Foreign Affairs Committee on April 29th, 2021

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

How can Canada help ensure full access to humanitarian aid in regions such as northeastern Syria?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

We engage with our UN partners to advocate for humanitarian access. We support the UN resolutions that call for full, unimpeded access and the protection of humanitarian workers. Particularly when it comes to certain border access points, we continue to support that access. Canada has been a strong supporter since day one.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you, Mr. Diotte. That's your time.

I'll be a little tighter on these allocations to make sure we get through them.

Dr. Fry, you have five minutes.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Thank you very much.

Welcome, Minister. I want to congratulate you on the job that you're doing with regard to the feminist international policy. It is actually admired by so many countries that think Canada has taken an important role and plays an important role in women's equality.

I wanted to ask you a question. I know that in the Harper era, with regard to sexual reproductive health and rights, they focused a great deal on child mortality, infant mortality, perinatal mortality and of course, preventable deaths in women who are pregnant and giving birth.

As you and I know, that is not the full range of sexual and reproductive health and rights. Sexual reproductive health and rights, as articulated in the whole IPCI, is about women's and youth's—girls' and boys'—access to contraception and to the prevention of pregnancies they don't want to have. The second part is that when they are pregnant, they get very good prenatal and postpartum care. The third part, of course, is if they do not wish to become pregnant, they are actually able to have access to safe abortion.

This ability for women, not only in terms of sexual and reproductive rights to have control over their bodies.... We know that COVID has forced the hand of a lot of young women into marriage and, therefore, into being forced into getting pregnant. A lot of young girls and women are being raped as the refugees fleeing conflict, environment and famine are travelling rapidly around this world to try to find a place where they could be safe and secure. We know that this is an important part.

I have two questions. Are you going to commit to the full range of reproductive health and rights? Tell me how you see that happening.

The second one is the piece that is going to defence. Is that to help with the peacekeepers who can keep women in refugee camps safe? I know that women in refugee camps are not safe. Quite often, their keepers are the ones who they should fear most. Can you respond to both those questions?

If we have time, I have a third one to ask you.

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Okay, sure.

Thank you very much, Dr. Fry, for your question.

I think we can be proud of the work Canada has done on MNCH. One big failing, however, was the inability to include sexual and reproductive health and rights. In fact, we know that if you're not including a woman's full access to her right, you're not supporting women's rights at all.

I'll share two examples that I've heard recently which are particularly heartbreaking, about when women don't have access to the full suite of SRHR.

A young girl in Haiti was raped and impregnated by her father and was not able to access an abortion. She was 11 years old, and she had to carry that child to term.

A woman I was speaking to in El Salvador who had a miscarriage and called an ambulance was arrested and charged with having an abortion and was sentenced to 40 years in prison.

These are horrific stories that we are hearing. I am so proud that our government has made our commitment to sexual health and reproductive rights to support women in their entirety and to ensure that it is their choice as to whether and when they have children and how many they have.

We will not be able to advance on the SDGs if we do not include the full range of sexual health and reproductive rights in that objective. Canada's SRHR commitment includes bodily autonomy, it includes comprehensive sexuality education, and it includes access to abortion and post-abortion care where it is legal.

We will continue to advocate for women's rights. I am a very proud She Decides champion on the global stage and am engaging with inspiring young activists the world over who are fighting for these rights. I'm so glad to be able to support them.

With respect to your second question, Canada provides significant support to train peacekeepers against sexual exploitation and abuse. These are people who are supposed to be there to protect people, not to harm them. We will continue to do this important work. We're doing it through the Elsie initiative, in partnership with the United Nations and working with partners in civil society organizations to root out SEA.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Thank you.

I gather I have no time left.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you. You're spot on now, Dr. Fry.

Thank you, Madam Minister.

Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe, you have the floor for a very strict two and a half minutes.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will try to be succinct.

Madam Minister, I want to talk about the employees who work in international cooperation organizations, particularly the Centre de solidarité internationale du Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, the CSI, which is located in Alma, in my riding. These are committed people who believe strongly in community development and who are deeply and personally involved in the projects.

I spoke to the CSI's President, Annie-Claude Laflamme, and to its project manager, Véronique Fortin. They had some questions for you. The funding of their organization is an ongoing problem: as an international cooperation organization, the CSI receives no funding for its basic operating expenses.

As you know, these organizations do a lot with few resources; each time, their results are considerable given the amount of money invested. However, in such a context, it is difficult for the organizations to ensure the sustainability of their activities and, above all, to offer stability to the workforce on site. Because of the vulnerability of their funding, these organizations are more affected by crises such as the current health crisis.

You are aware of the problem, Madam Minister. Do you plan to fund part of the basic operations of these valuable international development actors?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

That is a very good question, Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe.

Of course, I am aware of this problem, which many civil society organizations in Canada are experiencing. It is an issue that the department is currently studying.

Some of the resources provided by the Government of Canada may be used to pay for the basic costs of federally funded projects. I think it is important to ensure that we take a systemic approach to this.

I know that civil society organizations work very hard and manage, despite limited resources, to achieve results on the ground. Ms. Leclerc and Ms. MacLean and their teams often hold roundtables with the organizations to ensure that we will meet their needs.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Can we hope for a quick result?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

We have already made changes within Global Affairs Canada. In addition, during the pandemic, Ms. Leclerc and her team worked closely with the department's partners to ensure that their projects would continue despite changes in the field and in funding. We learned a lot of lessons, and are now looking at how we can apply them in the future.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

So, we—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you very much, Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe. I'm sorry, but your time is up.

Thank you very much, Madam Minister.

I now give the floor to Ms. McPherson for two and a half minutes.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all of our witnesses for being here today.

For my next set of questions, I'd like to talk about how we are designing an aid program that will be predictable, sustainable, and good for the Canadian government—Global Affairs Canada—and for civil society actors.

What we've seen over the past number of years is that the government tends to do international development assistance announcements as political announcements and as big showy announcements.

I spoke to you, Minister, about future announcements that you may be bringing forward and that there may be something for us, that we may hear more from you at the G7, for example.

I'm wondering if it wouldn't be smarter and if we couldn't come together to make it a bit better by having our overseas development assistance, our international development efforts, be more strategic, more planned, more predictable and easier for the CSO community to access.

[A voice]

Sheesh.

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Thank you very much, Ms. McPherson for the question.

I think there are a couple of aspects to this. On the first, Leslie and I actually just had a conversation about making calls for proposals more predictable and having a clear calendar for civil society organizations to see so that there is that predictability. I'd like to thank you for that conversation because I think it's an important issue for our partners and civil society: to make sure that we are providing more predictability for them. The fact that we have the window for the small and medium-sized organizations is an important one, but that's something that I think Global Affairs Canada can continue to work on and improve for that predictability.

The other part of that is that we continue to have our base budget of official development assistance that has bilateral programs that are consistent on a yearly basis and that operate with Canadian partners and partners around the world. Then there are additional commitments that arise because of international events. There are moments to make announcements for additional contributions. However, I do want to reassure you that that base budget of international assistance has been maintained and continues, and there are a lot of conversations happening between departmental officials and partners in Canadian civil society.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you very much, Ms. McPherson.

Thank you, Minister.

We have two more interventions left. They are each five minutes. The next one goes to Mr. Genuis.

Go ahead.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you.

In response to a question from my colleague, you talked about how Canada has been engaged with UNRWA in addressing problematic materials. You've spoken previously about conducting an investigation, but I didn't hear a clear answer to his question, which is this: Are you confident that the materials being used in UNRWA schools today are now consistent with Canadian and UN values?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

We continue to engage with UNRWA officials on a regular basis. UNRWA has also changed how they are providing materials through the course of the pandemic. When kids were in school, they knew which textbooks were being presented. In the transition to online learning, there were some accidental slippages that are unacceptable for us in Canada, and we have been working to correct that. Now UNRWA is going to be releasing curricula—

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Minister, I'm going to jump in because you're repeating a similar answer. Can you just answer the correct question—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Mr. Genuis, wait just one second. I'm just going to pause the clock, here, for a second.

The one thing that won't work is this: If two people speak simultaneously, we will lose interpretation. I'm just encouraging everyone to separate questions and answers to the greatest extent possible.

I will resume the clock.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, but I have limited time, and I have a specific question that isn't being answered, so let me just ask it one more time.

Minister, you can answer it or not; it's up to you. The record will show either way.

Are you confident that today, in light of the engagement and the investigation that you've conducted.... Can you affirm that the problems have been corrected, as UNRWA has said, and that the materials being presented today are consistent with Canadian and UN values?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

What I was trying to do was to explain how UNRWA has responded to the situation and they now have a single online portal where they are releasing educational materials. I think this is actually important to provide context with regard to the question that was asked. Therefore, UNRWA is reviewing all of the material before it is being sent out. They are doing so in a way to ensure that it is consistent with UN values, and this is something that Canadian officials, as well as our partners, other donor governments, are reviewing with them as well.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

I don't know if that was precisely the question, but I do appreciate the information you provided, especially at the end, which is to say that, if I understood correctly, the departmental officials are reviewing that content as it comes online.

Did I understand that correctly, that Canadian officials are reviewing the content that's being produced by UNRWA, to ensure it's in line with our values?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

The Canadian officials are working with UNRWA. It would be very difficult for Canadian officials to sit down and review all of the content. I mean, we're talking about curriculum to children from K to 12 in five different jurisdictions that UNRWA operates in.

However, we are working with them, expressing our concerns and making it clear what our expectations are, and UNRWA has been very engaged with us because this was not something that they wanted to happen either. They take very seriously the fact that they are a UN organization that needs to promote UN values and they do that very seriously.