Foreign Affairs Committee on Nov. 24th, 2020

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

Minister, carry on, please.

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

To continue my answer.... That's what I wanted to say, and I was specific. I want to set the record straight about the equipment. You had officials testify. If you want to be truthful to Canadians, you have to call things...and you have to be respectful of the record. You had officials who testified and provided you all the answers, and I'm happy to do that.

I am very concerned, Mr. Genuis. That's why you should recognize that the moment allegations were made and the equipment and the technology was used in the drone, I immediately suspended the relevant permits. They remain frozen, and I launched an investigation. That's the responsible thing to do. I will take no lessons from someone when it comes to having been there for—

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

Thank you, Minister. The record is clear.

Will you list the IRGC, yes or no?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Mr. Genuis, that is your time.

Thank you very much.

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

The minister didn't want to answer.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

We'll go to Ms. Dabrusin now for the next two and a half minutes.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Thank you, Minister.

At the beginning you talked a bit about pulling out your Rolodex and pulling together foreign ministers from around the world to address the challenges that were posed by COVID. Could you speak a little more about this? What were some of the main successes you saw when you brought those people together? You said up to about 20, I believe.

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

First of all, it was at a moment when the world needed it. It was a moment when the COVID crisis had just hit and we needed to come together as an international community.

Thank God I had a chance to collect some of these numbers before the COVID crisis hit, because these numbers were very useful to me when we wanted to repatriate Canadians and bring people home. The foreign ministers' COVID committee was really to bring best practices and ideas, to have a chance to see what's going on. For example, we learned good things from South Korea and Singapore. We were hearing this because, as you know, the COVID crisis hit them before us, just like in Italy.

We could share best practices, for example air bridges, where we could work together in establishing the supply chain and making sure there would be transit. As you remember, when we were trying to repatriate people, we said that if everyone is closing their airports and their borders, there's going to be nowhere we can repatriate our citizens.

We've been working together and we've continued to engage. I think it's the 13th time we have had these discussions among foreign ministers. This is Canada leading in the moment. When leadership was needed, we rose to the challenge and we created a group.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Thank you for that.

I only have another 30 seconds, which is not much time.

You said 13 times. Do you expect that you will continue meeting? Is this another avenue to continue those conversations as we move forward?

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

I believe so. I hope so.

I have been engaging with my partners around the world. I suggested that the committee continues because there's so much coordination. It's a group that brings together people from Latin America, the Middle East, Europe and Asia, the type of countries that want to work together, put politics aside and make sure we can advance some of these issues, which are critical to provide stability and address the biggest challenge we have, which is COVID right now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you very much, Minister.

Thank you, Ms. Dabrusin.

Mr. Bergeron, you have two and a half minutes.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

I want to quickly address Mr. Genuis' questions about children trapped in refugee camps in Syria.

Minister Champagne, you said that we had no one on site to carry out this type of operation. However, we saw you succeed in spite of everything. You said that one aggravating factor was the lack of staff on the ground. However, several western countries that repatriated children from refugee camps are in exactly the same situation. I don't think that this is an argument for leaving children in that hell.

Let's draw a parallel with the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh. I think that Canada suffered a disadvantage because it wasn't represented on site.

Since it failed to provide concrete assistance to the Armenians during the conflict, is Canada considering establishing an embassy in Yerevan, Armenia?

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Thank you for the question.

We're still considering how we could maintain a presence on site. You mentioned assistance, Mr. Bergeron. However, if you saw how many times I spoke with the Armenian government and the community during the crisis, you would understand that, every day, we were aware of the situation on the ground. Just about every day, I would receive a text message describing the exact situation on the ground, so that I could talk to my counterparts, whether it was—

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Minister Champagne, I just want to point out that your own officials told us that they were having trouble getting information on what was really happening on the ground. Either they didn't inform us properly, or this really reflects what was going on.

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

I was receiving this information, as the minister of Foreign Affairs, because I remained in contact with my counterpart.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

We didn't have this information.

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

To answer your question, of course we're always considering what we can do. We share with the Armenian people principles and values linked to democracy and the francophonie. That's why we took a position from the start, when we saw the ceasefire. We said that we really needed to determine, with the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, whether this agreement would lead to a lasting peace.

I think that Canada will keep its commitment in this area. I'll do so, and the Government of Canada will do so as well, because we were all deeply affected by what happened to the Armenian people. That's why Canada wants to and will continue to pursue a resolution to this conflict.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you, Mr. Bergeron and Minister Champagne.

The final round of questions goes to Mr. Harris, please, for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Minister, Canada contributes $11.1 million to the International Criminal Court. In March, Amnesty International questioned a letter that Canada sent to the ICC on February 14, 2020, in which they reiterated Canada's position that the court doesn't have jurisdiction to investigate alleged war crimes in Palestine and also reminded the court of Canada's budgetary contributions. Amnesty interpreted that it appears to be a threat for Canada withdrawing financial support.

That is a serious accusation, which deserves a response by you and your government. Does such a letter exist? Will you release it to the committee? Does it, in fact, remind the court of Canada's contribution?

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Mr. Harris, I have responded to that question. I'm not aware of any such letter.

What we said is that in the absence of a Palestinian state, it is Canada's view that the court does not have jurisdiction in this matter under international law. Obviously, we don't link that to any contribution.

This was just a statement we made. I'm not aware of any such letter.

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

Thank you for that denial on the record, because we haven't been able to get that specifically from you and your office, despite my letters to you. However, thank you for that today.

Canada's contribution to the World Health Organization has decreased each year since 2018. The United States has pulled back. You have questioned the financing of the WHO. We're going to look at it to see if it's doing the right thing.

Is it not important that Canada perhaps increase its contribution to the WHO? Experts say that there will be more pandemics as we go forward. What do you say about that? Is that not Canada's role, to fix institutions if they need fixing and make them work?

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Certainly. I think you will see, Mr. Harris, from the estimates—to the best of my recollection—that we have increased our funding.

Certainly I've said that we want to make sure, if you're saying.... I will perhaps leave it to the deputy to provide the limits of response. I recall that there was a separate call made by the World Health Organization and that Canada was responding to that.

I can say that we did that with the Red Cross. We did that in Latin America. We did that in Africa. We did that in the Caribbean, in many ways, to help during this COVID crisis.

Like you, I believe that Canada should stand with people around the world who are facing significant hardship from this COVID crisis.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you, Minister Champagne.

Thank you, Mr. Harris.

Colleagues, that brings us to the end of our scheduled time with our Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Minister Champagne, thank you for speaking to us this afternoon.

Thank you for your contribution and for your team's contribution.

It was a pleasure to spend time with you, and we had a fulsome discussion.

I propose that we let you and your team disconnect, and then we will turn our minds, expediently, to the votes we need to complete tonight.

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Thank you very much.

Thank you for inviting me.

Thank you, committee, for your work on behalf of Canadians. It's really appreciated.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you.

Madam Clerk, as the minister and his team disconnect, we have a couple of options with respect to the votes that need to follow, the main estimates. One proposal is that we take them all at once and the committee votes on division as one package, or we can go through them one by one. I'm in the committee's hands.

In the interest of time, if there's no objection, maybe we can treat them all as one package.

Madam Clerk, I would then be in your hands with respect to the appropriate language that I need to put to the committee.

Are there any views from colleagues on this?

Mr. Bergeron, the floor is yours.