]

I think we're definitely stepping up in terms of getting proper assistance to those migrants. As to a program for coming to Canada, I'm afraid I'll have to defer to colleagues from IRCC on that issue.

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Would they be willing to weigh in and answer a bit about that?

[Michael Grant]

They're not with us today, sir.

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Oh, I'm sorry. Okay.

Venezuela is a top foreign policy issue, as you mentioned, for Canada, but given the mismanagement and the breakdown of the economy by the socialist Maduro regime, what is their capacity to deal with the health and economic crisis that's happening now, with the COVID pandemic? Is there any capacity to deal with it?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Make it a very brief answer, Mr. Grant. We're almost out of time on this.

[Michael Grant]

The COVID pandemic has hit Venezuela as it has hit everywhere else. We get numbers from the Maduro regime. We don't trust them—I don't think anyone does—because they're very low.

The Guaidó government has drawn on resources that it has at its disposal to provide some funding to the health sector, but I would say it is inadequate, and this is of great concern.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Mr. Grant, thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Diotte.

Colleagues, I would like to remind you of the rather tight time frames in this second round. If everybody could limit themselves to the allotted time, we can get, as I would propose, through a full second round. It will take us slightly past 4:30, but I think that, in the interest of the subject matter before us, it's time well spent.

The next five-minute round goes to Dr. Fry.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Thank you very much.

Everyone has talked about the humanitarian aid. I would like to point out that Trinidad and Tobago, where I come from, is 80 miles away, by sea, from Venezuela. There are very close relationships there, and I grew up knowing those relationships. Fifty-five million dollars may not sound like a lot of money to Canadians, but when you look at the exchange, if you gave $55 million to Trinidad and Tobago, you would have to multiply it by six with the exchange. That comes up to about $350 million. We need to remember what the costs are in that region, what you can buy in that region and what you can do in that region with $55 million.

I'm not saying $55 million is enough, and I think we should look at how we do it, but the important thing about getting money into aid is how we get that money to the people and not to a regime that can take it and do what it wishes with it.

That's my first question; it's about humanitarian aid. What bothers me the most here, however, is that we reference Europe and we reference Syria. Europe and Syria are obviously close by. Everybody's concerned with Syria.

Nobody thinks about it, but Canada has a stake in this for another reason: Geopolitically, we do not want China and Russia to be playing a role. The United States' history has always been to go in and forget the sovereignty and put their own leader in. We don't want to do that either, but we are in the OAS. Whatever happens in that region is going to impact us greatly.

I think we need to talk a little more—and I'd like to hear from you—about where we lie geopolitically. Europe is very far away and couldn't care less, I'm sorry to say, about what's going on in Venezuela; they care more about Syria because it's on their doorstep. I would really like to know, however, how geopolitically we're going to look at the OAS itself—its strength, its integrity, the fact that many countries in the OAS are walking away from democracy. How are we going to make sure that the security of the OAS region is really considered by Canada? The U.S. and Canada are the only two countries, recently, that have democratic processes going on in our countries.

I'd like to hear about the political issue here.

[Michael Grant]

Thank you very much for the question.

I agree with you completely on the geopolitical importance of Venezuela. Within the hemisphere, as I think everyone will recall, it was 20 years ago that Canada led the hemisphere in creating the Inter-American Democratic Charter. Since then, there has been progress and there have been setbacks. Venezuela is the greatest setback, but there have been others. I would say that in the last year, actually, in the region there have been more upsides than downsides in terms of democracy.

Looking forward, we believe that the OAS and all of its member states have a critical role to play, and we are working very hard to see the Venezuela issue addressed through the OAS.

At the same time, while we believe that this is an issue of the hemisphere and the nations of the hemisphere need to address it, we don't think there's a monopoly on it either. I think Europeans—

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

I'm sorry. I don't mean that it's a monopoly. I'm saying that I want to know what we are doing to forward the solutions within the OAS, because we are in the OAS.

[Michael Grant]

If we go back a few years, one of the reasons the Lima Group was created was that we hit a stalemate within the OAS. It was completely split on how to deal with Venezuela.

One thing we've been working on is to try to improve the dialogue of countries that have slightly different points of view. For example, the Caribbean has been, for the most part, either agnostic or somewhat supportive of Maduro.

That's not across the board. There are a few countries that are members of the Lima Group. Canada, however, has gone to great pains to create bridges for dialogue between Caribbean countries and Guaidó, and between them and the supporters of Guaidó, to try to improve the understanding.

A resolution was passed at the last General Assembly, including on the conditions for elections. We think that was an important step forward.

We think that addressing the humanitarian issue within the OAS is important as well. It is going to take all members of the OAS to engage, as with others, to try to find a solution.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Dr. Fry, you have about 20 seconds.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Okay.

If we look at the history of the Caribbean and Latin American states.... In fact, we saw Cuba in the fifties. We saw what happened with Chile and with all of those regimes that were corrupt. Russia and China want to get back in there because they support that kind of regime.

My real concern is that talking may or may not be enough. What are we doing to really move the agenda forward? I'd like to know that. You can't answer it, but I need to know that. It's really important.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Dr. Fry, the question is on the record. We're out of time. Maybe there will be a chance to go back in a subsequent round through the Liberal Party, but we have to go next to Monsieur Bergeron.

This will be a very short question period, two and a half minutes.

Mr. Bergeron, you have the floor.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll quickly pick up where I left off earlier.

Let us imagine that, at the end of this democratic mandate, the House of Commons of Canada decides to strike a committee whose existence would continue beyond the statutory dissolution of Parliament. On the international scene, could any government consider this to be a fully legitimate committee, given that the body that created it would itself have been dissolved and become illegitimate, since there would have been a new election in the meantime?

[Michael Grant]

Thank you for your question.

I will comment on the situation in Venezuela.

It is clear that the constitution allows the creation of a delegated commission when there is a vacuum. It is also clear that the Maduro assembly elected on December 6, 2020, is illegitimate, which would have created a vacuum if the assembly of 2015 had not created its delegated commission. We accept this interpretation of the Venezuelan constitution.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Thank you for this clarification. It allows me to have a more complete picture of the answer you gave to my first question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

You still have 45 seconds left, Mr. Bergeron. You can ask a short question.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Once again, just 45 seconds to ask a question and hear the answer would be an insult to our witnesses.

You can give the floor to the next speaker.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you, Mr. Bergeron.

The next round goes to Mr. Harris for two and a half minutes.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

I will use my two and a half minutes to return to the concerns that were raised by the OAS in relation to the humanitarian crisis. They complained that, while there was $20 billion given to support the crisis in Syria, the amount of money raised to support the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela was in the range of $200 million, which seemed to be a huge difference.

Is there an explanation for that, other than the fact that this was the situation?

[Michael Grant]

I don't want to dispute your numbers with numbers that I can't confirm. I want to agree with you that the amount of money raised to address the Venezuelan crisis is awfully low and needs to change. That's exactly why Canada is making the effort that it is.

I think it has been more than $200 million. Canada alone has contributed $87 million. I know the United States is well into the hundreds of millions, and I think the European Union as well.

More needs to be done; that's clear. That's exactly why Canada is taking a decision to be the leader of the conference that we will host. It is one event in June, but there is much activity leading up to it.